‘Mr. Jackson.’
He shakes his head. ‘No, no. Jackson. Jackson Robichaux. Jack, to my friends.’
‘Jackson,’ I say pointedly. ‘I get what you’re trying to do here. Really, I do. But I’m not interested.’
‘And what am I trying to do, exactly? Hit on you?’
‘No. Just keep me drinking. I know how bars work. I’m guessing you get free drinks in exchange for keeping rubes like me ordering?’
‘Is that what you think this is? A shakedown?’
‘Maybe. You’re really giving me the hard sell on sticking around. Why else, if not to milk the poor, work-happy tourist for all her drinks money?’
He grins as if to say that he could think of several more reasons, but doesn’t follow it up. ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Ain’t nothing like that. Just saw a stranger looking down and figured I’d check in, that’s all. No unhappy customers at the Coeur de Vie. We try and keep the blues up on the stage as far as is possible.’
‘We?’
He shrugs. ‘The band. The bar. The city. Take your pick. Have I managed to convince you to stick around yet?’
I know it shouldn’t, but his persistence is oddly endearing. ‘Getting there,’ I say.
‘Eddie!’ he yells across the bar. ‘Whatever the lady wants. This one’s on me, OK?’ Eddie gives him a silent thumbs-up in response and then Jack – Jackson – turns back to me. ‘You see? Now you’ve got no reason to hurry off. All your earthly wishes solved – at least for the length of my set, anyroad. So what do you say?’
Well, what do I say?
What’s one more drink? I think to myself. I could stay for one more drink. Lauren and the girls will do fine without me. I can always meet up with them later, if it comes down to it. And if they call me… well, I’ll see that too.
‘It’s your call,’ he says. ‘I’m up. Maybe you should stick around and listen to a few songs. Might even find you enjoy yourself a little.’
‘Just a little?’
Jack picks up his jacket from the stool next to him, gives me a small salute goodbye, and then heads off to the bandstand. ‘Honey,’ he says over his shoulder as he goes. ‘The kind of songs I play, if you’re enjoying yourself too much, I’m not doing my job.’
Chapter Five
A strange thing happens once the band kicks into gear: I find myself having fun.
It doesn’t happen all at once, or even particularly quickly; in fact, until Jackson Robichaux has trumpeted his way through two of the longer examples of the Louis Armstrong playbook, I’m still quietly grumbling to myself about the way he took my phone off me. Like I was some sort of goddamn child, I think. Well, I’ll show him who’s addicted. It sits there, taunting me in its glass prison, forcing me to look at the stage.
But before long – around about halfway through Almost Blue, when the band has slowed their performance to a crawl, trusting the audience to come right along with them – I end up feeling it. The music runs up my arms and down my spine. My phone never so much as chirps. My drink is finished before I remember it’s there, and the combination of jazz and vodka makes all my problems seem a little bit further away than they had an hour ago.
‘We’re going to take a little break,’ he says as he pulls his lips from the mouthpiece after something that I think I recognise as Miles Davis, and then revels in the smattering of applause he’s earned – even from me. ‘So if you want to get another drink, and I’m sure you do, y’all be my guest. After that we’ll see if we can spice things up a little, what do you say?’
He doesn’t wait for an answer, nor does he have to; his words have all the form of a stage magician’s patter, delivered the same way every night. He strides off the bandstand, his long legs carrying him over to me in half the number of steps it would have taken me. I couldn’t see it from a distance, but his forehead is covered in sweat, partly from the bright lights and partly from the exertion of it all. It’s soaked into the collar of his shirt. Even if the music wasn’t to my taste – which, surprisingly, it was – it would have been hard to deny the effort he put into it, despite the thin crowd.
‘So,’ he says once he arrives at the bar. ‘You’re still here.’
‘I am. Surprised?’
He shakes his head and grins. ‘No how, no way. Right from the first look, I figured you for a woman of exceptional taste.’
‘So modest.’
He spreads his hands wide. ‘Calls ‘em like I sees ‘em,’ he says. ‘Enjoying the show?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I mean, “best band in New Orleans” might be selling it a little hard, but definitely top fifty. No doubt.’
Jack smiles. ‘You’re funny,’ he says. ‘You’re mean, but you’re funny. Anyone ever tell you that before?’
‘It’s been remarked upon.’
‘Well, Captain Sass: you’ve got me at a bit of a disadvantage.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘You know my name, and I don’t have the faintest idea about yours.’
The drink answers for me. ‘Ella,’ it says.
He lets out a little snort.
‘Something funny?’ I ask.
‘Your name’s Ella, and you don’t like jazz?’
‘Who said I don’t like jazz?’
‘Well, do you?’
I shrug. ‘I mean, no, not really. But that’s not the point.’
‘Then what is?’
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re mocking me?’
‘Couldn’t rightly say,’ he grins. ‘I don’t mean nothin’ by it. Just making conversation, is all.’
‘My name’s Eleanor,’ I say. ‘After Eleanor Roosevelt. My mother was a fan.’
He nods approvingly. ‘Well, that’s something at least.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘We had a girl named Ella in the band for a while. She always figured it was after one of the two, you know. Eventually got around to asking her Momma which one when she was… maybe thirty-six, thirty-seven years old?’
‘And?’
‘And it turned out it was because she was conceived in the elevator at the Atlanta Hilton. Her folks got a real kick out of that one.’
And now it’s my turn to laugh. ‘For real?’ I ask.
‘Sure as I’m telling you. Why would I lie?’
Why indeed.
He takes a big swill of a soda water that Eddie had managed to slide in front of him. ‘I’m going to have to get back up there in a minute or two,’ he says. ‘You going to stick around?’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Still not admitting you’re having a good time, huh?’
‘That’s not it.’
‘Then what is it? Your shore leave all used up?’
‘I should get going. My friend will be worried.’
‘Friend?’ he says. ‘Or, you know, friend?’ Jack draws his fingers up into quotation marks.
‘Friend. She’s getting married on Friday. That’s why I’m down here.’
‘Not just your love of music, then?’
I shrug. ‘Little of both, maybe.’
‘Well, if you and your friend ever find your way down this end of Bourbon Street again, maybe you should call in. Bring the whole damn wedding party, if you like.’
‘Trying to pad your audience numbers?’
‘Gotta spread the good word somehow.’
‘And fill your tip jar?’
‘Little of both, maybe.’ Behind him, the rest of the band are starting to reassemble; apparently, break time is over. ‘It’s been real nice meeting you,’ he says as he stands, his hand out to be shaken. I’m surprised at how soft his palms are, how firm his grip is without being remotely burdensome. ‘Real nice.’
‘You too, Jack.’
I slide a couple of dollars across the bar as a tip, gather up my purse and jacket, and make a move for the door. My head is weirdly light, but I’m not sure it’s from the booze. The whole experience of the last twenty-four hours has been a
n almost unremitting shitshow, and while the Coeur de Vie was a welcome break, that’s all it could ever be. Soon I’ll be back at the hotel, having to deal with a full-on wedding assault from all sides. It’s almost tempting to stay here for a little while longer, to chat to strangers and forget everything that’s going on with me right now.
I know it’s not really an option, but God, is it tempting.
Nope, I say internally, steeling myself to head back into the real world. Time to go.
‘Hey, lady,’ Eddie the bartender calls out as I head past him.
‘Yeah?’
He points to the glass upturned on the bar with my phone underneath it. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
And sure enough, he’s right.
I haven’t thought about my phone in at least an hour.
Chapter Six
Lauren is waiting in the lobby when I get back, sitting on a couch wearing a set of stiletto heels that could easily be considered weapons in some states, and a dress to match. This is Lauren in full flow, dressed to impress – or, more accurately, to make it clear she doesn’t give a fuck whether she impresses or not.
My God, I’ve missed her.
She sees me almost at the same instant I see her, and her face cycles through a montage of emotions: happiness, concern, confusion. It takes her all of two seconds to leap up, cross the slick marble floor of the hotel lobby – no mean feat in those shoes – and wrap me up in a hug that presses me hard against her chest.
‘Easy,’ I say. ‘I’m sticky. You’ll ruin your dress.’
‘Are you OK? What happened? Tell me everything.’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ I say, disentangling myself from her hug. ‘I promise.’
‘Where’ve you been? The lobby said you checked in two hours ago.’
‘Just some bar. A jazz club. The Coeur de Vie.’
Lauren frowns. ‘You went to a bar? By yourself?’
‘Stranger things have happened. Besides, I didn’t go to a bar. I went for a walk. I just sort of… ended up at one.’
‘Alone?’
‘Mostly.’
A wry sort of smirk crosses her face. ‘Ella,’ she says. ‘You’ve been in town for all of two hours.’
Suddenly, I feel a strange uptick in loyalty to Carter. ‘It wasn’t like that. I just got chatting to someone.’
‘A man someone.’
‘A musician. The trumpet player.’
‘Ella. Did you at least take a picture?’
‘Of a strange man at a bar?’
‘Of the hot stranger who apparently managed to keep you away from us for hours.’
‘I didn’t say he was hot.’
‘You didn’t have to. I know that look.’
‘What look?’
‘The I’m-hooking-up-with-a-jazz-musician-at-your-wedding look.’
I frown up at her. ‘I’m not hooking up with anyone. I just had a drink, that’s all.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says. ‘We started early too.’ And then, after a momentary pause: ‘Just… when the others get here, be nice?’
‘What?’
‘I said, be nice. You’re going to be spending the next four days with these people, and you can be a bit…’
‘Not nice?’
‘Judgy.’
‘Occupational hazard.’
‘You know what I mean. They’re nice people. And they’ll be nice to you, so at least try and make like you have something in common?’
I snort. ‘Of course I’m going to be nice to them. Just because they’re not my friends, it doesn’t mean like I’m going to be an outright bitch.’
‘Not acting like a bitch doesn’t mean that you’re being nice, El,’ she replies.
‘Says who?’ I joke, but Lauren just rolls her eyes. ‘Fine, fine. When the Abercrombie Squad gets here, I’ll be on my best behaviour.’
‘The Abercrombie Squad?’
‘They’re not here yet. Let me get it out of my system. Where are they, anyway?’
Lauren nods her head towards the back room. ‘Hotel bar,’ she says. ‘And if the past hour has been anything to go by, they’re not going to rest until they’ve seen the bottom of every bottle of spirits in Louisiana.’
Fantastic, I think. Well, at least we aren’t going to have a shortage of doctors around if one of them needs their stomach pumped.
‘How come you’re not with them?’ I ask.
‘I needed a minute. Besides, I was worried about you. They told me you’d checked in already, but…’
‘I sent you a text. There was no signal at the bar.’
‘Not much signal at the hotel either,’ she replies. ‘The whole damn city seems to be a dead zone. I wasn’t worried because you were out. I know you can look after yourself.’
‘Then why?’
She looks at me like I’ve gone insane, one eyebrow raised as though the answer should be clear. ‘Because of the whole Carter thing,’ she says. ‘Obviously.’
There’s not a lot I can say to that; there’s not a lot I want to say to it. Somehow, talking about it makes it seem more real, and that’s the last thing I want. It was easy for an hour or so, back when I was at the Coeur de Vie, to pretend that it was all happening to someone else – that I was just another tourist, living an entirely different life. That I’d left the heartbroken Ella Mossberg in O’Hare International Airport, and that a fresher, brighter, happier version of me had made it to New Orleans in her place.
But she’d followed me. Somehow, the crafty bitch had chased me all the way to Louisiana, and she wasn’t letting go of me without a fight.
‘You doing OK?’ Lauren asks.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Mostly. I don’t want to think about it.’
Lauren grins. ‘That’s the spirit. Less thinking, more drinking, right?’
‘So you say…’
If Lauren has some snarky comeback to that – which she does; I can see it as plain as the nose on her face – then it’s buried under the shriek that comes from the other side of the lobby: ‘Ellie! Is that you?’
Close enough, I think.
The voice comes from a leggy blonde who’s striding across the lobby like a woman on a mission. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to get here!’ she says; apparently Danielle is first and foremost in favour of getting things moving. I’ve met her before, and I wasn’t under the impression we’d ever got along so well. Up close, I can see the reason for her enthusiasm. There’s just enough of a slur to her words that it’s clear she hasn’t been waiting in the traditional sense: the party is well in swing now.
Probably didn’t even notice I was missing, I think, and then choke the thought down.
Paige and Jessica are bringing up the rear, tottering after their loud friend. Paige, the groom’s sister, is a tiny, timid little thing, five feet and zero inches tall, like a redheaded china doll. Jessica, I seem to remember, is one of Lauren’s work buddies: six feet of willowy Asian perfection, as smart as she is beautiful, and currently grinning inanely at a spot about three feet behind me. I’d put good money on the fact that she’s had most of a bottle of wine to herself already; nothing else could explain the distant look on her face.
‘Sorry about her,’ Paige says as she catches up to Danielle. ‘She’s… letting off some steam. That’s paediatricians for you, right?’ She laughs at her own joke, a high little titter, but all it does is drive home the fact that I’m the odd one out: a lawyer surrounded by medics. Even Paige, who’s now almost family, works at the hospital; in fact, that was how Lauren met Drew in the first place. God only knows how else they would have crossed paths. But no… they’re all together, all day every day, saving lives. The only tie I have to them is that Lauren’s mom just happened to be giving birth in the next bed along from my mother twenty-something years ago. You know. No big deal.
‘Steam nothing,’ Danielle grins. ‘I’m planning on going nuclear tonight. What do you say, Ellie? You in
? I’m going to need some help painting the town red now Captain Lightweight here seems to have checked out.’
From behind her, Jessica recovers her wits for just long enough to look annoyed. ‘I’m fine,’ she says, and then giggles again. ‘I’m fine.’
‘So when does your fiancé get here?’ Paige asks. ‘Carter, wasn’t it? I can’t wait to meet him. Lauren has told us all so much about… you… two…’
She trails off, and I don’t need to look across to Lauren to know that she’s giving her soon-to-be sister-in-law a death glare – anything to shut her up and stop her from good-naturedly making things a thousand times worse.
Oh, well, I think. I was going to have to get it out of the way eventually. Why not now? Just like pulling off a band-aid. Fast and clean. Get it over with. ‘Carter isn’t going to be coming to the wedding. We, uh… well, we broke up.’
Her hand leaps to her mouth fast enough that I’m worried she might overshoot and take her eye out. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have said anything. Are you OK?’ She reels through the checklist of platitudes like she’s working to a schedule and is running a little bit behind.
I shake my head quickly – a little too quickly – and smile as best I can. ‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘You couldn’t have known. And I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.’ Four sets of eyes are fixed on mine, but that’s OK; anyone looking at my face isn’t looking at my hand, where I’m furiously tapping my thumb against the soft space where my engagement ring used to be.
Fine, fine, fine.
‘You’re sure?’ Paige asks.
‘Really. I just kind of want to forget about it all.’
Lauren swoops in to save me. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I think we can take care of that. Where better to forget a boy than Bourbon Street, right girls?’
Danielle lets out a whoop of encouragement. ‘Amen!’ she says. ‘It’s right there in the name!’
‘Who are we forgetting again?’ Jessica asks, and the others giggle. Keeping the smile on my face is getting harder by the minute.
The three of them – Danielle, Paige and Jessica – begin to wander off out of the bar, some on shakier legs than others, as Lauren crooks a hand through mine. ‘Come on, you,’ she says. ‘Let’s get this party started.’
Smooth: A New Love Romance Novel (Bad Boy Musicians) Page 3