My Nora

chapter Three


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.

“Your hair smells nice,” he said, turning around so Nora could tie the apron straps at his back. She allowed her fingers to graze the top of his firm rear in the process, emboldened by her too-fast beer imbibing. No middle-aged spread there. He obviously took care of himself. Matt didn’t seem to either mind or notice her gentle groping.

“Thanks,” Nora said, patting her scarf. She opened the refrigerator to pluck another beer from the tote knowing it would probably loosen her tongue more than she liked, but damn it, she needed to get control over her nerves. She wasn’t used to feeling so out of sorts. Was it because they were flirting? Were they flirting? She couldn’t tell.

“So, did you not think about college, Matt?”

“Yeah, I thought about it. Got in a few places, considered playing football for one. Then I figured ‘what for,’ you know? I like the idea of having a college degree, but it probably wouldn’t have earned me any more money than I’m making now. Especially not a history degree.”

“History?”

“Yeah. Probably would have ended up teaching. Don’t think I have the character for it.” He winked.

Matt poured oil into the antique cast iron skillet Nora had found in her barn. She’d spent hours cleaning and carefully re-seasoning it because it was the absolute real deal: heavy and high-sided and likely to break a few bones should it fall on one’s foot. When she told her grandmother about it, the woman actually tried to claim it back for herself. Nora had hung up on her.

Matt switched on the stove burner beneath the pan and next turned his attention to seasoning the fish fry batter. “So, you were saying about the property?”

“Oh, yeah,” she handed Matt her beer and he easily uncapped it with his bare hands and handed it back to her. “When I’m not painting, I’m something of an amateur genealogist.” Nora took the seat closest to the refrigerator so she could have a better view of his cooking demonstration — and his backside. He’d picked the perfect cut of jeans for his body: relaxed fit with hems that would have covered the tops of his boots with a bit of sag at the waist. Definitely not country boy jeans.

“My family has lived in Baltimore for the past couple of generations, but last year I learned that my grandmother actually grew up here. She married a Yankee and they started working their way back up North and settled in Baltimore. I drove down last year to do some research and grave hunting and found out that no one was living on the property. The last person who lived here was my grandmother’s brother and when he died he left the property to his wife’s nephew. He lives in Reno and didn’t want to do anything with the property, but hadn’t put it on the market because of those graves back in the woods.”

“I know exactly where you mean.”

“Well, maybe you can help me pull vines out there in spring. Anyhow, I sent him a letter and asked if he’d sell it to me and he agreed. I bought it at way less than market value because I had to promise I’d never sell it to anyone outside the family.”

“That’s a great story,” Matt murmured appreciatively, dipping thin pieces of fish in batter and laying them carefully in the sizzling oil.

“Yeah, I thought so, too.”

Matt turned and leaned his butt against the countertop, crossing his arms over his chest while the fish fried. “Like it so far?”

Nora shrugged. “I haven’t decided. The house needs a lot of modernization and I’ve got contractors lined up for that. I like that I can make it my own, though, without needing to get anyone else’s approval to decorate or renovate.” She made a face. “The house is a hundred and fifty years old, but it’s got pretty good bones. All I had to do before moving in was get new windows and doors. The wiring is old, but I’m having that fixed soon as well as having the plumbing updated. The only heat source I have at the moment is that fireplace — ”

She hooked a thumb in the direction of the living room.

“I’m having central heat and air installed along with the second floor repairs. I hope it’ll all be done before it gets really cold or else I’ll be living in a hotel.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Matt said, using a two-pronged forked to turn the fish, “but what I really wanted to know is how you like Chowan. I’m sure there’s been some culture shock, right?”

“Oh! Well, I really haven’t met too many people, so I haven’t figured out what the scene is here.”

Matt laughed heartily, exposing the top row of his perfect teeth. “There is no scene. Not what you’re used to, anyway, unless your idea of fun is church potlucks and cruising Broad Street in your boyfriend’s pick-up truck.”

“Well, the boyfriend part is far from being a problem at the moment.” Nora pointedly turned her attention back to her beer and Matt raised an eyebrow, but opted to say nothing. Good. He was smart.

*

“So, how’d your date go?” Chad asked in a bitter tone as he watched Matt bend over the pool table in Chad’s open garage to line up a shot.

Matt refrained from speaking until after he broke the ball formation. “It wasn’t a date,” he said finally, watching as balls pelted the bumpers and some banked into the pockets. “I made dinner and then we sat outside on Nora’s porch with beers watching cars drive past. She’s a talkative drunk, but doesn’t eat much.”

She was talkative, but Matt was entranced. Not only was she smart, but observant. She was the kind of woman he didn’t have to waste words on because she was already on the same wavelength.

“You do yoga,” she’d accused at one point after dinner when he’d paused to stretch his arms behind his back. He’d stared at her agape for a few seconds and had to fess up.

All he could manage was, “It was prescribed. Old football coach thought it would help me limber up.”

He’d waited for her to laugh, but she’d just turned her beer cap around and around in those long fingers and said, “Good for you.”

“Uh huh.” Chad positioned himself on a long side and stared at one striped billiard ball after another. He was probably trying to find one that he could actually get in. His hand-eye coordination wasn’t exactly world-renowned. “I thought you said she wasn’t cute.”

“She’s not,” Matt said. “She’s a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘cute’ is one of them. She probably hasn’t been cute since she was twelve and wearing pigtails.”

“You knew what I meant.”

“Yup. I knew exactly what you meant. Nora isn’t cute in the same way Carmen Jones wasn’t cute.”

“Who?”

“Never mind, man.”

“If you were interested, why didn’t you just say so?”

“I didn’t say I was. Besides, you shouldn’t be chasing tail this soon after a separation, anyway. Give it some time and let that shit breathe, man.”

Chad smacked the cue ball and completely bunged his shot. “Motherf*cker,” he spat, throwing down his stick. He paced around the table a while and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pleated khakis. “Well, if you’re not interested, then what’s it matter to you if I am? Have you even dated a black chick before? They have special needs.”

Matt narrowed his eyes at him and tightened his grip on his own stick, hearing it creak just a bit from the pressure of his vise-like hands. He set it down carefully and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know what you sound like right now?”

“What?”

“A huge tool. An even bigger one than usual and that’s saying something.”

“Oh, come on, man — you’ve never stood in the way of me getting some ass before. It’s what I do. As if I’d pass up tail that fine. Are you crazy? Have you seen the pickings around here lately? Even Morgan Connelly has a dude now and she has a face like a dog’s ass. You can do the celibate monk shit all you want, but don’t try to enforce it for me.”

Matt grabbed Chad’s stick from his hands and threw it onto the concrete floor. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds again, Chad. Stay away from Nora.”

Chad let out an involuntary, smug little scoff. “Are you serious? You playing guard dog now? That piece of hunting land that important to you? I’ll back off. All you had to do was say so.” Chad shook his head even while he held up his hands in defeat. Matt backed up a few paces.

“And I’d better not hear about anything going wrong with her satellite dish so you have an excuse to go out there to do unnecessary repairs,” Matt warned, putting his pool cue in the rack and taking his jacket off the coat hook. He didn’t wait around for Chad’s confirmation, and just pushed his motorcycle helmet onto his head and took quick, long strides to his bike. By the time Chad made it to his garage door to see him off, Matt was already gunning the engine and leaving huge tire ruts in the muddy patch of Chad’s front yard.

Such an odd set of emotions for Matt. The last time he’d felt so protective the object of his concern was a ten-year-old orphan. But Nora wasn’t a little girl. She was all woman. His kind of woman. He hadn’t known a woman like her existed.

*

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I’m so sorry!” The tall, thin woman clad in cartoon character scrubs and orthopedic white mules flailed indecisively at the door while Nora stood out on the deck with minestrone stock dripping off her windbreaker. “Let me get you a towel.” The frazzled brunette turned and took two steps to the dryer behind her and started clawing through the unfolded laundry. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, finally extracting a navy blue bath sheet that appeared to have seen better days. Nora leaned into the laundry room and set the remnants of the soup and freezer bag on the nearby washing machine before accepting the towel from the woman.

“It’s okay, really. Please don’t fret.” Fortunately, Nora’s jacket was waterproof and stain-resistant: the perfect combination for a painter who had a proclivity to cleaning things with garden hoses when a sink would do fine. The raven-haired waif looked doubtful. Nora wiped her hands on the towel and patted at the soup remaining on her torso. “Really. No big deal. It’s what I get for buying cheap containers.”

“What’s going on? I could hear you all the way in the shower, Karen.” Matt’s familiar deep voice boomed from further in the house and a few seconds later his head appeared at the inner door. When he saw Nora standing there, the corners of his eyes wrinkled as his smile reached his whole face. He stepped into the laundry room and leaned against the doorframe, clad only in one very lucky towel knotted at the waist, his torso still wet from the shower.

Nora raised one eyebrow at the scene but kept her eyes directed squarely at Matt’s face. That didn’t mean she hadn’t looked. She’d seen the flat belly, firm pectorals, and biceps the size of oil tankers. He could probably tote someone as small as Nora around using only one arm and limited exertion. “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked, looking back and forth from the disheveled Karen to the nearly naked man behind her.

“Nope,” Matt said, giving Nora a curious look as she bundled the bath sheet in her hands. “Running a little late today on showering because I came home from work and found that a pipe under Karen’s bathroom sink burst and damn near flooded the hallway. Just now got the thing fixed. It’s probably been leaking since Karen left for work this morning.” The brunette blushed. God, she was young. Too young for Matt, Nora thought.

“I thought I could just put a bowl under it until later,” she mumbled.

“Oh. You don’t share a bathroom?” Nora asked with forced nonchalance.

Matt laughed and shook his wet head. “We haven’t shared a bathroom since Karen was around four.”

Nora’s face relaxed with slow understanding. “Oh, so Karen is your sister.”

“Oh, sorry,” Karen said, eyes going wide with mortification. “I got you all dirty and didn’t even ask your name.” She held out one cold hand to shake. “Karen Vogel. I’m this big lug’s little sister. Sorry again for splashing you. I need to go get the shop vac to suck up all that water. Hope you don’t mind if I run off?”

“Sure. Matt didn’t tell me he had a sister. I thought he lived here all alone.” Nora shook her hand. “I’m Nora Fredrickson. I live right over there.” Nora pointed through the trees in the general direction of her house.

Karen’s mouth made an “O” from recognition as she started to slip through the door and head in the direction of the aluminum shed. “Well, nice to meet ya. I’ve been itching to get in some crossbow practice.”

Matt cleared his throat and made an “uh uh” head shake at his sister. Karen gave him a confused look as she backed away, but said nothing.

With Karen gone, Matt stepped into the laundry room doorframe. “Long time no see,” he said, taking the towel from Nora and shoving it into the washer. “Want to come in? Carpet’s a little soggy but the place is otherwise habitable.”

“Uh, no,” Nora managed, swallowing hard as Matt untucked the corner of his towel and casually readjusted it so it was more snug at the waist. There was nothing he could have done with the towel to minimize the bulge that met her at near chest level. At five-feet and one inch tall, Nora felt like a child standing in Matt’s shadow, although one with very adult awareness.

“I’ve been tucked away working on a painting for the past week. This is the first time I left the house other than to get the mail. I suppose I have you to thank for leaving that bag of crabs on my porch?”

“Yeah. No problem. I thought they looked good that day and with you being from Maryland I figured you like them. Hope I wasn’t being presumptuous.” He crossed his arms over his now-dry chest and leaned against the washer.

“Not at all. I do like them. That’s, uh, actually the reason I came over.” She picked up the plastic freezer bag that accompanied the soup and handed it to him. “I tend to get too distracted to cook when I’m working on big projects, so I cook in big batches when I have time. I made some soup and crab cakes this morning and thought since you cooked for me last week I’d bring you a little something.”

He smiled broadly as he accepted the offering. “Thanks. Karen doesn’t or can’t cook, I don’t know which, so that actually helps a lot.” He hooked a finger into the soup container and dragged it across the top of the washer. “Might need a soup refill, though.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Karen opened the door before I could ring the bell and walked out without seeing me standing here.” Her hand went to the paisley-print pink scarf around her head and fondled the ties idly. “I’ll bring some more.”

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just pop over with my thermos later and I’ll have my lunch for tomorrow. Besides, that’ll give me a chance to see if you’ve really been working or if you’ve just been avoiding me seeing you in the yard.” Those dimples again were almost distracting enough to keep her eyes away from that towel.

Nora smirked, the tension that had been coiling inside her starting to ebb. “Trust me. I’m the slowest moving target you’ll ever see. If I’m not at home, I’m probably out buying paint or taking pictures. My circuit is a short one.”

Matt screwed up his face with something Nora interpreted as disbelief.

“What?” she asked, jamming her hands into her jacket pockets, utterly confused by his bemused expression.

“Nothing. Let me throw some clothes on and I’ll follow you right over.”

Oh, don’t bother with the clothes, she thought, even as he disappeared into the house.

*

“Hey, Matt. Can you hold that lamp up for me?” As soon as Matt had stepped into the house, Nora put him to work. He hoped that meant she was getting comfortable around him.

“This one here?”

“Yes. Just hold it up high over the painting. I hate using the flash and it’s so damn dim in here. I want to make sure the colors are true to life in the photo without me having to do digital correction.”

Matt grabbed the ceramic lamp by the base and held it up a couple of feet over Nora’s restaurant painting. When he’d walked into Nora’s sunroom at her request, his eyes had automatically landed on the three foot by four foot photorealistic work. His temptation had been to reach out and touch it so he could feel the texture of the paint to validate her claims that it wasn’t a printed piece, but she implored him to resist because the paint hadn’t quite cured.

“It’s really good, Nora,” he repeated for the third time, shifting the weight of the heavy lamp from one hand to the other to spare his bum wrist.

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” she said, smiling behind her camera while she shot the canvas from several angles.

“How much do you think it’ll sell for?”

She shrugged and walked over to him, wrapping her fingers around his naked forearms and bringing the light down a little lower. Her gentle touch made the hair on his arms stand on end. “Hard to say.” He liked the electric feeling he got from being near to her and found himself subconsciously moving closer to her whenever she was nearby. She could never be close enough — not until there was nothing at all between them. He needed to change the subject and fast or he’d need to use the easel to hide his growing erection. As it was, every time she looked away, his eyes were cataloging her curves. He kept thinking about how his hands would feel encircling her naked waist and wondering if the most gentle way to take her the first time would be with her astride his body — or perhaps it would be more enjoyable for her if he eased into her from a spooning position.

F*ck.

“Hey, Nora?”

“Hmm?”

“How do you decide what to paint?”

She put her camera down and looked off to the side, seeming to ponder his question thoroughly. “Well, I take a lot of pictures of things I find interesting. When I get home and look at them on my computer screen sometimes they turn out not to be so interesting after all. Other times, things that I hadn’t intended to specifically capture pull my eye to some part of a photo I’d neglected and it’ll become its own thing.”

“Is that why you put the white tablecloths and candles on the tables? To draw attention to the cook?” he asked, cocking his head toward the easel.

“Hey, you get it!” she said, smiling wider than he’d ever seen her manage.

Matt stared. She was gorgeous: the kind of woman he’d love to have on his arm to show off to anyone who’d look and listen. “That’s my girl,” he’d say. “My Nora.”

“Hey, I read and stuff,” Matt countered, finally breaking free of her hypnotism and smiling himself. “Do you always put a little joke in all of your paintings?”

“Most of the time, yes. Sometimes the humor is already overt and I don’t have to add anything.” She tapped his shoulder to indicate that he could drop the lamp and put her camera away.

“What are you going to paint next?” Matt settled into the cushioned wicker chair half-strewn with catalogues and tubes of oil paint and rested an ankle on his opposite knee comfortably.

Nora sat on the tall stool in front of her easel and faced him, chewing her bottom lip. “That — I don’t know. I rarely work on projects this size on this sort of deadline and have ideas plotted out well in advance, so I’m at a loss here.” Her fingers went to the tails of her headscarf again, fiddling. He ached to reach over and grab her hand to stop her, to kiss those hands, but resisted using a well of willpower he rarely needed to access.

“Well, I don’t know what I could show you that’d you’d consider interesting enough to paint, but since you’re not enthralled in work at the moment, how ’bout you let me show you around some?”

Nora looked wary. “What’d you have in mind?”

“Nothing mundane, I assure you. Get me some credit for creativity, huh? Since you’re not from around here, I figured you’d might like a guide that’ll take you out to witness the majesty of the swamps.”

She gave him a doubtful look that made him laugh. “It’s not that bad, Nora. Mosquitoes are basically out for the year and the boat ride can be sort of serene, looking at all those trees with their leaves dropping off and the fish all lazy beneath the surface of the water.”

“Boat?”

“Mm hmm.” Matt heaved himself up and stretched his back by reaching his arms high over his head. He noticed Nora staring at the bit of hair that carpeted the skin between his navel and waistband and gave her three additional seconds to enjoy the show. “Canoe, actually. Ah, Nora. Your distrustfulness of me is downright adorable,” he said, climbing the three stairs up into the kitchen and picking up his thermos.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She followed him up and pressed a lid onto another container of soup for Karen’s dinner. “I’m just not sure if me and a boat in a swamp make the best combination.” She ran a strip of freezer tape around the container for insurance.

“It’ll be fine, I promise. Hey, I’ll make you a deal,” he said, chucking her under the chin playfully. “If you absolutely hate it, I won’t bring up the hunting issue ever again. I’ll find a new honey hole.”

Nora blushed and mumbled something about finding a plastic grocery bag. She’d caught the innuendo. Matt wanted to see just how far he could push.

“Fine,” she acquiesced. “But if I fall into the swamp you owe me big-time and not just for a new camera.”

“You got a deal.”