“I see that,” Nora said, looking around the otherwise empty room.
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought lately.” Chantilly picked her way through the cluttered displays and sidled up next to Nora’s side to look at the wood carving of a shark she was assessing. “This all started off as a hobby for me. I don’t have any background in art. I just buy whatever I think is pretty.”
“Pretty is subjective,” Nora said gently, backing away from the shark.
“I’m learning that more and more. This is the gallery’s fifth year. I’ve sold maybe sixty pieces to folks looking to decorate their living rooms or to have something to put on their dresser tops, but I don’t get a whole lot of folks in here who know much about art.”
Nora gave Bennie a sideways look and resisted the urge to elbow her.
“So, what’s your plan?” Bennie asked, swirling a sour green apple sucker in her mouth. She claimed the bacon grease had upset her stomach.
“Well, there’s this artists’ lodge in Enfield I’ve been getting some ideas from. The landlords converted their building into a sort of residence hall for artists and musicians, and they all work right at the windows so folks on the street can watch them without disturbing them too much. See, look at this painting, will you? This is by one of their young men.” She directed them to a corner where a very photorealistic depiction of a mermaid avoiding a net underwater was hung. It had a “sold” sticker on its corner. Nora was annoyed to have lost out on it.
“It’s lovely, but what of it?” Bennie pressed.
“Oh! I got sidetracked. Well, because they have all these artist-types clamoring to live there, the downtown area is undergoing a bit of a revitalization. Small communities like Edenton lose a lot of young folks going off to college because there are no jobs for them to come back to. The ones who do find work here don’t stay long because there isn’t enough going on culturally. We need to breathe some life into this town, and I thought if we could bring art-lovers here, we’d get some hip new shops and restaurants downtown, too.”
“Okay, I see what you’re getting at,” Nora said, winding back up to the front of the gallery and having a seat in front of Chantilly’s desk. Bennie and Chantilly followed.
“Even if you can just get me one painting to put up here, it’d do wonders for my foot traffic and then I might be able to get some better … well, more
prominent
artists to have their work here, too. We can hang something for three months if you just want to do a trial and then we can go from there.” Chantilly laid the heavy book down on the desktop to enable her to wring her hands.
Bennie gave Nora a questioning look as if to say “Careful.” Nora actually didn’t think it sounded completely unreasonable. What did she have to lose from letting Chantilly hang one of her paintings? She could always get it back, and she might have had a work in storage already that fit Chantilly’s theme. She’d painted it right around the time she was certain her marriage was ending. It was dark, introspective, and possibly one of the best paintings she had ever made. No one had ever seen it.
“I think I may have something to loan you,” Nora said, ignoring Bennie’s raised eyebrow. “I’m not sure if I want to sell it outright, though.”
“That’s no big deal. I just know it’ll get feet through the door.”
Bennie interjected. “We’ll have to do this carefully, of course, Chantilly. I’m sure you understand. Nora’s got work at major galleries right now, so this painting will need to be handled with the utmost care. Let’s have a discussion next week about how we can best market the loan and then how it’ll be showcased.”
“I’m thinking party,” Chantilly said.
Nora shook her head. “I’m thinking not.”
“Fair enough.” Chantilly pushed the art book forward and extended a permanent marker to Nora. “Can you inscribe this for me? It’d mean ever so much.”
*
“What is this?” Grandmother Vogel asked Matt, pointing to a gift-wrapped box in the backseat of his truck cab as he drove her to the airport. She was going home to Kansas to handle business and arrange for her house to be packed up before returning for good in a few weeks.
Matt stole a look back at the box and cringed. He’d almost forgotten about it, not having seen Nora since she returned from her cruise with Bennie. After their last exchange he was afraid to disturb her, even if he had gifts to take. “Oh, it’s Nora’s Christmas gift. I forgot to give it to her.”
Grandmother Vogel reached back to grab the box and shook it next to her ear. “What is it? I hear rustling. Jewelry doesn’t rustle.”
Matt sighed. “It’s not jewelry, Oma.”
“Then you should be ashamed to give it to her. Why not give her jewelry?”
“Oma, it’s complicated. You haven’t met her, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“Like hell, I haven’t met her. I’ve been at her house every day for the past three weeks. You would know that if you hadn’t been working so much. She did not tell you she gained a housekeeper?” She covered her mouth and snickered.
Matt’s face blanched of color. “Oma, what’d you do?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, sounding as coy as a schoolgirl. “I go over at breakfast, make her some food. When her friend Bennie was there I cooked for her, too. I do her wash and clean her house, not that it needs much cleaning. She’s fairly tidy.”
“Does she know who you are?”
“No. Nora thinks Bennie hired me and Bennie thinks Nora hired me. I didn’t clarify either way, although Bennie did write me a check before she went home to Baltimore.”
“You will give it back,” Matt said, completely appalled, and nearly running his truck onto the shoulder. He quickly corrected his steering.
Grandmother Vogel flicked a hand at him. “Eh. I deposited it in a special bank account for her baby. I’ll tell her later.”
“Baby?
Whose
baby?” Matt was nearly shrieking now, and with a voice as deep as his that was quite a feat.
“Well, Bennie’s baby. She’s pregnant. Due a few weeks before Karen I think.”
Matt could feel himself going light-headed and wondered if he should pull the truck over to wait it out. “Oh, Jesus,” he said, grateful to be at a red light so he could rub his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I think there’s a possibility that Karen and Bennie’s babies have the same father, is all. No big deal. None at all. Nope.”
Grandmother’s Vogel’s nostrils flared. “Ugh.”
The light turned green and Matt edged forward. “So, tell me why you’ve been snooping around at Nora’s, please.”
She gasped with indignation. “I’m not snooping. She
needs
someone to take care of her. And she leaves a key copy right under her doormat so I just let myself in.”
Matt thought about how he’d be correcting that security issue as soon as he got home.
“I wanted her to feel like she was wanted in the family, not like your mother, so I thought I’d help.”
“But she doesn’t even know who you are.”
Grandmother Vogel shrugged her thin shoulders. “It’ll be easier this way. And maybe she won’t take you away from me.”
“Oh, Oma.”
Matt hurried home as quickly as he could, hoping to find Nora at her house rather than out exploring as his grandmother said she was keen to do lately. Her car was in the barn, but she wasn’t answering her door. Matt, although feeling incredibly sheepish about it, took a page from Oma’s book and found the spare key under the welcome mat to let himself in. He pocketed the key.
He found Nora in front of her easel and wearing her headphones again. This time, since he’d come in through the front door, she saw him approach and didn’t startle. She took off her headphones and raised her brows. “Did I leave the front door open?”
“No,” he said, as he shifted the package he was holding to his other hand and shook his head. “You shouldn’t leave your spare key in such a conspicuous place. It’s the first place people look. Don’t bother hiding one in the porch roof eaves, either, because that’s the second.”
Her mouth made an “O” shape.
Matt shrugged. “I’ll just hold onto it. If you lock yourself out you can come get it.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She put down her palette and paintbrush, and turned on her stool so she faced him at the steps.
Matt stepped down and helped himself to a seat on the sofa, then paused to take in her comfortable attire before speaking. She was wearing a heather gray boat neck sweater that had some moth holes, so a few specks of her caramel skin showed through the fabric, nearly begging to be fingered. She was barefooted, and wore a pair of stretchy black pants over her legs that skimmed her lean muscles and made her seem ten feet tall on her perch. As usual, her hair was obscured by a kerchief: this particular one was made of green silk that made the gold specks in her brown eyes pop. The scarf reminded him of why he was there.
“I brought you something,” he said, leaning forward to hand her the wrapped box.
“What’s this?” she asked, already in the process of carefully peeling back the tape and foil paper to expose the gift box.
Matt stared beyond her at the painting she had started. He recognized the scene. It was down on the river by the fishery. It was of one of the fishing boats, docked near the shed they used to unload the day’s catch. It wasn’t Nora’s usual style. “It’s your Christmas present,” Matt said, taking his eyes away from the canvas. “I didn’t have a chance to bring it to you before now. I got a promotion at work that changed my hours and my grandmother has been staying with Karen and me since Christmas. She went back to Kansas today.”
Nora paused her box-opening. “Kansas.”
Matt nodded. “I fear my oma was less than honorable during her stay. Karen told my grandmother that we’re a couple, and now Oma thinks it’s up to her to make your transition into the Vogel clan a … uh … peaceful one.”
Nora looked understandably confused. “I thought she was an assistant Bennie threatened to hire.”
“And she was fine with you thinking that because it gave her time to assess you.”
Nora scoffed, but looked bemused. “And what did she think?”
Matt stared at the ceiling as he recounted his grandmother’s statements. “She thinks your hips are suitable for bearing children, which is apparently so important because we Vogels make big babies … ”
“Speaking of babies — ”
Matt held up his hands. “I already know. Makings of a redneck family tree. She also said you have questionable taste in music and that your house is sorta clean.”
Nora giggled. “Remind me to get a new assistant. Well, did she say anything good about me?”
“That is good for Oma. She hates everyone. She did say you’re pretty, though.”
Nora squinted at Matt and flicked the wadded ball of wrapping paper at him. “No, she didn’t.”
“Yeah, she did.” Matt’s face softened as he said it, and his voice went quiet.
Nora opened the gift box lid and stared uncomprehending until she pinched the delicate fabric between her fingers and up from the tissue paper surrounding it. “It’s beautiful,” she said, dropping the box to the floor so she could open the scarf to its full width and hold it up to the light. The scarf was gauzy and translucent, beautifully tinted and printed with hand-drawn pictures of female cardinals. “I never see the girls in art. People think they’re not colorful enough.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, standing up and walking over her, positing himself between Nora’s back and the easel. “I think it’s funny that Mother Nature made male birds so ostentatious while the females fade into the scenery. Other way around with humans. You try to blend in, though, even though you can’t help but to stand out.” Matt boldly, but gently, reached for the knot of Nora’s green scarf, and began to deftly untie it. She lowered the cardinal print fabric to her lap and sat perfectly still, almost frigid at his touch. As her scarf fell to her shoulders, Nora raised her hands to cover her hair. Matt stopped her by wrapping his fingers around her wrists and lowering her hands down to her lap. His cheek skimmed the side of her face as he arranged her hands over the cardinal scarf and he turned his lips toward her ear to whisper, “Why are you hiding it?”
“People stare.”
“So let them.”
He straightened his body to his full height again and ran his hands up Nora’s sleeved arms, gently over her naked neck, up to her cottony hair twirled into a multitude of twists all bound together with a single, hardworking clip. Matt pulled the clip and let the long coils of hair fall heavily to her shoulders. Matt wound one long twisted coil, the diameter of dime, around a finger and pulled it downward toward her breast and watched it bounce back up like a snapped pen spring.
“Why do you twist it together like this?” he mused, picking up another rope of hair and grazing it along the line of Nora’s jaw. She shuddered, and said in a raspy voice, “Twists are easier to unwind than braids. If I wore my hair loose, it would constantly tangle. It curls so tightly. My hair is nearly impossible to comb unless it’s wet, so I avoid it. Keeping it covered also means I don’t get stuff in it that forces me to wash it constantly.”
“Hmm.” Matt put a finger between the strands near the top of one twist and worked it down, loosening the corkscrew bond of the spirals so that lock of hair opened into crinkly waves. “Like paint?”
Nora gave a small nod. “Yes. And Spackle dust from renovating an old house and all sorts of other things.”
“I can imagine.” Matt lifted the swath of hair that fell onto the right side of Nora’s neck and nestled his face into the crook, pulling her sweater neck aside to expose more of her warm flesh.
“Matt?” Nora’s fingers dug into the fabric at the bottom hem of her sweater, pulling and stretching the fabric, her nails making new holes in the weave. Her toes curled over the rungs of her stool.
“What?”
“I thought we had … ” she sucked in a breath as Matt pressed his body against her back She swallowed hard and tried again. “I thought we talked about this.”
“No. You talked. I didn’t agree. I’m not giving up.”
“You have to,” she said, even as Matt loosened her fingers from her sweater and pulled it up and over her head. She was braless and Matt seized the opportunity by cupping her firm, small breasts in his rough hands and squeezing her nipples between his fingers.