Kathy Love: Demon Cant Help It

I always have very special writing friends who are there for me and help keep me sane.

I want to thank Erin McCarthy for the phone chats and frequent pep talks. Julie Cohen for more phone chats and pep talks. F. Paul Wilson for the "daily damage reports." And convincing me that a writing routine isn't totally evil. Thanks to Carmen Ross Weed for being a great and supportive friend.

I must, as always, thank The Tarts.

You ladies rule.

And thanks for Kate Duffy for being a great editor, and a patient one.

"Are you sure you feel up to this?"

Jo finished draining the fettuccine and glanced over at her friends. Maggie leaned against the kitchen counter, waiting for an answer to her question. Erika sat at the small bistro-style table, concern drawing her finely arched brows together. Clearly she was waiting, too.

Jo smiled, knowing she probably appeared a little tired. "Of course. It's just pasta, not a five-course meal. Why wouldn't I feel up to making my friends dinner to celebrate my new place and my new job?"

"Well, I know you said that you were already working long hours. And you've looked a little…pale recently," Maggie said.

Jo supposed the reflection that greeted her in the mirror these days was pale, drawn, and fatigued. But she'd made a huge move, found an apartment, and started a new job in the course of a month.

"I am a little tired," she did admit, but then gave them another smile. "But I like the work at the community center and I love being in a new city. And being with you two again, of course."

She gave the pasta a final shake, then dumped it into a pasta bowl. She turned to the simmering pot of white wine clam sauce, trying to ignore the wave of nausea as the garlicky scent wafted up to her in a billowing cloud of steam.

She hadn't been feeling well, and she knew that fact was evident on her face. But she would be fine. That had been her mantra now for the past couple months. And it would be true. She just needed to get her life back in order. She liked order.

She busied herself with pouring the creamy sauce over the pasta, then returned to the oven to take out the garlic bread, which, again, did nothing to steady her queasy stomach.

"Here we go," she said with a forced smile as she set the bowl of fettuccine and platter of bread on the table. "I know you two always loved this meal when I made it for you back in D.C."

"Mmm, it looks great," Erika said, staring at the pile of white steaming pasta as if it might turn into a multi-tentacled creature and attack.

"It does look good," Maggie agreed, giving it her own askance stare. "And it smells good, too," she added, when she realized that Jo was regarding her with skepticism. Maggie's forced smile still didn't convince Jo, but she accepted the praise and sat down.

"Then dig in." Jo took a sip of her ice water, waiting for her guests to get their servings first.

Erika chose a piece of bread, while Maggie took two small helpings of the pasta. They looked at each other as they did so.

Not for the first time since moving down to New Orleans, Jo felt as if her two friends were sharing some private, wordless communication.

Maggie took a bite of the food, actually more like a nibble. "Mmm, plenty of garlic." She nodded approvingly, but then her glance flicked back to Erika. Erika's lips were pressed together as if she was suppressing a chuckle.

Jo glanced back and forth between her friends, again feeling as if she'd been excluded from an inside joke. When she moved here, she'd expected her relationship with her longtime friends to be as it had always been. But it had changed.

Jo supposed it was natural for Maggie and Erika to have a special bond now that they were married to brothers. But sometimes, like now, Jo felt as if Maggie and Erika shared something more, something private. Jo supposed she couldn't say much about that. After all, it wasn't as if she wasn't hiding something from them as well.

She pushed that thought away, focusing on scooping up her own portion of the meal. She needed to think about first things first—wasn't that what her grandmother had always said? And her grandmother had been a wise woman, a woman Jo had always trusted, loved, and admired. First things first.

And Jo suspected she was being oversensitive about her friends anyway—another side effect of her big move and exhaustion. She just wanted to get her life back in order. She seemed to be a font of mantras and mottos at the moment.

And she was very pleased to be back with her friends. She'd been close to Maggie and Erika since freshmen year in college, and they'd always been like sisters. Adopted sisters who'd become so important to her.

"Is Vittorio playing with the Impalers tonight?" Jo asked Erika, feeling the need to steer her thoughts away from places she didn't want to go. And given how smitten her friends were with their new spouses, she felt certain this would be a topic the two women couldn't help but discuss. The two new hubbies and their Bourbon Street band, the Impalers.

"Yes," Erika said, nibbling her bread.

"He's playing for me tonight," Maggie said. "Although I think he's going to take over playing bass. Dave is talking about leaving."

"That's good, right?" Jo said.

Erika nodded, setting her bread aside and picking up her fork. "He loves being back, playing with his brother. And I'm enjoying it, too. I have a hot, sexy musician husband—but mostly it gives me time to work on my art."

"When you're not down there being a groupie," Maggie said with a wink.

"Like you can talk," Jo teased.

Maggie shrugged. "I never denied that I was Ren's biggest fan. But don't forget, I'm with the band."

"So you are still enjoying playing, too?" Jo asked, realizing this was actually the first time since she got here they'd had time to talk about day-to-day life. See, no wonder she looked so exhausted. She'd not stopped since moving out of her apartment in D.C.

"I do. It's like a dream," Maggie's smile was dreamy. "Who could have guessed how things would have changed for us with that first trip here?"

Jo smiled, forcing herself to take a bite of the pasta, the clam sauce slimy on her tongue, the fettuccine turning to paste against the roof of her mouth.

There really wasn't any way to tell how one event could change the course of your life, Jo thought, but she was working very hard to get her life back in control. No more surprises for her.

They all ate silently for a few moments, or rather picked at their food, lost in thought.

"So," Erika asked slowly, poking at the pasta with her fork, "isn't the community center a lot of work compared to your job at Potomac Prep?"

Jo smiled, immediately knowing what her friend was really angling at. "Don't you mean, isn't a job at St. Ann Community Center a big step down from Potomac Prep?"

"That isn't…"

"Yes, it is," Jo cut Erika off good-naturedly. "And yes, it's definitely a step down prestige-and money-wise, but it was still the right move for me."

Maggie set down her fork and reached out to capture Jo's fingers, squeezing them. "Why the change?"

Jo stared at their joined hands. This was the moment to tell them. To admit what had her running from Washington, D.C., but she couldn't. The words wouldn't come. Almost as if once she admitted it, it would be true. All true.

It is true, whether you like it or not. But then she pushed the thought away.

She set down her fork, and pushed the plate away from herself. Clearly no one at the table had an appetite. Her first dinner party in her new place, and it was less than a success. So much for just having a normal evening with her two best friends.