Half of Paradise

After he left the drugstore, he caught a streetcar to the Vieux Carré and walked along the streets in the summer evening to Suzanne’s apartment. Denise told him that she was out shopping in the stores and she wouldn’t be back for another hour. He went down to the sports parlor on the corner and bought a newspaper and read the ball scores. He sat in one of the chairs along the wall by the pool tables. Three men were playing a game of Kelly pool. He bought a beer at the bar and watched the game. There was a table free and he played a game of rotation by himself. He shot a second game with a merchant sailor from Portugal. The sailor spoke bad English and he used much obscenity when he talked, but he was good with a cue and he paid for the game even though he had won. Avery folded his newspaper and drank another beer at the bar and went back to the apartment. The cool dank smell of the sports parlor with its odor of draught beer and cue chalk had taken away the parole office, and he felt good walking down Rampart with the sun low over the buildings and the Negro children roller-skating on the sidewalk and the old women on the balconies calling to one another in French.

He saw Suzanne going up the steps to her apartment as he entered the courtyard. She had several boxes in her arms. She wore high heels and a dark suit and a small white hat with a white veil.

“Hello,” she cried. “Come up and see what I bought.”

He followed her up the steps and into the living room. She left the doors open to the balcony. She looked out of breath. She threw the boxes on the couch and tore them open and pulled out the new dresses amid the rustling of the tissue paper.

“Do you like them?” she said. “God, what bedlam. I’ll never go shopping at five again. I’m sorry I’m late. Where have you been?”

“The parole board and the pool hall.”

“Oh? Did anything happen?”

“No.”

“Did you have to talk with that same little man you told me about?”

“He’s been assigned to me as my counselor on readjustment.”

“Poor darling. You must be tired. Do you want a drink?”

“Do you have a beer?”

She went into the kitchen and got one out of the icebox and opened it. The foam came over the lip of the bottle.

“Did you meet any literary people at the pool hall?” she said.

“A Portuguese sailor.”

“Has he written anything?”

“Only on bathroom walls.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to a pool hall. What’s it like?” she said.

“Most of the upper-class people from the Quarter are there.”

“They’re lovely company.”

“Is Denise in?” he said.

“I don’t know. Denise!”

She looked in the bedroom.

“She must have gone out with that Tulane boy.”

“Let’s go to bed.”

“That’s a subtle way of putting it,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

“I’ve wanted you all day, too. It must be true that once you get in the habit of it you can’t do without it.”

“Do you feel that way?” he said.

“I don’t think I could go a week without you.”