Page 7 of The Lady on Esplanade
“How did you get that?Shaving incident?”I’d wanted it to sound flippant, to lighten the suddenly serious mood, but when he looked at me again, his stricken expression told me that I shouldn’t have said anything at all.
“Bad traffic accident in LA,” he said, so quietly that I could barely hear it over the sound of the rain hammering the top of the car.
“Were you driving?”I wasn’t sure why I asked.Probably because my aversion to driving was due to an accident I’d caused while behind the wheel.
Yeah.I couldn’t hear the word, but he nodded his head once.
“Was anyone else hurt?”
He pretended he hadn’t heard me, and I was glad.I shouldn’t have asked him, as everything about his body language had told me to back off, but there was a mystery there and, as with my dad, it was against my nature to let a mystery go, no matter how much I knew I should.
Cooper swerved around a pothole on Carrollton before expertly maneuvering back into his lane.“Wow,” he said.“That was huge.Don’t they spend any money on road improvements here?”
“Not that I know of,” I said, realizing that the previous topic had been closed indefinitely.“There’s a great Insta account devoted to the potholes and other hazards on New Orleans streets.I’ll send you a link.It’s always good for a smile while you’re waiting on the side of the road for a tow truck.”
He laughed.It sounded a little forced, but his expression had returned to normal.We spent the rest of the short drive talking about his new job and his sister, Alston, who kept promising to come visit but hadn’t yet.As he turned right on Esplanade I indicated how far down the avenue he needed to go, then pointed out the bright blue shotgun house with the Classical Revival architectural details I’d fallen in love with on my very first visit.There was something special about an old house, its timeworn existence evidenced by its drooping eaves and peeling paint, its fading patina like an elderly woman’s old lipstick.
Cooper put the car in park, then unbuckled his seat belt before turning to face the avenue.His gaze took in the street, including its wonky intersection with Bayou Road and the eclectic display of styles and color palettes of the houses that lined the avenue.“I like this,” he said.“I like this a lot.It reminds me of Charleston.Old trees, incredible architecture…”
“Eyebrow-singeing heat in the summer, flying cockroaches…” I added.
He grinned.“Yeah.Just like home.”
I wasn’t a real estate agent, but my stepmother was, and she would be disappointed in me if I didn’t emphasize the selling points of the house’s location.“This grand boulevard was the Spanish citizens’ response to St.Charles Avenue, which was the exclusive domain of the new Americans back in the day, which is why there’s this gorgeous neutral ground and old-growth oak trees.You can tell just bythe paint color choices that this isn’t the Garden District—or South of Broad,” I added, as a nod to his Charleston neighborhood.
“True.”He spun in a half circle to take in the neighboring houses, stopping to peer down the street.“What’s in that direction?”
“City Park.If you’re still a runner, it’s only about one and a half miles in that direction, and in the other direction there’s a straight shot to the US Mint building, which now houses the jazz museum.”
A dark gray Honda sedan traveling on the same side of the street as the house slowed its pace as it approached us where we stood on the neutral ground.I wouldn’t have even noticed it except that its two occupants, a teenage girl and a woman who appeared old enough to be her mother, were looking at what I now considered to be my house.They didn’t stop, but as soon as they were past the house the car sped up.“Uh-oh,” I said.“You might have some competition.”
“Bring it on,” Cooper said.“I don’t think many buyers are as committed to renovation as I am.”He faced me.“And that’s just one of the reasons why I love this house.But best of all, I’d be really close to your cottage in the Marigny.”
“How did you know that?”
“I Googled it.I like the thought of you being nearby.”
“Oh.Okay.”I fumbled with the house keys to hide my acute awkwardness.I needed to dissect his implication, but I knew that deep analysis would wait until the wee hours of the morning as I lay awake with his words and their potential meaning haunting me like a little sheep refusing to be counted.
We climbed the porch steps and, after two tries, managed to unlock the door.Pushing it open, I said, “Ignore the furniture and décor.It has a sort of hoarding-grandma’s-garage vibe, but it’s all going away.”
Cooper followed me into the living room, the first in a single line of rooms leading to the rear of the home, a typical shotgun house.“Just don’t do anything until I’ve made my decision,” he said.“There might be a few pieces here and there that I’d want to…” He stopped as his gaze fell on a cracked-leather footstool with what appeared tobe real alligator feet, then traveled to the collection of taxidermied animal heads hanging on the walls.“Never mind,” he said as he bent to examine a yellowed lace doily on the headrest of an overstuffed floral armchair.Straightening, he looked at me with a grimace.“Nothing that a match and lighter fluid can’t fix.”
I suppressed a laugh.“To be fair, in one of the bedrooms there are a few larger antiques that are quite nice.Whatever you decide about the house, you can certainly make an offer for any of the furniture for your new home—assuming you don’t already have a houseful in storage somewhere.”
The stiff expression he’d worn in the car when he’d been talking about the scar on his chin settled on his face again.He turned toward one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, where sunlight now spilled through its open louvers.I’d removed the heavy draperies, since they seemed to be more dust and mothballs than velvet, and to allow natural light to illuminate the beautiful architectural details of the ceiling cornices and thick baseboards.
Cooper shoved his hands into his pockets and peered outside.“I sold everything when I moved.I wanted to make a clean break.”
Before I could ask him why, he tilted his head.“Do you smell perfume?”
I nodded, glad it wasn’t just me who’d noticed it.I wasn’t interested in a personal haunting, but I could probably handle a general one.Recent experiences had soured me on hangers-on who had something they wanted to tell only me.
He continued.“It reminds me of a perfume my grandmother wears—definitely not a scent you smell very much anymore.”
“True.I’m not sure who it belongs to, but I don’t get any negative vibes.In the interest of full disclosure, you might also hear the sound of small running feet.It’s apparently a little boy, according to Beau, but we don’t know who he is or why he’s here.”
“What about the perfume wearer?Any guesses as to who she might be?”
