Restoration (23 page)

“Where do you intend to live, Mr. Lowenstein? That is, if you do elect to part with this place?”

He seemed to have no answer. He shrugged. “A barn, a lean-to, an abandoned shack in the Lower Ninth Ward. I’ve even considered a large storage unit—but one that’s climate-controlled, of course, to keep from exposing the paintings to the elements. I suppose it really doesn’t matter where I end up, as long as my paintings are with me.”

“Considering your financial problems this might seem like an insensitive question. But if you do sell the place… I mean, what about our arrangement? What about the rent I just agreed to pay you in advance?”

“Not to worry. I’ll reimburse you with proceeds from the sale. Or you can contract with the new owner to rent the garçonnière. I can’t imagine their not wanting to keep you. You would be taking a bite out of their mortgage, after all. Besides that, having you on the property has kept the ghost away.”

I looked at him and his face showed no evidence that he was joking. On the contrary, he appeared to be quite serious. I cleared my throat. “I don’t think it’s smart to pay all that rent when I can’t be certain I’ll be allowed to stay on here.”

“You’re right. But you have no alternative if you intend to make your stand for the maid.” Even as he spoke, I could hear a back door opening. It was Sally, returning from her interlude in the garden. Lowenstein glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of the hallway. “Mr. Charbonnet, this interview is over.”

He was struggling to stand again when she entered the room, trails from her tears still marking her face. It occurred to me that I’d been set up, that she and Lowenstein had schemed to liberate me of
advance rent. But Sally didn’t seem capable of such deception. We exchanged smiles, sad ones, and I offered to let her have my chair. “I was just leaving,” she said in a voice weakened by crying. “It was nice to know you, Jack Charbonnet.”

I glanced at Lowenstein. He seemed to be waiting for me to make a decision. “Sally,” I said, “there’s good news. Mr. Lowenstein tells me he’s changed his mind about your employment here. You’ve decided to keep Sally on, haven’t you, sir?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” Lowenstein said, then lifted his empty glass to toast. “Sally, congratulations, darling, you’re back on the payroll. I apologize if I’ve been… well,
unfeeling.
You go home now and I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lowenstein.” She began to cry again, in her loud, theatrical way. She threw me a wave as she raced off down the hall.

“You’re leaving now, Mr. Charbonnet,” Lowenstein said. “But next time—and I’m sure there will be one—please remember to leave the baseball bat behind. All assumptions, too, if you would be so kind.”

He rested a hand on my shoulder and guided me to the hall, then latched the door shut as soon as I stepped outside. “Drop your rent check in the mailbox. And do it tonight, as promised. If I consider another reduction in staff, I’ll be sure to check with you first. Good evening, Mr. Charbonnet.” He smiled now, exposing a set of dentures nearly as gray as his face. “As always, it was swell.”

It was hot outside, but Mom had insisted on making gumbo. A big pot of the stuff was waiting on the stove when I arrived at the old house in Riverbend and sat at the kitchenette table and drank from the glass of peach tea she’d poured for me. The air was heavy with the smell of roux and I thought of Tommy Smallwood and wondered what kind of man sat in his bathroom crying over a painting at four o’clock in the morning. It was seafood gumbo—Dad’s favorite—and Mom served it from a ceramic tureen. She made sure I got plenty of
shrimp and crabmeat and she served the rice on the side so that she could put more gumbo in the bowl.

I waited until she’d ladled a bowl for herself and was sitting down before I took my first bite. My dad had taught me to do that. He also taught me to fork some cold potato salad into the gumbo and let the salad absorb some of the thick brown juice, and when I did that now I caught my mother looking at me with a wash of tears in her eyes. I thought if I just didn’t say anything maybe the feeling would leave her and it did after a while and then I began to eat.

We got through dinner and I cleared the table and told her I would do the dishes, to go wait for me in the living room. I didn’t use the dishwasher; I did it all by hand. It took me twenty minutes and when I was done I went to join her. She was sitting in her chair crying and I sat on the sofa next to her and held her hand and neither of us said anything, we just let her cry.

I turned on the TV and we watched a couple of shows and I didn’t once look at my watch, not wanting to have her think I wasn’t enjoying myself. “That was a good gumbo,” I said.

“It wasn’t too salty?”

“No, ma’am.”

Later I asked her if she needed me to take care of anything around the house. She said there was a lightbulb out on the back porch, if I didn’t mind changing it. I had to use a ladder. When I was finished, I sat next to her again. “I met this girl,” I said.

“Oh, Jack, you should’ve invited her over.”

“Maybe next time I will.”

There was more to tell her but I didn’t think I could do it. She walked to the kitchen and threw away the paper tissue she’d been using. She seemed better now. “I’ve liked all your girlfriends so far,” she said, sitting back down. “What’s this one’s name?”

“Rhys Goudeau.”

“Oh, that’s pretty.”

“Mom, do we have any black blood in the family?”

“Any black blood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why do you ask, Jack? Are you wondering again why your hair is wavy?”

“No, I was just wondering.”

She looked at me and I could see that she knew what I was getting at, what I wanted to tell her had I been able to. She let out a sigh and settled deeper in her chair. “I just want you happy, Jack. It’s what your dad wanted, too. We were never complicated people.”

“Mom, I don’t understand the world sometimes,” I said.

“I never understood it, either, but then I never pretended to. Just do what you know is right, Jack. Good things will happen.”

“Are you feeling better, Mom?”

“Yes, I am. Thank you.”

I kissed the side of her face and she followed me to the door. When I was in my car driving off I slowed and looked back at the house and saw her through one of the windows in front. She had returned to her chair, and now the light of the TV was on her. I felt like pulling over and going back in and telling her that we were more complicated than she knew. But I got past the feeling and drove home to Moss Street, more sure now than ever that everything was going to be okay.

In the dark we covered the windows with sheets of brown contractor paper and used masking tape to keep them in place. Only after we finished did Rhys turn on a flashlight and light the Coleman lanterns. Her face, already damp with sweat, glistened in the cloud of yellow-green light. To make sure we weren’t giving away our presence in the building, she sent Joe Butler outside for a look from the street. He returned through a back door shaking his head. “Darker’n shit,” he said.

“Nothing? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

They were whispering, although it probably wasn’t necessary. Earlier, when we’d arrived and parked on the side street, there wasn’t a
soul in sight. Magazine Street, which generally is trafficked at all hours, was desolate under the humming streetlamps. No dogs barked as we unloaded the ladders and supplies from the van. The key had fit perfectly; the door had opened without a sound. It was so easy that both Rhys and Joe had laughed when I said they should consider a future as art thieves.

Now they were raising an extension ladder and positioning it against the wall with the mural. “We’ll start by taking the tacks out,” Rhys said. “Joe, use these.” She handed him a tack puller and a flat-head screwdriver. “Try to be careful not to dig into the canvas and damage the surface any more than it already is.”

“I wish there was more light up there,” Joe said. The light from the lanterns did not extend beyond the bottom edge of the painting.

“I’ll keep a flashlight on you. Jack, come stand here and hold the ladder in place. Make sure it doesn’t slip. We don’t want any accidents.”

“You got that right,” Joe said, then started to climb.

He worked quickly and when he finished prying out the tacks on the side and bottom edges we raised the ladder higher and he began removing the tacks along the top.

“Joe?”

“What?”

“Make sure you leave some in up there, okay?”

“Remind me why I need to do that, boss.”

“To keep the canvas in place in case the paste can’t support the weight.”

“Will do.”

She kept the flashlight on him but it did little to cut the darkness. He was moving slower now and with more care and deliberation. He seemed to be almost finished when one of the tacks dropped from the darkness into the lantern light and whizzed right past me. The tack hit hard and skittered across the tiles before stopping near where Rhys was standing. “This isn’t good,” she said, leaning over and picking it up. “Joe? Joe, darling, this is unacceptable.”

“One tack?”

“One tack might be all it takes.”

“All it takes for what?” I said.

“For us to go to jail. And for Gail Wheeler to go there. And for the school to close. And for Mr. Cherry to lose his job. Want me to continue?”

“No,” Joe said. “But you could relax a little. And point that light back up here.”

As soon as he started working again I could feel dust falling and then a strip of canvas peeled off the wall and came flying past me and crashed to the ground. It measured only about a foot wide but the heave of dust extinguished both lanterns and left a powdery residue all over my clothes. This time Rhys didn’t say anything, but as she was relighting the lanterns I noticed that her hands were shaking. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Just for the record,” she said, “that wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

“Fault?” Joe said, from the top of the ladder. “Who cares about fault? Of course it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said to Joe.

“Blame
me?
How about blame Levette? He put the damn thing up here.”

“Rhys, what is wrong with you all of a sudden?” I said.

She looked at me and smiled, and in the light from the lanterns, with her hair showing different colors, I thought of the Whitesell photograph of her grandmother Jacqueline LeBeau, and marveled again at the likeness between the two.

“That dust is mostly dried paste,” she said. “No big deal.” She was trying to sound like her old self, the confident one who knows everything and never hesitates to share it. “Did you breathe much of it in?”

“It isn’t toxic, is it?”

“It’s just glue—rabbit glue.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”

My attempt at humor didn’t register. “Jack, do me a favor, honey,” she was still whispering. “If you wouldn’t mind, take the piece of canvas
that fell and roll it up on one of those cardboard tubes. Make sure the yellow surface—the surface where the painting would be—is on the outside. You’ll crush the paint if it’s on the inside.”

Joe came down the ladder and the two of them cleaned the residue off the floor, giving it more attention that it seemed to need. There was nothing left that I could see but they kept cleaning, anyway. Joe was first to stop and he stood watching her awhile. Finally he cupped the back of her arm with his hand. “Good enough,” he said.

“You think so?”

“We don’t want the sonofabitch
too
clean.”

Next they positioned a couple of eight-foot folding ladders under the mural and ran matching two-by-fours from the top step of one to the top step of the other, creating a platform. The boards were new and Rhys tested them for strength, bouncing up and down. “This ought to do us just fine,” she said. “Jack, you stay on the ground and watch the ladders and hold the flashlight. Joe and I will remove the panels. These things are pretty heavy and they’re clumsy to handle and they’re going to be a challenge, but we can do it. We’ll hand them down to you, okay?”