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I look around and the woman calls out to me so sharply it makes me jump. “Quit gawking. There’s food on.” I jerk my head to hers and eyes go wide.

I yell as I realize where we are. “Oh my god, Lucille!?” It’s the diminutive owner of a Gulfport, Mississippi restaurant. “Is Brick here? What is happening?” Brick’s surrogate Auntie, his late grandmother’s best friend, is staring at me with wide eyes.

“Ms. Poppy, don’t you talk about God and me in the same sentence. We live very different lives since he took too many children and people from me. He knows what he did. I’m waitin’ on a good apology.” She raises a fist to the sky.” Come on, now. That boy and your kin ain’t here.”

“You’re not surprised to see me,” I remark.

“Skinny Pete told me you’d be round.”

I toss my hands in the air. “What is happening?!” I run inside the Honky Tonk and Sal follows along behind me. He’s not so sure what’s going on and I don’t like that at all. I turn to him.

“Did you know this was Lucille’s place?” He nods tentatively. “But you didn’t know she’d be expecting us.” I put it all together.

“I think she was expecting you. Who is Skinny Pete?” he asks as we enter the building. I point to the bar.

“He is.” I rush over. “What are you…” and I realize, “…does everybody have someone spying on me?”

Pete slaps his knee and then the bar. He puts his arms around my shoulders. “Lu, get this girl some gumbo. And you should know, she makes a helluva roux cuz a you.”

I shrug and say, “That’s true.” She beams at me with whatever teeth she has left and gives my shoulder a pat.

Sal puts his hands up and says, “Everybody stop fucking rhyme time and start fucking answering me.” Ms. Lucille raps his hand with her ladle.

“Glad my lesson back in that fancy town of yours came in handy in a pinch.” I pull her to me and hug her frail body, and she pats my back.

“Cooking with you at Brick and Becca’s wedding was the one of the last times I cooked before…”

“Enough shit. I need answers,” Sal says.

Lucille scolds Sal again. “None of that talk now. Sit your bottom down. He told me you’d be by someday, but that was before you was dead, fool. Then I was to look out for Miss Poppy.”

“Fucking hell.” Sal scrubs his face and groans a little. He doesn’t enjoy being in the dark. Welcome to my world.

She hits his hand again and I giggle. “But even fighting the grave don’t mean you can cuss like that in my place? You hear?”

“Capiche, ma’am.” Sal nods to her.

“No ca-peaches. You keep your mouth clean.”

“I hear. All apologies, being newly undead, I must have forgotten my manners. Won’t happen again.” He kisses her hand and the Bayou Queen of the boil turns her eyes down as if she’s blushing. She lightly slaps his arm, then looks at me.

“Oh, child, he a charmer. You in trouble.”

“Don’t I know it,” I say.

Sal’s slightly louder voice cuts over all our laughter. “Enough. Ma’am, does Brick know I’m here?”

She quickly snaps a picture and does something on her phone. She cackles, “He do now.”

I sit down at the bar and sip the iced tea put in front of me. There’s a good amount of whiskey in this sweet tea and it’s delicious. Sal sits next to me. “Skinny Pete, this is my husband, Sal.”

He tips his dirty faded Auburn ball cap. “Nice to meet you, sir. But did not know that Fiona was married when I hit on her at first. Apologies.”

“Bygones.” Sal lifts his chin.

I offer up an explanation. “Skinny Pete was a regular for about the last month or so. I’m guessing Brick sent you once he found me before dispatching Tabi to fetch me.”

Skinny Pete nods, “There was four of us fellas he sent but I’m the one that found you, Ms. Fiona. Brick’s Mimi Tinker was a good woman and Brick a good man. I knew you had trouble if he sent me to spy. Is this man the trouble? I don’t look like nothing, but I could protect you, Ms. Salvatore.” Sal smirks at the use of his name as my fake last name.