My Nora (17 page)

She sighed, and resignedly called E.A. Dillard’s.

“E.
A.D.
, this is Patricia.”

“Nora Fredrickson here. Welch Road? My Internet connection is down. Should I call the dish company or … ”

“No! I’ll page Chad. Hold tight.” Patricia hung up. Nora stared at her quiet phone and shrugged.

She was in her kitchen dumping beans into a massive batch of chili when she heard tires crunching gravel on her driveway. Nora dried her hands on a towel and pulled open the heavy wood front door to see Chad jumping down with a toolbox.

“Well, that was fast,” she said after poking her head out the storm door.

“I was nearby.”

Nora nodded and started pulling the door shut. Chad ran up and stuck his boot in the way before she could get it all the way closed.

“Can I come in and check the inside line?”

“Pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with my inside line. It was working fine up until an hour ago. Maybe you should check the signal outside.” Like hell was she letting him in. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him and thought it was oddly suspicious he’d showed up so quickly after avoiding Matt for weeks. But then, Matt wasn’t home. Neither was Karen.

“Okay.” Chad worked his mouth left to right and switched his toolbox to the other hand. He made no motion to remove his foot.

“Anything else you need? If not, please move your foot.”

“Yeah, uh. Think I could look around? I’ve always been real interested in this old house.”

“No. I’m sorry, but I don’t think so.”

Chad’s nostrils flared. “Why not? You let Matt in.”

“I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

“Well, it is. He’s my best friend, you know.” He ran a tongue over dry lips.

Nora had been trying to keep her expression calm, blank even, but gave it up and let her forehead furrow and eyes narrow. “Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm.” Chad licked his lips again and scanned the woods around them.

“With a best friend like you who needs enemies? Get off my porch. If my Internet isn’t back up in the next thirty minutes you’re going to have a big problem.”

He laughed. “Stop being such a bitch. You’re so uptight. You should be flattered.”

“I should be flattered?” The words pulled a trigger Elvin had been responsible for installing in her. “You some kind of masochist?”

“You’re not the only ass out this way. I ain’t got to work this hard. Karen gets home before Matt, doesn’t she? She’ll probably want to see me.”

Nora felt something snap inside. A maternal kind of something. “Karen?”

“Oh, yeah. She’s in love with me. Who wouldn’t be?”

“I can think of a few people.” Nora let go of the door handle and watched as her fists met Chad’s eyes, one after the other. She couldn’t help herself.

*

Matt was in his office at the fishery squinting malevolently at the employee schedule for the following week when Alice Stanley rapped on his open door. “Someone out here to see you, big man,” she hooked her thumb in the direction of the double doors to leading to the dirt parking lot and flicked some fish scales off her shirt sleeve nonchalantly.

“Thanks, Alice,” he said, glad for the distraction. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out how with a retail staff of ten they never managed to have enough fish cleaners on the floor. They’d gone way too long without having someone to keep an eye on the scheduling, and now the mess was in his lap to fix. He would have much rather been out on one of the boats, but the reason why he took the promotion in the first place was that he wasn’t getting any younger. He wanted to preserve his joints for as long as he could — even if that meant sitting behind a desk for most of the day. He didn’t want to get old before his time like his dad had. He wanted to be able to toss footballs with his kids one day, should he have any.

Matt walked past the tables piled high with fish where the ladies cleaned and bagged the day’s catch for the customers working their way down the line like a buffet. The fish there in the store were only a small portion of what they caught each morning. The rest was sent all over the state to restaurants and grocery stores. Fortunately for Matt, Albert handled all those contracts and coordinated transportation logistics. Albert had been hinting that he might let Matt take over some of those chores, but Matt had excused himself from the conversation, saying he thought he heard the lead cleaner calling him. Matt knew what Albert was striving for: more time on the golf course. That meant more time in the fishery for Matt and less time handling his messy personal life. He sighed and made his way to the exit, seeing no one standing just inside, so he pulled one of the heavy metal doors open and poked his head out. Standing about ten feet away leaning against the front grille of his SUV was Chad sporting a hell of a double-shiner. Further, the bridge of his nose had a deep gash horizontally across it. He looked like he’d run face-first into the wrath of hell.

“Your girlfriend’s got a hell of a one-two punch,” he said, smiling wanly.

Matt was at the truck with his fingers around his throat, squeezing it before Chad knew what hit him. “I should fuck you up.”

“Yeah, probably,” he rasped, visibly struggling to swallow. “Job’s already been done pretty good, though. Bitch knows how to swing.”

Matt gave him a good shake and then let go, telling himself that nothing that came out of Chad’s mouth was worth him spending the night in jail. “What do you want, Chad? Are you some kind of fucking idiot? You
trying
to die?”

Chad rubbed the new hand-shaped bruises on his neck and adjusted his collar. “Karen won’t take my calls. Heard some rumors today when I was in town. Wanted to see if they were true. Someone who works at the hospital with her said she’s been throwing up a lot and falling asleep at the nurse’s station.”

“What’s it to you?” Matt crossed his arms over his chest to help prevent his repeated attempt at second-degree murder.

“If it’s my kid I want to know is all.”

“Why?”

“It’s my right.”

Matt didn’t think Chad sounded convinced
himself
of that. Matt cracked his knuckles. “Just like it’s your right to ruin my twenty-year-old sister’s life, huh? You think she’s not going to have it hard enough going to college, so you add a baby on top of that? What the hell were you thinking? I should kick your ass anyhow.” He jabbed a finger at Chad’s shoulder. “Of all the lowlife shit you’ve done, I would have never expected you to fuck my little sister the moment I turned around.”

“It takes two to tango, man. She coulda said no.”

“Shut up,” Matt hissed, pushing Chad back against the SUV. “Bennie is one thing. She’s mature and can deal with this shit even without you, which I suspect she has
to.” Chad’s expression indicated that would be exactly the case. “Karen is a naïve kid. She may look like a grown woman, but her world view is very limited. She’s known you all her life. Probably idolized you as her big brother’s best friend. This is sick in so many ways.” Matt walked away from his ex-friend and raked his hands through his hair with frustration.

“I’ll take care of the baby.”

“I don’t think you will. Just like everything else in your life you’ll pass the buck and leave the hard stuff for someone else to do. Just like in high school. You wouldn’t have graduated if it weren’t for me writing all your papers, right? You know how close I came to getting kicked out of school for that shit?”

Chad shrugged.

Matt scoffed. “Of course you didn’t know. Teacher was discreet. Said she wouldn’t say anything because she didn’t want to see me go down the tubes. All that stress because I was being a good friend, huh?” Matt gave the smaller man a shove. “The kid’ll be better off without you. I’m used to playing daddy. Might as well do it for your kid.”

At that, Chad took a swing at Matt’s face and missed horribly. Matt gave him another two-handed shove back toward the truck. “Do I even want to know why Manora punched your lights out?”

“Maybe she can’t take a compliment,” Chad said, voice dripping with irreverence and his lips turned up into a sneer.

“Get the fuck out of here, Chad. There’s something wrong with you and you need to get yourself checked. Stay away from my family.”

Chad started backing up toward the driver’s side, but was shaking his head. “Can’t stop me from seeing my kids, man, and if Karen wants to see me … ” he put up his hands in a “what are ya gonna do” gesture.

“If you step one foot on my property I’ll consider you trespassing. I’ve been looking for a way to get some target practice with Dad’s old shotgun. You’ll do fine.”

Chad didn’t say another word. He just got into his vehicle, started the ignition, and backed out before Matt could put a fist through his window.

Back in the office, Matt tried calling Nora, but got no response on either her cell or house phone. He’d have to wait until after work to see if she was all right, much as it pained him. He wished she wasn’t so damned hard to pin down, especially when he thought his family was under threat.

“Oh, it’s beautiful. So haunting,” Chantilly said, literally clutching her pearls. Nora stood back from the piece and assessed it without emotion. It had been under her bed wrapped in several layers of paper and bags. It had taken fifteen very careful minutes of unwrapping to reveal the art inside. Nora hadn’t seen it since she painted it three years prior, right when she learned Elvin was sleeping around and asked him to leave. It was only the second painting she’d ever used herself as a model for. The first had been her and Elvin’s wedding portrait.

The background of the painting was dark, murky water. In the center, curled into fetal position with her forehead resting on the tops of her knees, wild coily hair flowing out like a dark halo, was a nude Nora not caring she was drowning, her eyes open and face resigned to the inevitable.

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to sell it. It’s so personal,” Chantilly said, shaking her head from side to side with awe.

“Yeah,” Nora said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “I’m sure you understand why I didn’t want to have a party for the reveal. I don’t want to be here to have to explain it.”

“Yes, absolutely. Just tell me what to put on the placard and we’ll let that stand on its own.”

Later, Nora perched on the stool in front of her easel with her back to her latest painting-in-progress, smiling wanly at Maggie Dillard’s camera and awaiting the flash. After Maggie took her shot, she sat on Nora’s wicker sofa with her pen poised over paper. Nora was finding the entire experience tedious, and couldn’t help seeing Chad’s face in his sister’s every time she looked at her. Given the morning experience she’d had with the male Dillard, she was understandably on edge. She tried not to take it out on the reporter.

“So, Nora, why’d you choose to settle down in Chowan County?” Maggie asked, turning on her recording device and setting it on the coffee table.

Nora thought about how best to phrase her answer, and after a moment said, “I honestly thought by moving here I’d be able to get some work done. The place is sparsely populated and I wouldn’t have to worry about people on the streets making noises to disturb me or have a lot of solicitors come by.”

“And has living here met your expectations?”

“No. I still get lots of people dropping by. In fact, I think I’m interrupted more now than I was in Baltimore.” On cue, someone rang the doorbell. Nora excused herself and jogged to the front door to greet the Fed-Ex man. He handed her a document mailer and held out his tablet to sign. Nora signed it and glanced at the label. Bennie had been busy again from the looks of it. “Thanks,” she told the man, handed him the tubes of leftover oil paint she’d accumulated for his little girl, and closed the door. She returned to Maggie, leaving her envelope on the kitchen table in the process. “Sorry. You were saying?” Nora pushed some of her wild hair back behind her ear and regretted that she’d ever taken it down. It’d had gotten caught in the seatbelt twice and it kept flying into her mouth.

“What influences your art? I hear that you’re going to have a piece displayed at The Sandpiper soon. I do hope the paper has been invited for an early preview.”

“The invitations are up to Chantilly, but yes, I did deliver a painting to her this morning for display. Regarding my influences, real life is my biggest muse. I think people are on autopilot most of the time and they walk and engage without actually seeing what’s around them. We put blinders on sometimes. My paintings are about being present in our bodies and examining what our eyes are feeding to us so we can see and not just look.”

Maggie did some scribbling. “Interesting. Now, tell me about … ”

The doorbell rang again, and Nora held up a finger to pause Maggie’s question. This time, it was Hattie at the door. “Hey, Miss Hattie!” Nora exclaimed, reaching out to receive the hug Hattie was offering.

“Hey, Miss Thing. Woo! Look at all that hair. Listen, I wanted to see if you wanted a barbeque plate from the church. You ain’t one of them types what don’t eat pork, is you?”

“Oh, I eat pork. How much are they?”

“Seven each.”

“I’ve got cash. Bring me three?”

“Okay. Be back in fifteen, twenty minutes. They was taking another hog off the cooker.”

Nora returned to the sunroom. “You were saying?”

Maggie cleared her throat. “You’ve worked with a lot of big names in the entertainment industry to be someone so young. How do you respond to criticism that you get commissions based on the way you look and not because of your talent?”

Nora blinked at her. “I wasn’t aware of such criticisms.” If there had been any, Bennie would have told her point-blank and then squashed them. Bennie was good for that.

Maggie nodded sagely. “Tell me, are there any artists you think that are more talented than you who paint the same subject matter?”

Nora was getting annoyed, but it wasn’t the first time she’d sat across from an indelicately probing reporter. She took several deep breaths and rubbed her palms together to calm herself. “I admire a lot of artists, but I don’t waste energy comparing my skills to theirs. Art isn’t always about technique. Style and content usually wins out over precision. That said, I’ve become familiar with a young man currently based out of Enfield named Stephen Moore who also creates photorealistic art. We will be collaborating on an event in the near future.”