Nora thought it was safe to open her eyes again, and she tested them one at a time. When her lenses didn’t fall out, she finally turned her head to examine the merchandise in front of her. She was facing an aisle filled with cheap snacks like chewing gum and small bags of chips that wouldn’t depress the store’s bottom line if a shoplifter ran in and did a grab-and-go. To her left were drink coolers. She ignored the chips, but having only so much willpower, Nora helped herself to a sugary peach soda and wound back to the right where the wooden counter that separated customers from the tobacco products was installed. No one was behind it.
She followed the sound of masculine laughter around to the adjacent wall and found the grill counter set back into what looked like an added-on space with a few Formica tables and chairs with foam cushions. A few men, the drivers of the trucks that Nora saw haphazardly parked on the roadsides around the gas station she assumed, leaned onto the counter, amicably chatting with a spatula-wielding woman. A few more people sat at the tables, nursing hot dogs loaded with mustard, relish, and chopped onions and heaping portions of crinkle-cut fries.
Nora stopped just beyond the restaurant’s tables and stared up at the old-fashioned menu board, decorated with white plastic letters and numbers each pressed into the rows one character at a time. The prices looked like they hadn’t changed since the gas station opened. Fifty-cent hot dogs? Where’d they make their money?
“You need some gas, sweetie?” the woman with the spatula asked, leaning sideways a bit to see around the burly trucker who was waiting in front of her with his elbows on the counter. She adjusted her hair net to get the elastic band off her forehead and stared at Nora with dark, intense eyes.
“Yes. Pump one, please,” Nora said, already turning toward the cash register.
“That all you want? You don’t want nothin’ to eat? I can ring it all up on the same ticket.”
Nora turned back around and assessed the menu board again. That fried chicken really did smell heavenly, but it was getting so late and the heaviness would probably have her on her ass for the rest of the evening. Also, Matt was supposed to be at her house at six to concoct some sort of dinner for her. It would be rude if she were too full to eat it. But he didn’t give her any hints about what dinner would be and she was slightly suspicious that it might not be consumable. Maybe she could have just a little something.
She shifted her weight nervously: fully aware of the stares she was getting from the eight people in the little restaurant, and shuffled over to the counter with her head bowed. “I’d like a chicken basket to go,” she said at a volume normally used by people making confession.
“White meat o’ dark meat?” the woman asked loudly, obviously oblivious to Nora’s distress. Up close, Nora could see the clerk was missing several of her front teeth, but she’d obviously been attractive once. She had lovely dark skin that reminded Nora of the color of scuppernongs as her undertones were quite rosy. Although she was thin as a reed, her cheeks were plump and youthful; however the streaks of gray in her black hair marked her as being at least forty — perhaps even fifty.
“White meat, please.”
“Biscuit o’ roll?”
Nora looked at the bread under the lamp. The rolls looked pretty generic, but the biscuits were fluffy and spectacular. “Biscuits.” Nora hoped the woman didn’t notice the plural slip.
The woman behind the counter set about assembling a take-away box, humming to herself as she pressed a piece of wax paper into the bottom to catch all of that delicious grease. “Who your peoples?” she asked, not looking up from her task, so it took Nora a moment to realize the question was directed at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your
peoples
? You live ’round here? Who your ma and them?”
“Oh. No, I live across the county line off thirty-two.”
“Oh, okay. I know some folks out there. Go to church down there sometime. You know all them Riddicks and Whites?” She used a pair of tongs to drop what looked like half a chicken into the box.
“No, I’ve actually only been here for about six weeks. I bought a piece of family property and moved down from Baltimore.”
“What your family name?”
“Greene. The Greenes lived there.”
The clerk stopped piling fries into the box and looked up at Nora quizzically. “Yeah? I used to know some Greenes. Milt,” she angled her head in the direction of one of the tables where an elderly man was carefully distributing hot sauce to each and every one of his French fries. “You remember them Greenes? Just up and left, right? Where they go?”
Milt sucked his lips around his teeth and puckered them as he repositioned his dentures. “Suffolk, I reckon. What that, fitty years ago?”
“Uh huh, think so.”
Nora scoffed. “Come on, you’re not that old.”
“Yeah I is. Just made fifty-eight in April. Good eating keeps you young-lookin’.” She winked at Nora then folded down the top of the paper box and stuffed the flaps into the slits at the sides. “Come on over and I ring you up.”
Nora backtracked to the front counter and paid the woman for her drink, meal, and fifty dollars worth of premium unleaded. “Come on back and see ol’ Hattie,” the clerk said, giving Nora another exaggerated wink. Nora chuckled.
“I will.” She took one last look across the tops of the aisles at the menu board in the restaurant and had a thought. “Say, Hattie? Would you mind if I took a picture of the store?”
“I don’t know about that. You some kind of newspaper lady? Might have to call Bossman and let him talks to you since he knows what’s what.”
“No, I’m not a reporter. I’m a painter.” She ferreted one slick business card out of her sweatpants pocket, one of the ones that had an image of her street busker painting on the back, and handed it over to her. “I wanted to take a picture of the restaurant so I could make a painting.”
“Oh! Well, that’s okay, then,” Hattie said, looking at the picture appreciatively. “Bossman would like that. He so stuck on himself.” She threw her head back and laughed, showing off the constellations of small moles on her brown neck. “You let us see it when it’s done?”
“Of course.”
Nora strapped her chicken box into the front passenger seat of her car, and inserted the gas pump nozzle into the tank to fill as she unzipped her DSLR from its case. She went back into the gas station and found a nice spot near the shelf of windshield wiper fluid bottles and plastic funnels to take a picture. She took several to stitch together into a panoramic image later, being sure to capture the menu boards, the cast of characters at the tables, and of course, Hattie, who stood behind the grill counter with her head cocked to the side, hands on her hips, and wearing a nearly toothless grin.
By the time Nora made it home, she found that her delivery of canvas materials had finally shown up, and she did a silent cheer at the sight of the box on her porch. A bit of a control freak when it came to her art, Nora preferred to build and gesso her own canvasses. Now that she was working on unusually large products, it would have been difficult for her to find canvasses ready-made anyway.
She plugged her camera into her computer and while the pictures uploaded, she treated herself to a hot shower and shaved all the usual parts. The shaving was probably unnecessary as North Carolina had settled mostly into pants-wearing weather, but smooth legs just felt nice against bed sheets. She rooted through one of her unpacked suitcases and found a stretchy knee-skimming eggplant-colored dress. Nora paired it with a pair of black leggings and turned her attention to the mirror.
She assessed her face and sucked her teeth with dissatisfaction at the quick fade of her summer tan. Her freckles were starting to stand out again and her skin overall was looking rather gray. She understood in some small way why white girls spent so much time in tanning beds and fretting over tan-in-a-bottle choices. Oh well. She liked to reserve her artistry for her canvasses and not her face, so other than a swipe of mascara on both lids and a generous application of unscented lip balm she left it alone.
Nora next considered her hair. She untied the Betty Boop bandana she’d chosen that morning and let her heavy coils of hair fall from her loosened clip to her shoulders. She stared at the frizzy, rusty-brown plaits for a moment and then decided to pin it all back up. After some rooting around in a footlocker where she was temporarily storing accessories, she found a floral-print silk scarf and tied it on artfully, letting the ends fall onto one shoulder. Before she could manage any further tweaking, there was a knock on her screen door. Matt was early.
When Nora exited her bedroom, she found Matt, surrounded by grocery store bags, sitting on the porch stairs pulling off his boots. She felt like her heart stopped at the sight of him. He was so big, yet had an odd gracefulness about the way he moved — the kind of self-assuredness that comes with maturity and …
Huh. I wonder …
“Walked through a soggy patch in the trees on the way over,” he explained, apparently having sensed her presence behind him. When he stood up and carried his boots to the door, he offered his host a coy smile. He set the boots beside the welcome mat and scooped up the bags he’d toted over. Nora pushed the door out and held it open as the big man passed by. She caught a whiff of his soap, a faint hint of fabric softener, and something else that was decidedly less fresh. She crinkled up her nose and followed him to the kitchen table where he began carefully unpacking bags.
“Whatcha got there?” she asked, pointing to a double-bagged item packed in ice.
“Flounder,” he said cheerfully, picking up the offending bag and propping it upright in Nora’s deep, enameled, cast iron sink. “Hope you like fish. The ladies at the fishery kindly cleaned it for me. Good thing since you don’t seem to have a garbage disposal.”
“The fishery?” She watched as Matt unloaded item after item: cornmeal, flour, vegetable oil, ears of fresh corn, a pint-size canister of coleslaw, and on and on.
“Yep. That’s where I work. I’ve been there for sixteen years.”
“Huh.” Nora pulled out a chair and sat to watch as Matt made himself at home in her kitchen. “That long, huh? You must really like it.”
He shrugged. “It’s a job.”
“Why do it if you don’t love it?”
Matt paused his unpacking for a moment, holding a six-pack of Belgian ale, eyeing her with one thick eyebrow raised. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Life’s too short to do things you don’t love.”
Matt snorted and shoved the case of beer into Nora’s small refrigerator, minus two. “Living’s the longest thing we’ll ever do.” He uncapped one and held it out to her. She took it and immediately downed a third of it in one gulp. “My kind of girl,” he said, a smile crossing his face.
“Right,” Nora croaked, heartburn already threatening her evening. She briefly wondered what else qualified a woman as Matt’s kind then squashed the thought.
“Anyway, it’s a job. I don’t live or die by it. It pays the bills, what few I have, and it leaves me time to do fun stuff during evenings and weekends. What do you do for a living, Nora?” He started scouting her cabinets, pulling out bowls, utensils, pots and pans.
Nora bobbed her head in the direction of the sunroom, just off from the kitchen. “You couldn’t tell?”
“You really an artist? I thought maybe that was just a hobby.”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. “Nope. I actually make a living at it.”
“Wow. You must be prolific, huh? I thought art didn’t really take off in value until after the artist died.” He gave her a wink and turned back to the sink where he was shucking corn.
She smiled in spite of herself. “Is that a threat, Mr. Vogel?”
“Nah, I think you’re probably worth more alive to me than dead.”
“I guess it’s hard to get hunting permission from a dead landowner, huh?”
“Yeah.
Hunting
permission,” he said in a bland voice. “So, tell me, how’d you stumble onto a parcel of land like this? You can’t be much more than twenty-five. Does painting pay that well?” When she didn’t answer immediately, he turned around and gave her an apologetic look. “I don’t mean to be rude. You don’t have to answer that.”
She met his eyes and watched the big man blush, glad she wasn’t the only one susceptible to that giveaway. She let him off the hook. “You’re not being rude. I was just trying to figure out how to answer. It’s a long story I’m not sure how to condense.”
Matt turned back to the sink, continuing his work.
“Hey, you need some help over there?” Nora asked, draining the rest of her beer and tossing the empty bottle into her recycling bucket. Rural Chowan County didn’t have trash pick-up. She’d have to put it all in the back of the wagon and schlep it to the solid waste collection center. On some days, Baltimore seemed luxurious for all its amenities. She couldn’t even get cable out in the county. It was satellite dish or nothing.
“Nope. You sit tight. Once I get going I get into a groove.”
“Okay, then. Well, I’m actually twenty-eight, and
yes
, painting does pay my bills pretty reliably. I do a lot of art for book covers and commissioned works for people who have money to burn.”
“Must do a lot of networking, huh?”
She quirked up an eyebrow at the intelligence of his question. “Well, no, not really. I did a small show my senior year of college as part of my graduation requirements and I guess my work generated a lot of buzz. I had enough commissions to keep me busy for a year after graduation before I received my diploma.”
“Wow, that’s pretty lucky.”
“I guess so. Anyway, I’m sure you can check with the county deeds office to verify this, but I actually didn’t pay much for this property.”
Matt filled a large pot with water, dropped in the corn, and set it on a hot burner. “Wish I had known it was for sale. I might have tried to snap it up.”
“Well, it wasn’t actually for sale.” She watched Matt as he measured out cornmeal and flour into a metal bowl, sending the dust flying up onto his robin’s egg blue shirt.
“Hey, put this on.” She stood and pulled open a low drawer stuffed full with potholders and dishtowels. She extracted a plain gray apron that had belonged to an ex and gotten mixed into her things somehow and draped the neck strap over Matt’s head when he bent for her.