Page 18 of The Shop on Royal Street
Beau turned his head to look at me, his eyes in shadow. “It’s not the renovations that I was referring to.”
I sat back in my seat and stared out the window, riding in silence for the rest of the drive while his words inside my head danced around my new mantra ofThe house chose you. I closed my eyes, wishing for a moment I could be Melanie, if only so I could tell myself that if I ignored my misgivings, they would go away.
CHAPTER 7
One week later, in the crushing heat of a New Orleans August morning,I pulled up at the curb in front of the house on Dauphine Street with nothing but my backpack and the toolbox that my very practical maternal grandparents had given me for grad school graduation. “Are you sure that’s the right address?” My Uber driver looked at me in the rearview mirror, then looked back at the house.
“Yes, this is it!” I said, exiting the car. He waited for a moment, his expression dubious. “Really—this is the right place.”
With a measured shake of his head, he pulled into the street and drove off slowly, as if expecting me to run after him. My phone beeped, alerting me that a charge from Uber had been made to my credit card, and I winced. I would need to find a more economical mode of transportation for the days Jolene couldn’t drive me. Like a moped. Which would be a solution only if my parents didn’t find out.
I stood on the street looking up at my house.Myhouse. All of it. The porch, the elegant windows, the lovely shape of the roof, along with the tall ceilings and gorgeous woodwork inside. I could almost hear Melanie’s mental cash register ringing in my ear as I consideredwhat else was mine—the rotten wood, the piles of junk, the absent plumbing, and the toilet in the back garden.
Still, it was all mine.Mine.What I hoped was both the end and the beginning of my personal journey. My own renovation and restoration. And if the house came with memories, so did I. Squatting in abandoned houses with a drug-addicted mother could do that to a person, no matter how many much-better years had passed since then.
Despite there being no breeze, the glass wind chime sang as I pulled the single door key from my backpack—the only existing key to the house, according to Beau—and stuck it into the lock. It turned easily and the door made only a slight squeaking sound as I pushed it open. I made my way to the kitchen, where I could lay out my spreadsheets on the chipped Formica countertops. On the first one, under the columnTHINGS TO BUY, I wroteWD-40. I stood back admiring my handiwork, feeling as if I’d accomplished something. Until I looked around me at the warped floors and ceiling stains and the carcass of an alarmingly large cockroach lying on its back.
“At least it’s dead,” Jolene said from behind me, making me jump. She pulled a tissue from her purse and tapped her way across the floors in her high heels to pick up the insect. She looked around for a garbage can before giving up and dropping both the roach and the tissue on the floor. “I guess it doesn’t matter right now, huh?”
I wrote downGARBAGE CANbeneathWD-40on my spreadsheet. “Why are you here? You could have saved me an Uber fare if I’d known you were headed this way.”
“Sorry. I ran into Beau at the office and we had a conversation....”
The sound of a truck pulling up in front and then idling brought us both into the living room, the blue glass from the broken vases still lying in the middle of the floor and crunching under our feet. From the window I saw a big brown UPS truck, its driver standing next to it squinting up at the house, a parcel tucked under one arm. He glanced down at his handheld device, then looked back at the house before giving his head a quick shake and jumping back into his truck with more speed and agility than seemed necessary.
I ran out of the house, shouting for the driver to stop, and caught up to the truck before it had made it to the end of the block. I stood panting at the open door of the passenger side, leaning on it to catch my breath in the strangling humidity. “Is... that... package... for Nola... Trenholm?” I gasped.
“You live there?” The rise of his eyebrows punctuated his question. “I thought that place had been condemned.”
“Not quite. I own it, and I’m renovating it,” I said proudly. “I plan to live in it when it’s ready.”
He stared at me without moving, as if waiting for the punch line. Eventually, he stood and disappeared into the back of the truck for a moment before returning with the package. I was about to ask him to wait while I got my ID, but he practically tossed the box at me before returning to his seat and putting the truck in gear.
“I’ll be getting a lot of deliveries here as the renovation progresses, so we’ll probably be seeing a lot of each other if this is your usual route. I’ll make sure the house numbers are more visible from the street next time.”
He looked at me as if I’d just suggested we spend the afternoon wrestling alligators. “Maybe you should start with getting a priest over to sprinkle some holy water. Have a nice day.” He sped off in a cloud of dust and exhaust, leaving me standing at the side of the street.
I stood watching the truck disappear, disappointed that the driver had left before I could think of an adequate reply. Not that there was much a person could say once their new house had been so maligned, but I would have appreciated the chance. I turned and began walking back to the house, my attention focused on the package. It was from Melanie, and because it wasn’t marked as fragile, I gave it a little shake. A solid thunk with each shake told me absolutely nothing, but I shook it again just to be sure I didn’t know what it was.
“I hope that’s not street numbers for your house, because I’ve brought some as a housewarming present.”
I looked up to see Beau standing on my front porch, carrying a bright floral gift bag stuffed with pastel tissue paper and trailing ribbons. Joining him, I said, “Did you wrap it yourself?”
“Sure—can’t you tell?” He smirked. “Actually, Mimi did the wrapping, but the gift is from both of us.”
“A peace offering for causing such a needless hassle?”
“More or less.” He followed me into the house, stepping on the broken glass as we passed into the kitchen.
We put our packages on the counter while I addedBROOMandDUSTPANto my spreadsheet.
Beau glanced over my shoulder. “You might as well put ‘notepad’ on the list, since that’s what you really need to make a to-do list.”
I capped my pen and placed it carefully on the spreadsheet. “I’m sure that works for some. But I find spreadsheets... comforting.”
He didn’t smile or laugh or accuse me of joking. Instead, he simply nodded as if he completely understood my need to feel a connection to my former life. Maybe because he actually did. I brushed the thought aside, having no room inside my head for hindsight or reevaluation. Those would have to wait for later—much later.
The floorboards above us creaked. “Jolene’s here,” I explained. “I’m not sure what she’s doing upstairs, but I hope it has something to do with figuring out how to make the plumbing work sooner rather than later.”
