Lousiana Hotshot

ready to face the world, like a kid who’s just graduated. Eddie envied her.
    “Well, that’s a damn relief. Yeah, you do it.”
    “Also, she used to work in a hat shop. I’m going there first.”
    He put his head in his hands. “Good idea. Just be sure ya leave Eileen a list of places you’re goin’ to. And leave the Bergerons alone. Ya understand?”
    “Eddie?” she said. “You okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. Get outta here, all right? Don’t mess with those people. I mean it.”
    Hell. All he wanted to do was go home and sit in a dark room for a couple of hours. Take a few aspirin, see if it got any better.
    ***
    When she saw him, Audrey’s face froze in a mask of fear under its pound of makeup. “Eddie. What are you doin’ home?”
    “What’s the matter? Got the mailman in the bedroom?” It was an automatic line, stupid and trite, but now he really looked at her. Her habitual heavy makeup wasn’t quite immaculate, indeed seemed streaky and tatty. Her hair was a bit unkempt, as if she’d been lying down, but she was dressed up. “Hey. Where ya goin’?”
    “I just got back.” She stood tall and planted her feet. “I’ve been to my shrink’s, Eddie.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I’ve been seeing a therapist.”
    “Are you nuts or something?” He was too panicked to say anything else.
    “I’ve been so worried about you I had to talk to somebody. I can’t go through this alone; I swear to God I can’t.”
    He covered the room between them in three steps and put his arms around her, held her tight to him, something he never did. Was everything in the world coming apart? “Go through what, baby? What’cha talkin’ about? I’m here with ya. You don’t have to go through anything alone.”
    “I have to watch you fall apart. All by myself, except for Angie. You’re just letting it happen, and you won’t do nothin’ about it, and I
can’t.
I’m going crazy, Eddie. I’m going crazy.” She wasn’t crying the way he’d expect her to be; just talking, sounding sad, like she was already all cried out— like some pathetic client of his, someone with problems. Not like Audrey, his wife.
    “He thinks it’s because of Anthony, Eddie.”
    He was suddenly livid. “You talk to some asshole about me? Ya talk about
me?
You can’t do that— what the hell ya think ya doing?”
    She shook her head, as if he were some kind of hopeless case, and got herself a drink of water. He waited for her to answer, but she just stood there drinking her water, looking at him.
    ***
    Talba was starting to wonder what the hell she’d signed up for. Eddie wasn’t well. She’d have to speak to Eileen about it— maybe he had a drug problem or something. But his money was good and the work was pretty fascinating.
    She’d been to her first Methodist church and her first funeral, and now she was about to visit Millie the Milliner, always a treat. Millie, whose name had probably once been Thelma or Elsie, made exquisite nineteenth-century-style hats, perfect to wear with vintage clothing of the type Rhonda had been buried in. They were huge veiled bonnets piled high with flowers and fruit and foliage, each flower, each grape, each leaf lovingly handmade. They could easily have been parodies of themselves, but Millie managed by a millimeter to keep from crossing the line.
    Her own work cost hundreds of dollars, but she also sold hats by lesser artists, smaller, more contemporary items more to Talba’s taste, if the truth be told. But though Talba’d probably never wear one of Millie’s masterpieces, she’d once spent a delicious two hours minutely examining every item in the store and finally walked away with a purple sequin fantasy that had a kind of Garden of Eden scene worked into it— entwined snakes and apples and branches— a thing entirely befitting a Baroness. The shape of the hat was African— a kind of pillbox more often worn by men than women— and the decorative work was like Haitian sequin art. She often wore it for performances.
    The day she’d shopped there Millie herself had been absent, but today, she recognized the woman in charge as someone she’d seen earlier. She’d have to be blind not to have seen her.
    The other woman spoke first. “I saw you at the funeral, didn’t I?” She was dressed in a taffeta teal suit with a fitted jacket and calf-length full skirt, the jacket cut for maximum decolletage and trimmed with lace and black buttons. The suit was clearly