Page 50 of The House on Prytania
“You seem to have found your tribe,” he said, placing his napkin on his lap.
“I have. Mimi Ryan has practically adopted me, and Jolene is like a force of nature and the kind of friend it normally takes a lifetime to find. It feels good to be here.”
“Well, you look good. Great, actually. I think New Orleans suits you.”
“That’s because it’s not July and I haven’t just finished sanding spindles on a staircase without air-conditioning. Come back then and let me know if you still feel the same.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and my heart sighed. I felt someone looking at me from across the table and turned to see Beauwearing a frown, Sam thankfully absorbed in conversation with Melanie so that she didn’t see.
“Oh, Nola. I’ve missed you. A lot. I still think about you. How we worked so well together to help your dad with clues needed to solve more mysteries than I can remember. We just sort of... clicked, didn’t we?”
I nodded, taking my time sipping from my water glass. “Yeah. We did. It was... hard to see you leave. But I was young and impressionable, so I got over it.”
“Did you?” he asked softly.
I turned to meet his eyes, his smile gone. “Sure.” A corner of my mouth lifted as I remembered my schoolgirl crush on my best friend’s older brother. After Cooper moved away, I’d told everyone—including myself—that I was over him. That it had been just a crush.
“That’s a shame.” He kept his gaze on me. “I was given a choice of locations for my new job, and I picked New Orleans mostly because I knew you were here. Because I never really got over you.”
He turned to accept the bread basket from Jolene, who then asked him about “his people,” whom, being from the South, Cooper knew to mean his family. That began a conversation about siblings and parents and SEC football rivalries. Jolene had season tickets for LSU, and she headed to Baton Rouge almost every Saturday when there was a home game and had the television on broadcasting the game in every room when there wasn’t. LSU-themed muffins, cookies, and doughnuts began appearing, and I’d learned every word to the LSU fight song because I’d heard it so often. She and her mother had settled on their tailgate menus way back in January, and they had their purple and gold dresses neatly pressed and waiting in their closets before the very first kickoff of the season.
“That’s right,” Jolene was saying. “Every Saturday. Sundays are for Jesus, but Saturdays are the real holy day.”
“Amen,” Jack said, making everyone laugh. Although a staunch USC Gamecocks fan, he understood that any SEC team loyalty was a sacred thing and should be respected. And, as he had to remindMelanie every time he bought a newGO COCKSpillow or any other type of team home décor, allowed.
I slathered butter on my corn bread, still thinking about what Cooper had said, and was unable to stop smiling until I caught Melanie looking into the parlor behind me, her gaze moving as if she was watching someone walk across the room. I looked away and asked JJ about his chances of winning the upcoming cooking competition. His answer was interspersed with snippets of Mimi’s conversation with Melanie about a fund-raiser she would be hosting for the cathedral at the end of the month.
The hubbub of conversation was punctuated with the occasional loud voice or laughter, reminding me of home, and I found myself nostalgic for my life in Charleston, and missing my family before they were even gone. My gaze drifted up to the ceiling, and I caught myself smiling at its absurdity and the pure New Orleansness of it, wondering how something could be so garish and stunningly beautiful at the same time.
I realized then that I was where I was meant to be right now, in a place that wasn’t perfect, showed its imperfections with pride, and was deeply loved and admired despite the cratered streets and broken windows. This city was now my twin, my home. And it was my calling now to make us both strong and resilient, and not too proud to show our spots of flaking paint, because they showed where we’d been. If only the restless spirits currently living in my Creole cottage would agree and leave me alone to accomplish my mission.
After dinner, we returned to the parlor to enjoy coffee and plates of homemade pralines and macaroons. I skipped the coffee, not worried about hurting Mimi’s feelings since she was preoccupied fielding JJ’s questions about how she’d made the pralines. When Christopher brought the desserts around, I filled my plate just to make sure I got some, since JJ had grown a hollow leg, according to Jolene. My brother ate more food at one sitting than I could manage in a week, and yet he remained skinny as a reed.
Melanie reached for my plate. “Oh, Nola doesn’t eat refined—”
I grabbed my plate with both hands. “Don’t touch. Living with the Pillsbury Doughboy’s minion has crossed me over to the dark side.”
“I heard that,” Jolene said while holding her own plate containing a single praline. “Just let me know if you’d like me to stop.”
“Well, if she does,” Jaxson announced, “I’ll happily sacrifice myself to be the beneficiary of Jolene’s talents in the kitchen.”
He squeezed her shoulder as if she were a small child or family relation. Watching Jolene’s smile slip, I turned to Jaxson. “You should join us tomorrow morning at the apartment. Jolene’s been baking and freezing all week, so I’m sure there will be enough food for an army. And since you helped with the decorations it’s only fair. I’m sure my dad won’t mind signing your collection of Jack Trenholm books. Right, Dad?”
“Absolutely,” my dad said, sending a thumbs-up. “Just don’t tell me that you’re my biggest fan, or I’ll get a restraining order. I usually only do that to anyone who shows interest in dating my daughters, but I sometimes have to make an exception for unruly fans.”
Sarah’s face flamed.“Daaaad!”
I joined in the laughter, even though I was equally as mortified as my sister. Especially because I wasn’t completely convinced that Jack was joking.
Sarah sat in the seat beside me, either because she wanted my company or because it was the farthest seat away from Beau and Melanie and she wanted to dim their combined beacon. Beau frequently plucked at the band on his wrist, while Melanie’s foot tapped to the beat of a song in her head that was undoubtedly of Swedish origin.
Sarah stared down at her untouched plate, her fingers silently pulling at her own rubber band. As if sensing me looking, she said, “There’s a man standing behind Beau. He’s holding a pipe.”
“Is he the man in the portrait in the hall?”
She gave a quick glance into the foyer before turning back to her plate and nodding.
“That’s Beau and Sunny’s grandfather Charles.”
