She changed the subject, wanting to stop talking about her father. "What is your sister doing now? Is she in college still?"

Kat shook her head, "No, she's in medical school. She's a high achiever, is Janey. She has her whole life planned out: doctor by thirty, married by thirty-three, kids at thirty-six and thirty-eight, move to private practice ... I'm not sure I remember much beyond that. It's weird. I barely know what I'm going to have for lunch."

Charlotte was intrigued. "I wish I had a sister. Even if she was super-a.n.a.l and organized."

Kat started folding vintage T-shirts, and Charlotte stepped over to help. "Well, as I said, seeing as she basically saved my life, I can hardly complain, but I wish she'd relax." She sighed. "Mostly, I wish she'd come visit."

"What about your mom? You haven't mentioned her very much."

Kat was quiet for a moment. "My mom is ... challenging. You'll see. I expect she'll request your presence soon, and seeing as neither my dad nor I can refuse her anything, you'll have to come along and be inspected."

"Well, that sounds scary."

"Don't worry. You've been questioned by the FBI; it was probably good preparation. Did they torture you at all?"

"Only mildly."

"Well, then, you'll be fine."

When Charlotte stepped out of the store a little while later, she was surprised to see a familiar face.

"Mr ... uh ... Robinson, isn't it?"

The reporter from New York smiled. "It's amazing what a good memory you have, Ms. Williams."

"What are you doing here?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid I heard about your latest adventures online, and my editor sent me down to see if you'd agree to an actual interview. When I went to the restaurant, a waitress said you might be here."

She started walking toward the French Quarter, and the reporter fell in alongside her.

"I don't think I want to be interviewed, I'm afraid. For one thing, I don't have anything newsworthy to say. My father has been jailed, and I'm trying to make a new life for myself."

"Well, that's exactly what would be interesting to our readers. How does a wealthy young woman start over? Are you really working in a kitchen?"

She nodded, subtly quickening her pace. He might be polite, but he was still the enemy, right?

"And how does it feel to be doing such demeaning work? How do the men in the kitchen treat you?"

She stopped and turned to face him. "Mr. Robinson, my colleagues are not animals. They treat me with respect, because we're all in the same boat, trying to earn a living. Unlike the people I grew up with, they judge my ability to work, not my ability to pay. Sadly, being rich and good at shopping doesn't really qualify you for very much except more of the same. I'm just grateful they've given me an opportunity to earn some money. Now, I need to get to work. I really don't have anything else to say. I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing."

And with that, she turned away and set off at a brisk pace, leaving the reporter standing there, looking after her with a thoughtful expression. Then he grinned.

ANOTHER FRIENDLY FACE was waiting for her at the restaurant: Millie Pearl. was waiting for her at the restaurant: Millie Pearl.

Charlotte ran up and hugged her, and Millie beamed.

"You look better already, girl. The Crescent City works its magic once again, I guess."

"How was your sister? Did you have a nice visit?"

"I did." Millie sat down, and, after checking that it was OK with David Karraby, Charlotte joined her.

"I can't sit for long, I have to get to work in the kitchen."

Millie laughed out loud. "I can remember Greta making you wash dishes at home. Do you recall?"

Charlotte laughed. "I didn't until you mentioned it, but now it comes back to me. You both were very insistent that I should clean up after myself. I used to b.i.t.c.h about it all the time, I certainly remember that."

"Yes, you really did. You were pretty spoiled when I got there and not much less when I left. Your dad denied you nothing." Millie's expression was indulgent, though. "He meant well."

Charlotte looked at her curiously. "Do you think he's a bad man? Did you leave because of what he was doing?"

Millie looked shocked. "Do you honestly think that if I knew what he was doing, I wouldn't have reported him to the police? Lord, child, he embezzled millions of dollars!" She sighed. "Having said that, though, I don't know that I think he is a bad man. I think he did a bad thing, but I don't think he did it to hurt people. I think he just did it because he could. But I don't really know, and probably no one does. All I know for sure is that he missed your momma terribly, and he loved you very much. Maybe those two things combined to make him feel it was OK to steal. Who knows?" She looked at Charlotte. "Jackson told me you found some film of your mother? Is that true?"

Charlotte smiled. "Yes. My dad must have been keeping it for me or something. Millie, she has the same voice as mine! That's where it came from!"

Millie gestured for the check. "Well, it came from G.o.d, Charlotte, but if your momma had the same voice, then I guess he liked you both. Do you want to come over for dinner tonight after work? You can show me the film, and I can show you some Creole cooking that is more down home than this fancy joint."

"I'd love that. Can I bring my friend Kat?"

"Kat Karraby? Surely. She was in my seventh-grade history cla.s.s. It will be fun to see her again."

"So you became a teacher when you came back?"

Millie nodded. "I needed to keep a close eye on Jackson and his sisters, and the best way to do it was to teach high school. Thanks to your dad, I had enough money to get my master's at the same time." She stood up and swung a large and obviously heavy bag onto her shoulder. "And now that my kids are done with school, I'm teaching teachers at the university."

"That's so cool." Charlotte looked at her wrist and jumped. "s.h.i.t, I have to run."

Millie gave her a quick hug. "Yes, run along, work hard, and I'll see you and Kat tonight, OK? Around eight or nine?"

Charlotte headed toward the kitchen, nodding and waving over her shoulder.

SCARSFORD WAS GONE. Her phone had beeped while she was working, and she'd had to ignore it, seeing as she was up to her elbows in hot, greasy water. Now, walking toward Millie's house with Kat, she checked her messages.

"Back to NY. Will be in touch." Chatty as ever.

She wasn't sure what she was feeling. On the one hand, she felt anxious that he was gone, because his being there meant someone was looking out for her. On the other hand, she was relieved. His being there reminded her of her dad, not that she was trying to forget him, exactly, and he also made her behave badly. On the whole, she was glad she hadn't slept with him. She would have regretted it.

And G.o.d knew she had plenty of regrets already.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

They knocked on the door just after nine, but it sounded as if the party was in full swing.

When Jackson opened the door, he smiled broadly. "Kat Karraby!"

Ah, not smiling at her, then, Charlotte thought. Not that she cared, of course.

"Jackson! Hey!" They hugged, and Kat led the way into the house, chatting nineteen to the dozen.

Jackson looked over his shoulder at Charlotte. "We were in biology together!"

"Super."

She wasn't jealous. That would be ridiculous. And she was glad Kat looked especially gorgeous tonight, in a see-through man's shirt from the '40s over Katharine Hepburnstyle wide-legged pants. What did it matter that her own hair was stuck to her head or that she had a faint line across her forehead from the hairnet or that her plain white T-shirt had a tomato sauce stain the shape of Rhode Island on it? It didn't matter, apparently, because n.o.body was looking at her.

The kitchen seemed almost too full to enter. Millie was standing over a huge pot, a pot that usually held gumbo, Charlotte had learned, and her children were milling around. Jackson and Kat were getting beers, Lilianne and Camille were laughing over photos on the back of a camera, and through the door she could see Camille's toddler asleep on the sofa. She was impressed with his ability to sleep through all the noise, but maybe New Orleans kids got used to it.

Surprisingly, it was Bob Marley blasting, rather than the jazz she had come to expect from Millie.

Jackson brought her a beer. "Hard day at work?"

At first, she thought he was laughing at her, but she searched his face and found he was just asking. She decided to get over herself and nodded.

"Yeah, I know it sounds wimpy, but my back is killing me. The pots are heavy, and the water is way above my head." She made a rueful face. "It turns out that an hour at the gym three times a week just isn't good preparation for anything except getting a tan."

He laughed. "You'll get used to it. I know when I started working construction, I was as stiff as a board for days. Now I hardly notice it."

"Is that what you do when you're not playing music?"

He laughed again. "No, music is what I do when I'm not working construction. I wish I could play music all the time, but there's not really a living in it, you know? I like doing something physical, so I started after Katrina, rebuilding houses. They taught me everything on the job, so now I can pretty much do anything in that line." He looked proud. "It's silly, but I love taking a broken-down, mud-caked house and turning it back into a home. People lost everything, and we give something back."

Charlotte remembered the footage from Katrina. The bodies covered with sheets. The whole lower part of the city underwater. The stories. The days it took for help to come. She'd given money. Everyone had. And then she'd forgotten all about it, more or less. But here it was, years later, and the work continued.

Jackson was still talking. "There are whole neighborhoods that no one returned to. It's sad, because they were once full of people, generations of families all within blocks of one another. But I guess they set up elsewhere and started over."

"Like me."

"Yeah, like you. They lost everything; you lost everything."

"Not everything. I still have some money. I still have some friends."

He took her hand suddenly and squeezed it. "And you still have your talent."

She frowned, not getting it at first. "My voice?"

He raised his eyebrows. "You're very blase about it. Your voice is incredible. If I had half that much of a gift, I'd be doing everything I could to get out there and get famous."

Kat wandered over. "Get famous? Isn't she famous enough already?"

Charlotte laughed. "I'm not sure infamous and famous are the same thing."

She told the a.s.sembled company about the Charlotte Williams Sucks Web site, and of course they all wanted to see.

"Oh, c.r.a.p. There's Mom."

Millie whirled around to where her children were huddled around the kitchen table, Jackson's laptop open to the Web site. For a long second, she just looked, reading the evil caption that mentioned her being an "ex-servant." Then she grinned.

"I look so skinny! I should run out and buy another pair of those pants, who knew I looked so good in them?" Then she turned back to the gumbo, singing along with Bob under her breath.

Her kids all laughed, but Charlotte was impressed. Maybe she should try to be that cool about it. She was finding it hard.

Kat broke into her thoughts. "But what were you saying, Jackson, about Charlotte's voice? The other night at the club, she was amazing."

"I know. She and I worked yesterday on some of my songs, and I think she agreed to sing with my band."

"I did." Charlotte blushed. "But I have to check with Mr. Karraby."

"Watch out, Charlotte." Camille, Jackson's sister, looked sternly at him. "It starts off as fun, and then, before you know it, he's got you touring the diviest bars in Louisiana, playing for nickels and generally working your a.s.s off."

Jackson snorted. "Coming from you, that's funny." He turned to Charlotte. "Camille is a doc.u.mentary filmmaker."

His sister interrupted. "I work at the local public TV station. He's exaggerating."

"She's a genius. She's being modest, but when we were kids, she would have me dress up as whatever and film me. She was the smallest dictator you ever saw."

Camille threw a piece of bread at him.

"What do you do, Lilianne?" Charlotte looked at the younger of Jackson's two older sisters.

"I'm a resident at TMC." Charlotte must have looked confused. "Tulane Medical Center. It's the big hospital in town. Well, one of them."

Millie pulled bowls from the cupboard and started serving great steaming bowls of gumbo, along with long loaves of crusty French bread.

"It's hard to believe all three of you even got through school, the shenanigans you got up to, and yet here you are, respectable professionals." She grinned. "Well, largely respectable."

Camille got a green salad from the fridge, and for a moment, there was silence, only the sound of spoons at work.

Charlotte put down her spoon and looked at Jackson. "You realize I'm being stalked right now by some wacko, right?"

He nodded.

"And that my dad just got sent to jail for fraud."

Another nod.

"And that if I come and sing with your band, all anyone will talk about is that, and what a b.i.t.c.h I am, and how you're trading on my notoriety, and that I'm just being even more shallow than ever."