The House on Prytania (Royal Street #2)(39)
Author: Karen White
Jolene beamed. “As if I couldn’t have picked y’all out as being kin. You’re all like peas from the same pod as your daddy. My goodness—those are some strong genes.”
“Tell me about it,” Melanie said wryly. “I was just an incubator for Jack’s babies. That was my only contribution to these two.” She smiled with warm affection at the twins.
Sarah met my eyes and raised her eyebrows, acknowledging that there was at least one part of Melanie’s genetic makeup that had found its way to her biological daughter.
“I like your hair,” Sarah said softly. “Is that the real color?”
“It sure is. That’s why my mama named me Jolene. Like the song.”
Sarah looked at her blankly.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” Jolene said. “I have Dolly Parton’s greatest hits in my cassette player in the car, and we’ll listen on the way home.”
“I’ll sit up front, next to Jolene,” JJ announced, and now I did roll my eyes.
I turned to find Melanie smiling at me, which made me nervous. “We have a little surprise for you.”
“Yeah?” I said, looking around for a wrapped package and seeing nothing but their suitcases.
I became aware of a man approaching us from behind, someone tall, slender, and handsome, and devastatingly familiar. “Hi, Nola,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
Cooper Ravenel, my best friend’s older brother and my first heartbreak, stood in front of us, holding a large suitcase and a backpack as if he was planning on staying awhile. His dark blond hair was a little longer than when I’d known him during his Citadel years, but his smile remained the same.
“Cooper,” I said, proud of the steadiness of my voice. It had been years since he’d announced he was moving to California after his graduation from the Citadel and he had left me behind. I was still in high school, and at the time I’d told myself I understood. But my heart didn’t believe me, and the bruise was still tender every time I thought about him.
He put down his baggage and took a step forward as if to embrace me, but I blocked him by crossing my arms across my chest. “Surprise,” he said.
I looked at Melanie and Jack and then back at Cooper, trying to find my breath. And the appropriate words that wouldn’t come out as an accusation or a shriek of anger or a mortifying sob. I managed to swallow down my tangle of jumbled emotions. “Wow. What a surprise. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve decided that California isn’t for me. So I’ve accepted a great job here as a security analyst with a consulting firm. The job will require lots of travel, but this will be my home base.”
“You’re moving here? To New Orleans?”
“Yeah. Isn’t that great? I mean, I knew you were already living here because of Alston, but then I ran into your family at the Charleston airport and had a nice time catching up.”
“Wow.” I needed to stop saying that.
“He had reservations at another hotel, but we convinced him to stay at the Hotel Peter and Paul with us, so he switched hotels.” Melanie beamed. “It’s amazing what you can do with a phone these days.”
My eyes met my dad’s as we raised our eyebrows in unison, thinking about the one hundred or so apps on Melanie’s phone that she had no idea how to use. It was one of her quirks that was endearing and annoying, sometimes both at the same time.
“Amazing,” I said, which was better than “Wow,” but still inadequate.
“I would say that running into your family was a coincidence, but . . .”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence,” everyone finished, and then laughed, and the tension and pent-up emotions I’d been holding on to ever since Cooper had exited my life dwindled to a tiny speck—but were not erased completely. I imagined all broken hearts carried lifelong scars.
He smiled, his cheeks creasing in the way I remembered, and I could picture him at the dining room table at the house on Tradd Street, working with my dad and me to decode a cryptic cipher. “I don’t start my new job until next Monday, so I’ll have an entire week to go house hunting. Melanie said that you could give me some pointers since you’ve just been through it yourself.”
“Oh, she’d love to,” Jolene said. “But if we don’t skedaddle, we’ll spend all week here at the airport.” She led us all to Bubba and I noted Jack’s dubious expression as he looked at the car and then all of their luggage and then back again.
“Don’t worry, Dad. It will all fit—trust me. This trunk is big enough to carry at least seven bodies and the shovels needed to bury them—and with room to spare.”
“It’s eight,” Jolene corrected, oblivious to the side-glances of her audience.
“Her grandmother is a funeral director,” I said, as if that explained anything.
Jolene squeezed JJ’s invisible biceps. Not quite thirteen, he had yet to hit the growth spurt and begin the filling out that had been threatening for over a year. “Let’s allow these strong gentlemen to do all the heavy lifting.” JJ blushed and eagerly grabbed one of Melanie’s bags, barely lifting it off the ground.
“Your mother packs rocks, son. We might have to call a forklift.” Jack grabbed the other end of the case, and the two of them managed to lift it into the cavernous trunk.
“I’ll direct,” Melanie said. “I’m really good at organizing spaces so that—”
“I think they can manage,” I said, pulling Melanie up onto the curb, making sure she didn’t trip in her high heels.
To everyone’s surprise, there was still room in Bubba’s trunk for at least one more body and a shovel, even after we’d loaded Melanie’s two large suitcases and her cosmetics bag.
“Where’s everybody supposed to sit?” Sarah asked. Like her twin, she had also not yet begun to blossom, but it was clear to everyone that once she did, our dad would have a hard time beating away the boys. He’d already started collecting brochures for all-girls convent schools in Ireland just as a warning.
“I’m sitting next to Jolene,” JJ announced, quickly sliding into the middle of the front bench seat.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “I’ll sit on the hump in the backseat because I’m smallest. And because it puts me in the right spot to put things in JJ’s hair.”