Sense of Rumor (Mount Faith Series: Book 6) (6 page)

Deidra grinned. "I love hearing that. I came for some stuff from my house and Kylie was here so I stopped by. So, are you going to live here now?" Deidra asked, looking at her bags in the back of the car.

"Not sure," Arnella shook her head, "I won't have anywhere to paint if I live here. All the rooms are too small and doesn't have enough light for my purposes."

"You paint?" Deidra asked surprised. "What do you paint?"

"Anything that catches my eye," Arnella shrugged. "The other day I started sketching handbags, of all things; I have a whole folder with them."

"Handbags?" Deidra's eyebrows rose. "That's my sort of business. Let me see what you have."

Arnella shook her head. "I don't want to..."

"Show her," Kylie interjected before she could finish her protest. "I have seen your work before and you are really good."

Arnella sighed and reached into the back of the car for one of her sketchbooks. She handed it to Deidra and turned her back dramatically. She usually felt odd when people were looking at her work in front of her.

"Only handbags are in that book." She looked over her shoulder as Deidra scanned through the sketchbook. "You can tell me if you hate them you know; I won't mind."

"I can't believe it." Deidra had spread the sketchbook on the trunk of her car and was leafing through. "You designed these from out of your head?"

"Yes." Arnella spun around reluctantly.

Deidra pointed at one picture. "This would look good in a soft brown leather. This," she pointed to the opposite page, "would look positively divine in black and white."

She turned the pages slowly and then looked up at Arnella. "You are a genius. Such detail. Such design. You could rival any fashion house with these. I could come up with some shoes to match these. Hunter green, suede, leather."

"So you like them?" Arnella asked slowly.

Deidra shook her head, "No, girl. Like is too mild a word. I love them. Here's the thing. I can sell them for you. Share the profit fifty-fifty."

"Are you serious?" Arnella asked Deidra, who was looking excited enough to burst.

"I have been waiting for some unique way to take the market by the storm and here, you just gave me the idea," Deidra said, her head filling with styles and designs to go with the handbags. "I am going to call these Nella—Nella handbags, and Dee Bee shoes. Oh, Arnella, you are a Godsend. I have some shoe ideas that would be perfect with these bags."

Arnella grinned. "Thanks."

"No." Deidra was happily packing up the sketchbook. "Thank you. You know, if you really want a place to stay, I have a house further up in the hills. The basement is south facing with lots of natural light. You can paint to your hearts content. My sister Charlene won't mind the company. Just yesterday she called me complaining that she's lonely alone in the house."

"But Char will soon marry Micah, so Arnella may have the house all to herself soon," Kylie said cheerfully.

"And," Deidra pulled out her car keys from her bag, "here are the keys to my brother James' old car. It's in the garage doing nothing. I was going to have my father sell it, but here you are. Maybe you should park that in a junkyard somewhere." She looked at Arnella's mother's car and turned up her nose.

"You are a snob," Kylie said, laughing. "I think Arnella's car is classically rustic."

"No," Deidra said, "sorry Arnella, you are about to become a brand, and brand people don't drive around in rust buckets. Nella bags. I can't wait. So, I'll send you the contract for these designs. As soon as they start selling, you'll start getting paid. In the meantime, sketch fashion to your hearts content and call me when you have a lot."

Arnella nodded, gripping the new car keys in her hand and feeling a little surreal. She didn't even know what type of car it was; all she knew was that it had to be much better than the one she was currently driving.

"Oh, I need your number," Deidra said excitedly. "We can talk periodically. Kylie will show you where the house is, and Char will give you a set of keys. I'll call her later and let her know she is going to have company."

Just like that, Arnella had gone from starving artist, to a university student and a handbag designer with a studio in the hills.

Chapter Five

Arnella walked around in the house she shared with Charlene. She still couldn't believe that she was living there. Everything was just so expensive-looking and clean. It was her second day there after her encounter with Deidra, and her head was still spinning at the swiftness with which her circumstances had changed. If she had known that this was how things would turn out, she should have packed up her stuff and moved to Mount Faith a long time ago, but all things happen in their own time.

The basement that Deidra recommended was huge, airy, and well lit. It was just right for her needs. Charlene had helped her clean up a shelf in her greenhouse for her to store her paints when she buys them. All she needed now were several more easels and she would look like an honest to goodness painter.

She was living her dream, except for that promise she made to her uncle that she would be attending the university for two years, pursuing General Studies. It sounded like hell to her.

She sat in one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room and stretched and rubbed her neck. She had a shiny clean black Honda to drive, and she lived in a mansion. Surely, something bad was going to happen to her.

Nothing good ever happened to her without something terrible happening after. She remembered when she lived in West Virginia with her dad, mom, and big brother. She had been happy; life was cozy; she was loved. Suddenly, when she was eight, a stern-faced policeman had come to the door and told her mother that her father was dead—killed in a bar room brawl.

For years, she thought that bar room brawl story had been a lie. In her recollection, her father had not shown any signs of being an alcoholic. How could he be in a bar, involved in a brawl?

Her mother had broken down after her father died. She changed from the happy, well-adjusted housewife and mother to a vacant-eyed alcoholic. The transition happened in less than a year.

Her Jamaican grandmother had died and left a house and some money in a will. Her mother had packed them up and moved to what Arnella saw as a strange country with strange people, tearing her from her friends and all she held dear.

Vanley, who was six years older, had held her in the nights when she cried herself to sleep because her mother had not quit drinking when she returned to Jamaica. Instead, she had gotten worse. That was when Arnella had taken on her tough exterior. She had turned into a little horror. Her brother had started boarding school shortly after coming to Jamaica, so he had no idea of how bad Arnella had it at home with a bitter woman who thought that her world had collapsed around her.

Arnella had taken solace in painting. She had always received art supplies from her uncle Ryan, who had taken a very keen interest in them after his brother died. Arnella had also taken to running away, sometimes running to strangers, especially when her mother got so drunk that she would beat her for nothing at all.

Things had gotten so bad at home that one day she had stowed away in the local Catholic priest's car. Father Michael had been on his way to Kingston, and when he found her, he had taken her to an orphanage in downtown Kingston that was run by nuns. She had been missing for two weeks before the nuns realized that the Arnella Bancroft being featured on television and Nella Parks, the name she had given them, were one and the same person. She hadn't wanted to leave the orphanage. Three square meals a day without the drunken attacks from her mother had been heaven.

Incidentally, that had been the turning point in her mother's addiction. Her Uncle Ryan had stepped in and gotten her into rehab. By then, Arnella was as hard as a turtle’s shell. She had become cynical and bitter, believing that nothing good ever happened to her without a crushing bad following.

She bit her lip when flashbacks of her most recent incident with the guys resurfaced in her mind. She needed to confront them about it. Why had they done that to her? She got up from the overstuffed chair and started pacing again. She had thought that those memories of them violating her would eventually go away, just like her other bad experiences, but they always seemed to resurface. She kept remembering the afternoon with a hazy cloud surrounding it. She couldn't recall specifics, and the not knowing spooked her even more.

Her first recall was David panting on top of her. Then there was Jeff assaulting her orally, and Cory… She couldn't remember what he did. She only recalled his grinning face operating a camera or had he been standing in the light?

She should report it, but a part of her was reluctant. She hated when people disbelieved her—she hated that with a passion. Who would believe her anyway? Even Alric thought that she had gone off with them, and Tracy thought she was hallucinating, and from her fuzzy recall of the events, she hadn't been exactly comatosed in her reactions.

She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it slightly.

"Hey, Nella."

"Hey, Micah." She gulped in a deep breath. This thing was haunting her. She injected some enthusiasm into her voice.

When she looked up, Micah was standing in the doorway with Taj, her other cousin. In her head, she called him Uncle Ryan's indiscretion. When she had heard the story, she had found it funny. Uncle Ryan was always pretending that he was above reproach. Taj was proof positive that he was not.

"Hi," Taj said to her. He came further into the room. "Micah said you needed easels."

"Oh," Arnella hit her forehead, "I just mentioned it in passing to Charlene. I have a whole lot of space down in the basement that I could put easels. What are you guys here for?"

Taj looked at Micah. "To help you move in. Micah said we should be building easels for you. I am itching to get my hands dirty."

"That's right." Arnella nodded. "You are a psychiatrist. Not much dirtiness with that job. Well, I could do with six easels. It's pretty simple to do." She got up. "Want me to show you guys what I want?"

They followed her down a shallow flight of stairs into the vast the basement. She had thrown white sheets on most of her paintings except one: the seascape with the driftwood.

"That's lovely," Taj said, going closer to it. "You are talented; granted, I am no art appraiser, but this looks really good."

"It's not done," Arnella said shyly.

Taj moved away from the art and examined it, rubbing his chin. "The piece has a quality of loneliness, even despair to it…quite moving."

Arnella gasped; how on earth did he discern that from the piece? Those were her emotions most of the time. Taj looked at her while Micah went toward the easels, examining them and making grunting noises. "You can come see me," Taj said softly. "My services are free for students, even more so for cousins who I know nothing much about."

Arnella swallowed. She wanted to laugh off his offer, but her voice sounded hoarse, and weak instead of mocking and detached. "I don't need a psychiatrist."

"No, you don't," Taj said, nodding, "but I sense that you need to talk. It's my job to listen."

"I talk through my art," Arnella said. "That's my therapy."

After Arnella showed them out, and she and Charlene were left chitchatting in the living room. She remembered Taj's offer and tried to bury it. She didn't need a psychiatrist, whether they were free or family; she was fine. It took her the best part of the night repeating that mantra before she finally accepted it.

*****

Tracy called Arnella on a whim. She hadn't heard from her since her father had given her that upbraiding at the house. She wanted Arnella to know that she was moving into her new place at Blue Palm Apartments and that she was going to start classes tomorrow. She hoped the news would somehow affect Arnella, maybe make her jealous.

The truth is, she had listened to her fathers rant on Arnella and had loved every word. She had only pretended to be on the phone, but she really wanted Arnella to suffer a little because nothing ever really affected her. She had watched and waited for Arnella to break down, especially when her father had called her trash, but Arnella had calmly kept on eating while the words rolled off her easily.

What would it take for Arnella to feel something? There had to be something that mattered to her. She needed to be taken down a peg or two. Surely, she was not immune to the lesser emotions of humanity like fear, sorrow, and confusion. Arnella had always been invincible against hard knocks. The girl was solid as a rock. She shrugged through tragedy and laughed through pain. It had always been a source of envy for Tracy, who thought at the back of her mind that Arnella was a robot.

Nothing touched her in high school. Tracy used to study her and tried to act like her because the more nonchalant Arnella behaved the more people flocked to her. Tracy had had to work for every single friendship she had, not so for Arnella. During high school, some girls had once teased her that she had all the money and Arnella had all the looks and personality.

Tracy had always remembered that, and resented it. She had a love/hate relationship with Arnella. She had deliberately invited Arnella to the party so that she could see that she had many other friends, most of whom were more mature friends and university students.