Page 59 of The Shop on Royal Street
The coffee mug closest to her depicted the glowing green palace of Oz. The second mug simply had the wordNOLAprinted in bold black letters against a white background and had a black handle. It had been a gift from Jolene and I loved it for both its simplicity and also its double meaning.
She turned to me with a bright smile. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said cheerfully.
I grunted, then shuffled to the table. My cup was still hot. As I took my first sip, I contemplated her through the rising steam. “How did you know I was awake and ready for coffee?”
“I’ve learned to wait until you hit the snooze button the third time. Then I get up to fill your cup and return just in time for you to emerge from your cave.”
I raised my eyebrows, the move using up most of my energy. There was something in her use of the word “cave” that I should probably have been offended by, like an unspoken comparison to a Neanderthal, but it was still too early to form words. I’d never claimed to be a morning person, and waking up before noon had been one of the hardest parts of adulting.
She watched as I took several happy sips from my mug, then helped myself to a muffin; she slid a napkin toward me as a reminder about crumbs. I mumbled my thanks as I demolished the muffin in two bites, then washed it down with more coffee.
“If you keep feeding me like this, I’m going to be as big as a house and it will be all your fault.”
“You know, Nola, I’m just as happy to whip up one of those green shakes you used to drink if you’d prefer.”
I felt a moment of completely irrational panic. Of course I could survive again on veggie shakes with protein flakes. But why would I want to? I was like a person who’d only ever tasted white chocolate suddenly being given a chunk of dark chocolate. With almonds. There was no turning back. “No, thanks. I prefer to be the guinea pig for all of your culinary creations. I wouldn’t want you to feed something to Jaxson that wasn’t up to par.”
“That’s not why I do it, and you know it. Besides, Jaxson is dating someone else, so it’s not like it matters.” She smiled grimly, like the bridesmaid who’d just watched someone else catch the bouquet. She reached down into her monogrammed tote bag, pulled something out, and placed it on the table next to me. “Look what I found. No need to look like your head got stuck in a wind tunnel.”
For the second time that morning, I was at a loss as to how torespond. My hairbrush, the exact same one I’d seen on the shelf in the odd room in Mimi’s house, sat on the table next to me. “Where did you find this?”
“In your backpack. I wasn’t being nosy, but I needed a look at your worksheet showing the interior renovation work schedule and there it was—right on top! I’m sure you looked for it there, but sometimes we all suffer from situational blindness, where our brain tricks us into thinking we’re not seeing what we’re looking for. From my experience, it’s mostly men who suffer from this affliction. And by the way, I don’t think scheduling potty breaks should be included on a spreadsheet. It’s a little much, don’t you think?”
I was only half listening to her, wondering how my brush had gone from the shelf to my backpack. I cleared my throat. “No. It wasn’t in my backpack. I emptied everything and searched every pocket and corner. It definitely wasn’t in there.”
“But maybe—” Jolene began.
I cut her off. “I saw it last night. At Mimi’s house. It was in a locked room upstairs that was filled with shelves stuffed with all sorts of random personal items that looked like they belonged to a bunch of different people. But it was definitely my hairbrush.”
“That’s probably why Mimi gave you the key, so you could find it. I mean, that’s how you got into the locked room, right?”
I managed to meet her eyes. “Mimi didn’t give me the key. Neither did Beau.”
“But you said it was loc—” She stopped, shook her head. “Oh, Nola. What did you do?”
“Nothing—I swear. I was looking for the bathroom and I guess I bumped the wrong door too hard and the key fell from the top of the doorframe. What was I supposed to do?”
She gave me the same look Jack usually gave Melanie when she impulsively jumped from idea to action without pausing in between to think. “At least tell me you didn’t touch anything and that you returned the key.”
“More or less. But I think the main thing here is how my brush made it into—and out of—their creepy little room.”
“Good point, but it’s not like you can ask them, is it? And by ‘their,’ you’re assuming Beau knows about it, too?”
“Well, shouldn’t I? He lives there. I can’t imagine he doesn’t know. And it’s not the only weird thing. Beau and I took a Mr.Bingle doll from that attic room at my house. It could be valuable, so we didn’t want to leave it there, and I brought it in from Beau’s truck for the same reason.” I purposely neglected to mention the lacy bra that I found under the seat and that contributed to my decision. “But I didn’t realize until I got home that I didn’t have the bag. And I explicitly remember placing it on the floor beneath my backpack. It definitely wasn’t there when I left, because I would have seen it.”
“Maybe you left it in Beau’s truck and just don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “Definitely not. I placed it in a Rouses Market shopping bag and brought it inside, then put the bag with my backpack so I wouldn’t forget it when I left. But I did forget, because it wasn’t there.”
“Did you call Beau?” she asked, a small dent between her brows.
“No. He was sick last night and went to bed early, so I just texted him. But IknowI brought the bag in with me. And this whole thing with my hairbrush is just... not right.”
“Wait and see what Beau says. Maybe he took the bag with the doll up to his room when he went to bed early.”
“That’s a possibility, I guess. But my hairbrush... It’s all so strange.”
“Like I said, talk to Beau. There’s a logical explanation somewhere. Sometimes you just got to hang in there like a hair on a biscuit.” She turned back to her laptop. “I was just updating our YouTube page with Jaxson’s latest video. I’ll add some commentary, but I have to say that Thibaut and Jorge are a bit of a comedy team—sort of like the Two Stooges. Jorge does a great job of pretending to nail-gun his sleeves to the wall and Thibaut is an expert faller—like, off of ladders and down the stairs. I’m going to suggest that Jaxson use a tripod, because otherwise the camera shakes too much from his laughing.”
