Page 46 of The Attic on Queen Street
“Thanks, as always, Yvonne. You’re the best.” She beamed as Jack took her hands and kissed each cheek. “You let me know if Harold isn’t treating you like the queen you are, you hear? I can set him straight.”
“Oh, no worries there,” she said, her cheeks pinkening. “But I’ll be sure to let you know.”
I slid my own chair back and stood. As I bent to kiss Yvonne’s cheek, she grabbed hold of my hands, her warm eyes settling on mine. “We don’t always marry someone we can live with. We marry someone we can’t live without.” She lifted her cheek, whispering into my ear as I kissed her, “He’ll come around. Don’t you worry.”
I pulled back, taking my time removing my purse off the back of my chair and adjusting it on my shoulder so I could blink back the dust particles that had apparently gathered in my eyes.
After leaving the library, Jack paused at the bottom of the steps. “Are you heading to the office now?”
I made a show of glancing at my watch and then my phone to double-check. “Yes. I don’t have an appointment until one o’clock but I’ve always got paperwork and listings to go through.” I waited for him to invite me to lunch, feeling like the nerdy schoolgirl I’d once been.
“All right. I’m going to run back to my apartment to pick up all of my Vanderhorst notes. Then I’m headed back to the house to keep an eye on Marc and Harvey. Hopefully they’ll be busy, so I can get some work done.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” I said with forced enthusiasm.
“Thomas picked the Grocery for dinner tonight. What time do you want to head over? I’ll be happy to drive.”
My heart did a little flip until I remembered that we’d probably be driving with Jayne. “Six fifteen? It’s a quick drive and there’s a free parking lot next to the restaurant.”
I waited to see if he’d give me a platonic kiss on the cheek, like the one he’d given Yvonne. Instead he just smiled, said good-bye, then left.
As I turned toward Broad Street and Henderson House Realty, my phone beeped. I looked at it eagerly, hoping Jack had changed his mind and was asking me to lunch. I sighed when I realized the text was from the nosy reporter and my sometime nemesis, Suzy Dorf. I hesitated a moment, wondering if I should delete it without reading it first. But that was something the old Melanie would have done. I stopped walking and squinted at the screen, reading the entire message twice, wishing immediately that I hadn’t chosen that moment to be the more mature version of myself.
Don’t forget—u o me interview. Have u heard new info about ur diamonds? need to discuss w/u
I cleared the screen and resumed walking. I’d been avoiding her for over a month. A few more weeks wouldn’t make a difference, and if Iplannedon calling her in a few weeks, that meant I wasn’t pretending she’d go away like the old Mellie used to do. I just couldn’t deal with her right now on top of everything else.
Instead, I texted my mother, asking if she was free to babysit the twins tonight since Jayne and I were going out. Nola would be at Lindsey’s, studying for a test, so I texted her, too, asking if she needed us to bring her home after our dinner.
I felt someone watching me from across the street where my favorite shoe store, Bob Ellis, had once been for over sixty years. The building was still there—a boutique hotel now with retail space—but it hurt too much to see it and remember the happy times I’d had there, experiencing retail therapy. But my attention was drawn to a woman standing on the corner in front of the building, watching me.
She seemed familiar, and I waited for her to call out to me or wave, but she simply stood where she was. I needed my glasses to see her better. I thought she might be an old client of mine and I didn’t want to appear rude. But when I’d pulled out my glasses from my purse and glanced up again, the woman was gone. I looked up and down King Street, curious as to where she could have gone in the few seconds it had taken me to open my purse. I crossed the street to the spot where she’d been standing, wondering if she’d entered the hotel. I peered through the large glass doors and again up and down King Street. When I felt the pinpricks on the back of my neck, I looked down on the sidewalk, already knowing I’d see the droplets of water created by rivulets from soaking hair and two wet footprints disappearing around the corner.
CHAPTER 14
The first thing I noticed when entering the Grocery restaurant was the wall of pickle jars spotlit above the open kitchen and accessed by a rolling ladder. They had been arranged neatly and chromatically left to right, from dark red cherry peppers to pale green tomatoes. I knew without taking my first bite that this would be my new favorite restaurant.
“Have you been here before?” Jayne asked as Jack gave our name to the young woman standing at the front of the restaurant to greet us.
“No. It was Thomas’s suggestion.”
“Figures. He’s such a foodie.”
I turned to look at her. “Thomas? Detective Thomas Riley? I thought he was more a doughnut-and-beer kind of guy.”
Jayne sent me a withering glance. “Why? Because he’s a detective?”
“It wasn’t meant as an insult. Some of us happen to consider doughnuts a delicacy.”
She shook her head in exasperation, then returned to her perusal of tables and their occupants. “When we were dating, he always took me to the most innovative restaurants. Knew how to pair the right wine and everything. One of his sisters is a chef in New Orleans—trained underEmeril himself. Growing up, she tested out all of her recipes on Thomas since he was the youngest and didn’t know any better.”
“Right this way.” We began following the hostess around tables, Jack’s hand on my back. Jayne’s sharp intake of breath was enough to alert me that we were nearing our table and that Thomas was already there.
“Take a deep breath and speak slowly,” I said quietly. Jayne nodded in acknowledgment, and the look on her face was similar to the one JJ made when we announced it was bath time.
Thomas stood and Jayne smiled at him as he pushed in her chair, the smile remaining firmly fixed on her face as Jack seated me and we all accepted menus.
“It’s good to see you again, Jayne,” Thomas said, unfolding his napkin and placing it in his lap. “I didn’t know you’d be here, but I’m glad you are.”
