Immortal Souls: Phoenix Always

Sweet Phoenix

During the summer months, on school holidays, and on some weekends, I help my parents out at their bakery and café on Bourbon Street. They hope to pass the business on to me one day and are making sure I know how to run the place from top to bottom. I don't have the heart to tell them that isn't likely to ever happen. Besides the whole "death" part, I don't share their love for baked goodies. Well, I like to eat them, but that's about it. Though I do enjoy working with my parents and meeting the vast array of tourists who come through here. Plus, Journey works here with me.

"Welcome to Sweet Phoenix. What can I get for you?" I slide a cup of black coffee to an old man who comes here every morning at seven o'clock, and toss a smile at the next customer in line. "Oh, hi, Travis."

"Hey. Your dad isn't ready to kill me about the car, is he?"

"No, you're safe. Are you here for the usual?" I punch in his order before he answers.

"Just make it a dozen. My brother didn't come in this weekend." He hands me a twenty dollar bill from his wallet.

Oops. "I need a dozen banana beignets!" I call back to the kitchen, correcting the order on the computer.

Travis's brother attends Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and their father is a lawyer working a case at the Louisiana State Penitentiary two hours away. They both come back to New Orleans every Friday night to spend Saturday with Travis and his mom. I see the three men every Saturday morning because his dad craves our banana-stuffed beignets.

"What's kept your brother away?" I give Travis his change and wave to Mr. Brasseaux sitting at a corner table, but he doesn't see me with his phone attached to his ear. I miss the days before portable phones and other technology—when you actually had to talk to the person you're spending time with. And spend time with people to talk to them.

"Probably a girl," he replies while I fill two cups with the café au lait he and his dad drink with their beignets. "He says he has a big test Monday, but I think it's this new chick he met last week."

I hate when men refer to women as chicks, broads, and so many other demeaning terms. "One more year, and you'll be right there with him." I snap the lids onto the coffees and hand them to him.

He raises the cups in a toast. "Thanks, Phoenix."

As Travis strolls away, I take note of the fact that he's still off. Usually, he comes in here acting like the arrogant jerk he is and he never says thank you. So what did he see yesterday that left him...nice? After the two men and the blood-drained body I saw last night, I have no doubt he saw "a man running impossibly fast," but was that all? Is that enough to spook a guy twice the size of the two men stalking me last night?

Speaking of which, I need to find out who those men are, which means I'll have to break my plans with my friends tonight.

"Phoenix, customers," Samantha barks at me as she walks past with a tray of pastries for the display case.

I snap out of my thoughts and plaster on a smile for the next customer. "Welcome to Sweet Phoe—" Shock garbles the word into mush. I choke it out. "...Phoenix."

The laughter that comes out of the frail, gray-haired lady in front of me is a sound I haven't heard in twenty years. "Are you the girl this place was named after?" she asks, eyeing my name tag. Her thick New York–accented voice sounds the same as it did when she was forty-eight, but with a croak to it.

Charlotte is almost sixty-nine now, and she definitely looks it. Older, actually.

I clear my throat and force "Yes, ma'am" out of my mouth, but my heart remains in my throat, pounding against my jugular.