Page 10 of The House on Prytania
“Good,” I said, my stomach grumbling as I watched a plate full of something yummy being carried past us, the trailing scent of bacon and melted butter making my mouth water. I looked down at my menu. “What do you recommend?”
She grinned. “How hungry are you?”
“Very.”
“Great, then. You like corn bread waffles, pulled pork, chimichurri sauce, and pickled peppers?”
I nodded enthusiastically. “You had me at ‘corn bread.’ ”
“I’ve got you covered.” Sam signaled for the server and placed an order for Waffle Cochon and a Creole Slammer. “Those are my two favorite things on the menu, so we can split and share—that’s what Beau and I usually do. I hope you don’t mind me ordering for you, but everything’s good and I know you don’t have a lot of time, and I really wanted to talk with you about something important.”
“No worries.” I took a sip of coffee, hoping it would reach my brain before I needed to answer any questions about Beau.
“It’s about Adele.”
“Adele?”
“Yes. Beau’s mother?”
“I know who she is,” I said. “I’m just... surprised. I don’t know a lot about her, except that she’s presumed dead.”
Sam cleared her throat. “Yeah, well. That’s the thing.” Sam put down her cup and focused her gaze on it as if searching for words among the coffee grounds. “I think Beau talks to her.” She paused, waiting for me to bolt. When I didn’t, she said, “Every night. At least, every night when he stays over at my apartment, which is a lot. I have an antique phone—you know, one of those old wooden box phones with the crank and handheld earpiece? My great-aunt left it to me, and I kept it because at the time I thought it was pretty cool. It’s not even plugged into anything—just a few nails to hook it onto the wall.”
Sam stopped talking to allow our server to refill our cups. Once he was out of earshot, she said, “But it rings. Never when I’m there alone, but every night when he’s there. We’ll be in bed asleep and it rings. The first time it happened I got up, but Beau told me to go back to sleep, that it was just an odd malfunction, and we let it ring a few more times until it stopped. But then...”
I raised my eyebrows and didn’t say anything, to show that she still had my full attention. Or at least most of it, because part of my mind was squirming at the thought of the two of them in bed together.
Sam continued. “I’m assuming that since you were with Beau when he cleared the spirits from your house, you’re aware that hehas... abilities that he’s still reluctant to explore. Working with you was sort of a turning point for him, but he’s not there yet. We’re still doing the debunking-psychics podcast—which is still valid, I think—but I feel he’s also more open to exploring legitimate ways to help trapped spirits move on.”
“He admitted that to you?”
“Not in so many words. But you know how when you’re in an intimate relationship with someone you can understand things about them without them saying them?”
I nodded, even though I had no clue what she meant. My mind was too busy trying to dart around the word “intimate” in relation to her and Beau to try to figure it out.
“Anyway, the next time the phone rang, I pretended to be in a deep sleep when he got out of bed to answer it. It hangs on the wall outside the bedroom, and even though he closed the door, I could hear him through the cheap particleboard walls. I’m sure you know all about the shoddy construction found in modern buildings.” We rolled our eyes together, and I felt as if we had just bonded.
The server came with our food, and as much as I was dying to hear the rest of Sam’s story, I had to interrupt her long enough to divide each plate of food in perfect halves using the ruler Melanie had engraved with my name and given me. I was unsure if the look on Sam’s face was one of surprise or appreciation, but I was too hungry to care.
We each devoured the first few forkfuls of food on our plates, then grinned at each other like kindred spirits. “Nothing like a healthy appetite, right?” she said. “Are you a runner, too?”
I nodded, my mouth already full with my next bite. After swallowing it down with water, I said, “I’ve been a runner since I joined the track-and-field team in high school. But now I have to run because Jolene loves to bake, and she’s really good at it.”
Her lips turned up in a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I know. Beau’s brought some of her creations home. Let’s just say they’re worth running that extra mile. Or two.”
“True.” I leaned forward. “So, you were saying about the phone ringing in your apartment...”
“Right.” She swallowed another bite before continuing. “So, while I faked being asleep, I could hear Beau picking up the earpiece. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t sleepwalking, since I’ve never seen him do it before, but he was definitely having a two-way conversation.” She paused. “With Adele.”
“His mother.”
Sam nodded.
“Who has probably been dead for over twenty years. On a phone that probably hasn’t actually worked for at least a century.”
“Right.” She tilted her head, studying me. “Why aren’t you acting very surprised?”
“Because it happened before—the night he was sick and slept on my couch. I heard him on the unplugged landline phone then, and I was pretty sure he was talking to his mother.”
