“The house still isn’t for sale.”
Melanie’s gaze strayed toward the stairs. “Look, why don’t we go somewhere to sit down and have a cup of coffee to discuss this? My feet hurt.”
I knew there had to be another reason she wanted to leave. Melanie’s feet would have to be bleeding and on fire for her to say that wearing heels had been a bad idea.
“There’s no discussion,” Beau said. “I own this house and it isn’t for sale.”
I tilted my head back to look him in the eyes. “Well, the MLS says differently. And I’m calling my agent right now to make an offer.”
Before he could respond, Jolene said, “There’s an adorable café right down the street, on Burgundy.”
“Is it vegan?” Beau asked. “Assuming Nola still prefers cardboard to real food.”
“I’m sure I can find something,” I said, less annoyed than I should have been. He’d remembered something about me that wasn’t pitiful. Which probably meant that he could recall more about me than I would have liked, but at least that part was from an earlier time, before the worst parts.
“Fine,” I said. “But I’m not changing my mind.”
Melanie practically pushed me out onto the porch, then hurried down the stairs to wait on the sidewalk with Jolene as I locked the door. Beau held out his hand for the key, but I ignored it, slipping the key into my backpack instead. A wind chime of blue Depression glass hanging from a rusty hook on the porch ceiling clinked behind me despite the complete absence of a breeze. I saw Beau and Melanie share a glance—Jolene oblivious as she reapplied her lipstick—but I wasn’t alarmed. It was as if the house was letting me know it and I were meant to be together.
For a woman whose feet supposedly hurt, Melanie had a long and purposeful stride. It could have been because of the promise of bakery items and café au lait, but a part of me said she was trying to put distance between her and the house.
The yellow building that housed Who Dat Coffee Cafe sat on the corner of Burgundy and Mandeville, a short walk from the house on Dauphine Street—yet another sign that the Creole cottage was meant to be mine. Living with Melanie had turned me into something of a coffee snob, and—although I’d never admit it—a craver of sweet baked goods. It had started when I began eating instead of discarding Melanie’s hidden contraband items when I’d replaced them with my Wasa crisps. Now I craved doughnuts like a mouse craved cheese, but I ate them in secret, which was enough to tell me that I was in full denial. But, as I’d learned the hard way, there were some vices that were better substitutions for others.
Tables sat scattered on the sidewalk outside the café, red umbrellas valiantly stretched over them absorbing the heat of the sun, potted yellow flowers wilting prettily on their centerpiece perches. The words “Wake up & smell the Who Dat” covered one of the windows, right above a painted cup of coffee with white steam curling over the cup. An A-frame chalkboard sign by the entrance informed us that It’s never too late to start your day over.
We walked through the red wood-and-glass double doors, the warm yellow and the cluttered walls and the tin ceiling making me feel like I’d stepped back in time as the mixed scents of coffee and baked sugar made my mouth water. I heard Melanie swallow next to me. “I wasn’t really hungry,” she said. “But now I’m starving.”
“The Who Dat coffee cake is to die for. And their banana bread. And cupcakes. Oh, gosh, there is nothing here that isn’t worth the calories,” Jolene said.
We placed our orders, then settled onto one of the outside tables. I resisted getting something to eat and ordered only an iced coffee—decaffeinated and with soy milk—to hold to my face in an attempt to cool off. What I really needed was to fall into a fountain. Same with Melanie, judging by the size of her hair.
“Feels just like home,” she said, taking a spoon and eating a bite of whipped cream from the top of her café au lait. She’d also ordered a piece of the coffee cake—one fork, no extra plates. I was used to Melanie’s proprietary attitude toward her food, but I caught Jolene glancing at the gooey confection more than once.
“Don’t even ask,” I warned her. “You’ll end up with fork scars on the top of your hand.”
Melanie took a sip of her coffee so she wouldn’t have to lie.
I turned to Beau, summoning every crumb of advice from my long-suffering therapist about confronting adversity. Admittedly, she’d helped me over the worst of my issues. It wasn’t her fault that I was born too stubborn to pay attention to the rest. I wished my dad were here. He had a habit of inspiring fear in males who dared circle my periphery—although the one exception had been Beau. Jack had a knack for breaking down every problem into solvable puzzle pieces. But he was currently in London, on a book tour with his latest international bestseller. It was just me and Melanie—who apparently didn’t want me to buy the house. That left Jolene, who was currently placing on her head a wide-brimmed hat she’d pulled out of her enormous tote bag.
“So,” I began. “The house is for sale. I want to buy it. I can give you full asking price. I don’t see why this is a problem.”
Melanie and Beau shared another glance. He shifted in his chair. “The neighborhood would like to build a community center. My grandmother and I feel that the house would make a good charitable donation to the neighborhood.”
“So, when did you make this decision? Before you saw me or after? Because you should have pulled it from the MLS listing before I saw it. Now it’s too late.”
“It’s just . . . not for you. If it’s not demolished, I think one of the many restoration firms in the city might buy it to rehab. It’s a big job.”
I crossed my arms. “And because I’m a single woman you don’t think I can handle it?”
Melanie put a hand of caution on my arm. “Nola, I don’t think he’s saying that at all. It’s just that there are . . . things . . . about the house that you might not be aware of that could make living there . . . difficult. And I’m not talking about the termite damage.”
“If by ‘things’ you’re referring to restless spirits, you know they don’t bother me. I’ve lived in a haunted house since I was fourteen, so it would be almost weird for me if there weren’t at least one or two rubbing elbows with me. I’m not sensitive to them. And Beau used to spend most of his free time hosting a podcast debunking so-called psychics, so I don’t understand the problem.”
I glared at Beau. “You said your business is buying old houses and rehabbing them. Not knocking them down. Obviously, the job was too much for you, so maybe you’re just a little jealous that I can handle it and you can’t. Fine. I graduated number one in my class in grad school, so I understand competition. But please don’t be petty about it.”
Jolene pulled out a monogrammed compact from her oversized purse and opened it. “My family’s house in Mississippi was built in 1839, so it has a lot of memories. All old houses do. I think that’s what spirits really are. I never saw any ghosts—which is a good thing, because I was raised not to believe in them—but I always had a sense that our house had mostly good memories.”
Jolene finished dabbing her nose with powder and was now considering Beau with her wide green eyes—those and her red hair the reason why her mother thought it a good idea to saddle her with the name Jolene. “I think if you won’t sell Nola the house you’ll be stepping in a whole pile of worms, because it does sound like discrimination.” She smiled at me. “I’ve been thinking while y’all were arguing that this could be my first project, and I can get my friend at New Orleans magazine to do a story on a female-led team restoring a house in the Marigny. It would be like free advertising for JR Properties, as well as good PR.”
She placed her manicured hands on top of the table. “And since nobody here is worried about ghosts, there shouldn’t be any problem with rehabbing and moving into that house.” She returned the compact to her purse and snapped it shut. “Even with its history.”
Only Melanie and I looked surprised. Apparently, Beau already knew what Jolene was referring to.
“Its history?” Melanie repeated, her crossed leg bumping up and down violently—one of her many quirky habits—making the table shake.
Jolene turned toward Beau. “You didn’t tell them?”
“No.” He spoke through tight lips. “Because if Nola doesn’t buy the house, then it doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” I asked.
We all faced Beau, waiting.
He took a deep breath. “It’s, um—it’s what we call in the business a, um . . .”
“A ‘murder house,’” Jolene finished, just as a crack of thunder shook the air and a gust of rain-scented wind picked up our red umbrella and swept it away down the sidewalk, flipping and turning like a thing possessed until it disappeared around the corner.
From THE SHOP ON ROYAL STREET by Karen White, published by Berkley, an imprint of The Penguin Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2022 by Karen White
Nola Trenholm is hopeful for a fresh start in the Big Easy but must deal with ghosts from her past—as well as new ones—in this first book in a spin-off series of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street novels.
After a difficult detour on her road to adulthood, Nola Trenholm is looking to begin anew in New Orleans, and what better way to start her future than with her first house? But the historic fixer-upper she buys comes with even more work than she anticipated when the house’s previous occupants don’t seem to be ready to depart.
Although she can’t communicate with ghosts like her stepmother can, luckily Nola knows someone in New Orleans who is able to—even if he’s the last person on earth she wants anything to do with ever again. Beau Ryan comes with his own dark past—a past that involves the disappearance of his sister and parents during Hurricane Katrina—and he’s connected to the unsolved murder of a woman who once lived in the old Creole cottage Nola is determined to make her own...whether the resident restless spirits agree or not.
Mystery | Mystery Paranormal [Berkley, On Sale: March 29, 2022, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593334584 / ]
Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of 28 books, including the Tradd Street series, Dreams of Falling, The Night the Lights Went Out, Flight Patterns, The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between. She is the coauthor of All the Ways We Said Goodbye, The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room with New York Times bestselling authors Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig. She grew up in London but now lives with her husband near Atlanta, Georgia.
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