Emily stopped, her bag on her knees. The other woman set
the deck on the table between them, crossed her arms, and
leaned back.
“I want to know why you need a fake wife. You can’t just
leave me hanging like that.”
Emily knew when she was being made fun of, but this
woman’s tone had no mockery in it. She was amused, but of
course, she would be. Emi
ly didn’t begrudge her that much.
She would probably have reacted so much worse if she’d been
on the other end of the table and someone asked her to fake
marry them.
And she still didn’t even know if this lady was single. What
on earth had made her blurt out something like that? Yes, she
was skipping out on class. Yes, she’d had her fight with her
mom yesterday. Yes, she’d thought all night about her plan,
but seriously? Who did something like that?
“I…” She clutched her purse tightly in her damp palms.
“This is crazy. Are you even single? No, I guess that doesn’t
matter because you’re right. I should give you an explanation.
This would be the most bizarre thing ever otherwise.”
“I don’t know. I get some pretty bizarre things going on in
here. This is the French Quarter. This is NOLA. Everything is
a little bit bizarre.”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.” Emily found that she couldn’t look
into those greens anymore. They had a way of seeing straight
through her in the most disconcerting way, and she’d really
like to just sit in her seat and not have to squirm around in
discomfort while she explained the most mortifying thing ever.
She thought she had things figured out, at least as far as the