Chapter Twelve

Bourbon Street, apparently, never takes a night off. By the time we got back from dinner – the four of them all having re-found some voracious appetites after their early hangover-induced fast – and changed into something a little more suitable for the night, the party was in full swing. No matter where we turn a bar seems to be beckoning us in, offering a siren’s song of dimly-lit dancing and extortionately-priced cocktails.

And who are we to turn down an offer like that?

The first bar we hit is a dingy little joint on a side street, the kind of place that looks to hipsters as though it must be great – after all, how could it stay in business otherwise if it looked so shitty? – but to everyone else looks like the owners pull down the shutters whenever the health inspector comes to town, and the drinks probably come with a complementary serving of hepatitis. ‘You sure about this, Dani?’ Lauren asks. ‘It looks a bit… you know.’

Infected? I think.

Danielle shrugs. ‘Yelp gives it four stars. That’s good enough for me.’ Without further ado, like a general leading her troops into battle, she marches through the front door and waits for us to follow. By the time we get to the bar, a full thirty seconds later, she has a line of five shots of tequila set up and waiting for us.

‘I figured we’d get the night started right,’ she says, dishing them out like candy on Hallowe’en. ‘One for you, and you, and you, and…’

‘Oh no,’ Paige says. ‘Tonight’s Ella’s turn. I can’t keep up with you guys two nights in a row.’ She slides the shot along the bar, back towards Danielle, who refuses to be deterred by this minor setback; instead, she just picks up the glass and carefully tips it back and forth under my nose in an effort to tempt me

‘What do you say, Ellie?’ she asks. ‘You brave enough for Patrón?’

I can’t ever recall Patrón smelling quite so much like gasoline, and if I’m perfectly honest the thought of tequila sends my responsible adult side into shudders of disapproval, but then I catch Lauren standing behind Danielle, staring at me with her big, brown, unfair puppy-dog eyes – wanting me to have a grand old time and loosen up a little bit, if not for my sake than for hers.

‘Sure,’ I say, feigning enthusiasm and getting about ninety percent of the way there. ‘What harm could one shot do, eh?’ A whoop spreads through my chaperones when I agree, followed by another one when I throw back the shot and suck on a wedge of lime that helps – slightly – with the taste.

Before I’ve put the glass down on the bar, Jessica has slid a second shot in front of me. ‘Another one?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘Dani bought five. Someone might as well have it.’

Lauren grins and hangs off my shoulder. ‘Go on, El,’ she says. ‘You can consider it my wedding gift. I haven’t seen you hammered since… what, Spring Break 2009?’

‘I don’t remember.’ Or at least, I’ve tried very hard not to remember, which is almost the same thing.

‘It might do you some good to cut loose a bit. Just for one night. What do you say?’

I stare down at the amber liquid in the glass in front of me; somehow, I don’t remember shot glasses being so damn big before. I’m sure the last one I had wasn’t quite so large, but from the way it feels as it swirls around my stomach (and my head), it’s getting harder and harder to be sure.

Sure, I think. What harm could two shots do, eh?

As I down it, the girls let out another appreciative whoop; the standard for their excitement gets lower with every passing minute.

‘That’s my girl,’ Lauren says. ‘Let’s have some fun, shall we?’

~~~

We do not have fun. Not even a little bit.

It starts when Jessica heads back to the bar to get us our next round of drinks, only to come back a few minutes later empty handed and with a worried expression on her face. ‘What happened?’ Paige asks.

‘He said they don’t do cocktails. No call for it, apparently. They don’t even serve wine. It’s pretty much beer, whiskey or tequila, so… take your pick, I guess.’

‘That’s weird,’ Danielle says, pulling out her phone. ‘The place got crazy-high reviews. I saved them, see?’

Sure enough, there’s page after page of positive reviews – glowing, in fact. ‘I don’t get it,’ she says. ‘I mean, everyone raves about this place. I thought this was going to be the high point of the week.’

‘Ahem?’ Lauren grins. ‘Sure you aren’t forgetting why we’re out here?’

‘You know what I mean. But there’s no decent booze, no crowds, no atmosphere. There isn’t even any…’ She pauses, and yells over to the bartender. ‘Hey! You guys got any music in here?’

He shakes his head. ‘Jukebox is broken. Since… what, 2014, maybe?’

‘A jukebox,’ she says. ‘In New Orleans. And not even a working one! It’s almost heresy. Something’s weird about this place.’ She stands up, smooths down her dress, and heads over to the bar. This is bound to be good, I think as the rest of us follow suit. Danielle once she gets a bee in her bonnet has got to be a sight to see.

Is it wrong of me to be a little happy that this this recommendation on her part sank so damn hard? I mean, I don’t think so – not now my purse is forty bucks lighter because she insisted we all went to see a psychic – but still… I did promise Lauren I’d be nice to her.

I figure as long as I don’t say it out loud, it doesn’t count. That seems like a pretty reasonable rule. It might even be one I can stick with.

‘Hey,’ she says, beckoning the bartender over. Unlike most of the bar staff we’ve seen since we got here – most of the ones I remember, either way – he’s not an astonishingly attractive man or an alt-chic woman. He must be at least forty-five; how old the moustache that decorates his top lip is, it’s hard to say, but he’s got more hair in that few square inches than he does on the rest of his head. ‘What time do things get interesting around here?’

‘Pardon?’ he asks. ‘What do you mean, interesting?’

‘You know… when does the party kick off? Are we just a bit early?’

‘Party?’ the bartender asks. ‘Nah, this is about as busy as it gets. Not a lot of customers in here, see. We’re a little out of the way. Niche crowd.’

I bet, I think. It would take the most dedicated hipster dive bar aficionado to think this was a spot worth seeing, no matter how far off the beaten track he wanted to go.

‘I thought this place was supposed to be cool,’ Danielle mutters under her breath. ‘Four stars my ass.’

‘Oh, you saw that?’ The bartender is smiling like he’s just heard a joke for the fiftieth time and still shows no signs of not being amused by it. ‘Yeah, I figured that was what brought you here. It was just a bunch of college kids dicking around. Figured they’d rate us high just for the hell of it, even though…’ He spreads his hands and looks around. He works here every day; he doesn’t need to be told what a hole the place is. ‘Well, you know. Got their buddies to do it to. We probably get tourists in about three times a week, expecting party central, and then they walk into this.’ He pauses for a second, perhaps expecting us to be as amused by the situation as he is. ‘So can I get you ladies another round of shots, or…?’

Danielle is about to nod yes, but the collective pained expression on the rest of our faces puts a pretty quick stop to that one. ‘Just the bill,’ she says, before turning back to the four of us. ‘I’m just going to head to the bathroom before we go.’

‘Out of order,’ the bartender says.

‘Of course it is.’

~~~

‘Well, that was a waste of an hour,’ Danielle says. She’s pacing up and down the street, part exasperation and part full bladder. ‘I guess that’s what you get for trying somewhere new, right? It’s no wonder everyone used to hang out at Cheers back in the day. Who could blame them?’

‘So where to now?’ Lauren asks. ‘We could go back to the hotel, or… maybe one of the bars we hit up last night?’

Danielle shakes her head. ‘Nope. I promised you fresh and new and exciting. Somewhere we’ve never been before. A real, fun, New Orleans bar experience.’ She’s angrily poking at her phone. ‘Now if I could just get some goddamn cell service so I could check out some reviews…’

‘Seriously, we wouldn’t mind just going to that place last night,’ Paige pipes up. ‘The one with the booths? Maxine’s? Marnie’s?’

Jess shakes her head. ‘Madeleine’s,’ she says. ‘But that wasn’t the place with the booths. That was the one with the big columns and all the goofy shit on the walls.’

‘They all have goofy shit on the walls, Jess. It’s kind of the decorating style around here.’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? All I know is, there was stuff all over the walls. And booths.’

‘Didn’t they both have booths?’

‘I…’

And that’s when I zone out of the conversation. The two tequilas I had at the top of the evening have started to do their magic, and there’s a warm, content feeling spreading outwards from my abdomen. I don’t know what the hell they put in their spirits down here, but I’m starting to think that maybe Lauren had a point. Maybe I do need to cut loose a little bit.

After all, I bet Carter isn’t staying at home, all alone. He’s probably out right now, doing whatever the hell he wants now he doesn’t have to worry about our plan holding him back.

I can’t keep living my life according to a list.

This just isn’t working, OK? This just isn’t working.

It was never going to work out.

Never.

Never, never, never.

No. Not our plan. My plan. My plan, that he hated so much. My plan, that I somehow roped him into. All me. All mine.

Well, fuck him, the tequila whispers in my ear. Just for one night. Fuck him. Go out, and have yourself the best time you can. Just this once, go a little wild. After all, what harm can one more drink do?

None at all, I reckon. None at all.

Paige and Jessica are still arguing over the bar they both half-remember from the night before, and Danielle is scanning the sky as if looking for a passing UFO whose WiFi she can piggyback. Lauren looks at me with an expression on her face that maps exactly onto one word: Help.

And so I do.