Louisiana Lament

new—or half decent, even. The accident was my fault, you know. If the insurance pays for it, you know what that does to my rates.”
    “Maybe you should just bite the bullet—you really need a car. Venezia okay?”
    “Always.” This was a great hangout for cops and all manner of hard-bitten characters. Eddie had introduced her to it. She loved it though not for the food, especially.
    “Well, you can’t keep renting a car. That’s a quick way to the poorhouse.”
    “I would have the one job in the world that absolutely requires a car.”
    “Sure can’t do surveillance in a New Breed cab.”
    “Oh, God. Surveillance.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. Or rather, something I don’t want to think about. I had to tell a friend her boyfriend was cheating on her.” They arrived at the restaurant and went in. Curiously, Darryl didn’t pursue the subject. She asked him about school—he taught English at Fortier High School—and about his gig the previous night, and about his daughter, Raisa.
    He had amusing stories about the first two and worry about Raisa. Always a difficult child, she was acting out more than ever. He wanted to find her a therapist; his ex was opposed.
    Talba’s stomach churned when she thought about Raisa. If she married Darryl—and things were heading that way—this giant, seemingly insurmountable problem became hers. Motherhood itself seemed insurmountable, much less third parent to a young volcano. Come to think of it, she’d not only get Raisa, she’d get her mother, and that would be even worse.
    Yet she hated herself for thinking that way. She knew Darryl wouldn’t if the roles were reversed. She wanted Darryl and she was going to have to accept this one day. Perhaps, she thought, she wasn’t mature enough yet.
    In fact, there was no doubt of that. Maybe she’d met him too early. She still had things to do, unfinished business that really had to be addressed.
    Suddenly, a great sadness came over her—sadness for Babalu, who thought she’d found her man and had been betrayed; and for herself, though why, she wasn’t sure. Maybe because sooner or later she was going to have to give up something. But not Darryl. Uh-uh. She wasn’t that stupid.
    His voice grew soft and monotonous when he spoke of Raisa, and he tended to look away from Talba. His way of dealing with the pain. It made her nervous, seemed to under score her inadequacy. She was glad when he changed the subject.
    Wrapping himself around a meatball, he said suddenly, “How’s your own little problem coming? You thought about that any more?”
    She knew what he meant and it wasn’t her feelings about Babalu or even Raisa, for that matter. It was something so repellent she didn’t want to think about it—largely because it loomed so huge in her life it made her feel tired. Feel like tucking her head away like a turtle, a favorite pastime of hers in times of stress. Yet it nagged and gnawed at her. It was this: long after he left her mother, her father had been murdered. When she got her PI license, she made up her mind to solve the case. This was her unfinished business.
    And she really didn’t intend to give up on it. But she hadn’t even started.
    She just shook her head, smiling, willing him not to press it.
    He said, “Come on. Let’s go to my house.”
    “What about tomorrow?”
    “I’ll take you home—we’ll get up early. But you know what you ought to do? You ought to leave some clothes at my house, so you can dress there and go straight to work when you need to.”
    “Woo. I thought you’d never ask.” She snuggled up to him.
    “I didn’t think I needed to. For heaven’s sake, baby—you know I want you there.”
    But the simple fact was that he didn’t often take her home with him on a school night. Once there, she stayed—he lived across the river, at Algiers Point, and it made no sense to drive back and forth over the bridge.
    He had a wonderful house in a quiet neighborhood, a Victorian cottage that he’d fixed up in manly but comfortable fashion. Her favorite part was the living room seating area, consisting of two brick-colored sofas on which to recline and drink wine and talk into the night. When they were settled there, he brought up the subject again—her unfinished business with the universe.
    It was strange, she thought. Why was he doing it?
    “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ve got Raisa Sunday, but I’ll take you car shopping Saturday if you’ll start working on