Free Murder in the Rue Ursulines by Greg Herren Page A

relationships, and he’s a good guy.  I don’t want to rush things. If it’s meant to be, it’ll evolve. But I do like him, Chanse. I like him a lot. It kind of scares me.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean.” I reached over and took her hand. “There should be a manual or something.
    She burst out laughing. “You won’t even read your cell phone manual.”
    “Bitch.” We both laughed.
    “So, did you have fun over Carnival?”
    “Yeah, I really did. It’s nice—“ I cut myself off. I was about to say it’s nice to have fun again, but I was afraid I would jinx things. Stupid; that was the kind of thing my mother used to always say when I was a kid. I’d have to remember to bring that up with my therapist. I took a deep breath. “It’s nice to have fun again.” There, I’d said it. Let the universe do its worst.
    “Yeah.” She scratched her nose. “I know what you mean.” She looked around the half-empty dining room. “You know, I can barely remember what it was like before anymore. Isn’t that weird?”
    “No, not really.” I thought for a moment. “It seems like, oh, I don’t know… sometimes when I think back about Paul and me—this is going to sound crazy, I know, so don’t roll your eyes at me—it seems almost like it was a dream, like it all happened to someone else, or that it happened a million years ago.”
    “Kind of like the flood marked the end of an era.” She nodded. “I know. Sometimes I think that way too. My therapist—“ she stopped herself and blushed.
    “You’re seeing a therapist?” I hadn’t known that, and it kind of surprised me that she hadn’t told me.
    “Oh, yeah. I started when I came back from my trip with the book done.” She nodded her head, her messy hair bouncing. “I knew I couldn’t handle it all on my own, and it wasn’t like I could dump everything on my friends, because they had their own shit to deal with. So I started seeing someone. It’s helped some, and she’s given me some really good things to think about, things I need to work on.” She started playing with her tea glass. “You’re still seeing yours, right? How’s that going?”
    “Listen to us,” I said, avoiding that one,” comparing notes on our therapists.”
    “Yeah, well.” She shrugged and glanced at her watch.
    “Need to be somewhere?”
    “Ryan’s coming over after he takes his kids home.” She smothered a grin. “And don’t get all smart-ass on me either, bub.”
    “Maybe we could all have dinner sometime.”
    “That would be cool.” She smiled at me. “I do like him, Chanse. Hard to believe he’s the same tool I went out with all those years ago—but maybe he was just in a bad place from the divorce. I don’t know.”
    “I’m glad.” And I was. For a long while, I’d never quite understood why Paige had so much trouble with men; if I were straight, I’d be crazy about her, and I couldn’t grasp why so many men seemed to be unable to see everything she had to offer. She was funny, caring, and smart. She’d had a rough time growing up, with an alcoholic mother who had a revolving door to her bedroom. She didn’t speak to her mother anymore—hadn’t in years, although I knew her mother tried. I was at her apartment once when her mom had called and left a long, whining message on her answering machine.
    Paige, who’d been in the middle of pouring a glass of wine, had paused, her face tight and drained of color, until the message ended…and then went on as though nothing had happened. She refused to discuss her mother, and the only reason I knew anything at all about their relationship was because Paige had collapsed in a paroxysm of alcohol, grief and guilt one night shortly after I’d returned from the evacuation.
    And after that, I completely understood her problems with men.
    It was also why I was glad to hear she was seeing a therapist.
    “And you’re going to find the right guy someday.” She smiled at me and stopped me from giving