Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [252]
We scrambled out of the truck and retrieved our bags from the rudimentary backseat. My hanging bag had fared pretty well. Without asking me, Alcide took my small suitcase. He led the way to a central block in the parking area, and I saw a gleaming elevator door. He punched the button, and it opened immediately. The elevator creaked its way up after Alcide punched the button marked with a 5. At least the elevator was very clean, and when the door swished open, so were the carpet and the hall beyond.
“They went condo, so we bought the place,” Alcide said, as if it was no big deal. Yes, he and his dad had made some money. There were four apartments per floor, Alcide told me.
“Who are your neighbors?”
“Two state senators own 501, and I’m sure they’ve gone home for the holiday season,” he said. “Mrs. Charles Osburgh the Third lives in 502, with her nurse. Mrs. Osburgh was a grand old lady until the past year. I don’t think she can walk anymore. Five-oh-three is empty right now, unless the realtor sold it this past two weeks.” He unlocked the door to number 504, pushed it open, and gestured for me to enter ahead of him. I entered the silent warmth of the hall, which opened on my left into a kitchen enclosed by counters, not walls, so the eye was unobstructed in sweeping the living room/ dining area. There was a door immediately on my right, which probably opened onto a coat closet, and another a little farther down, which led into a small bedroom with a neatly made-up double bed. A door past that revealed a small bathroom with white-and-blue tiles and towels hung just so on the racks.
Across the living room, to my left, was a door that led into a larger bedroom. I peered inside briefly, not wanting to seem overly interested in Alcide’s personal space. The bed in that room was a king. I wondered if Alcide and his dad did a lot of entertaining when they visited Jackson.
“The master bedroom has its own bath,” Alcide explained. “I’d be glad to let you have the bigger room, but the phone’s in there, and I’m expecting some business calls.”
“The smaller bedroom is just fine,” I said. I peeked around a little more after my bags were stowed in my room.
The apartment was a symphony in beige. Beige carpet, beige furniture. Sort of oriental bamboo-y patterned wallpaper with a beige background. It was very quiet and very clean.
As I hung my dresses in the closet, I wondered how many nights I’d have to go to the club. More than two, and I’d have to do some shopping. But that was impossible, at the least imprudent, on my budget. A familiar worry settled hard on my shoulders.
My grandmother hadn’t had much to leave me, God bless her, especially after her funeral expenses. The house had been a wonderful and unexpected gift.
The money she’d used to raise Jason and me, money that had come from an oil well that had petered out, was long gone. The fee I’d gotten paid for moonlighting for the Dallas vampires had mostly gone to buy the two dresses, pay my property taxes, and have a tree cut down because the previous winter’s ice storm had loosened its roots and it had begun to lean too close to the house. A big branch had already fallen, damaging the tin roof a bit. Luckily, Jason and Hoyt Fortenberry had known enough about roofing to repair that for me.
I recalled the roofing truck outside of Belle Rive.
I sat on the bed abruptly. Where had that come from? Was I petty enough to be angry that my boyfriend had been thinking of a dozen different ways to be sure his descendants (the unfriendly and sometimes snooty Bellefleurs) prospered, while I, the love of his afterlife, worried herself to tears about her finances?
You bet, I was petty enough.
I should be ashamed of myself.