“More functional?”
I tried speaking too fast and too softly, in the dim hope that she couldn’t hear me and would be too embarrassed to ask for me to repeat myself. She was highly sensitive about her age for no reason except for the fact that she was a few years older than my dad. This meant I should be safe from further scrutiny regarding the condition of the house and my sanity. “Alison mentioned that the toilet was missing. As well as a sink. But at least there’s a half-bath down here. Although I believe the toilet doesn’t actually flush.”
“You do realize that despite my advanced age I have perfect hearing, right?” Melanie moved toward the stairs, turning around to take stock. “So, this room runs the length of the house and doubles as entryway and living room.”
I followed behind her, smelling her rose perfume—something she’d started wearing my freshman year in college when I’d moved back home. “Right. The other front-facing room is the dining room, and behind it, facing the courtyard, is the kitchen.”
“Which I’m sure is just as functional as the upstairs bathroom.”
“No,” I said, hating to admit she was right. “The kitchen has a sink.”
Melanie glanced over her shoulder at me but didn’t say anything.
As we climbed the stairs to the second level, the temperature changed as if the thermostat had abruptly dropped thirty degrees despite the hot sun streaming in unimpeded from one of the dormer windows. Except there was no air conditioner. Or thermostat. Melanie didn’t say anything, but I saw her shiver.
We both ducked at the top of the stairs to avoid hitting the pitched ceiling, Melanie rubbing her arms as she looked around at the laminate wood panels covering the walls. Dust motes floated in front of the filthy windows, the musky scent of old houses—an oddly appealing mix of dust, ancient fabrics, and furniture polish—making me a little homesick.
This room was as long as the living space beneath us, but far less functional because of the ceiling slope. Still, it held a lot of charm and the same cypress floors as the first story. While getting my master’s degree in historic preservation, I’d done a lot of floor rehab, and my fingers itched to see what a little sanding and linseed oil might do to these.
Melanie’s gaze focused on a closed door at the top of the stairs, her mouth opening and then shutting immediately. I walked past her and turned the knob. “It’s locked, and there’s no key in the keyhole. I think it’s just a closet. We can ask the owner.”
“Do you smell that?” She stuck her neck forward, sniffing the air. “It’s pipe tobacco. It’s like someone just blew pipe smoke in my face.”
“I don’t smell anything. Just the house.”
She nodded, her eyes remaining on the closet door. “I think . . .”
“You promised.” I gave her a warning glance before going through an open doorway that led directly into one of the small bedrooms. Two other doorways opened up into the second bedroom and what must be the bathroom.
I stuck my head into the bathroom, and immediately pulled it back. “I don’t recommend you look in there.” I was grateful for the lower temperature, sparing us from the scent of heat-baked whatever had been left in the plumbing. I looked at the tall, sloped ceiling, at the original wood beams and dormer window surround, and a fireplace like the one downstairs, with its mantel intact. “I think if I just reposition these walls, we could have two decent-sized bedrooms. And . . .”
The familiar notes of “Dancing Queen” being loudly hummed behind me caught my attention. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Loudly humming ABBA songs was Melanie’s way of drowning out the restless spirits who wanted to talk to her. I assumed they found it as annoying as we did, which is why it worked. It was one of Melanie’s quirks—definitely weird, but also surprisingly lovable.
I sighed. “Fine. I’ve seen enough up here, let’s go back downstairs.” As I turned, I spotted an unhinged door leaning against the wall. The wood tone and the top panel of frosted glass told me it hadn’t come from the house, but it didn’t tell me why it was there.
Melanie stopped humming long enough to lean down to look at the iron lock and doorknob. She touched it gently with her finger. “It has the initials MB embossed on the handle.”
I leaned closer. “I’ve seen a few of these doors before. They’re from the famous Maison Blanche department store building downtown. When the store and the offices on the upper floors were gutted to transform it into the Ritz Carlton in the late nineteen nineties, a lot of the unwanted interior was scavenged.” I ran my hand along the privacy bubbles in the glass, admiring the thick wood of the door, a relic of a time when even basic office doors were made with skill and with longevity in mind. Straightening, I added, “Mostly by locals who wanted to keep something from an iconic New Orleans building and renovators who wanted a piece of history in their houses. I saw a lot of it in grad school—including a lingerie display counter refitted as a kitchen island in a house in the Quarter.”
Melanie suddenly turned toward the window, her head tilted slightly as if listening to someone speaking. She shook her head then began humming again, this time “Waterloo.” Without waiting for me, she marched through the doorway then down the stairs as I hurried to catch up to her, glancing over my shoulder only once.
I caught up to her in the kitchen, where she’d placed her bag on a scarred and pitted countertop with indeterminate stains the color of a sunset before a storm. We both studiously avoided discussing the elephant in the room—or whatever that had been upstairs—as I examined the peeling laminate floor, its lifted corners revealing the cypress floor planks beneath.