TWENTY
CHAPTER
The next day, Kacey took me around New Orleans to all her favorite joints. Now that she was sober, she said, she could enjoy the city. She looked beautiful in a simple T-shirt and denim skirt, her skin glowing with health. The incredible blue of her eyes was brighter than I’d ever seen it.
“I love it here,” she said over beignets at a small café. “The city is so different from anywhere else I’ve ever been.” She took a generous bite from her pastry. “Full of dancing ghosts.”
I nodded absently, only half hearing. “You have some powdered sugar…” I gestured at her lower lip that was dusted in white.
She took a napkin and wiped it away. “Gone?”
“Gone.”
She’d wiped the powdered sugar from her mouth, but my imagination conjured me leaning over the table and sliding my tongue along the seam of her lips, tasting the sweetness…
I was suddenly extremely grateful for the table concealing my lap and took a long drink of ice water.
Since Kacey’s revelation of her promise to Jonah, the little flicker of hope in my heart had flamed up into something constant.
Something permanent. It no longer felt like she and I were impossible.
But what do I do? Tell her what I feel? I can’t tell her. It’s too soon. I’ll fuck it all up.
With any other girl I’d already have had my hands in her hair and my tongue in her mouth because I wouldn’t give a shit what happened later. With Kacey, I cared about all of it; this moment and everything after.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she said suddenly. “I know I’m a broken record, but I miss you.” She frowned, her brows furrowed as if she were trying to work out some complex problem. “I miss you a lot, actually. More than a lot. Is that weird?”
“No.” I coughed. “I miss you too.” I stirred my coffee to conceal how her words hit me right in the chest. “But it sort of seems like you’re done with Vegas.”
“I guess so,” she said, still distracted by her own thoughts. “I’m doing okay here. I’m not drinking, I’m holding down my jobs, making friends. Building a life.”
I nodded. She was closing a door and opening a new one, like that damn Tarot card had said. Meanwhile, I was the Hanged Man. Getting a degree wouldn’t help me if it meant buying a business in Vegas that would likely fail.
If I moved to New Orleans, I could build a life here too.
“Are you finished?” Kacey asked suddenly, indicating my food. “I need to walk.”
“Let’s go.”
We left the café and walked along the French Quarter.
I thought we were strolling aimlessly, enjoying the spring Saturday, but Kacey had a plan.
I realized we were walking along the edge of one of those famous New Orleans cemeteries, with row after row of little house-like crypts, sagging with time.
It had to be eighty degrees out, but my skin broke out in gooseflesh.
“Let’s go in,” Kacey said.
“You sure?”
She shot me a grin. “Why? Are you scared?”
“No,” I snorted. “It’s just…” Graveyards give me the fucking creeps. “…a weird place to hang out.”
“It’s historical,” Kacey said. “Suits my mood, too. Come on.”
I followed her through the open gates. The late-morning sun glinted dully on a stone plaque, St. Louis Cemetery #2 chiseled into it.
We walked among the rows of crypts. Flowers, beads, and candles were strewn at their doors. Some were fenced in with spike-tipped iron, some with pristine white marble. Most were browned with age, probably erected before Las Vegas was even founded.
“Marie Leveau’s crypt is in the St. Louis #1,” Kacey said. “She’s the voodoo queen. We should go there sometime.”
I made a sound that could have been yes or no. I didn’t even want to be in this cemetery, but it’d be a cold day in hell before I admitted that to Kacey.
We found a bench and took a seat as the sun rose higher behind the rows of crypts.
“This place has restless spirits,” Kacey said. “Can you feel them?”
Well shit, I can now , I thought, glancing around and rubbing my arms. Thankfully, Kacey was lost in her own thoughts and didn’t notice.
“I’m restless too,” she said. “I feel like I’m always on the verge of something big.
Then something big happens, like the album selling well, or the show last night.
I think, Okay, that was it. That was the Big Something.
But the next day, or next hour even, the feeling is back.
I’m always waiting for something else, but I have no idea what. It’s unsettling.”
“I sort of feel the same way,” I said. “But for me, I think the Big Something is what happens when I graduate.”
“Then you start your own business,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess. But fuck, it’s risky. I can’t tell if it’s the wrong thing to do, or if it’s just my nerves trying to talk me out of it. Or my dad trying to talk me out of it.”
“Don’t let him talk you out of it,” she said. “It’s your dream. Don’t let it go.”
She sounded like Jonah. Her conviction and her belief in me exactly like his: unconditional.
Kacey regarded me a moment, then glanced down at her hands, that same confusion as earlier twisting her features. “You’re my best friend,” she said. “And when I saw you at the bar with Big E last night, I felt so…happy. More than happy. Overjoyed.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “I get that a lot.”
She elbowed me in the side. “I’m being serious. I haven’t felt like that in a long time.” She looked up at me. “Is that what we are? Best friends?”
“Well, I think…yeah, Kace. You’re my best friend.”
She bit her lip. “Are you seeing anyone? Someone special?”
“No,” I said slowly. “Not anyone special.”
“Oh,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Oscar makes it sound like maybe you are. Or… I don’t know.”
“He’s wrong,” I said, harder than I intended. “He likes to take a joke and run it into the ground.”
She nodded. “It’s none of my business, anyway. I was just…wondering.”
“I haven’t seen anyone seriously since Holly.”
What the hell…?
But the words escaped and there was no taking them back.
Kacey stared. “That was almost a year ago. You broke up with Holly that night at Grand Basin.” She glanced up at me. “Why? I mean, why then and there, in the middle of the woods?”
Because I heard you sing. And I knew I’d never be the same.
I shrugged, keeping my eyes fixed away. “It wasn’t going to happen between us. It felt wrong to string her along.”
“But why that night? Why not wait until after the trip?”
I tried to think of a plausible reason. The truth—or part of it—seemed the only way to go. “I knew she’d want to have sex that night. But it was already over for me.”
Kacey raised her brows with a knowing smile. “So, you could’ve gotten laid one last time, but took the high road instead.”
“I’m not a total lowlife.”
“You’re not any kind of lowlife,” she said. “Funny, at the time, Dena and I thought what you did was kind of harsh. Turns out, you were doing the right thing.”
“What about you?” I asked slowly, the words sticking to my teeth. “Seeing anyone?”
“No, no,” she said, hugged her elbows. “I’m not ready. I think about what it would be like, being on a date with another man. Holding his hand or kissing him goodnight, and I just…I can’t do it. My mind won’t even go there.”
“Because of Jonah,” I said quietly.
She nodded, dropped her gaze to her hands again.
“I’m trying to let him go, you know? But I don’t think that’s something I can do.
Like flipping a switch. I think it’s just something that will happen gradually, and I’ll know it’s happening because I’ll start doing things again.
Going on dates, thinking about other guys… ”
A thought pulled her lips down and she looked up at me. Our eyes met and my guard started to slip, the walls coming down. She sat so close, watching me, a vague notion starting to take root, realization creeping into her gaze.
Say something, Kace. Do something because I can’t. It has to come from you. It has to be real…
She leaned toward me. “Teddy…”
I felt pulled down toward her. “Yeah?”
“Do you…still visit Jonah’s installation a lot?”
I blinked and Kacey’s sheepish laugh broke the tension hanging in the air like spun glass. “Sorry, totally random. I just…You’ve always been there for me. I wondered if you wanted to talk about it. Or him.”
Disappointment crashed me back to earth. “No, I’m good.”
“That’s what you said last time,” she said. “Are you really?”
“I’m fine, Kace. Promise.”
Kacey turned on the bench to face me. “Teddy. I’m here for you. Even hundreds of miles away, I’m here. If you ever need me like I needed you…”
I wanted to touch her face. I wanted to tell her I needed her in a way she couldn’t imagine. I wanted to tell her the truth.
“Kacey…”
But I couldn’t say it. The words, born in my heart, rose up and became stuck in my throat, trapped by excuses. It’s too soon. She’s not ready. She said it herself…
“Thanks. I’m here for you too.”
God, you’re pathetic.
Kacey nodded. “Because we’re friends. And friends miss each other when they’re apart, and they’re happy to see each other when they’re together. It makes sense. Right?”
“Sure,” I said slowly.
She sighed. “I guess that’s it then.”
We started back for her house. But the perplexed look on her face wouldn’t leave.
Friends love each other too, I wanted to tell her, but it was too late. The moment had slipped out of my fingers, and I’d let it.