Page 17 of The Lady on Esplanade
I should have stopped there.I wasn’t his girlfriend.In fact, I wasn’t even sure we had a relationship—at least not one that could easily be defined by the word “friend.”Shared experiences should have qualified us as friends, but since most of those hadn’t been the positive kind, I hesitated to call him one.But because of a lifetime spent not knowing when to be silent, I continued.“As soon as this rain ends, I think we should take a trip to Jackson Square for a visit to Madame Zoe.She knew your dad.She told me she could help.And I’m here and willing.”
Beau’s silence extended to an uncomfortable length of time, but I resisted the urge to shift in my chair.I cleared my throat.“Maybe you want to discuss this with Sam first?”For some reason, her name stuck in the back of my mouth.
A loud bang sounded from the roof, but Beau didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard anything.Narrowing his eyes again, he said, “If my dad’s still alive, then he knows where to find me.I’m completely capable of living my life without interference from Madame Zoe or anyone else.”
I opened my mouth to remind him again of how his mother’s interference had saved his life, but just then my phone rang.Except it wasn’t my usual ringtone, and my phone wasn’t the only one ringing.
The four of us exchanged glances as our phones vibrated in our hands, the song “Hello” ringing out of all of them in unison.Jaxson looked from Beau to me, and then at his own phone.“It saysUnknown.Should I answer it?”
Beau shook his head.“No.”
“Is that…?”I began.
“It’s Adele.”Beau hit the End button on his screen, silencing everyone’s phone.“I have to go,” he said.
He had reached the doorway when stupidity or stubbornness mademe call out to him, “Let me know when you’re ready to go see Madame Zoe.You owe me one—remember?Asking me to rekindle a relationship with the guy who’d betrayed me was a much bigger ask than my suggestion that you talk to your mother.”
Beau turned around, his face unreadable.“It’s not that easy, Nola.”
“Nothing ever is.”
He gave me a long, lingering look before exiting the room.Jolene, Jaxson, and I sat in silence until the front door slammed, and the doll Beau had left on the table collapsed backward, her pale blue eyes staring up at the ceiling.
CHAPTER 6
It finally stopped raining three days later.The bright fingers of golden sun peeking between my drapery panels prodded me awake, along with Mardi’s happy yipping.He hated the rain almost as much as I did, having come to us with an aversion to precipitation that no amount of culinary persuasion or doggie rainwear could assuage.If he could hear raindrops splattering against the pavement or grass, he’d refuse to go out at all.Jolene and I had concluded that either he had the largest bladder on the planet or he’d managed to find a hidden spot indoors that we wouldn’t find until we could smell it.
Cooper had flown to London the day after our lunch at Café Degas, so I hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about the woman Beau had seen or about the scratch on his chin.I had dialed Alston several times to ask her, but I had ended the calls before the first ring.If there was something Cooper wasn’t telling me, I needed to hear about it from him and not from his sister or in a text.I told myself I was being considerate and not cowardly, although I knew my habit of ignoring unpleasant things in the hope that they’d go away on their own waspartially responsible and had nothing to do with good manners or courage.
I threw my legs over the side of my bed and smelled the aroma of fresh coffee drifting under my door as my feet searched for my slippers.My phone rang as I tripped over a fluffy dog eager to get outside into the sunshine, then stumbled out into the dining room.I sat down at the table, in front of a steaming mug of coffee and a waiting plate with a homemade biscuit already slathered with butter and strawberry preserves.
I looked down at my phone to see who was calling so early.My family and friends knew not to call before they could be sure that I’d already had at least my first cup of coffee.Assuming it was a sales call, I was preparing to end it when I saw Beau’s name and number.He’d been ignoring all my calls and texts since I’d last seen him at my house.All my questions and concerns about the water—a combination of a broken water pipe and a faulty roof repair—had been redirected to Thibaut, which I took to mean that Beau didn’t want to give me the chance to broach the subject of his parents again.My indignation over his cowardliness at least partially masked my own.
I took a fortifying sip of my coffee, then answered.“If you’re calling about your doll, I’ve got her—although I should say Jolene has.I will warn you that Jolene has hand laundered and pressed Pussycat’s ensemble and has made the doll a new outfit more appropriate for the season.And if you don’t come and pick it up soon, Jolene might make me a matching outfit, and I don’t think I have it in me to say no when she asks me to wear it.”
There was a long pause before Beau said anything.“That’s nice.”I could hear a smile in his voice, and I wondered if he might be picturing me in a pink sunbonnet and a white lace pinafore.Without preamble, he said, “What are you doing tonight?”
“Excuse me?”
As if I were hard of hearing, he repeated the question, slightly more loudly.
“Why?”I drew out the word.
“Mimi’s having special guests at dinner tonight and she would like for you to join us.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling oddly deflated.Not that I’d expected him to call and apologize or tell me that I was right about his mom.Unless he’d been hit on the head by a falling meteorite and no one had told me.“That depends.Who’re the special guests?”
“Camille LeBlanc.And her husband, Henry.”
I frowned at my phone.“Is that someone I should know?I’m not the best with remembering names, but I think I’d remember hers, because I’m guessing she’s named after Hurricane Camille, right?”
“I doubt you’ve ever met, and I’m not sure about the hurricane thing.You can ask her about it when you meet her.”
“Well, aren’t you the confident one?I didn’t say I was going.So, who is this Camille LeBlanc?”
There was a long silence before he replied.“My mother’s best friend.They grew up next to each other in Hoover, Alabama, and were college roommates at Auburn.Camille was my mom’s maid of honor at her wedding.Camille and Henry moved to New Orleans about a year before Katrina.She’s my godmother.”
I took a sip of my coffee to give me time to process what he’d said.“Okay, so it’s kind of weird that I haven’t heard their names before if they live here and there’s a close family connection.”
