Chapter Seven

As it turns out, I don’t drink enough to forget about Carter. In fact, I don’t drink much at all.

At the first bar we walk into, Danielle orders a row of shots for the bride and friends, and I decide in that instant that one of us is going to have to stay sober. No one else volunteers, so as they knock back cocktails like we’re about to enter Prohibition 2.0, I sip on a soda water with a slice of lime to spice things up a bit. As I shepherd the girls up and down Bourbon Street, trying my best to feed them as much water as I can along the way, my mind keeps drifting back to Carter.

Every spare second I get is spent staring at my phone, scrolling down to Carter’s name, and waiting. I’m not even sure what I’m waiting for. The right opportunity to call him, maybe? Well, this sure as hell isn’t it. Even if I thought he’d pick up, even if I knew what to say if he did, I wouldn’t want to do it outside a bar in a city I don’t know, surrounded by people having the time of their lives while making sure Lauren and the girls don’t wander their way into trouble. If we have that discussion – when we have that discussion, I correct myself – it has to be perfect.

I’m only going to get one shot.

But that doesn’t stop me thinking about it. It doesn’t stop my thumb from reflexively bringing up our text message thread, expecting to find something to make my day a little brighter. It doesn’t stop me re-reading his words, remembering happy times in between trying to convince the girls not to try and make out with the Christian protestors in the middle of the street. It doesn’t stop me typing out and deleting a dozen or more messages to him while negotiating between four drunk women and a string of worn-out bartenders who just want to get on with their night.

None of it distracts me from Carter.

By the time we find our way to a karaoke bar, where my charges can be corralled into a booth that won’t put too much of a burden on the other patrons, I’ve hit a whole new level of maudlin. The problem is that I can’t work out what the problem is, what I should have done differently. I’ve just about managed to accept the fact that Carter doesn’t want to be a part of my plans, but… well, so what? Plans can be altered. You don’t sink the cruise liner just because you don’t like the colour of the deckchairs. We could have changed things. It wasn’t like I forced him into it… was it?

Too many renditions of Man, I Feel Like a Woman later, we make it back into the (neon) light of the outside world. Like herding cats, I manage to get the four of them into something vaguely approximating the direction of the hotel, winding our way through a crowd of equally-drunk revellers.

‘Hey… Hey, El.’

Lauren is leaning on me for support, both moral and physical, and her words come soaked in enough vodka I’m sure she could light her breath on fire. ‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘That bar you went to earlier. What was it called?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. I’m distracted by the sight of sweet, innocent Paige making a surprisingly successful attempt at performing a poledancing move on a streetlamp. It’s always the quiet ones, I think. Jessica and Danielle hoot with laughter; I’m just concerned that she’s going to put a hat down and start taking donations to cover the cost of the night’s drinks. Perhaps that’s why Lauren’s question manages to slip past me unexamined.

‘Yes you do. What was it?’

‘The Coeur de Vie… why?’

‘And the guy you totally have a crush on… tall? Black?’

Oh, shit.

I follow the line of the finger she’s pointing, and sure enough, there he is: maybe thirty yards ahead of us, standing under the bright light of the Coeur de Vie sign, his trumpet case in hand.

Grinning.

‘Hush,’ I say, too late to stop the blood from flowing to my cheeks. I’m blushing brighter than the neon of the rest of Bourbon Street combined.

‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ Lauren cackles. ‘Oh, he’s nice. I like him.’

‘Lauren Jeanette Harris,’ I hiss into her ear, ‘I swear if you don’t shut your mouth this instant I’m going to leave you right here in the gutter where the rats can eat you.’

It doesn’t work. ‘Hello, Mr. Jazzman!’ Lauren yells down the street. ‘My friend thinks you’re cute!’

The street steadfastly refuses to swallow me up, no matter how much I wish for it. Typical.

‘Is that right?’ he calls back.

Lauren nods like a bobblehead in an earthquake.

‘Well, your friend has a good eye,’ he smiles. He tips his hat to us for a second. ‘You ladies stay safe, alright?’ His voice is rough and raspy and deep, no doubt from a night on the trumpet, but his tone is mellow and I can tell that Lauren is suitably charmed. When he winks at me before he turns the corner, I think she’s in danger of swooning her way into a puddle right there in front of me.

‘Who was that?’ Paige calls out when Jack is – mercifully – out of earshot. ‘Why did he wink at Ella?’

‘He’s no one,’ I say, redoubling my efforts to get them home and wondering if it would be an excessive to call an Uber to travel a block and a half. Wondering if I could pay him extra to reverse over me when he’s done and put me out of my misery.

‘He’s Ella’s new loverboy,’ Lauren says, then lets out a whoop of laughter that echoes down the street. That’s all the encouragement the other three need: within seconds, they’re making kissing noises and misremembering kindergarten lyrics about trees and baby carriages.

It’s too stupid for me to stay angry at them for long.

‘Come on,’ I say, smiling despite myself. ‘Time for bed.’

It takes us another twenty minutes to make the ten-minute walk back to the hotel, but somehow we manage it. Paige and Danielle and Jessica mount the steps of the hotel like novice Sherpas trying to find their way up Everest, but Lauren stops me before we start our ascent.

‘Ella.’

‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I mean, I love you. I really do. You’re my best friend.’

‘I know.’

‘So you’ll be honest with me?’

‘If it gets your drunk ass up these stairs faster, sure.’

‘That was him?’ she asks conspiratorially, like it’s a secret between just the two of us. ‘For real?’

‘For real.’

Lauren lets out a theatrical sigh and smiles down at me.

‘Oh, El,’ she says. ‘You are totally hooking up with a musician at my wedding.’