Previously Loved Treasures (Serendipity #2)(8)
That same day Ida called the Chronicle and placed an ad offering a spacious room with a wood-burning fireplace at forty-five dollars a week, including delicious home-cooked meals and desserts. She’d added desserts thinking it would be easy enough to pop an extra pie or two in the oven.
The first call she received was from a truck driver named Louie Marino. “Friday’s my last run,” he said. “I’m retiring and looking for a place to settle down.”
Ida simply could not picture a gruff-voiced truck driver sleeping in the rosewood bed. “I’m afraid the room advertised is more of a lady’s boudoir, but I’ve other rooms if you’re interested.”
“The other rooms, they come with the same cooking?”
“Oh, yes,” Ida assured him. “A hot home-cooked breakfast and dinner. Lunch is mostly salads and sandwiches.”
“The sandwiches ain’t those little bitty tea room things, are they?”
“No, sir. I believe in feeding folks proper. You’ll never walk away from the table hungry, that’s for sure.”
“I’ll take it,” Louie said.
“But you haven’t seen the room or asked about the rent—”
“I’m in Pittsburgh today,” Louie said, “but I could come by tomorrow night.”
By the time Ida hung up the telephone she’d decided that since the cost of rent seemed of little importance to Louie Marino, she would offer him the upstairs bedroom with a connecting bath and charge the same forty-five dollars she planned to charge for the sitting room now dubbed the Rosewood Room.
~
The second caller was a silky-voiced woman who spoke with the slightest touch of an accent. She introduced herself as Laricka Marie McGuigan Herrman.
“Good gracious,” Ida said. “That’s a lot of name for one person.”
The woman laughed. Not a guffaw, but a soft chuckle that made Ida want to like her. “I know. But I hang on to each of those names because they mean something. My father worked in a Cuban cigar factory and named me after their best cigar. It was called La Ricka, meaning the rich one.”
“Oh, so you’re a wealthy woman?” For a fleeting moment Ida wondered if forty-five dollars was enough to be asking for rent.
Laricka laughed. “In some things, yes. But when it comes to money, unfortunately no.”
The answer put a quick end to Ida’s thoughts of higher rent.
That afternoon when Laricka came to look at the room, twin grandsons who appeared to be ten or eleven accompanied her. Although Ida was none too happy with the boys since they constantly poked and jabbed at each other, she was overwhelmingly pleased with Laricka herself. The woman was soft-spoken and pleasant, the type Ida could see as a friend. As Laricka walked around the room oohing and awing at most everything, Ida was already picturing them lingering at the breakfast table long after the others had departed. She could almost hear bits and pieces of conversations about planting flowers, needlepoint patterns, and recipes.
“I love the room,” Laricka said wistfully, “and it’s so close to my daughter’s house…” Her smile slid into a downward slope. “But with being on a limited budget I can only afford forty.”
Ida hesitated. It was the most beautiful room in the house, and the bed was almost majestic. It was worth forty-five. She knew she should stick to her guns, but the truth was she had already pictured Laricka sleeping in the rosewood bed. She’d already imagined the conversations they’d have. Letting her walk away would be like losing a friend.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
The next morning Laricka moved in with nine trunks of clothing, a sewing machine, and Bobo, a yappy little dog who nipped at Ida’s heels.
“You never mentioned a dog,” Ida said.
“I didn’t?” Laricka filled the dog’s bowl with water and set it on the kitchen floor. “I can’t imagine how I forgot a thing like that.”
With Bobo’s constant yapping, Ida could no longer hear the conversations she thought she’d be having with Laricka. She now wished she’d stuck with her request of forty-five dollars for rent.
~
By the end of the week Ida had five boarders. Louie moved into the upstairs room with a connecting bath, and the last bedroom she rented to a bachelor dentist who pompously referred to himself as Doctor Payne. Although he was a bit uppity for Ida’s liking, he was willing to pay forty dollars for a much smaller room with no fireplace and no private bath. The only bedroom not occupied was the one that belonged to James. Ida had purposely not rented that room.
On Friday Sam Caldwell telephoned Ida with the news that he had a lead on Joelle Williams. “She gave up her apartment and left Nashville with James. The two of them moved to New Orleans and lived together three or four years, but there’s no record of them ever being married.”
“Living together and not married?” Ida replied. “That doesn’t sound like my James.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Sam said, “because when Joelle Williams moved from New Orleans she left a forwarding address for Cherry Hill, New Jersey.”
“Did James move with her?”
“I don’t think so. According to the superintendent of the building they lived in, James had been gone for five or six years before she left.”