Coffee downed, clothes thrown on, it’s off I went to the Cafe Du Monde. I purchased my beignets and cafe au lait and sat myself at a table close to the street. Right on cue Zach, with his blonde curly hair a bit tussled, spotted me and plopped down at my table. His shift had just ended and he cheerily, “Good morninged” me. I responded, feigning energy, clinging to my caffeine-laden life support system.

“Good Morning and Happy Friday,” he said. “Off to work are you? Late night was it?” he asked.

Even though I knew I was busted, I said, “Not really, just a little tired. Stress levels elevated with handling this Bayou thing at work.””Yep, I read about it. Morning paper said it wasn’t that bad and wasn’t their fault. How can they write that bullshit? Money bags Broussard bought his way out of another one.”

“Really,” I said as I devoured my beignet. I played dumb. Zach knew our public relations firm handled Bayou Oil’s business. He didn’t know that I worked on the account. Worked on the account? Hell, I was responsible for the damn account. Sarah assigned it to me shortly after I joined the firm. She brought the account when she joined the Jenkins firm years ago after she left the newspaper business. I don’t know what her connection to Broussard was because she never talked about him—or any of her personal business as far as that went. She kept her world very private. I learned about her marriages from office gossip. I didn’t care. I loved her. I was flattered that she took me under her wing and trusted me with such an important account.

“Did you decide whether you can go to the parade with me?” Zach asked, reminding me that he’d asked me to go to the Rex parade with him.

“Don’t know yet,” I answered. What a lie. I knew I wasn’t going with him. “I’ve got to get to work. Gotta go.” I gulped down my last swallow of cafe au lait, grabbed my beignets and sped off to work.

I hopped in my car and began the short journey to my office. I thought: why does he like me so much? He doesn’t smoke, eats healthy, works out, barely drinks and has a deep commitment to environmental matters. I do all of the wrong things. I eat crap, drink till I’m - I paused – am like this and I protect polluters.