Page 4 of The Shop on Royal Street
“Jolene?” Her name easily slid off my tongue. My Tulane roommate smiled back at me. Both her name and flaming red hair made her impossible to forget. And when she spoke, I was suddenly eighteen years old and standing in my Josephine Louise House dorm room while my new roommate thrust a homemade comforter at me, explaining that she and her grandmama had made one for each of us so our beds would match.
“Nola!” She embraced me tightly, her hair-sprayed locks crinkling against my cheek, a familiar scent of perfume and powder still hugging me as she stepped back. “Just seeing your pretty face again has put pepper in my gumbo. It has been too long. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and I guess you never got my letters. And your phone number didn’t work anymore. But every time Mama fries chicken, I think of you and that time you came home with me to Mississippi and you had us try that meat-free chicken....”
I held up my hand to stop her, remembering how she was like a Southern version of a windup talking doll with a full repertoire of expressions and sayings that defied explanation and needed to wind itself down before stopping. “Hang on a moment.” I paused as my mind sorted through the proverbial collection of elephants surrounding me, the least of which being the shattered bottles and how they’d fallen.
Jolene, wearing full makeup despite the heat and humidity, met my eyes. She appeared to be waiting for me either to agree with something as nonsensical as bottles falling ten feet from their perch or to argue. I did neither. Instead, I focused on my most pressing question. Turning toward Beau, my tone bordering on hostile, I asked, “What areyoudoing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He was tall—and some might even say good-looking—and it bothered me that I had to tilt my head to look him in the eye. “I’m planning on buying this house.” I heard Melanie’s intake of breath behind me.
Beau’s light brown eyes narrowed as an odd smile lifted his lips. “Well, I own this house. And you can’t buy it.”
“What?” Melanie and I spoke in unison.
“Why not?” I didn’t bother to hide my annoyance, which had nothing to do with the argument at hand but was due to the fact that I was seeing him again and he was no doubt recalling a litany of embarrassing moments from my past.
“Because I’m taking it off the market. Now. It’s no longer for sale. My grandmother and I own lots of other houses in and around New Orleans that you can buy. Just not this one.”
Melanie stepped forward. “Beau. It’s so nice to see you again. And I agree that this house isn’t the right one for Nola. Maybe you can suggest—”
“No. I wantthishouse.” I wasn’t sure if my conviction was due to the way I’d felt the moment I’d stepped onto the front steps, as if the house had been waiting for me like a lonely old man sitting in the dark. Or because I was still angry at Beau, for reasons I couldn’t really explain, and needed to be contrary.
“Because the house isn’t safe. It needs to be demolished.”
“Then why is it for sale?”
Melanie and Beau shared a glance, giving Jolene time to step forward. She held out her hand to Melanie. “I’m sure you don’t remember me, Mrs.Trenholm—I was Nola’s freshman-year roommate. Before she transferred, sophomore year.”
I appreciated her softening the actual event. Besides her red hair, her kindness was the thing I remembered most about Jolene.
Instead of shaking her hand, Melanie hugged her, no doubt recalling just how much we all owed Jolene McKenna. “Of course I remember you.” She turned to me. “We still think about you every time we hear that song, don’t we, Nola?” Melanie’s voice skipped.
I swallowed, wishing I didn’t. “Of course.” I forced a smile. “Jolene—just like that Dolly Parton song. It’s great seeing you again. I’m sorry I never wrote back. I just got busy and...”
Jolene waved a manicured hand at me. “No need to explain. I figured you were as busy as a one-armed paperhanger and you’d get back in touch when you could.”
Beau shifted uncomfortably. “Look, the house isn’t for sale, so let’s...”
Ignoring him, I kept my attention on Jolene. “What are you doing here?”
“I work for Beau. Well, Beau and his grandmother, Mimi. JR Properties. They buy old houses and buildings that need work, restore and refurbish them, then sell them. I just got my master’s in preservation studies from Tulane, with a certificate in sustainable real estate development. One of my professors told me about the job opening and I knew it was perfect for me.” Her gaze moved from me to Beau, then back again. “So, you two know each other?”
“He’s the guy who made me lose my mother’s guitar in a fire.”
“She’s the girl who was named for the city where she was conceived.”
Jolene’s eyes widened.
Melanie stepped between Beau and me, possibly to prevent violence. “We met Beau back in Charleston, when he was an undergrad at the American College of the Building Arts and working in my in-laws’ antiques store. He did an amazing restoration of our iron fence.” She winced a little, no doubt recalling how much that had cost. It was her one holdback from completely embracing old houses—the sheer expense of maintaining them, which Melanie likened to digging a hole and throwing in the contents of your bank account.
“You forgot to mention that I was in the process of saving your life when I dragged you out of that burning house,” Beau said. “I thought that was more important than the guitar.”
“And you forget that I could have easily grabbed it before you dragged me out that window.”
Melanie put a hand on my arm. She understood what that guitar had meant to me—the lone memento of my dead mother. But, as she often reminded me, Beau had saved my life (even though I remained stubbornly convinced he could have also saved the guitar). For that, she would always have blind spots when it came to Beau Ryan. It was easy to overlook his overbearing and bossy nature and the unfortunate circumstances that had twice placed him at the wrong place at the right time to save me from my own stupidity. And regardless of how ridiculous I knew it was, I hadn’t found a way to forgive him.
“Let’s focus on the house, all right?” Melanie said. “Obviously, the condition of the house is too far gone to be considered...”
