Safe Passage by Kate Owen

going to be hassling me about one of your brothers, right."
    "Well, you can tell him they are both straight and married."
    "He'll be crushed."
    "We'll have to find him the strength to go on."
    The waiter arrived with their rolls and they each took a few bites of sushi and then Gen swallowed. "So, have you figured out where Evie is buried?"
    Jules shook her head slowly. "I have no idea. I mean, after Katrina she could have been washed away in the flooding."
    "You think so?"
    "I don't know, Gen, I mean, a lot of people were disinterred by the floods."
    "But your aunt wrote the letter after Katrina."
    "Yeah, so, either she wanted me to find her body, or it was found and she re-buried her."
    "How would you know?"
    "I'm not sure. I mean, she had to have hired …" Jules trailed off as she thought back to the time right after Katrina. She'd called her Auntie a lot from her Master's program at Georgia Tech.
    Gen waited for a minute or so. "Jules, I get that you wander off into your head but you're killing me here. She'd have hired what?"
    Jules started at Gen's voice but then nodded. "Auntie backed a charity after Katrina, and their whole goal was to identify and rebury bodies that were washed up from the flooding. She brought down anthropologists and forensic artists to help."
    "You think she did all that to find Evie?"
    "Maybe."
    "So she found Evie, and did what, reburied her?"
    "She must have, Gen."
    "But where?"
    Jules shrugged. "No idea."
    "Jules, as much as I want to help you figure all this out, and I do, I don't want this letter to be the only thing we have together."
    "Me neither. Let's table the whole Evie-slash-Auntie thing tonight and just be two women on a date."
    "Okay."
    Jules finished her drink and looked across the table. "So, how long were you in France?"
    "How did you know that?"
    She grinned. "I took a guess."
    "I did two years there."
    "Where?"
    "Paris."
    "I've never been. I always wanted to go though."
    "It's amazing. I mean, obviously it's amazing—it's Paris. I missed being here when I was there but now, I miss being there, a lot."
    "What was your favorite place?"
    "There was a café where I used to study on the Seine. It was so quintessentially Parisian, that I think I might have liked it better than the Louvre." Gen's expression became distant and Jules could tell that she was picturing the place in her mind.
    Jules laughed. "Dad goes periodically, he'd love to hear about the best spots from an insider."
    "Jules, are you asking me to meet your parents?"
    The color drained from Jules face. "What, no, um, I mean, maybe, but not yet. I don't know."
    Gen laughed. "Relax, Jules, just teasing you."
    "Funny," Jules replied dryly.
    "I thought so."
    Jules popped another bite of sushi in her mouth and watched Gen as she chewed and swallowed the piece of the roll she'd just eaten. Jules couldn't keep her eyes from the motions of the long graceful neck. When she went to take another piece, Jules was distracted by her tiny hands and how adroit they were with the chopsticks. Jules was self-conscious about her own hands, so large and calloused from rowing. She didn't know how long she'd been cataloguing all of Gen's features when she looked up and met her hazel eyes.
    "You still with me?"
    "Yes, definitely. Sorry, I'm here."
    "Well, I guess as long as the distraction was me, we're okay."
    Jules laughed. "Oh yes, you were most certainly the distraction."
    Gen smiled warmly a light blush rising on her cheeks. "Okay, then. So, I'm racking my brain for things to ask you that I don't know yet. Okay, what was your most embarrassing moment?"
    "Really?"
    "Yes."
    "Gen, I embarrass myself on a daily basis."
    "Good, then you should definitely be able to come up with something to say."
    Jules snorted. "Okay, well the first one that comes to mind happened my sophomore year at Tulane. My car was in the shop and I needed some groceries. Laundry day was long past so I grabbed a pair of my roommate's cargo shorts, because she'd just done