Half of Paradise

“Don’t leave.”

“I’m not.”

“Let’s go outside. It’s too loud in here.”

“I’ve tried. Couldn’t make the door.”

“We can go out through the kitchen,” she said.

They went out through a back door that opened onto the balcony over the courtyard. The air was cool, and the moonlight fell on the tile roofing of the buildings.

“I didn’t believe it was you. You look changed,” she said.

“You look good,” he said. She really did. She had never looked so good.

“It’s been awfully long since we’ve seen each other.”

“Did you like Spain?”

“I loved it.”

“Are you living here now?”

“Over on Dauphine. Another girl and I rented a studio. You have to see it. It’s like something out of nineteenth-century Paris.”

They sat on the stone steps leading down to the court.

“I’m one of those sidewalk artists you see in Pirates Alley,” she said. “Daddy was furious when he found out. He said he would stop my allowance.”

“He won’t.”

“I know. He always threatens to do it, and then he sends another check to apologize.”

He looked at h

er profile in the darkness. She kept her face turned slightly away from him when she talked. The light from the paper lanterns caught in her hair. He wished he had not drunk as much as he had. He was trying very hard to act sober.

“I came with some fellow named Wally. He put a drink in my hand and I never saw him again.”

“How in the world did you meet Wally?”

“He was broke. I lent him a dime.”

“One night he went down Bourbon asking donations for the Salvation Army.”

“What happened?”

“He used the money to buy two winos a drink in The Famous Door.”

A couple brushed past them down the steps. Others followed them. Part of the party was moving outside. Wally came out on the balcony and called down.

“Who in the hell would read a bunch of Russian moralists?”

“Let’s go to the Café du Monde,” Suzanne said. “They have wonderful pastry and coffee, and we can sit outside at the tables.”

“What about the people you’re with?”

“I’ve been trying to get away from them all evening. They come down from L.S.U. to see the bohemians.”