Chapter 5
The following morning I was met at the corner of Royal Street and Canal, the pickup point I’d designated with twelve-year-old entrepreneur Trevor Williams. I’d first met him during a run through Washington Square Park, where I’d found him on a bench, selling various items that I didn’t know I needed until I saw them and heard his sales pitch.
They included my bike and the flowered basket he’d found to put on it—at an extra charge.
Trevor was small for his age and therefore appeared more vulnerable and needy than he actually was.
He most definitely used this to his advantage, his appeals always leading me to spend more money than I could afford on things I didn’t need.
The rain continued to soak the city, concealing treacherous potholes from drivers and pedestrians alike, the saturated earth reminding everyone that this part of the world existed below sea level, the vengeful Mississippi River and the jealous Gulf fighting a constant battle with the land over ownership.
As I looked around me now, it appeared the water was winning.
Trevor carried a ginormous blue and white golf umbrella with the name of a golf course in Dunwoody, Georgia, emblazoned on the top.
I never asked Trevor where he procured his wares, but I believed him when he told me he never stole anything.
He was incredibly smart for his age, and I expected that forgetful tourists were responsible for most of his inventory, and for the growth of his savings account.
The account had been set up for him by Christopher Benoit, who’d become a mentor for the fatherless Trevor.
The young boy lived with his grandmother and some of his nine siblings in a house in the Bywater, and I’d never met any of them, despite frequent attempts on my part.
Even Christopher had given up trying to set up a meeting.
In any case, Trevor now worked at the Past Is Never Past, doing odd jobs, learning about antiques, and saving money to buy his own home computer.
“Good morning, Miss Nola.” He greeted me with his trademark smile.
I’d told him many times to call me just Nola, but he said his meemaw had drilled good manners into him and he wouldn’t want to disappoint her.
He moved the umbrella to cover us both, lessening the sound of the rain bouncing off the shiny yellow hood of my rain jacket.
Its previous owner had bedazzled a pink unicorn on the back, and Trevor had sold it to me for only twenty dollars—a considerable deal—since he hadn’t had any other takers.
“I’m thinkin’ about buildin’ me an ark and selling tickets if this rain don’t stop,” he said, still grinning.
“Please reserve a seat for me.” I frowned at the waves of water splashing up onto the sidewalk from a passing car. “I’m wondering if I should let you keep the bike for today and try walking. If I ride into one of these potholes, I might not be found until summer.”
“You need a car,” he said, his expression thoughtful. “You know how to drive yet?”
“Knowing how and actually doing it are two different things, Trevor. But I do think you’re right. Jolene said she has one for me, but I’d have to go to Mississippi to pick it up.”
His nose wrinkled. “Like Bubba? That’s a lotta car, Miss Nola.”
“Agreed. The car she wants to give me is a Mustang. It’s real old, though—like, from way before I was born, even. I think she said 1967.”
His eyes went wide. “A Mustang? Like, a Ford Mustang? And she wants to give it to you?”
“It belonged to a man who died and his wife wants to get rid of it. Why? You know about old Mustangs?”
Trevor stared at me like my hair was on fire. “Uh, yeah, like everyone in the entire world with half a brain does. Is it a convertible?”
I thought for a moment. “Yeah. I think so. Why?”
He pretended to swoon, tilting the umbrella so that it sloshed rainwater on me.
I grabbed hold of the umbrella to pull it back over my drenched face. “Let’s talk about the car another time, okay? I need to get to my house before we both drown. I think I’ll walk my bike so I’ll have it when I need to come home. This rain has got to stop sometime, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Trevor said, “but I got somethin’ for you just in case.”
I held the umbrella while he slid off his backpack. The Tulane logo was emblazoned across the front, the backpack so new that the white lettering of the logo was still solid and bright. “Nice backpack,” I said. “What happened to your old one?”
“Sold it for sixty bucks,” he said proudly.
According to Christopher, Trevor was a born salesman, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him selling a ratty old backpack to a tourist or student who seemed desperate enough.
I knew better than to ask him where the new one came from.
There were some things I was better off not knowing about, such as the presence of wandering spirits that I blissfully could not see.
I suppressed a shudder as I recalled the scratch on Cooper’s cheek; I was still trying to come up with a logical explanation for something that defied logic.
“Good for you,” I said, watching as he pulled a small rainbow-colored umbrella out of the backpack.
He popped it open and I saw that it had a headband attached to it. “It’s hands-free!” he announced with a bright smile.
“For me?” I asked, touched that he would think about me navigating my bike in the rain.
He nodded. “It’s yours,” he said, handing it to me while taking the larger umbrella. “For fifty bucks.”
I blinked. “Fifty?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you was anybody else, I’d charge you a hundred, but because we’re friends, you get a discount.”
“Uh-huh. What kind of a markup is that?”
“A hundred percent. I got it for free.” His smile didn’t dim, nor did he seem embarrassed to admit that he was fleecing me. “Mr. Christopher is teaching me a lot about business, so I know that’s a good profit.”
“It sure is.” I almost wanted to teach him a lesson on extortion, but then I remembered the beautiful breakfront in my kitchen and how he had helped create it from a discarded piece of furniture and had given it to me without charge, and instead I said, “Well, I don’t carry that much cash on me, so I guess it’s going to have to be a no from me. ”
He continued to smile brightly. “No problem, Miss Nola. I trust you. You can pay me later.”
I glanced again at the swollen river that had once been a street, and I realized I’d need both hands to push the bike.
Turning back to him, I said, “Well, in that case…” I began adjusting the headband over the hood of my rain jacket, grateful that Jolene wasn’t there to use colorful adjectives to describe my appearance.
“I’ll give you my friends-only discounted interest rate of six percent.”
“Six percent? What do you charge people you don’t like?”
“A lot more. Don’t forget my convenience fee for bringin’ it to you.”
I was getting increasingly soaked standing in the rain and arguing with him, so I decided to let it go.
We said good-bye and I began pushing my bike through standing water toward my house, absurdly grateful for the umbrella hat that kept the rain off my face without obscuring my vision and allowed me to keep both hands on the handlebars so the bike wouldn’t get washed away by what I could swear was a current.
Despite the gloom, my mood brightened as I neared my under-renovation house in the Marigny neighborhood, the usual two ancient pickup trucks parked in front alongside a dumpster brimming with empty paint cans, circa-1974 light fixtures, and the laminate wood paneling that someone without any sense of history or good taste had glued to the upstairs walls.
I smiled as I saw my Charleston green–painted front door, along with the palmetto-tree door knocker that Melanie had given me as a nod to my hometown.
I’d realized as I’d painted the door that, with the continuing renovation, I’d have to repaint it, but I couldn’t wait.
The start of my new life had already been postponed too long.
I might not have running water in the upstairs bathroom, or operational windows in most of the house, but at least the front door made it look as if my house was a real home.
I’d dragged my bike up onto the porch and was reaching for the doorknob when one of my contractors, Thibaut Kobylt, carrying two large mixing buckets filled with water, opened the door and almost ran me over.
“Good morning!” he called from the porch as Jorge, with two more full buckets, ran out the door behind him.
“What’s happening?” I asked as the men emptied their buckets into the street, reflecting the feeling in the pit of my stomach. This couldn’t be good.
Jorge shook his head, to mean either that he didn’t understand me or that I didn’t want to know, before hurriedly following Thibaut outside toward the back of the house.
A familiar engine roar followed by the scrape of steel bumper against concrete curb alerted me to Jolene’s arrival.
I watched from the porch as she elegantly exited the car, opening her umbrella at the same time without getting wet—a trick I’d yet to master, despite her patient tutelage—before she headed to the trunk of her car.
Since I still wore my umbrella hat and bedazzled raincoat, I jogged down the steps to help.
She peered out from under her umbrella as I approached, the quick blinking of her green eyes the only indication that she’d noticed my outfit.
Reaching into the voluminous trunk—big enough to carry seven bodies and the shovels needed to bury them, according to her funeral-director grandmother—Jolene grabbed the handle of a thick fabric-sample book and handed it to me before taking one herself, then slammed the trunk shut.