Chapter Nine: Louise’s Ex:

About six in the evening, the ladies pulled into downtown New Orleans. Noiz looked over at Louise.

“So what’s the plan?” she asked. Louise gripped the steering wheel.

“We’re just going to roam around for until I get happy again,” she said. Her angry tone warned Noiz not to ask any more questions.

“Okay…” she mumbled. Both climbed out of the car and began their walk. The nightlife buzzed around them. Noiz tried to relax into the current situation. This might cool her down, she thought. Louise wasn’t at least grumbling to herself now. It didn’t change the fact that they were miles away from Japan. Surely, someone had to have asked some questions by now. Noiz didn’t get the chance to check her phone without Louise looking over her shoulder. The headmistress reached into her cell phone in her pocket.

Maybe I could make the call after I slip away…

Suddenly, Louise pressed her hand against her stomach on the street. The kitty looked up, puzzled.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Louise gritted her teeth.

“He’s here!” she growled.

“Huh?” Noiz asked as she looked forward. She got her answer when she noticed Daryl Wilcox standing before them with another woman. “Oh…”

Louise clenched her fists at her sides. “You!” Daryl and the other woman looked up and noticed them.

“Oh! What is this?” he asked.

“That’s none of your business!” Louise snapped. Daryl put up his hands, smiling.

“Calm down, baby,” he said. “I just asked a simple question.” His ex-wife snorted.

“What are you doing back in New Orleans?!” she barked.

Her ex gave her a shrug. “I live in the city.”

“I thought you got thrown out.”

“Hey, all is forgiven, right?”

Louise narrowed her at him. “I still haven’t forgiven you!”

“Aw, that’s a shame.” He happened to look over to his right and notice Noiz trying to sneak away from him. “Noiz! It’s rather strange to see you here… not in a kimono…”

“Hi…” Noiz mumbled.

“We’re on vacation here,” Louise brushed off.

“I see…” Daryl replied.

His ex noticed the woman next to him. “Oh and who is this? Another one of your victims?”

Daryl pulled the woman closer to him. “She’s my wife!” He held out her hand to show off her ring.

“I see,” Louise replied. “I feel sorry for her.”

“Excuse me?”

She turned her attention to the new wife. “If I was you I would run from him. He’s just a cheat and liar.”

“I’m right here, you know!” Daryl shouted.

“World’s biggest cheater right here,” she went on. “That’s all he was in my marriage.”

“People can change,” the new wife said in a small voice. Louise all but laughed at such a statement.

“Yeah, I told myself that too,” she said. “You’re better off leaving him while you still can.”

“What are you jealous?” Daryl cut in.

“You wish!” she shouted. “You brought me nothing but grief!”

“But you miss me.”

“Like hell I do!”

“You know you want this.”

“Should you be saying that in front of your wife?”

Daryl gently pushed away his new wife. “So you are jealous!”

“Fuck you, asshole!”

“Ooo! Language! Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“You!” Louise stomped forward with her hands ready to strangle her ex-husband.

Noiz looked back and forth at the arguing exes. I could just quietly leave… Her eyes met with the new wife’s. The look on her face said that she had the same notion. Both kitty and wife wondered how long it would take before either ex noticed that their companions were gone. Noiz began counting down in her head.

Three… Two… One! The kitty slowly backed away as the argument flared with an angry Louise butting heads with Daryl’s annoying mind games. She didn’t even look back as she began to run away. The only problem remaining was that she had to find a place to hide until the fight was over.