Page 21 of The Shop on Royal Street
Jolene was examining the mangled fireplace surround, rubbing her hand over the raw wood, which seemed to have been ripped out instead of being carefully removed from the wall. “What do you think happened here?” she asked.
Beau and I didn’t move, both aware our conversation wasn’t finished. Feeling an imaginary finger prod from Melanie, I said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He grinned that grin again, making me turn away and move toward the fireplace.
Beau followed. “We only lost a part of that one fireplace surround to thieves. Luckily, they didn’t take the cypress floors. That happens a lot to empty houses. Old cypress is worth a lot these days because people want authentic old floors in their new houses.”
“Why wasn’t more taken?” Jolene asked. “The house has been empty for so long, I’d think it would have been a prime target.”
Beau looked past Jolene at me, pausing a beat before answering. “I’m not sure. Maybe they heard a police siren, or people walking by outside, and got scared off.”
“Probably,” Jolene said. “I wonder why they didn’t take that Maison Blanche door from upstairs. That might actually be worth something.”
“It’s solid wood, so it probably weighs a ton, which might have saved it,” Beau said. “I have no idea how it got here or why, but I could get some guys to haul it out of here.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Jolene interrupted. “Don’t be so hasty. I could think of a dozen ways to incorporate the door into the reno.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. “Speaking of which, I need to get back to work. First order of business is calling a dumpster rental company so I can get started clearing out the mess.”
“I’ll be happy to—” Beau began.
“Stop,” I said, not allowing him to finish. “I can do that myself. If you’d like to recommend a company you’ve used before, just text me the name and number. And a portable potty company. I’m not completely helpless.”
“Oh, I know,” Beau said. “It’s not something I could ever forget.”
Before either one of us could bring up the past, the floorboards upstairs creaked. The three of us looked up. “It’s an old house,” Beau said. As if the noise upstairs hadn’t sounded exactly like footsteps across the floor. His eyes met mine, and I wasn’t imagining the challenge I saw there.
“That it is,” I agreed.
Despite Jolene’s insistence that she could stay and help, I convinced them both that because it was my first day as the homeowner I wanted to be left alone to get the lay of the land. And to figure out just how big this project was going to be. I hoped I had enough storage on my laptop for all the lists and spreadsheets I would need to make.
I walked them out onto the porch, where Jolene said good-bye and said she was making a coffee run before heading back to the office. I turned to Beau. “Thanks for the house numbers. That was really thoughtful.”
“You’re welcome—I’ll let Mimi know they were safely delivered and appreciated.”
I started to go back inside, but, as my father said, it wasn’t in my nature to let a subject drop until I had flattened it, then beaten it mercilessly until there was no life left. “Not to sound ungrateful, but if you’d just told me that you didn’t want to sell the house to me because of Mimi’s connection to it, we could have settled this much earlier.”
Beau paused on the front step, holding a pair of sunglasses. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know. She’s been after me for a long time to have it condemned, saying nobody in their right mind would buy it, despite the interest we actually did get from prospective buyers. Now I think I understand her insistence, knowing her history with it.”
“Until I came along.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Until you came along.”
He stepped off the porch and headed to a motorcycle he’d parked at the curb. I recognized it as the Harley Shovelhead that had been made the year his mother was born, 1977, and restored by his father. He’d had it when he’d lived in Charleston, and I knew it had survived Katrina because it had been stored at his grandparents’ house in the Alabama mountains.
After putting on his shades, he kicked up the stand and sat astride the seat. “Don’t even think that I’ll ever ride that thing,” I called out.
“Don’t worry—I wouldn’t think about asking you.”
He grinned and started the engine, then pulled out onto the street with a sharp wave.
I stood on the steps, listening to the fading hum of the motor, remembering something else about the bike. Something Melanie had said about seeing a woman’s set of wet footprints wherever Beau was, including once next to his Harley.
She disappeared during Katrina.I recalled Christopher telling Jolene and me that the night we’d had dinner with Mimi. Both of Beau’s parents had been looking for his little sister, who’d disappeared the week before. There was a whole untold story there, waiting to be unearthed.
I turned around and walked back inside, shaking my head. I had enough to keep me occupied for a long while. No need to dig up thepast and disturb old bones. Shutting the door behind me, I looked up at the ceiling as the telltale sound of footsteps crossed the room upstairs.
I went to the kitchen and grabbed my backpack and worksheets and headed out to the back garden to organize my thoughts without the distraction of creaking floorboards. No, there was no need to dig up a sleeping past. But sometimes, as I’d learned, the past had a way of unearthing itself.
