He sips his drink and ignores me. “I was watching you.”

“I know,” I say with an edge of disgust.

“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

I don’t respond.

“Want to take a load off?” he asks, kicking a foot against the corner of the confessional.

“But you’re not a priest,” I counter.

“Who says?”

I don’t know how to respond to this. I feel like I am trapped in a conversation with a character from the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

He nods toward the tabernacle behind me. “What’s a matter? Those pie-faced do-gooders on high got you spooked?”

I glance over my shoulder toward the three statues up top.

“Between you and me, I find them a bit creepy,” he whispers. “But they’re harmless.” He shoots the rest of his drink and unscrews the cap from his bottle so he can swig straight from it. “You know, I know your type.”

“My type?”

“Sure. Wound up like a snake eating its own tail. Unable to see the grand design unfolding all around you.”

I rub at the back of my neck. “Really, my mom is waiting for me.”

“Is she?” He looks over one shoulder. “I don’t see her.”

“She’s outside.”

“You just need to relax, Catia.” He wiggles the little green bottle in my face. “Open your eyes. There’s so much you’re not seeing.”

“How do you know my name?”

“How do you not know mine?” he counters.

“Are you a friend of my mom’s or something?”

“Or something,” he says with a lazy sideways smile. “It’s too bad about your grandmother. We used to be close.”

Now I know he’s toying with me. He’s far too young to have known Moony before I was around, and I don’t remember him. “I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugs.

I try to scoot toward an open pew, thinking I can go down it and around him to get out of here, but he blocks me.

“Don’t you know it’s customary in Louisiana if you visit someone’s house to accept their hospitality?”

I laugh. “This is your house?”

“Of course it is,” he declares. “And I’ll let you in on a little secret—all the best ones are.”

I scrunch up my nose, mentally kicking myself for getting sucked into this ridiculous conversation. “The best ones?”

“Churches,” he says under his breath. “And this, my dear, is holy communion.” He raises the bottle of peppermint schnapps high.

“Right.” All I want is to get out of this ornate, oversized box and away from this hungover lunatic. “Let me see that.”