The Lady on Esplanade

CHAPTER 1

A heavy early-November rain pummeled the windows and the roof of our town house on Broadway, pebble-sized drops falling on the streets and sidewalks, converting all flat surfaces to ankle-deep rivers. I stood inside the open front door as sheets of water cascaded down from the small overhang, splattering rain wetting my face as I breathed in the peculiar scent of moisture-laden air mixed with the odors of drenched asphalt and saturated dirt. Leftover jack-o'-lanterns from a sodden Halloween remained perched on the fraternity house doorstep across the street; they stared at me with shriveled faces, their jagged mouths black with mildew.

Hurricane season wouldn't be officially over until November thirtieth, and as in all parts of the Southeast that dipped their toes into the Gulf or the Atlantic, the collective breath that had been held here since the first of June wouldn't be completely expelled until December first. Names like Camille, Katrina, and Ida weren't mentioned out loud at all. I'd accidentally mentioned the K word and Jolene-my redheaded force-of-nature roommate-had crossed herself and then told me that, the following June, she would take me to the Mass for hurricane protection, despite the fact that neither of us was Catholic.

I'd asked her if I could borrow her waders to explore the new underwater landscape, but she'd warned me about going outside during a gully washer, because when the water rises in New Orleans it is anyone's guess what might rise with it. I closed the door, dulling the sounds and smells of the rain but not the tremor that crept over my skin at the thought of what the deluge might unbury.

I trudged up the bare wooden steps and opened the single French door to our upstairs apartment. I was greeted enthusiastically by Mardi, my adopted gray and white fur ball, despite having been absent for less than five minutes. The dog's origins and bloodline were a mystery, but he was unquestionably mine, despite Jolene's favorite-aunt status, which allowed her to dress him in seasonally themed sweaters and bandannas despite my protests. Mardi accepted resignedly. Being a Mississippi native and more Southern than Dolly Parton, my roommate believed in accessorizing and monogramming everything-including my dog.

"Still raining," I announced to the empty living room. "I hope the flooding is at least drowning the next generation of flying cockroaches."

"Honey, those evil critters would survive a nuclear explosion. I think the chemical pollution in the rain makes them bigger and gives them the kind of confidence required to open a screen door," Jolene said as she emerged from the back hallway with a life-sized Barbie head tucked under her arm. If she had been anyone else, I would have been alarmed, but with Jolene, I didn't even blink.

"What's that for?" I asked, indicating Barbie.

"I'm fixin' to send it to Charleston for Sarah, since she said she didn't have one. I wanted to style the hair first so she can use it as a model for her own. Even though you're only half sisters, y'all have the same hair, so I thought I'd practice on Barbie before I did your hair for tonight."

"Tonight?"

She raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows, a shade darker than her naturally red hair. "I know you're just trying to yank my chain, Nola. I put it on your calendar and used my good lipstick to write it on the bathroom mirror, so don't pretend you have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm going to run your bath in half an hour, so just mentally prepare yourself to get all gussied up."

I sighed heavily. "But how are we supposed to get there? The streets are flooded. And you know what humidity does to my hair."

"Bubba can plow through anything, and I'll use superglue on your hair if I have to, because until I hear otherwise, Commander's is open and we're going to be there come hell or high water."

I glanced out through the large double window over the sofa; the unrelenting rain continued to hit the glass. "But can Bubba float?" Jolene's 1989 Lincoln Town Car was a menace on the road because of its size, and it was doubly threatening when Jolene was behind the wheel. I had calluses on my right hand from clutching the passenger-side door handle. I shuddered at the image of Bubba barreling down the narrow streets of New Orleans like a speedboat in a low-wake zone and taking out everything in his path.

"I think it would be safer staying home." I smiled hopefully. "I'll let you give me one of your smelly facial masks and paint my toenails."

"Nice try, but no." Jolene looked at her watch. "You've now got twenty-five minutes. You can use the time to soak your hands in my moisturizing gloves. They look like you've been manually scraping paint from old plaster."

I looked down at my reddened knuckles and ragged fingernails. "That's because I have," I said, unable to keep the pride from my voice. I'd recently purchased a Creole cottage on the brink of demolition in the Marigny neighborhood, as my first step toward starting over and adulting in a brand-new city.

In my defense, I said, "Everybody we're having dinner with knows what I spend my time doing, and Beau will accuse me of not pulling my weight if my hands are as soft as a baby's bottom."

Despite having a graduate degree in historic preservation, I would have been in way over my head if it hadn't been for the unsolicited interference of one Beau Ryan. Granted, he was a licensed contractor and knew the ins and outs of renovating old houses, but he was also an unwelcome reminder of the parts of my past I would have rather forgotten. And as much as I liked to believe that the restless spirits that inhabited my corner of the world didn't bother me, I appreciated that Beau had risked his life to eradicate an especially vengeful one from my new home. I had returned at least part of the favor-with unexpected help from his deceased mother-during an epic showdown in the attic of his family's house on Prytania Street.

Like my stepmother, Melanie Middleton Trenholm, Beau had the ability to communicate with spirits-despite his popular podcast, which he used as a platform to debunk the many so-called psychics who gleefully took money from the grief-stricken. As a previous victim, desperate to find his parents, who'd disappeared during Hurricane Katrina, he was dedicated to preventing the fleecing of the vulnerable, while simultaneously hiding the psychic gift he'd inherited from his mother-a gift he feared, if only because he couldn't control it.

"Yes," Jolene said, "but, luckily for you, you've got me, and I've got an arsenal of beauty products to fix whatever's broken, and my reputation is at stake if I allow you to walk out the door looking like your fingers got stuck in a cotton gin. Or in an electric socket." Her gaze flicked over my Brillo-like hair, frizzed by the few minutes I'd spent in the open doorway, watching the rain. "Fortunately, I enjoy the challenge." She smiled. "I've got the perfect dress for you to wear. I found it on sale at Saks, but the color blue matches your eyes, so I want you to have it. I'm sure Beau will notice."

"In case you've forgotten, Beau has a girlfriend, and Samantha will be there tonight. Besides, you know I'm not interested in him. We don't even like each other."

"Right," she said, and let out an inelegant snort. "And it's okay to wear white shoes before Easter." She rolled her eyes. "It's not a small thing that you saved his life. He's hosting tonight's dinner to thank you, so you're going to be the star of the show. Just accept it. And you now have twenty-one minutes." Jolene placed the Barbie head on the dining table, then began walking toward the bathroom in the back hallway.

"Why don't you wear it, Jolene? Won't Jaxson be there tonight, too?" I regretted saying the words before they had even left my mouth. I didn't want to encourage her to believe that one day Jaxson would wake up and realize he was with the wrong woman. Jolene and I both knew that Jaxson had already bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend, Carly, but Jolene clung to the belief that she still had a chance as long as the ring wasn't on Carly's finger.

Jolene kept walking and didn't respond, but I knew better than to think she hadn't heard me. As sweet and kind as my roommate was, I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd find a severed Barbie head in my bed.

By some miracle, Jolene and I arrived at the restaurant, Commander's Palace, only fifteen minutes late. Jolene was firmly of the belief that it was always better to arrive late than to arrive ugly, so there was no escape from her smoothing, teasing, plucking, moisturizing, and painting my face and/or hair. Despite my worries, Bubba performed as a certified land yacht and cruised through the streets, creating wakes usually found behind bigger boats, like aircraft carriers.

Beau had reserved the restaurant's private Little Room, an intimate space where ambient noise and the footsteps of waitstaff were muffled by padded carpet. Elegant framed mirrors hung on the walls and reflected the muted light shining through the French doors and from the sparkling crystal chandeliers. Small tables beneath white tablecloths had been placed together in the center of the room to form a larger one, and menus lay on top of the place settings. Any hope I'd had that I could sneak in unnoticed and grab a chair at the far end of the table was quickly dispelled when I saw that a spot had been reserved to the right of Beau, who stood from his place at the head of the table when we entered.

"And finally-the guest of honor," he announced. Jaxson rose from his seat at the middle of the table and pulled out the chair next to him for Jolene. Carly sat across from him, and she gave Jolene a calculating glance before reaching her hand across the table to touch Jaxson's fingers. It was the same as if she'd slapped a label on him that read mine. Jolene was so busy trying not to look smug at my proximity to Beau that she didn't notice.

I greeted Beau's grandmother Mimi Ryan with a kiss on her powdered cheek. "I'm glad you could make it," she said with a note of reproach, as expected from the family matriarch, her odd eyes-one green, one blue-crinkling at the corners and softening her words.

She sat at the opposite end of the table, next to Samantha-Sam-Beau's girlfriend and podcast partner. Sam stood and greeted me with a hug and a warm smile, and I thought yet again that we could have been friends if not for Beau Ryan. Considering that I didn't even like him very much, this was an odd sentiment, and one that I didn't care to analyze too closely.

I was happy to see Cooper Ravenel, who rose from where he'd been seated, then walked around the table to wrap me in a bear hug. Because of his job he traveled a lot, and I hadn't seen much of him since the night of the St. Louis Cathedral fund-raiser at the Ryans', when Beau had almost died. Cooper had been instrumental in saving Beau and me from the brink of disaster, which was one of the reasons he was at the celebratory dinner.

"It's good to see you," he said, his voice and touch vibrating through me.

"Same," I said, feeling everyone's eyes on us. "I hope you're in town long enough for me to show you the house on Esplanade."

"That's what I'm counting on. I've asked for no travel this coming week, so I'm all yours."

Cooper had been my teenage crush and first heartbreak, and he had recently moved to New Orleans. I was concentrating on renovating my cottage and starting my new life, and I wasn't interested in a relationship beyond friendship, but I'd be lying to myself if I said that I didn't feel an electric jolt every time I saw him. I'd yet to ask him about the scar on his face and about his years in California. If there was anything I'd learned from my stepmother, it was that sometimes not knowing was best.

"Sounds like a plan," I said as I pulled away.

Everyone took their seats except for Beau. He gently clinked his water glass-no wine or champagne on the table, in deference to me, I guessed-to quiet the chatter.

"Thank you all for coming. It was important that I gather us all together to thank those of you who not only saved my life"-he glanced at me, and I knew we were both recalling his slipping over the edge of the attic walkway as I struggled to hold on, before Cooper miraculously appeared-"but also helped my family find my long-lost sister, Sunny. As I know you are all aware, she is still processing her newly discovered identity, but Mimi and I have great hopes that she will return to us when she's ready. And we will be waiting with open arms."

"Hear, hear!" Christopher Benoit, family friend and the manager of the Past Is Never Past, the Ryans' antiques store on Royal Street, raised his water glass. The rest of us followed suit, and the sound of glasses clinking sang over the table as we turned to one another to toast the miracle of Beau's survival and the resolution of the decades-old mystery of what had happened to two-year-old Sunny Ryan.

As I sipped my water I looked around at the smiling faces, knowing that, except for Carly-whose reason for being present at the table wasn't clear-I'd found my family. Not a new family, but an extension of my beloved family back home, in Charleston-because, as Melanie and my father, Jack, had reminded me time and again, no matter where I went, there I was. And, as I was a recovering alcoholic who'd chosen for her new home a city recognized for its partying lifestyle, my family had known even before I did that I would require a support system while I tried to prove to everyone that I didn't need anyone's support but my own.

I was halfway through my dessert, crème brûlée-which I didn't enjoy as much as I should have, because I was too busy watching Sam and Beau eat their bananas Foster for two-when the lights flickered, followed quickly by a sharp crack of thunder. I looked up and met Beau's gaze, almost as if we were sharing the same unspoken thought: that just the two of us had noticed that the crystal chandelier above our table had been the only light with interrupted power in the restaurant. Everyone who lived in the coastal South was used to sporadic storms, even in November. We were even used to the electricity going out with annoying frequency. But there was also an odd static in the air, a frisson of something unknown that hovered in the room, and only Beau and I appeared to notice.