After making sure that Dr. Wilson and Kit were sitting across from each other, not next to one another, Bette turned to DP and asked, “What would you like to drink?”

 
“Ohhhhh…,” DP looked at the large martini Bette had and was about to order the same, but before she could say so, Kit interjected.

“Well, girl, this IS Creole night, y’ know,” she reminded.  “How ‘bout somethin’ in keeping with the theme?  I got a bartender come up all the way from New Orleans to do this gig.  He can make you anything your heart desires.  How about a Hurricane?  No, even better, a mint julep.  You look like you’d be real comfortable, sittin’ on the back veranda, sippin’ a nice cool mint julep.”

DP lowered her eyes, feeling for all the world like a shy schoolgirl at that moment.  What the hell was wrong with her?  “That would be nice,” was all she could manage to say, in a voice softer and less certain than usual.

“A mint julep it is, then,” Kit smiled broadly, reached out and rested her hand on the back of DP’s, lingering for just a moment, then stood up and threaded her way to the bar, feeling DP’s appraising look at her back.

Bette cleared her throat.  “So, Dr. Wilson, what brings you here tonight?  Somehow I don’t picture Kit’s Place as your kind of club.”

DP gave her a perplexed look.  “Why?  Don’t I seem like I can ‘get down’, get ‘laid back’?”  Her voice held a slight edge and more than a little drawl.  She really was tired.  She needed rest.  She needed….

“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Bette said hastily, “I just thought, well, you’re such a quintessential professional woman, that you’d prefer something a little…” she waved her hand “…a little more formal.”

DP leaned back in her chair, thinking about just what Bette meant.  “I spend too much of my time being professional these days, Bette,” she conceded, again feeling that peculiar kind of weariness that had nothing to do with physical fatigue.  “Actually, I was just driving, going nowhere in particular, just around, clearing the cobwebs so to speak.  I saw the sign for the Creole cookout, heard that zydeco music and…well…here I am.”  She shrugged.