Page 179 of Rhodes

“I wasn’t watching. I have peripheral vision.”

Jo comes up behind her carrying two canvas bags. “Can somebody please take these before my arms fall off?”

Ford takes one from her. “You should have called me. I would have come and helped.”

“I thought I had it. Don’t worry, I made it.”

She leans over and kisses him.

Tallulah snorts at something Jo says and comes back over to me with her chin up. Her life is still hers.

That was the deal from the beginning of the second time around, although we never really called it a deal. She has school, her Tuesday meetings, Helen, Jo, and the reef work every Friday she can manage it. Oak Moss is still a priority whenever she can get back to Charleston, and luckily she lets me help her with it.

The conservation easement was finalized last summer. Grandbank threw a party afterward and pretended it wasn’t a party, which meant forty people showed up, and there was enough food for eighty.

The restored sections are holding. The shell we sourced last January did what it was supposed to do. Tallulah still checks every damn inch of it whenever we’re there.

And when something goes wrong, sometimes she calls me. Sometimes she doesn’t. I finally learned not to take either personally.

“You brought the good beads?” I ask.

She looks offended. “Obviously.”

“I saw that box of cheap ones you bought. Just making sure.”

“Those were from last year, before I knew better.”

The first distant thump of drums rolls down the avenue. Everybody around us starts moving at once. Someone farther up the route yells that they can see the first float.

Tallulah catches my hand.

“Come on.”

“Where?”

“Closer.”

“We have a perfectly good spot.”

“You sound ninety.” She pulls me toward the curb.

She still has a way of deciding she wants something and moving toward it like the rest of the world should keep up. The difference is I do not try to clear the road anymore. I just go with her when she asks.

The parade turns onto St. Charles in a wall of music, light and screaming people. Tallulah raises both hands when the first float gets close. “Throw me something!”

A strand of purple beads comes flying toward us. She reaches and misses. I catch them over her head.

She turns around. “Those are mine.”

“I caught them.”

“They were thrown to me.”

“You have no evidence.”

She grabs the beads and pulls, but I hold on.

“Rhodes.”