Really? This woman was doing a Doris Day/Commodores mashup?
“Why are we here?” she finally asked once the shock subsided.
Drake leaned closer, but his gaze shifted between Josie Lynn and the woman on stage as if he couldn’t quite manage to tear his attention away. Josie Lynn had to admit the woman was oddly fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way.
“If anyone in the French Quarter is going to know of a band of Chers, it is this woman.” Drake then added, “Well, you know, this man who impersonates a woman. She’s been working here for over three decades. She knows everyone.”
Ah, now it made sense. It also did a lot to explain her low, husky voice, too.
“Well hello, loves,” a very tall woman, who Josie Lynn assumed was also a female impersonator, sashayed over to the table, working her short skirt and high heels a heck of a lot better than Josie Lynn ever could. There was no way she could wait tables in a pair of four-inch heels.
“What can I get you to drink?”
“I’ll take a whiskey, straight up,” Drake said, then looked to Josie Lynn.
“I’ll just have a Diet Coke.”
The waitress gave her a regretful look. “We have a two-drink minimum.”
After last night Josie Lynn wasn’t sure she could handle alcohol. The idea made her stomach churn, but she also realized places like this that supplied entertainment needed to make their money somehow. In fact, places all over Bourbon Street counted on booze to make their money.
“I’ll take a white wine.”
“Chardonnay, lovey?” She said, batting her very long, very dark, very fake lashes at Josie Lynn.
Josie Lynn found herself smiling. The waitress really was quite charming.
“That’s great.”
Drake settled back in his chair. “Renee should be done with her set in just another few songs, then I’ll see what she knows about those guys.”
The waitress returned with their drinks.
“That was quick,” Josie Lynn said, accepting her glass.
The waitress gestured around them. “Well, we’re not exactly packed tonight.”
That was true. It probably wasn’t too hard for the wait staff to keep up with the handful of people in here.
Josie Lynn took a sip of her wine, grimacing slightly at the acrid taste. But as it slipped down her throat, she could also feel its warming effect, even as it hit her stomach, and she was surprised and pleased the sensation wasn’t quite as unpleasant as she’d imagined it would be.
“So do you know Renee?” she asked after she’d taken a second sip.
“Yeah.” He took a swallow of his drink, polishing off half of it.
“How? You don’t seem like you’d hang out here much.” She didn’t know why she thought that. It wasn’t as if she knew much about this man.
“No, I don’t. But both Renee and I have been around New Orleans for a long time.”
“How long?”
Drake shook his head. “Damn, longer than I care to remember. Renee has been bringing down the house for forty years. You should have seen him back when he was young.” He finished the rest of his drink.
Josie Lynn smiled. “Well, it’s not like you saw him when he was young either. You can’t be much older than me.”
There was a pause, then he just shrugged. “I’ve seen pictures. It’s a small world when you’re working in this business.”
“So you aren’t from here?”
“Originally? No.”
“Where then?”
Josie Lynn knew she should just stop questioning him, but she was curious about this man. Why? Well, that was a question she wasn’t sure she could answer. Or better yet, she’d be reluctant to answer, because she’d have to admit that she was intrigued by him. Despite her better judgment—which as always was debatable anyway.
He looked around for the waitress, waving to her before he answered Josie Lynn. “I grew up in England.”
Stella and Katie had said he’d come from a privileged background, and she got the sudden image of a sprawling estate, and private boys’ schools with uniforms. He probably even played cricket, although she wasn’t sure exactly what the sport was.
But that did also explain something else. “I thought I noticed you had an accent occasionally.”
Drake frowned at her. “My accent is long gone.”
“Did you want the same, sweetie?” the waitress asked, giving Josie Lynn a moment to study Drake without his noticing. He definitely didn’t seem to want to discuss his past, which she could understand. Her upbringing was far from her favorite topic. But why even deny the remnants of an accent? Most people loved a British accent, herself included.
“Please,” he told the waitress, handing her his empty glass.
“Are you good, precious?” the waitress asked her.
Josie Lynn nodded and the waitress left.
Drake watched Renee, who now sang “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and strutted around the stage, her gown billowing out behind her.
Again, Josie Lynn got oddly entranced by the performance, but only until the waitress returned with Drake’s fresh drink.
He took another long drink, and again Josie Lynn got the feeling he was very uncomfortable with her line of questioning.
“So what about you?” he asked as he set down his highball glass. “How long have you lived in New Orleans?”
It was her turn to take a sip of her drink. “I actually live in Westwego.”
“That’s a bit of a trek, but not bad. Is that where you grew up?”
Yeah, it was definitely her turn to be reluctant to answer. “I grew up near Atchafalaya Swamp. My dad and brothers are fisherman and—well, you know they have some experience with gators. And some of them take tourists out to fish.”
She waited for more questions. Stereotypical questions about how it was to grow up Cajun, running wild in the bayous.
But he didn’t say anything more, he simply nodded. Somehow that felt just as awkward as more questions.
She took another sip of her wine, then added almost self-consciously, “I’m sure your life was very different from how I grew up.”
Drake made a face that Josie Lynn couldn’t quite decipher. “My whole existence in general has been very different. Although I’m certainly familiar with the bayous and rivers of this area.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Well, because I was a pirate,” he stated, and then smiled that lopsided smile of his.
She rolled her eyes at him, but smiled, too. “Right. How could I forget?”
“Arrgh,” he said, squinting up his handsome face in a way that he clearly thought was pirate-y. “Would you like to walk my plank, matey?”
She laughed despite herself. Maybe it was the wine. “I’d watch yourself, pirate, you saw what I did to the gator.”
He chuckled, then he looked back to the stage. Josie Lynn did, too, realizing the music had stopped. Wow, had Drake held her attention so thoroughly she hadn’t noticed that until now?
“My lovely crowd,” Renee said, in a husky, sultry voice.
Josie Lynn looked around again. Crowd seemed a rather lavish term for the six people scattered around the room.
“I will be taking a short break. But please don’t leave us, because the stunning Clarisse Dubois will be joining you to delight with her magnificent vocal stylings. So please, sit back and enjoy.”
As Renee sauntered toward the stage exit, Drake rose and waved to her. Renee gave him a vague wave back, then recognition lit her heavily shadowed eyes. She smiled, her ruby lips revealing startlingly white teeth. She gestured toward the backstage, then raised a manicured finger to indicate that she just needed a minute.
Drake nodded and returned to his chair.
“I guarantee she will know where to find the Chers,” he said to Josie Lynn.