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But Rose was something else.
“I hate to say this,” one of them said, giving her a wry smile, “but there’s something in your accent I can’t place. You aren’t from the East, are you?”
Rose laughed. “It’s been a long time since anyone noticed!”
“What is it?” the worker asked, cupping his chin.
“You don’t want to wager a guess?” Rose asked.
The construction worker twisted around to address the others. “Who wants to bet on where Rose is really from?”
All hell broke loose after that. Rose ate her sandwich and listened, smiling, as the workers squabbled over where Rose might be from and how much they were willing to bet their guesses. They’d decided that whoever got closest in miles to the original birthplace was the winner, which meant they all got as specific as possible.
“I’m going to guess Nashville, Tennessee,” one said.
“I’m going with Atlanta, Georgia,” another said.
“Dallas.”
“Los Angeles. Look at that skin! She’s a California girl.”
Nobody said Mississippi, but one of the guys said “New Orleans,” and he eventually took the cash prize of sixty-two dollars. He grinned sheepishly, showing his dimples.
“How did you know she was from the Deep South?” one of them asked him.
“I didn’t,” he said. “But I always wanted to go to New Orleans. I figured I’d take my chance.” He blinked at Rose. “Have you beento New Orleans?”
Rose hesitated. “I always wanted to go.”
“It’s so close to where you grew up!” he said.
Rose remembered the dimly lit living room, her brothers and sisters screaming and tearing everything apart, her mother’s tired eyes, and her father’s cruelty.
“Traveling wasn’t really on my radar until I left home,” Rose said.
“But you’re well-traveled now,” the worker said. It was almost like an accusation.
“Yes. I suppose so.” Rose placed her half-eaten sandwich back in its foil. “I guess that means I’d better get down to New Orleans.”
“It’s waiting for you,” the man said.
Rose returned to her work with even more rigor—and an even deeper comprehension of the immensity of her task. She threw things away tirelessly, created piles of items that seemed worth something, and hunted for Oren in the small details, in the stopwatch on a dresser, in a painting that she thought might be of his mother when she was a teenager. She found an old note from Zachary to Oren, in which Zachary said he’d meet him at the horse barn at seven o’clock. Zachary called him “a rascal” in the note.
It was the first time Rose had thought of Zachary in a while. Where did he live now?
Rose pulled up Zachary’s name online and read a brief article about Zachary’s recent sale of a company for twenty-two million dollars. The featured photograph showed him as a typical sixty-something-year-old super-elite Manhattan resident. He was on his fourth wife.
Rose noted that he still had that bright smile. It helped him get away with just about everything.
The rest of that day and the two after that were thesame. Rose worked and cleaned and piled, making sense of a space that she’d never dreamed would be hers. She ate with the construction workers and got to know them better, teasing them and baking their favorite treats.
All the while, Sean Slagle updated her on the search for her stone sculpture. “We haven’t found it yet,” he admitted.
It was the end of the third day that Rose discovered Natalie’s room.
Rose was on the second floor of the Grayson Estate, wearing a ratty white T-shirt and a pair of jeans with holes in the knees. Outside was stormy, gray clouds stirring and frothing as though they were in a blender. Rose listened to the construction workers arguing about something in the ballroom—something about whether or not the roof would really hold. She winced and said a brief prayer.Please save that gorgeous ceiling.
The room was at the opposite end of the house from where the fire had broken out and had been sealed, most of it covered with plastic and white sheets, its curtains closed against the sun. Rose entered, thinking it was just another guest bedroom at first.Another bedroom for the future bed and breakfast.
