Page 40 of The Shop on Royal Street
I clicked on my phone’s mail icon and opened Jaxson’s e-mail but quickly grew frustrated trying to download pictures with no Wi-Fi. I closed it out and after a moment’s hesitation I clicked on the podcast icon. I had downloaded the most recent episodes of Beau’s podcast,Bumps in the Night and Other Improbabilities, shortly after I ran into Beau at the house on Dauphine, but I had yet to listen to any of them. I was oddly hesitant to allow his voice to follow me into other aspects of my life like a ghost that didn’t know how to find the light.
Even when Beau and I had both lived in Charleston and his podcast was just starting out, I’d had no interest in listening to him discredit people who called themselves psychic. It’s why he’d sought out Melanie in Charleston. And after the night of the fire, when we’d all almost died, he’d said that Melanie and her sister, Jayne, were the only authentic psychics he’d ever met, and he continued his crusade to out frauds on his weekly podcast. From what Jolene had told me, his motives seemed to revolve around exposing those who charged exorbitant fees for their services, which, to be fair, seemed valid. Yet I couldn’t understand his dedication to the same subject after so many years.
I hit play and began listening to the intro music—something with an urgent beat produced by trumpets in an homage to New Orleans,and a haunting melody carried by violins. The music faded as Beau introduced his podcast partner, Sam Beck. I sat up straighter when a woman began speaking. When Beau had casually mentioned his partner’s name in past conversations, I had assumed Sam was a guy. It took me a few minutes of listening to realize that “Sam” was short for “Samantha” and she was definitely not a guy. I didn’t have to dwell on my mistake, as I quickly grew interested in their discussion of updates in recent unsolved crimes where psychics had been involved.
Beau and Sam played the “good cop / bad cop” rules of interrogation, whereby Sam offered explainable reasons for missed predictions and Beau came right out and called the psychics frauds. I found myself smiling at their banter until it occurred to me that their on-air interactions hinted at an intimacy not usually found between cohosts. I Googled Sam’s name to find a picture, doing my best to tap my screen with accuracy despite the swaying of the streetcar.
The first link was for her Facebook page, her profile picture showing Sam and Beau in bathing suits on a tropical beach somewhere and telling me all I needed to know. She was the same brunette I’d seen kissing Beau at the club on Frenchmen Street, and while the revelation should have meant absolutely nothing to me, I found myself reading Sam’s profile—from Memphis, communications degree from Loyola, employed at the Ritz in the PR and communications department—and in a relationship. Of course she was. I found myself scrolling down her page, looking at pictures of Sam with a large array of family and friends doing the kinds of things I had once done. She reminded me of my best friends from Charleston, Alston and Lindsey—funny, smart, kind, and fun to be around. Sam was probably someone I could hang out with, maybe become close friends with. The thought of that gave me a sour feeling in my stomach, like the one I got sitting in the dentist’s waiting room.
My attention was brought back to the podcast by a drumroll followed by a spooky musical interlude before Sam’s voice came on again. “And now for our weekly segment ‘Name That Psychic Ability: Truth or Fiction.’ Last week Beau and I had a lively discussion, and a record number of listener calls weighing in, on levitation. I gave it ten littleghosties, because I think it’s a legitimate psychic phenomenon, but Beau gave it zero because he thinks it’s all a load of—” The word was beeped out by a loud cymbal clash followed by the sound of a dog bark.
Sam continued. “So, now it’s time to spin the wheel and choose a listener-provided topic for this week.” I heard the sound of a large wheel being spun—like inWheel of Fortune—clicking fast at first before slowing to a stop. “And... it looks like we’ve got psychometry on the table today, submitted by David Bishop from Texas. Good one, David. Let’s have Beau read the definition so we all know what we’re talking about.”
“Or we could just skip it because this sounds pretty bogus. Psychometry is the ability to gain insight or information about someone by touching an object associated with that person. I’m going to go ahead and give this zero ghosties.”
“Feel free to ignore him, listeners—I know I’m going to. Please call, e-mail, or text your thoughts and experiences for us to discuss in the next half of the show while we hear a word from today’s sponsor.” She began rattling off the phone number but was suddenly cut off as my phone shut down, the battery drained. I tossed my phone and earbuds into my backpack and listened to the women across from me continuing their conversation about trolleys and the heat, until we stopped at the intersection of St. Charles and Broadway and I got out.
There were vehicles parked along the curb on both sides of Broadway, and groups of young people walked around with go-cups. Living on the section of Broadway that was called “fraternity row” because of all of the Greek houses was pretty manageable except on the weekends, when there were endless rounds of parties. Jolene had gifted me with a set of pink earplugs and a matching silk sleeping mask since my bedroom faced Broadway. Despite telling myself I would never use either, they now held an important spot on my bedside table.
The Phi Chis across the street were holding their annual luau, and a truckload of sand had been dumped onto their front yard and driveway to go along with the theme. Palm trees were draped with paper-flower leis, and tiki torches lit the way to the backyard and pool. Jolene and I had been invited via a flyer slid through the mail slot, but despitethe dubious lure of piña coladas in real coconuts and of a hula competition, we had agreed we’d have more fun at home eating popcorn and bingeing on true-crime television.
As I jogged up the stairs I was already thinking about what we should watch, not paying attention until I’d reached the top and opened the door and it was too late to retreat and hide. Beau stood next to Jolene at the dining table, an open laptop in front of them, a plate of homemade pralines next to the laptop.
It took me a moment to school my face into a neutral expression, no longer sure how I was supposed to act in front of Beau-with-a-girlfriend. The longer I considered how utterly ridiculous I was being, the more awkward I felt.
“Hey,” I said, casually tossing my backpack in the direction of the sofa as I walked past, hearing it miss and smack the coffee table. “Were we expecting you?” A bolt of fear flashed through me. “You’re not here for another driving lesson, are you? Because there are a lot of pedestrians out now, and it’s getting dark....”
“No, not that.”
When Beau didn’t smile, I said, “Is this about Thibaut’s hammer? Because I really don’t know...”
“No. I brought something for you in my truck—the Maison Blanche door. Mimi asked me to remove it in any way I saw fit, so I thought I’d bring it here since you have plenty of room. I figured I could find a frat boy looking for some easy cash to help haul it upstairs.”
“Okay, but—”
“Mimi is very particular about her storage room at the shop. She has her own way of organizing things and doesn’t want anything disturbed. Christopher knew better, so I have no idea what he was thinking, but Mimi wasn’t happy when she found it in there.”
“I feel terrible. I didn’t mean for this to be such a problem. It just made sense because the shop is close by and I’d seen the storage room at the back and Christopher said he was going to remove it to remote storage right away—”
Beau cut me off again. “No harm done. We’ll store it here, soproblem solved.” He turned to the laptop, ending the conversation. “Jolene was just showing me the pictures Jaxson took at your house.”
“Did you look at them yet?” Jolene bit her lower lip while her fingers worried the pearls at her neck.
I felt suddenly nervous. It’s not that I didn’t have strong suspicions that I wasn’t ever really alone in the house. There are just some things that are easier to ignore if you don’t have any proof that they exist.
I shook my head. “They were taking too long to load, so I figured I’d look when I got home. Is that what you’re looking at?” I indicated the laptop with my chin.
Jolene nodded. “I think your house has a lot of memories.” She leaned forward and tapped a few keys before sliding the laptop so it faced me. “I’ve separated three of the photos that I think you’ll find interesting.”
I leaned in, studying the photos on the screen. The first was taken from the stairs, pointing upward from the bottom step, the sealed door at the top barely visible because of two large orbs of light seeming to hover like puffs of breath in the middle of the stairwell. I pulled back. “That could just be dust on the lens, though. Or a bug. Right?”
“It could be. Except that the pictures taken right before and after are clear—it’s just this one.” Jolene got closer, using her fingers on the touchpad to enlarge the picture. “There’s definitely some sort of shape inside each one, although the one on the right just looks like some kind of a cloud. But this one...” She moved the cursor to the orb on the left side and made the image even bigger. “In this one you can almost make out a face, right?” With a pink-tipped fingernail she pointed to the screen. “Like, here you can make out two eyes, and you can see a little bit of a nose shape, and then darker lips. Definitely a face, I think.”
I wanted to disagree, to say that it was only a dust mote that happened to look like a human face, just to play devil’s advocate, like most people do when confronted with anything that doesn’t fit into their scope of understanding. Except that my scope of understanding during the last dozen years of my life had widened so much that things like orbs and bumps in the night were now as ordinary as electricity and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“And these make me feel like a raw gizzard is being dropped down my back every time I look at them.” Jolene hit an arrow on the screen to show two photos of the front of the house. She expanded the photo on the left to expose the distinct outline of a woman with dark hollows where her eyes should have been, staring back at the photographer. “See what I mean?” she said, giving a shudder as if a gizzard—whatever that was—was slowly slithering down her back. Jolene slid a finger over the touchpad and slid the cursor to the second photo. “This one’s almost as creepy.”
I pulled the laptop closer. This photo was also taken in front of the house, but of the porch, and focused on the same spot where I’d seen the man standing the previous night. In the photo, a distinct curl of smoke wafted ribbonlike toward the porch ceiling, in the same pattern made from a burning pipe. But no man—or pipe—was visible.
