They left the party and walked towards the French Market through the brick and cobbled streets. They passed the rows of stucco buildings that had once been the homes of the French and Spanish aristocracy, and which were now gutted and remodeled into bars, whorehouses, tattoo parlors, burlesque theaters, upper-class restaurants, and nightclubs that catered to homosexuals. They could hear the loud music from Bourbon and the noise of the people on the sidewalk and the spielers in front of the bars calling in the tourists, who did not know or care who had built the Quarter.
“I didn’t find out what happened to you until I came back from Spain,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”
“It’s over now.”
“I couldn’t believe it when Daddy told me. It seems so unfair.”
“I did a year. They might have kept me for three.’
“Was it very bad?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I wish I had known. I was enjoying myself, and you were in one of those camps.”
“I’m finished with it now.”
“It makes me feel awful to think of you in there.”
“You’re a good girl.”
“It must have been terrible.”
“It was worse for some of the others,” he said.
“I couldn’t bear thinking about you in a prison.”
They walked across Jackson Square through the park and crossed the street to the Café du Monde. They sat outside at one of the tables. There was a breeze from the river. The waiter in a white jacket brought them coffee and a dish of pastry.
“We never wrote to each other after my first year in college,” she said. “I wanted to write but anything I could say seemed inadequate.”
“I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me.”
“You know I did. It all went to nothing over such small things.”
“I passed out on the beach in Biloxi.”
“I wasn’t angry. It just hurt me to see you do it to yourself.”
“I felt like hell when I saw the way you looked the next morning,” he said.
“I didn’t sleep all night. I was so worried over you.”
“You were always a good girl.”
“Stop it.”
“You were always damn good-looking too.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Avery.”
“Did you see those men turn and look at you in the park?”
“You’re being unfair.”
“Why are you so damn good-looking?” he said.
“I want to show you my apartment. Can you come over tomorrow evening for supper?”