Chapter Nine

Even though I’m the last one in bed, I’m the first one up: by eleven-thirty, I’m showered and dressed and in the hotel restaurant, where for breakfast I have my pick of two stale bagels and coffee that smells more burnt than the bottom of a pizza oven. Instead I settle for a large glass of water and a bag of chips – you know, the healthy option – and idly skim through a book as I take bets on which of the four will be the first downstairs.

As it happens, I’m right: it’s Paige. Paige, the youngest. Paige, the innocent. Paige, somehow the least drunk despite her impromptu stripper show on a New Orleans lamppost. There’s no danger of a repeat performance today, though. She shuffles into the restaurant like a zombie in a Romero movie, a pair of enormous cat-eye sunglasses trying – and failing – to block out enough of the light to keep her retinas happy. She scans the restaurant for familiar faces, which doesn’t take more than a couple of seconds; I’m the only person in there, except for the wait staff. The long march to my table at the back of the room, however, seems to take an age. By the time she collapses down into one of the nearby chairs, it’s hard not to feel sorry for her.

‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.

Stupid question. The noise she makes answers better than words ever could.

‘Stay there,’ I say, and she puts up no complaint. ‘I’ll sort you out.’

A few minutes later, there’s a glass of water and a double shot of espresso sitting in front of her.

She smiles gratefully, but as she reaches for the coffee I pat her hand away. Instead, I slide my half-empty bag of potato chips over to her. ‘Secret hangover cure,’ I say. ‘It’s the salt. Give it five minutes, and you’ll feel a world better, trust me.’

Paige looks sceptical, but she takes a chip and puts it in her mouth anyway. Her face brightens pretty much instantly.

‘How did you find out about this?’

I shrug. ‘I went to college too, you know. It wasn’t all weekends in the law library. I did occasionally indulge a bit more than I should have.’

‘Hmm.’ It’s a noise I recognise. It’s usually followed by a Weird, or an I never would have guessed. Apparently, I don’t look like much of a party girl.

‘What?’ I ask, and she shrugs.

‘You just seem to have your stuff so… together, you know?’ she says. ‘Like you really know where you’re going with your life. I swear, most people just seem to be spinning their wheels. I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing half the time.’

I wrinkle my nose at her. ‘Aren’t you a nurse?’ I ask.

‘Not this week. If I was, I’d have a saline drip in my arm right about now.’

‘Sorry. The chips are the best I can do.’

She smiles, and takes a big gulp of her water; I can tell she’s eager to get started on the coffee, but she’s got at least enough wherewithal to make sure she’s properly hydrated first. ‘Thanks for this,’ she says. ‘And thanks for taking care of us last night.’

‘It was nothing.’

‘No, it wasn’t. Believe me. I’ve only been out with Dani and Jess and Lauren once before, but I don’t remember much of it. If you hadn’t been there to keep us in line…’ She doesn’t finish the thought. She doesn’t have to.

‘You would have been fine.’

‘Still.’

‘Seriously. Lauren’s a trooper. I was there the first time she ever got drunk, and I can tell you that no matter how drunk she gets, she’s capable of looking after herself – and everyone else. Just make sure you’re using a different bathroom the morning after.’

Paige laughs. ‘Well, I think it’s my turn tonight. I can’t keep up with them for two nights in a row. I figure it’s my turn.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Oh, Dani and Jess have got a full schedule planned. Four days of fun and frolics.’

‘And cocktails? I’m guessing a lot of cocktails.’

‘Now you’re getting it.’

I shrug. ‘It’s OK. It’s nice of you to offer, but I don’t really drink all that often.’ And I really don’t feel like getting shitfaced this week. The sooner I can get it all over with, the better.

‘Even if I wasn’t offering,’ she says from beneath a raised eyebrow, ‘do you really think Lauren is going to let you go back to Chicago without seeing you make a drunken fool out of yourself? It’s New Orleans, honey. Laissez les bon temps rouler.’

The heavy footfalls of Danielle and Jessica ring out their entrance into the restaurant. They slump into chairs next to us and flop forward in tandem, resting on folding arms as Paige and I share a grin. ‘Morning, sleepyheads!’ she singsongs at the pair of them; apparently the chips and water are already working their magic.

The two invalids groan loudly, and plead for Paige to get them something – anything – that will make the room stop spinning.

‘What are we doing today, by the way?’ I ask as she leaves. I’m hoping, given their condition, that the answer is going to be something light – something, perhaps, that I might be able to skip out on if I’m being dragged along on another booze cruise tonight.

It’s Jessica who answers first. ‘Psychics!’ she shouts, a little too loudly and a little too quickly; as soon as the light hits her eyes and she realises just how high the cost of enthusiasm is going to be, her head drops down onto the table and she lets out a regretful groan.

Welcome to hell.

‘Psychics?’ I say. ‘We’re going to see psychics?’

‘Sure thing,’ Paige says from behind me. She sets down two coffees, two large glasses of water and another bag of potato chips, and sets about curing her friends. ‘There’s a bunch of shops in town that do readings.’

‘Readings?’

‘Uh-huh. Tarot and palm.’

‘We couldn’t find anyone with a genuine crystal ball?’

Danielle peels herself up from the table. ‘Oh, joy,’ she says. ‘Look out, ladies. We’ve got a sceptic.’

Somehow, when she says it, the word doesn’t sound like much of a compliment; gone is the enthusiasm Danielle might have had for my arrival yesterday. ‘If that’s what you want to call someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts and fairies and old gypsy curses, sure,’ I say. ‘I’m a sceptic.’

‘It might be fun,’ Paige says. ‘You can still enjoy it, right?’

I sigh. There doesn’t seem like there’s going to be much hope for me to change their minds – and based on the look Danielle is giving me, I’m not sure it would even be wise to try. I’ve already been the sensible one for one night this trip, swearing off booze just so I could help keep the four of them safe. The last thing I need is to get a reputation for being the boring one on the second day. It’ll make the rest of the week with these people a real slog.

‘Come on, Ellie,’ Danielle says. ‘What’s the harm?’

I don’t know, I think. Tell that to the woman who pins all her hopes on getting a message from her dead husband, or the man who spends his life savings looking for help making a decision from someone who blows smoke up his ass the entire time. Put it right up there with crystal healing and homeopathy and all that other new-age bullshit – and then keep it far away from me.

‘I just don’t like it,’ I say.

‘What’s not to like?’ Danielle asks. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘It gives people false hope. That’s dangerous.’

‘A little hope is a good thing.’

I think of Lauren, waiting upstairs, and a conversation I desperately don’t want to have with her. If only you knew, I think. If you knew the damage this could do to her. ‘A little hope can eat away at you,’ I say. ‘Bit by bit. One bite at a time, until there’s nothing left.’

‘Well,’ Danielle says, ‘we’re all big girls. I think we’ll be fine, somehow.’

And that settles it, I guess. I say no more, knowing that it’ll be up to me to bring Lauren’s head out of the clouds later on, but whatever. She’s a grown woman. If she’s signed up to this… well, who am I to judge?

‘Consider us warned,’ Paige says with a smile, ever the peacemaker. ‘I’m going to go and wake Lauren up, OK? See you down here at… say, three?’

I nod. Three it is.

I watch her as she heads up the stairs and out of view, and then turn my sights back to Danielle and Jessica. Over time, the two of them start to nudge themselves back to humanity Before long, they’re laughing and giggling about their exploits last night, piecing together the events of the evening – and all but ignoring me completely. I find that it bothers me less than it perhaps should. I’ve got other things on my mind.

What does bother me is the emptiness of my phone. I don’t have a single missed call, and I haven’t had a single text message since I got here. I frown, but it’s not entirely unexpected. Everyone at work knows I’m on vacation, so at least that explains that one, but being on vacation wouldn’t normally be enough to stop my mother from dropping me a line to see how I was getting on – if nothing else, I would have expected picture after picture of Rocky’s chubby bulldog face, no doubt spoiled to ruin already by her overbearing petsitting technique. When I look at the signal strength in the top corner of my phone, I find the culprit. The hotel is a dead zone.

How does anyone live like this? I think. It’s like being in the dark ages.

It’s a good job that I took the time off work: the office would be pitching a fit if they couldn’t get hold of me. It’s just… I mean, it’s barbaric. How is it possible to be in the middle of a city and still get such shitty cell service? It’s not like I’m out in the swamps or anyth—

And that’s when it hits me, and I can’t help but smile. The lack of signal is the perfect explanation for why I haven’t heard from Carter – the only possible explanation, in fact. We never go this long without talking, no matter how serious the argument might be. Somewhere out there, at some point in the city, I’m sure I have a small treasure trove of voicemails and text messages from him, stuck in digital limbo, waiting to put me at ease. There must be cell service somewhere around here.

Looks like you’re heading out of the hotel after all, I tell myself. Suddenly, the idea of a walking tour of New Orleans doesn’t sound so bad, psychics or no.

~~~

Everyone’s back in the lobby and raring to go by three-thirty. Lauren is the last to join us, and still manages to look a little peaky; the sunglasses she’s wearing don’t seem to be doing anything to help the glare of the hotel lights. Thankfully for her, I’ve got one final bag of chips and a bottle of water ready to go.

‘I should be marrying you,’ she says, prying open the bag and shovelling chips into her mouth.

‘I’m not your type,’ I grin. ‘A little too much woman.’

She shrugs and munches on another chip. ‘I really feel like we could work past it,’ she says as she takes my arm. ‘That’s what a marriage is all about. Compromise.’

‘Oh yeah? Is that why you let yourself get talked into this psychic shit?’

‘That’s Danielle,’ she says. ‘She found a bunch of voodoo shops while she was planning bachelorette activities, wanted to give it a try.’

I roll my eyes. ‘And she thought a fun bonding activity would be to hand over forty bucks each to a con artist?’

‘Yeah, that sounds about right.’ She shrugs again. ‘It’s harmless enough. What’s he going to do, tell me not to marry Drew?’

Maybe if I slip him an extra twenty, I think, but then shake the thought away. I have bigger worries in mind: specifically, just what might happen if Lauren lets herself get her hopes up. It’s almost possible to think that she’s forgotten the news she got less than a year ago. How hard it would be for her to have kids naturally. The way she cried and cried for weeks afterwards. A family was all she ever wanted, growing up, and finding out that it wasn’t going to happen the way she planned…

Well, it crushed her. I don’t want some charlatan dredging all that up again. Especially not if he’s charging her for the privilege.

‘It can be harmless,’ I say, ‘as long as you don’t take it too seriously. Just… don’t get your hopes up, OK?’

‘You mean, when he takes one look at me, sees the blushing bride-to-be and tells me I’m never going to get divorced and I’ll have a kid by this time next year?’ She butts her hip against me. ‘Come on, El. I’m not stupid.’

‘I know you’re not. I never said you were.’

‘But are those really such terrible things to hear two days before your wedding?’

Maybe she has a point. ‘I guess not,’ I say.

‘Then it’s settled. It’s just a bit of fun. But if he sees a string of numbers in my future, I’m definitely playing the lottery with them, no matter how many faces you pull at me.’

‘Fine,’ I say as we round the corner and see the other three standing there, waiting for us. ‘It’s your party.’

‘Damn straight it is,’ she grins, and then turns to the girls. ‘Ready to go?’ she asks.

Danielle nods. ‘One sec,’ she says, staring down at her phone. ‘I’m just trying to find the address.’

‘Are we not just going to let the spirits guide us?’ I ask. Lauren snickers at my side, and even Paige and Jessica give me a little laugh. Danielle rolls her eyes, but still…

Somehow, I think I’ll be able to live with her disapproval.