Page 87 of Absinthe Dreams
She caught me looking and smiled up at me, putting her hand over mine on the edge of my plate and giving it a reassuring squeeze before leaving me to go a few more steps down the line.
I homed in on loading my plate with some crawfish etouffee and a couple boudin balls, before moving on.
She ended up going to the empty side of the booth across from Axeman and this new girl. She was a petite thing, and beautiful, with long, long hair and wide crystal eyes. She wasyoung, likeholy shit, young. To the point that if I didn’t know Axe as well as I did, I would sayunderage.
I looked to my closest friend, and he read the alarm in my eyes and gave me a look like he was unimpressed with my shit.
“She’s twenty-one,” he said flatly.
“Almost twenty-two,” she said, and her voice was soft, lyrical, and sweet. Still, that was quite the age gap when it came to a guy who was just a year or so from pushing forty. I raised my eyebrows.
“Got a name, sweetheart?” I asked her.
“Paris,” she answered simply. Axe looked at her proudly and with stars in his eyes.
“So, uh, how long have you guys been seeing each other?” Genesis asked politely, and I loved her for being so in tune with me that she would ask the burning questions that I would want to know.
“Almost a year,” she said softly, and I felt my eyebrows really go up. Axe’s arms tightened around her imperceptibly, and I saw it in his eyes…later.
I could respect that, and I got my shit together. I smiled at Paris and said, “I wish we could have met under better circumstances, honey, but welcome.”
She smiled, and it was something intriguing to watch. I wouldn’t call it sad or whimsical, although both of those things came to mind. It was rather a Mona Lisa smile that I couldn’t explain, that held nothing and everything all at once.
“I couldn’t let him go through another funeral alone,” she said, and she peered down at Axe, and I suddenly had to question everything I’d thought about him just moments before. About how he didn’t ever seem to feel like the rest of us. Maybe I was wrong.
It was a confusing time to be me, and Axe nodded carefully in my direction, a silent acknowledgment that he understood I had questions… but time and place.
Genesis led the charge and asked all the normal conversational small-talk questions you would ask, trying to get to know somebody.
What do you do? Where do you live? What’re your favorite things to do around town?That kind of shit. Paris seemed more than willing and eager to make new friends and to talk about all that kind of stuff, but Axe would slow her down or caution her with a light jiggle.
It made me and Gen exchange some glances, but I let it go… for now.
Time and place…you know?
Genesis and I finished our food and went to the end of the bar where a tall decanter of ice-cold water sat, sweating. It was used for only one thing, and that was in the making of a good fuckin’ absinthe.
I didn’t know who’d been lookin’ out for me. Absinthe was a little high-end for Landry’s, and not something they typically had around, but someone had, and I appreciated it.
I took two glasses from the tray beside the decanter, held one up, and asked Genesis, “You wanna take a ride with me?”
She smiled at me and nodded. “I think I can handle that,” she said.
“Doctor side of you isn’t going to run down how inherently dangerous that absinthe is?” I asked.
“Absinthe in America isn’t like the shit with the real wormwood in it,” she countered.
“Touché,” I said. “Would you ever try the real shit?”
She thought about it for a heartbeat or two, and I do meanreallyput some thought into it before answering truthfully, “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll be sure to ask if the opportunity ever arises again.”
“Again?” she asked, catching on to that one little word.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, pouring a good measure of green liquid from the waiting bottle of absinthe into the first glass. I set the glass under the absinthe fountain, or the decanter with the cold water’s spigot.
I put the absinthe spoon over the glass as she asked, “What was it like?” Her tone was one of genuine curiosity.
