Chapter Six

Lauren is waiting in the lobby when I get back, sitting on a couch wearing a set of stiletto heels that could easily be considered weapons in some states, and a dress to match. This is Lauren in full flow, dressed to impress – or, more accurately, to make it clear she doesn’t give a fuck whether she impresses or not.

My God, I’ve missed her.

She sees me almost at the same instant I see her, and her face cycles through a montage of emotions: happiness, concern, confusion. It takes her all of two seconds to leap up, cross the slick marble floor of the hotel lobby – no mean feat in those shoes – and wrap me up in a hug that presses me hard against her chest.

‘Easy,’ I say. ‘I’m sticky. You’ll ruin your dress.’

‘Are you OK? What happened? Tell me everything.’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ I say, disentangling myself from her hug. ‘I promise.’

‘Where’ve you been? The lobby said you checked in two hours ago.’

‘Just some bar. A jazz club. The Coeur de Vie.’

Lauren frowns. ‘You went to a bar? By yourself?’

‘Stranger things have happened. Besides, I didn’t go to a bar. I went for a walk. I just sort of… ended up at one.’

‘Alone?’

‘Mostly.’

A wry sort of smirk crosses her face. ‘Ella,’ she says. ‘You’ve been in town for all of two hours.’

Suddenly, I feel a strange uptick in loyalty to Carter. ‘It wasn’t like that. I just got chatting to someone.’

‘A man someone.’

‘A musician. The trumpet player.’

‘Ella. Did you at least take a picture?’

‘Of a strange man at a bar?’

‘Of the hot stranger who apparently managed to keep you away from us for hours.’

‘I didn’t say he was hot.’

‘You didn’t have to. I know that look.’

‘What look?’

‘The I’m-hooking-up-with-a-jazz-musician-at-your-wedding look.’

I frown up at her. ‘I’m not hooking up with anyone. I just had a drink, that’s all.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says. ‘We started early too.’ And then, after a momentary pause: ‘Just… when the others get here, be nice?’

‘What?’

‘I said, be nice. You’re going to be spending the next four days with these people, and you can be a bit…’

‘Not nice?’

‘Judgy.’

‘Occupational hazard.’

‘You know what I mean. They’re nice people. And they’ll be nice to you, so at least try and make like you have something in common?’

I snort. ‘Of course I’m going to be nice to them. Just because they’re not my friends, it doesn’t mean like I’m going to be an outright bitch.’

‘Not acting like a bitch doesn’t mean that you’re being nice, El,’ she replies.

‘Says who?’ I joke, but Lauren just rolls her eyes. ‘Fine, fine. When the Abercrombie Squad gets here, I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

‘The Abercrombie Squad?’

‘They’re not here yet. Let me get it out of my system. Where are they, anyway?’

Lauren nods her head towards the back room. ‘Hotel bar,’ she says. ‘And if the past hour has been anything to go by, they’re not going to rest until they’ve seen the bottom of every bottle of spirits in Louisiana.’

Fantastic, I think. Well, at least we aren’t going to have a shortage of doctors around if one of them needs their stomach pumped.

‘How come you’re not with them?’ I ask.

‘I needed a minute. Besides, I was worried about you. They told me you’d checked in already, but…’

‘I sent you a text. There was no signal at the bar.’

‘Not much signal at the hotel either,’ she replies. ‘The whole damn city seems to be a dead zone. I wasn’t worried because you were out. I know you can look after yourself.’

‘Then why?’

She looks at me like I’ve gone insane, one eyebrow raised as though the answer should be clear. ‘Because of the whole Carter thing,’ she says. ‘Obviously.’

There’s not a lot I can say to that; there’s not a lot I want to say to it. Somehow, talking about it makes it seem more real, and that’s the last thing I want. It was easy for an hour or so, back when I was at the Coeur de Vie, to pretend that it was all happening to someone else – that I was just another tourist, living an entirely different life. That I’d left the heartbroken Ella Mossberg in O’Hare International Airport, and that a fresher, brighter, happier version of me had made it to New Orleans in her place.

But she’d followed me. Somehow, the crafty bitch had chased me all the way to Louisiana, and she wasn’t letting go of me without a fight.

‘You doing OK?’ Lauren asks.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Sure?’

‘Mostly. I don’t want to think about it.’

Lauren grins. ‘That’s the spirit. Less thinking, more drinking, right?’

‘So you say…’

If Lauren has some snarky comeback to that – which she does; I can see it as plain as the nose on her face – then it’s buried under the shriek that comes from the other side of the lobby: ‘Ellie! Is that you?’

Close enough, I think.

The voice comes from a leggy blonde who’s striding across the lobby like a woman on a mission. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to get here!’ she says; apparently Danielle is first and foremost in favour of getting things moving. I’ve met her before, and I wasn’t under the impression we’d ever got along so well. Up close, I can see the reason for her enthusiasm. There’s just enough of a slur to her words that it’s clear she hasn’t been waiting in the traditional sense: the party is well in swing now.

Probably didn’t even notice I was missing, I think, and then choke the thought down.

Paige and Jessica are bringing up the rear, tottering after their loud friend. Paige, the groom’s sister, is a tiny, timid little thing, five feet and zero inches tall, like a redheaded china doll. Jessica, I seem to remember, is one of Lauren’s work buddies: six feet of willowy Asian perfection, as smart as she is beautiful, and currently grinning inanely at a spot about three feet behind me. I’d put good money on the fact that she’s had most of a bottle of wine to herself already; nothing else could explain the distant look on her face.

‘Sorry about her,’ Paige says as she catches up to Danielle. ‘She’s… letting off some steam. That’s paediatricians for you, right?’ She laughs at her own joke, a high little titter, but all it does is drive home the fact that I’m the odd one out: a lawyer surrounded by medics. Even Paige, who’s now almost family, works at the hospital; in fact, that was how Lauren met Drew in the first place. God only knows how else they would have crossed paths. But no… they’re all together, all day every day, saving lives. The only tie I have to them is that Lauren’s mom just happened to be giving birth in the next bed along from my mother twenty-something years ago. You know. No big deal.

‘Steam nothing,’ Danielle grins. ‘I’m planning on going nuclear tonight. What do you say, Ellie? You in? I’m going to need some help painting the town red now Captain Lightweight here seems to have checked out.’

From behind her, Jessica recovers her wits for just long enough to look annoyed. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, and then giggles again. ‘I’m fine.’

‘So when does your fiancé get here?’ Paige asks. ‘Carter, wasn’t it? I can’t wait to meet him. Lauren has told us all so much about… you… two…’

She trails off, and I don’t need to look across to Lauren to know that she’s giving her soon-to-be sister-in-law a death glare – anything to shut her up and stop her from good-naturedly making things a thousand times worse.

Oh, well, I think. I was going to have to get it out of the way eventually. Why not now? Just like pulling off a band-aid. Fast and clean. Get it over with. ‘Carter isn’t going to be coming to the wedding. We, uh… well, we broke up.’

Her hand leaps to her mouth fast enough that I’m worried she might overshoot and take her eye out. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have said anything. Are you OK?’ She reels through the checklist of platitudes like she’s working to a schedule and is running a little bit behind.

I shake my head quickly – a little too quickly – and smile as best I can. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘You couldn’t have known. And I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.’ Four sets of eyes are fixed on mine, but that’s OK; anyone looking at my face isn’t looking at my hand, where I’m furiously tapping my thumb against the soft space where my engagement ring used to be.

Fine, fine, fine.

‘You’re sure?’ Paige asks.

‘Really. I just kind of want to forget about it all.’

Lauren swoops in to save me. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I think we can take care of that. Where better to forget a boy than Bourbon Street, right girls?’

Danielle lets out a whoop of encouragement. ‘Amen!’ she says. ‘It’s right there in the name!’

‘Who are we forgetting again?’ Jessica asks, and the others giggle. Keeping the smile on my face is getting harder by the minute.

The three of them – Danielle, Paige and Jessica – begin to wander off out of the bar, some on shakier legs than others, as Lauren crooks a hand through mine. ‘Come on, you,’ she says. ‘Let’s get this party started.’