He laughed. “Oh, I knew you were going to get those ladies in there one way or another!” he said. “Can I keep this?” He lifted the photograph. “Hang it up on the post office wall? That okay with you?”

“Of course,” she said, relieved that he liked it well enough to show it off.

She celebrated by taking Miss Myrtle to dinner at the Albemarle Restaurant that evening. Miss Myrtle laughed when Anna ordered the Yankee Pot Roast.

“Well, that figures!” the older woman said.

Everyone in the restaurant seemed to know who Anna was and several people approached their table to talk to her about the mural.

“I can’t believe you’re paintin’ somethin’ that’ll take up that whole wall in there!” one of the women said. Another told her she’d seen the photograph of the sketch hanging on the post office wall just that afternoon and couldn’t wait to see it in color. But then, a woman with angry eyes and a permanent-looking sneer on her face walked over to their table.

“Wipe that smug look off your face,” she said to Anna. “It’s very unbecoming.” The woman turned and marched through the restaurant and out the door, while Anna sat stock-still with her mouth open, utterly speechless.

“Ignore her,” Miss Myrtle said. “Don’t let small-minded people ruin your good fortune.”

Anna pressed her lips together, looking down at her plate. She felt both embarrassed and misunderstood.

“Come on, now.” Miss Myrtle tapped the back of her hand. “That gal is no doubt friends with Mrs. Drapple and she had to say her little piece and now you have to just forget all about it.”

Anna let out her breath and offered Miss Myrtle a stoic smile. She would change the subject. “Will you be one of my Tea Party models?” she asked.

“Me?” Miss Myrtle looked flustered, a blush coming to her cheeks. “Don’t you think I’m a bit too long in the tooth?”

Yes, she was, and she and Anna both knew it, but Anna could take some of the gray out of the older woman’s hair and soften the lines around her mouth. She loved the idea of having her landlady in the mural.

“I think you’ll be perfect,” Anna said. “Maybe Pauline will agree to be another.”

They talked about the people they knew who might be willing to model for the mural. Miss Myrtle thought the mayor’s wife was a good choice, but the idea made Anna cringe as she remembered Pauline’s comments about Mayor Sykes’s treatment of his wife. She felt as if she knew far more than she should about the poor woman and her life.

“Or perhaps Ellen Harper,” Miss Myrtle said. “She’s a salesgirl at the Patsy Department Store.”