Dream House

by Stephanie Fournet

  “I have four hundred twenty-three dol—”

  “It’s enough,” I say before Pen can jump in.

  Nina hands over the money, and the way she lets it go, I realize it’s all she has. All the money she has in the world. And there’s no bags. No belongings. Nothing else.

  “I’m afraid the room’s not ready yet—” The color drains from her face so fast, I’m sure she’ll faint. “B-but, if you’d be willing to dust and vacuum it tonight, I’d pay you fifty dollars and you can move in immediately.”

  Her color comes back, but she eyes me before shifting uneasily on her feet. “Fifty is too much,” she says, her mouth pinched.

  I stare at her. She stares back. I don’t know much about Nina Lemoine, except that life has dealt her a shitty hand and she won’t accept charity.

  “There’s two more rooms for rent that need cleaning.”

  Her eyes widen—even the one that resembles a plum more than an eye—and she nods rapidly. “I can do that. And don’t worry,” she says in a rush, “I have a job. I’ll never be late on my rent.”

  I nod, smiling. “I’ll show you upstairs. You can pick the one you want.”

  We leave Pen in the foyer, but I’m almost positive I see her drawing some kind of symbol over the front door and muttering an incantation under her breath.

  Whatever she’s doing, I hope we don’t need it.

  The next morning, I’m in the kitchen with Maisy when Nina walks in. She stops dead in the doorway, staring at Maisy. Maisy looks back, and I’m sure she’s going to ask about Nina’s eye, which is an even darker purple today.

  “Morning, Nina. This is my daughter Maisy.” I turn to Maisy who’s sleepily chomping on a bagel with butter. “Maiz, this is Nina. She’s going to live upstairs.”

  Around her mouthful, Maisy asks, “Wif Pen?”

  Smiling, I shake my head. “Nope, she’s staying in the room with the blue flowers.” Nanna went through a wallpaper phase in the nineties. There are worse things than nineties floral wallpaper. Changing that out in all of the bedrooms is a want, not a need.

  “Can I have blue flowers in my room?” Maisy asks.

  Uh oh.

  “You have pink flowers in your room,” I say, “Pink is awesome.”

  Maisy looks to Nina to see if my statement is trustworthy.

  At first, Nina says nothing, but then she seems to jolt out of her own thoughts. “Pink was my favorite color when I was your age.”

  She says it in a way I know she means it. Pink was her favorite color. It makes me sad and a little sick. Nobody deserves to be treated the way she’s clearly been treated. But pink is the color of innocence. And she said pink was her favorite. I’m almost afraid to ask what her favorite color is now.

  Her clothing gives me no clue. She’s wearing the same T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops she had on last night, except the white of her shirt is now streaked with dust from her hour and a half spent cleaning the upstairs bedrooms.

  I wondered about her all night. I offered her a change of clothes before I went to bed, but she turned me down, saying she’d get some today. Her hair is wet from the shower, so at least she’s had a chance to bathe, but I feel bad that she had to put on her dirty clothes.

  “Would you like some breakfast?”

  A frown creases her brow as she shakes her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  “It’s covered in your rent,” I blurt, surprising myself. “Breakfast, I mean.”

  Nina eyes me with suspicion, and I push away from the table. “And coffee.” I gesture toward the full pot to add credibility to my offer. And, hey, it’s not a lie. It’s just a very new policy.

  I decided on it just now. Breakfast for my tenants. I can do that. I’m making it anyway for Maisy, Tyler, and myself.

  “Today it’s bagels and your choice of butter, cream cheese, or jam.” Again, the condiments on my counter add legitimacy. “What can I get you?”

  Nina stares at the items on the counter, looking doubtful.

  “It’s continental today, but I do a hot breakfast a few days a week.” Again, not a lie.

  She blinks. I watch her inhale. The coffee smells good if I do say so myself. I realize then that she probably hasn’t eaten in hours. Maybe even more than twenty-four hours. As far as I know, she didn’t leave the house last night, and I know she didn’t come down to the kitchen and help herself to anything.

  “The ad didn’t mention anything about breakfast being included,” she says.

  I tsk. “Yeah, I’ll need to speak to Pen about that,” I say, feigning disappointment.

  She turns a puzzled expression my way. “Does she work for you?”

  I have to bite down on my smile. “Pen doesn’t work for anyone.” I chuckle. “But she helps me—helps us... Please. Have a seat.” I gesture toward the table. Like all of the common rooms, Nanna’s kitchen is big. Big enough for her scarred farmhouse table that seats six. The thing is made of pecan and bears a few cigarette burns from Nanna’s father’s time, the dot-dot-dots of Nanna’s tracing wheel from when she cut out patterns for her dresses, and the scratch from that time I put my skateboard on the table.

  Oops.

  Without hearing her actually accept one, I pop a bagel in the toaster, and Nina must see that a breakfast is inevitable because she sits at the table—at the far end from Maisy.

  But my four-year-old is undeterred. “Why is your eye like that?”

  “Maisy, finish your breakfast. We have to get you to school.”

  My attempt at redirection is a resounding failure.

  “Ish it a bo-bo?” Maisy asks through another mouthful.

  I glance over my shoulder, but Nina isn’t hiding behind her hair like I expect. She’s looking back at Maisy. And even if she isn’t exactly smiling, her face is open. The most open I’ve seen so far.

  “Yes, it’s a bo-bo.”

  Maisy nods with authority. “Don’t worry. It’ll get better.”

  Now Nina does smile a little. I do too. For a moment, I’m struck by the oddness of the present. A month ago, I wouldn’t have imagined we’d be having breakfast, here, in Nanna’s kitchen with a stranger. A battered stranger, no less.

  And Maisy is completely okay with all of it. She’s the absolute best. The best thing life has ever given me.

  “I hope so,” Nina says, and I hear the false cheer. Our eyes meet, and I want to echo Maisy’s promise. Don’t worry. It’ll get better. But who am I to make those kinds of promises?

  “Uncle Tyler has a bo-bo head,” Maisy says, again an expert on all things bo-bo. “He’s getting better.”

  “Oh,” Nina offers. Because what else can she say?

  The bagel pops up, and I toss the halves onto a plate. “Butter or cream cheese?”

  Nina blinks a few times, looking at me as if I’ve asked her if she’d prefer a Lexus or a Mercedes. “Cream cheese, please.”

  “Cream cheese is yucky,” Maisy mutters.

  “Maisy.” My stern tone has her tucking her chin.

  When I finish dressing the bagel, I set it down in front of Nina.

  “Thank you,” she says softly, unable to meet my eye.

  “You’re welcome,” I say firmly. “Coffee? I was just about to make a second cup.”

  She steals a quick glance up at me and then looks back at her plate. “Um… sure.”

  I move back to the counter and grab another mug. “How do you take it?”

  She’s so quiet, I look back at her over my shoulder.

  “H-however you take it is fine.”

  I stare at her agog. “You… you can’t mean that.” My morning cup—or, more accurately cups—of coffee are a sacred ritual. Pen claims that it might as well be magic. She could be right. If I don’t get my eight ounces of Community Coffee with a quarter cup of Borden’s whole milk, and two packs of Wholesome Stevia, I’m a monster.

  But I know that the way I take my coffee is just right for me. Not everyone else.

  When Nina doesn’t respond, I
do the only thing I can do. Make two cups of my coffee.

  I bring them over to the table, and when I set the mug down in front of her, Nina stares at it as though it just landed from Mars.

  “Is it too light?” I ask. Nanna used to tease me about what she called my “coffee milk.”

  She shakes her head. “No...N-no one’s ever made me coffee before.”

  I’m glad she’s still staring at the cup when she says this because I know my face must register first shock and then heartbreak on her behalf.

  I remember sitting at this very table when I was Maisy’s age, drinking coffee milk Nanna made for me out of a miniature tin cup with a tiny spoon. I remember how Nanna would put so much sugar in for me that there would still be undissolved crystals at the bottom that I’d lap up with my tongue.

  Nina picks up the mug with both hands like a priest during the consecration. She blows over the steaming surface, and when she takes a sip, her gaze flies to mine.

  “That’s delicious,” she says, sounding surprised.

  I try not to smile too big. “Glad you like it.”

  When she blushes a little, I turn my attention back to Maisy. “Two minutes, bug, and then it’s time to brush your teeth.”

  She drops the last wedge of her bagel onto her plate. “I’m ready now.” Maisy starts to push herself from the table with buttery hands.

  “Hey, wipe your face and hands first.”

  She flashes sassy eyes at me, but she knows better than to say anything. She wipes her hands on her napkin and hops down from the table.

  “Morning, Uncle Tyler!” Maisy cheers. I turn to find my brother standing in the doorway in his boxer shorts and a white T-shirt. His face is blank, but his eyes are on Nina.

  I look at her and find her frozen, the mug halfway from the table to her mouth, which is clamped shut. A look of terror in her eyes.

  “Nina, this is my brother, Tyler.” I turn back. Tyler hasn’t moved from the doorway. “Tyler, this is Nina. She’s our new roommate.”

  Neither one greets the other. Tyler stares. Nina… shrinks. That’s the best way to describe it. Her elbows tuck in toward her body as she sets the mug down. Her shoulders hunch, and her hair falls over her face. And then she performs the best vanishing act I’ve never seen.

  “I have to go.” Her chair scrapes against the kitchen floor, and she’s a streak of blonde and white before her footfalls beat a path up the stairs.

  Tyler’s gaze is fixed on the kitchen door opposite him where she just fled. It occurs to me then, just a little too late, that I didn’t say anything to either of them last night.

  I should have told Tyler I’d rented one of the rooms. He knew about the plan for us to take in renters. But I should have gone to his room last night after I got Nina settled upstairs and told him he’d see someone new.

  Adjusting to changes is hard for people with head trauma. Moving here has been easier for Tyler than if we’d moved anywhere else. He’s known Nanna’s house his whole life. This place is familiar. But I should have prepared him to see a stranger at our table this morning.

  And Nina.

  She looked petrified.

  I can’t say that I blame her. Tyler is a big guy. A big guy with a mean scar on his forehead and into his hairline. And that blank stare of his can be more than a little intimidating.

  Not to mention he walked in basically in his underwear. Wearing a sleeveless T-shirt.

  Otherwise known as a wife-beater.

  Shit.

  Yeah, I probably should have told my battered tennant that there’s a two-hundred-forty-pound, six-foot-two, brain damaged man who lives here too.

  I’m sure it’s her dream come true.

  Chapter Four

  STELLA

  I’ve just set the timer on Mrs. Callahan’s dryer to process her root job when my phone rings. The number is local but unfamiliar.

  I’m not supposed to be on my phone at the salon, but broken window panes and all that.

  “Hello?”

  “Please. Please tell me you still have a room for rent.” The caller’s use of the word please clashes with her demanding tone.

  “Um…” I slip into the salon’s storeroom and out the back door. Tess’s Tresses sits smack dab in the middle of the strip mall next to Albertsons on Johnston Street. The back door opens onto acres of tree-dotted grass hemmed in by a private drive. A few of the other stylists like to come out here and smoke. I don’t smoke, but I like the view, even if it’s a hot day. “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Oh, I don’t sound right to you?” The emphasis on the word right, I know, is supposed to convey white. And even though my defenses go up, I take a breath and tell myself the person calling me is probably having a really bad day.

  I could hang up on her and block her number or I could give her a chance. Nanna used to tell me that if we don’t give people a few chances to do right by us, we’ll spend our lives alone.

  “Hi,” I say firmly. “I’m Stella Mouton. What’s your name?”

  The phone is silent for a moment. “I’m Livy Arnold.” I still hear wariness in her voice, but it’s not outright hostile. “I saw your property on Craigslist.”

  “And you’re looking for a room?”

  Again, a moment of silence. “A room, yes. But in a place where I’m welcome.” Livy Arnold says this with as much defiance as anyone could use and still pronounce the word welcome.

  It’s hard to be sure, but she sounds like she’s a teenager. “You sound young.”

  “You sound white,” she snaps.

  I choke on a laugh. “I am white. Does that matter?”

  She sighs an angry sigh over the phone. “I live with two white girls in Bonin Hall at UL. Are you gonna ask me if I stole it every time you misplace something?”

  “No. I’m going to ask my four-year-old daughter Maisy who is known for helping herself to things that don’t belong to her,” I say matter-of-factly.

  Silence again.

  “Are you gonna tell me I smell like a Black person?” Her question is full of smothered rage, but it still makes me wince. That had to be awful.

  “My best friend Pen is Black. She smells like patchouli,” I say because it’s true. “She lives with me too.”

  This time, there’s no silent pause. “You live with a Black girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you a white girl?”

  “Yep.”

  Silence. And more silence.

  I’ve already made up my mind about Livy Arnold. “I have two furnished rooms available. Would you like to take a look at th—”

  “Yes.”

  Now I’m grinning. “Would seven o’clock tonight do? I work until six.”

  “That would be ideal,” she says crisply. “I have class until six-thirty.”

  I remember Nina’s distress at breakfast this morning and don’t want anyone else to be surprised. “Aside from my daughter and Pen, my brother Tyler lives with us and we just rented one of the rooms to a young woman named Nina,” I say.

  “Are they gonna ask me to explain BLM to them?” Bitterness turns her voice to acid.

  I picture Nina hiding behind her hair. Tyler re-learning the alphabet. “I can say with almost absolute certainty they will not.”

  “Hmph. They better not,” Livy mutters.

  “Are you crazy?”

  Pen is at the stove getting a bicep workout as she stirs her sausage jambalaya.

  The kitchen smells amazing. Pen picked up Maisy from aftercare before five o’clock and handed me a glass of Landry’s Blanc du Bois as soon as I walked in.

  I could get used to this.

  Everything except her asking me if I’m crazy.

  “It sounds like she’s having a terrible experience in the dorms.” I would’ve thought that Pen would’ve found Livy’s situation compelling.

  “Did it occur to you that maybe she’s having a terrible experience because she’s a terrible person?” Pen raps the side of her long metal spoon
against the rim of the stock pot with a clanging that makes me glad Tyler’s in his room. Even Maisy, who’s coloring at the table, covers her ears. “This is ready,” Pen says—as if any of us can hear anymore.

  “Maisy, could you go tell your uncle it’s time for dinner?”

  My four-year-old slides off her chair and scampers from the room while I take down bowls from the cabinet. “And to answer your question, no, I do not think she’s a terrible person.”

  I move to the stove to serve Maisy and Tyler. “This looks really good, by the way.”

  Pen gives a modest shrug. “I cheated.”

  I heap Tyler’s bowl with steaming chunks of sausage. “How did you cheat?” I tease. “Did you use magic like the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No, smartass. I used Minute Rice.”

  “Oh.” I fake disdain. “You just ruined it. You picked up my kid, made dinner, and poured me a glass of wine. I was going to ask you to marry me, but if this is Minute Rice—”

  She snorts a laugh. “You know you’re not my type.”

  “And what type is that?” I ask, carrying the bowls to the table. “Gainfully employed? No police record? Or no piercings south of the border?”

  Her brows leap. “I told you about Jeremy Hollier?” Jeremy Hollier works at Spirits, the liquor store across from the Pen Pen.

  My eyes bug. “Jeremy Hollier has a piercing on his—”

  “Mama, can Uncle T and I eat in his room to watch—”

  I whirl around to face my daughter and brother so fast I almost get whiplash. “No, ma’am. You will sit at the table, and we will eat together as a family.”

  Maisy and Tyler look at each other with unmistakable resignation. Then Tyler lifts his gaze to mine.

  “Ish crea...m?”

  If she told me once, Nanna told me a thousand times. Pick your battles. “Fine. You can eat your ice cream in front of the TV.”

  Both Tyler and Maisy flash each other matching grins as if they’ve pulled one over on me.

  The four of us sit and dig in.