Page 67 of The Shop on Royal Street
I should probably have been insulted, but having lived with dogs since I was fourteen, I knew better than to assume anything when it came to dog behavior. He was staying with Beau for a reason, perhaps to make sure he didn’t get up and wander. Or maybe to protect him from things only he and Beau could see.
After a gentle scratch behind the dog’s ears, I retreated to my room. I left the door open a crack so I could hear if Beau stirred, then lay awake for another hour as I snapped the rubber band against my wrist in a vain attempt to forget the feel of Beau’s lips on mine as I recalled the photograph of Jeanne Broussard and imagined I could hear the phone ringing and a disembodied voice calling my name.
CHAPTER 21
The following morning, after hitting my snooze button three times, I dragged myself out of bed, tangling myself in the sheets and toppling on top of the empty dog bed. Stumbling across the room, I threw open the door and entered an alternate universe. The dog, wearing a blue and white paisley kerchief, had his head stuck in the food bowl Jolene and I had purchased the night before, except someone had used a white paint pen to write the wordMardion it. Judging from the curlicues and heart over the I, I assumed it hadn’t been Beau.
The dog didn’t even look up from his food—showing me where his priorities lay—but I barely had time to notice since I was busy looking at a freshly showered and perky Beau sitting at the table with a steaming cup of coffee and a plateful of homemade biscuits in front of him. Matching jam and honey jars in Jolene’s china pattern with the handles of delicate silver spoons protruding from the tops sat next to his plate.
He stood when I appeared, but Jolene was faster. She bolted from her seat with my cup of coffee before anyone could say, “Good morning,” and dragged me into her bedroom before quickly shutting the door behind us.
“Honestly, Nola. Are you trying to scare him away? You look like death on a cracker.”
She handed me my mug and I gratefully blew on it before taking the first sip. I looked up at her over the rim, needing the smell of the caffeine to carry me through until the next sip. “I thought he’d still be flat out on the couch. Why is he up? And why does the dog’s bowl have a name on it?” There were other questions I should probably have been asking, but my brain settled on the first two.
Jolene grabbed a pink ribbon from her dressing table and began wrapping it around my head as she spoke. “Beau is up because my chicken soup is a guaranteed cure for any ailment—except for heartbreak. Then it’s just like a soft puppy that will give you comfort if not a cure. And your dog needed a name, so I picked Mardi—like in Mardi Gras. Isn’t that adorable?”
I just blinked at her as she stepped back to admire her handiwork, then reached up to make an adjustment. I took a larger sip from my mug. “I don’t have a dog, remember? We’re supposed to be putting up flyers today, and taking him to the vet to see if he’s chipped.”
She disappeared into her closet, her voice muffled as she slid hangers on the metal rod. “I’ve already printed the flyers and I’ll give you a stack to bring to Jorge and Thibaut. Between the two of them they can cover the Marigny in less than an hour, starting with the neighborhood hangouts like Horn’s and Who Dat Coffee Cafe. I figured I’d take a picture of Mardi before his grooming so his owners might recognize him.” She reemerged from the closet, holding a pale pink brushed-cotton robe and wearing a triumphant smile. Holding the robe open, she began guiding my empty hand into one of the sleeves, knowing I wasn’t caffeinated enough yet to protest even though I blinked hard several times.
“The dog grooming is my treat,” she said. “An elderly lady who I used to bring meals to always had me take her Yorkie to At Your Bark and Paw and they did the best job. Not that I’ll have Mardi’s nails painted, but besides a general de-matting and cut, his ears and tail could certainly use some shaping.”
“I don’t really think—”
She tightened the tie around my waist, cutting off my words. “There—that gives you some shape. Your rock concert T-shirt was too baggy and didn’t show off your figure.”
“That’s the point,” I mumbled. “It’s for sleeping. And I don’t know why you’re doing this. Beau has a girlfriend, and I’m not interested.”
With a short laugh, she pinched my cheeks before gently leading me over to the pier mirror in the corner. “Now, then. Don’t you look prettier than a basketful of peaches!”
I studied my reflection, focusing on the huge bow she’d tied at the top of my head. “I don’t know about peaches, but I look like a five-year-old.” I lifted my hand to remove the ribbon but she took my arm and led me to the door. “I made biscuits, and I just finished cubing a whole mess of fresh fruit, so I’ll bring the bowl out in a minute if you want to get settled at the table.”
She pried my empty cup from my fingers. “I’ll go get you a refill.”
“Good morning,” Beau said jovially, pulling out a chair at the table. “You must have stayed up late last night. I figured you’d be up way earlier than seven o’clock. Did Mardi keep you awake?”
I listened for any hint of memory of the night before beneath the jovial banter, but couldn’t detect any. For the second time that morning, I was sure I’d stepped into the twilight zone. “No. And his name isn’t Mardi. It’s whatever his family named him before he got lost. I was up last night because I heard you sleepwalking.”
He shook his head. “Must have been Jolene, because I haven’t sleepwalked my entire life.”
I met his eyes to see if he was telling the truth. He simply smiled, then picked up the fruit bowl that Jolene had just put on the table. She placed my full coffee cup in my hands to save me the trouble of reaching for it. Then she sliced open a biscuit and covered half of it with honey and the other half with homemade jam. The honey and jam had been delivered—along with all of the fresh fruit—from a cousin’s cousin, or a neighbor’s cousin, or someone’s long-lost cousin who lived within a twenty-mile radius of her parents in Mississippi. It seemedJolene’s mother knew just about everybody who had any reason to travel to New Orleans and didn’t mind dropping off bags of homegrown and homemade treats for her daughter. The night before I’d overheard her talking to her mother about someone’s ex–in-law’s aunt who made dog clothes, and Jolene had promised to call back with measurements.
“Nice hair bow,” Beau said before taking another bite of his biscuit.
“It wasn’t me, either, last night,” Jolene said as she seated herself next to me and cut a small corner of biscuit to put on her plate. “Must have been Mardi, exploring his new home.”
“This isn’t his new home, Jolene. Unless you want a dog. Because I can’t. Not now.”
“We’ve got so many critters at my mama’s house, if I said I was getting another dog, they’d disown me.”
I sighed heavily, not yet willing to let go of my coffee cup to eat, and allowed my gaze to travel to the living room. The coffee table had been moved back to its place in front of the couch, and the pillow and blanket had disappeared, along with Beau’s phone. Stacked on the floor were the eight hatboxes we’d brought from the recently opened closet.
Seeing my glance, Jolene said, “While you were sleeping, we brought up all the clothes and boxes from my car. We went through the pockets to see if there was anything you might want, but all we found was a receipt for a purchase of paregoric from the pharmacy that used to be in the Maison Blanche building. I thought that would be something for your scrapbook so I put it on your dresser. We put the clothes in the front terrace room for now. I’ve got a friend in the Quarter who owns a vintage clothing shop as an option for what to do with them if you’re not sure.”
I nodded, finally feeling awake enough to put down my mug and stab a sliced strawberry with my fork. While I chewed, I casually looked at the pink phone to see if it looked any different, as if it might show some sign of what had happened the previous night. I could barely look at Beau, recalling all too clearly the feel of his naked chest beneath my fingers, and the spark of light that had threatened tocombust something inside me and burn all of my resolve to ashes. Maybe he hadn’t been sleepwalking at all. Maybe I had simply been dreaming.
“We haven’t gone through the hatboxes yet, so I figured we could do that tonight while watching Investigation Discovery,” Jolene continued. “I thought I could make jambalaya and maybe invite Jaxson over since Carly is out of town on a girls’ trip and he sounded lonely when I called.” She kept her eyes on her plate, as if she knew what kind of look I was giving her.
