Hearing the name made me take in a sudden breath. Since the episode at my house, everyone who knew me had been careful not to mention Michael’s name in my presence. Beau’s saying it now felt like a shock to my system, like stepping on a down escalator and going up instead. “No. And I hope he knows better than to try to get in touch.”
Beau looked at his hands clasped between his knees. “I don’t blame you. But I was hoping that maybe I could ask for your help.”
“My help?”
“It’s a huge ask, and I wouldn’t blame you for saying no. But I was hoping that maybe your need for a little revenge and to beat Michael at his own game would override your need to never see him again.”
“What are you suggesting?”
He was silent for a beat, as if reconsidering, then spoke quickly. “I would need you to pretend you’ve forgiven Michael and say you want to start over. Any sane person would see it as completely ridiculous, but he doesn’t seem to be particularly sane. At least, he doesn’t seem to think like the rest of us. It would be just for a short time, until he trusts you enough to let you inside his family circle.”
“You can’t be serious. If you are, you’re more crazy than he is.”
“I get it. I do. But Michael might be the key to finding Sunny, and you’re my only in with the Broussards.”
I wanted to help him find his sister—but in any other way than what he was proposing. “Absolutely not,” I said sharply, making Mardi look up at me. “I’m sure there are other ways to find out whathappened to Sunny. Because I don’t ever want to see Michael again. He reminds me of...” I’d been about to saywhat a horrible judge of character I am, but stopped. Because Beau already knew that.
“I’m just asking that you think about it. It could be the best kind of revenge, to beat him at his own game.”
With Mardi trotting behind me, I walked to the door, eager to end the conversation. “I thought you should know. That night—at my house. I saw those wet footprints again. I think it might be your mother.”
He remained seated, his eyes darkening. “It is.”
“Can you not communicate with her?”
Beau didn’t answer right away. “I can. I just don’t want to listen to what she has to say.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I remained silent. Maybe one day I’d tell him about how Melanie finally sent my mother into the light. At the time, I’d told her that I forgave her, but I was still angry. I realized now that the anger had long faded, and that all I felt when I thought of my mother was the cold ache of loss, and a blossom of love that had once almost been erased by all the anger. If anything, it proved that growth and change were possible. Even for me.
He stood. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you. Remember that night when I slept on your couch?”
I pretended to think. “Vaguely. You were sick or something.”
“Really? Because I remember it pretty vividly. And I definitely remember you kissing me.”
“Oh, no,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “You kissed me first.”
He didn’t smile. “I know. I was just making sure it wasn’t a dream. I was thinking that we should probably talk about that at some point.”
The princess phone rang on the corner of my desk, its dangling cord lying unplugged on the floor.
We both stared at it for a moment. Then I picked up Mardi and opened the door. “It’s for you.” I paused long enough to see him lift the receiver, then closed the door behind me.
I carried Mardi through the door to the stairway that led out to the backyard. I sat on the steps, watching the last of the sun bleed from the sky, my thoughts running through my conversation with Beau about using Michael to help find Sunny, and Beau’s reluctance to talk to his mother. And the memory of our kiss.
I had come to New Orleans for a new chance, for a change. I should have known that a person couldn’t become someone new just by changing zip codes. Dr.Wallen-Arasi had given me a book when I graduated from grad school—Wherever You Go, There You Are. I hadn’t read it yet; maybe that was the problem. But I remembered the title now as one of life’s little truths. Yet I still felt no wiser.
My adopted city of New Orleans was shaped by the meandering Mississippi, its curves a false embrace of the Crescent City, her people thriving in their vulnerability. It’s how theirlaissez les bon temps roulerand laissez-faire attitudes evolved from the unpredictability of the tiger sleeping outside the door.
I had come here believing that was the sort of attitude toward life I was meant to have. My nightmarish childhood had evolved into an ideal and cherished Charleston adolescence. In my quest to find a new identity, I had chosen the Big Easy as my home. My life over the past few months had begun to make me question my choice. And my ability to change.
I buried my face again in Mardi’s soft fur, so grateful that he had found us. Wherever I decided my home would be, it wouldn’t be a home without a dog. I stuck my hands under his T-shirt that readstill lives at home with mom—a gift from Jolene—to feel the warm sweetness that is dog, and missed my General Lee as much as I had the day he’d gone to sleep in the garden behind our house on Tradd Street and had silently crossed over the rainbow bridge.
“Hello?”
Mardi and I both jerked to attention at the sound of the voice coming from the driveway. A young girl in her early twenties stood looking at us, a bright smile on her face, her eyes hidden by large sunglasses. She had shoulder-length sun-streaked blond hair and coltishly longarms and legs despite being past adolescence. A fleur-de-lis tattoo decorated the inside of her wrist, visible when she flicked her hair behind her shoulders.
Mardi didn’t growl at the newcomer, nor did he leap toward her, asking for attention. He just looked at her, as seemingly surprised to see her as I was. “May I help you?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for Beau Ryan? Some lady named Lorda said I could find him here.” Her accent seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Definitely not Southern, nor was she a native New Orleanian, despite the tattoo.
I stood, setting Mardi on the ground. He sat next to me, still unsure of the stranger.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll go get him. Who should I say is looking for him?”
She smiled even wider. “Sunny Ryan. I’m his sister.”
