Page 75 of The Shop on Royal Street
I began hobbling toward the truck, and Beau quickly took hold of my elbow. “Are you sure? Like I said, they didn’t get into the house, and it’s not clear if anything was taken. This can definitely wait until tomorrow.”
“Pfft,”I said. “It’s been such a wonderful evening that I’m not ready for it to end. You and Michael are like bookends, you know? And I’m the lucky girl in the middle.” Beau opened the passenger-side door and helped me inside, but before he could close it I reached up and pressed my index finger to his lips. “I wonder which one of you is the better kisser.”
He pulled back, but the expression on his face told me it had nothing to do with what I’d just said. “Have you been drinking, Nola? You reek.”
I pulled at my dress to highlight the large stain. “No, but my dress has. Jolene’s going to kill me.” The lie came so easily, I didn’t even need to think about it. “She made me some tea to calm my nerves before the date, and I wonder if she might have added some of Jorge’s mom’s secret ingredient because it worked so well for you. Although I hope I won’t be baring my chest and throwing myself at you, since that seems to be a side effect.” I let out what could be described only as a guffaw before pressing my hand over my mouth.
After a brief pause, he closed the door and then climbed in behind the wheel. I curled up on my seat and leaned my head against the window, intent on watching the city flash by as Beau drove. But the blur of lights made me nauseous, so I closed my eyes, and the rumble of the engine lulled me into a deep sleep.
“Nola? Are you awake? We’re here.”
I jerked out of a dreamless sleep to find Beau shaking my shoulder from the driver’s seat. I looked out my side window to find Bob standing in his front yard with Belle as she strained on her leash to go back inside. Belle was reluctant to go potty outside if it was dark. Or wet, or cold, or hot, or anytime other than the two days a year in New Orleans when the weather was balmy with no humidity.
I opened my door and nearly fell out, barely catching myself. I definitely felt more clearheaded after my nap, but not completely stable. I blamed it on my ankle. I waved to Bob, who dared lift a hand from the leash for a second to wave back.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “Sorry to bother you, but we saw someone at your house, and it definitely wasn’t your grandfather. We thought you’d want to know.”
“Thank you,” I shouted back. “And I appreciate you keeping an eye out on my house. Doesn’t look like a break-in, though.”
“Good. By the way, Nola, your grandfather still comes out every night to smoke his pipe on the porch, and I hate to say it, but we can smell it over here. And your workers keep leaving that upstairs hall light on. Please ask them to stop or we’re going to have to buy blackout shades.”
“Will do!” I said, giving him a thumbs-up that he probably couldn’t see. “Good luck with Belle,” I said, limping toward Beau.
“Your grandfather?” Beau asked. “Smoking a pipe?”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
I made to move forward, but he held on to my elbow, stopping me. “But you’ve smelled it, haven’t you? The pipe tobacco.”
The ambient light from the night sky and the streetlamps illuminated his face and made his eyes glow like those of a cat. “Yep. Pretty muchevery time I come here. I think I saw him once. When I drove by after that night I saw you on Frenchmen Street. I thought I was imagining it, because when I looked back,poof! He was gone.” I swallowed back a hiccup. “Michael said that he’s not sure if he believes in ghosts but that he’s afraid of them anyway. I think I’m the opposite—I definitely believe in ghosts, but I’m not sure if I’m afraid of them. Not all of them, anyway. Some of them are nice. But not all of them.” I leaned closer to whisper, although I wasn’t sure who I was afraid might hear. “Like that awful ghost who tried to burn us alive in the attic—remember?”
I leaned far enough that I fell into him. “Kind of a hard thing to forget,” Beau said. “Nola, are you—”
I spoke before he could finish the question, knowing neither of us wanted to hear the answer. “I had a really nice time tonight,” I said instead. My eyes were at mouth level, so I reached up and touched his lower lip with my finger. “You have really nice lips. I like the way they taste, too. They’re like fire, but with a gentle burn.”
He abruptly set me away from him. “Nola, stop. What are you doing?”
I met his gaze, feeling all of a sudden unbearably sad. I shrugged. “Wishing you were someone else, I think.” I took a step back, then proceeded to climb the steps to the porch. My ankle gave way, but Beau caught me. With something muttered under his breath, he swung me up in his arms and brought me to the top of the steps. He set me down for a moment while he fumbled for the key, then swung me up again to bring me inside before dumping me unceremoniously on the bottom step of the stairwell.
The generator had been removed when Thibaut and Jorge closed up for the day, meaning we had only Beau’s iPhone flashlight to see by. I reached for my phone in my purse, realizing that I had neither.
I sat on the bottom step but turned myself sideways so my back wouldn’t be to the upstairs hallway and the black maw of the doorless closet. Rubbing my ankle, I watched as the beam of Beau’s flashlight bounced off the doors and walls like ghostly orbs as he checked the locks on the front windows. I imagined that Ernest and Bob werehaving a field day looking at the light show from across the street and wondering if they should call the police.
“I need to go look outside,” Beau said. “Are you okay here?”
Not wanting to be alone, I jumped up, wincing at the pain. “Nope. I’ll come with you.”
He watched me hobble for a few steps before coming over and scooping me up again. “There’s something about you, Nola Trenholm, that drives me crazy while at the same time makes it impossible to stay away from you. And I’m only saying this now because I don’t think you’re going to remember any of this in the morning.”
“Why do you say that?” I said, pushing my index finger on his nose.
“You tell me.” With more force than I thought necessary he plopped me down on the step heading to the backyard and shone the beam of his light on the rows of crown molding, bead board, mantels, spindles, and doors. “Can you see if anything’s missing?”
I shook my head, then stopped, my vision spinning for a moment. “It’s too hard to tell. But someone really messed stuff up. Like they were looking for something in particular. Isn’t that funny? Everyone is so ready to tear down old buildings, but when they need that handcrafted banister or carved mantel, they scavenge through old houses like grave robbers digging up bones.”
“What do you think they were looking for?” Beau carefully stepped through the debris of the amputated limbs of my house and stopped in front of me.
I shrugged. “I bet if anyone knew I had a Maison Blanche door, they’d be all over it. Michael wants it. Too bad I’m not selling. I could probably do a lot with the money.” I pulled myself up and moved into the kitchen.
