Page 26 of So Not My Thing
Chapter Eight
“Ilove the vibe.”
I turned to smile at Miles, who had stopped several feet behind me in the middle of the sidewalk. “Of the sky? The concrete?” I teased.
“All of the Bywater. This is it. My place is here. I know it.”
“It’s pretty great,” I agreed. We were standing on Dauphine, the “busiest” street in Bywater, “busy” being relative. Like most of the streets in the neighborhood, it was mostly lined with houses and a café or corner grocery tucked in here and there.
“I can’t believe how much it’s changed since I lived here. Well, since I lived in Metairie. Back then, it was rougher.”
“Things change.”People too, I wanted to add.I did. Maybe you did.
“You said you grew up here?”
I walked back to join him. “Yes and no. I grew up in Kenner, but my family has owned property here since before I was born.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “So you’ve known this whole time how cool the Bywater is and didn’t show it to me?”
I shrugged. “Not everyone gets it. And not everybody deserves it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t take every client to look at Bywater properties. Pretty much everyone in the Bywater is protective of it. We don’t like corporate clients coming in. Homegrown or get out.”
“You’re saying I’m lucky you agreed to show it to me? I passed some kind of test?”
“Not yet. You’re still taking it.”
“Tell me how to get an A.”
“You already have it, or you don’t. I’ll know soon enough.” I slid my hands into the pockets of my yellow poplin shirtdress and ambled down the street, not waiting to see if he’d keep up. I knew he would.
He jogged to catch up. “This is more stressful than myStarstruckaudition.”
I’d learned how to keep my thoughts off my face, so I offered him a bland smile. “I’m a much tougher judge too.”
He groaned. “I’m going to fail.”
I glanced over at him. “We’re going to walk, and you tell me what you think about the vibe of each block.”
“Boomers and zoomers,” he said on the next block. On one corner, a large condo complex was going up, scaffolding around the outside. Directly across the street, an old burned out brick house stood, doors boarded up, the roof falling in.
“Harsh,” I said. “And I don’t agree, but I see it.”
“I can’t believe it’s still like this all over the city,” he said. “I mean, less in the French Quarter, but still pretty much everywhere else.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. Some news show ran a story last month about how New Orleans has recovered from Katrina, and Chloe and I both threw pillows at the TV.” It had been an outsider’s perspective. Yes, new development was going up, but these weren’t locals. So many long-term residents, especially Black ones, had been displaced after the hurricane to Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and beyond. Government relief funds earmarked to help people rebuild disappeared in bureaucratic inefficiency, and it was too hard to come back and start from scratch.
We kept walking, and I nodded at a house painted in eye-popping shades of purple and green. “I have to warn you that one of the most irritating things about the Bywater is the Airbnbs. They’re everywhere. That’s one. A lot of the people who could rebuild after Katrina went that route. And I get it. So many people depend on that income. And on the upside, they maintain the properties really well. But it also means you get less community here. Every block has a party house or two with guests who don’t care about the noise they’re making and leave in two days.”
“That sucks, but...”
