It wasnt until her fathers ashes were scattered and the sickroom emptied and smudged that Julia moved upstairs, to the bedroom shed occupied as a child. Keller kept his own room, kept his things in the drawers and closet, but spent nights in hers.
The job in Gretna ran behind schedule and over budget, which didnt really surprise anybody. Both men put in long hours, working seven-day weeks, starting at daybreak and keeping at it until they lost the light. Donnys cash didnt last as long as hed hoped, and after hed maxed out his credit cards he had to obtain a $5,000 loan from his father-in-law. The old bastard asked me what I could put up for collateral, and I said, How about your daughters happiness? You can guess how that went over, but hell, I got the money, didnt I?
The work was satisfying, especially when Donny decided to go the whole route, and they designed and built the second-floor addition. It felt like building a house, Keller told Julia. Constructing one, you know? Not just remodeling.
When the last of the work was done, with the lawn sodded and new shrubbery in place, he brought Julia to see it. Shed been there earlier, with the work barely under way, and said it was hard to believe it was the same house. Outside of the beams and rafters, he said, it barely was.
They went to the Quarter for a celebration dinner, although the real celebration would come when they landed a buyer. They chose the same high-ceilinged restaurant theyd gone to before, ordered essentially the same meal, and didnt finish their wine this time, either. They talked about the job, and its satisfactions, and the likelihood of Donnys getting the price he was going to ask for it.
If the profit was all Donny anticipated, he told her, theyd do this again, and next time Keller would be a partner. She said he was that already, wasnt he? A full partner, he explained, putting up half the purchase price, paying half the expenses, and netting half the profits. Donny was already looking for their next property, and had several under consideration.
Well, hes a Wallings, she said. Theyre enterprising.
First, though, Donny had two cash jobs lined up, a condo paint job on Melpomene and some post-Katrina rehab for a house in Metairie. A Wallings was practical, Julia said, in addition
to being enterprising. And before they undertook either of those jobs, Keller said, they were going to have a few days off.
Well, of course, she said. Hes an Orleanean, isnt he?
When they got home she asked him what had gone wrong.
Because your whole mood changed between when we left the restaurant and when we got to the car. The weather was fine so that couldnt be it. Did I say something? No? Then what was it?
I didnt think it showed.
Tell me.
He didnt want to, but neither did he care to keep things from her. For a minute there, he said, I thought someone was looking at me.
Well, why not? Youre a nice-looking fellow and oh my God.
It was a false alarm, he said. He was looking past me, waiting for the valet to bring his car around. But I remembered a man I heard about who got in trouble because he went to San Francisco, where somebody who just happened to be there saw him and recognized him.
She was quick, if you gave her the first sentence she got the whole page. We should probably stay out of the Quarter, she said.
Thats what I was thinking.
And other places tourists tend to go, but its really mostly the Quarter. No more Café du Monde, no more Acme Oyster House. For oysters, Felixs has a place uptown on Prytania thats just as good, and they dont get as crowded.
During Mardi Gras
During Carnival, she said, well stay home altogether, but wed do that anyway. Poor baby, no wonder your mood changed.
What bothered me, he said, wasnt getting a scare, because it didnt last long enough to amount to all that much. By the time I knew to be afraid I could tell there was nothing to be afraid of. But Ive got a whole new life, and it fits me like a glove, and I cut every tie to the past when we shoved that car into the river.
And you thought that whole part of your life was over.
And it is, he said, but what I also thought was that nothing from the past could find me, and thats not exactly true. Because theres always the possibility of an accident. Some sharp-eyed son of a bitch from New York or L.A. or Vegas or Chicago
Or Des Moines?
Or anywhere. And he happens to come here on vacation, because its a popular spot.
Not so many tourists since the hurricane, she said, but theyre starting to come back.
And all it takes is one, who happens to be in the same restaurant, or on the street when we come out of the restaurant, or any damn thing. Look, its not very likely. We dont exactly live the high life here, we keep a low profile by nature. Most of the time were home alone, and when we see somebody its Edgar and Patsy or Donny and Claudia. We always have a good time, but nobodys putting our pictures in the Times-Picayune .
They might, she said, when you and Donny emerge as the hottest outfit in post-Katrina reconstruction.