Wasn’t this her Pirate’s Alley pal, sinking into twilit dregs of sugarskull absinthe, licking the latticed spoon with a wildfire grin? That sweet, naked face with the pallor of a star, wandering that humid neck of the French quarter, the heat rising up, wriggling into any open space between skin and night-colored Wednesday black? They used to bump poison white powders and roll around like children underneath the warning of weatherworn Romeo Spikes, stuffing their faces with beignets from the Cafe Du Monde, scattering powdered sugar all over their laps, letting those candlelit nomads read their palms. These images flash within her when she sees the Nat Shermans, pondering down at them in some milky reverie.
So foremost, a rare but not unheard of (especially after yearning to lead a more wholesome life) tumble into minor sentimentality, “You should stay.” she says, and means it, though she knocks her gaze away and back down to the cigarettes. “Especially, if you’ve got more where these came from.”
Of course, explaining to her all the ripe melodrama that existed in this town was something she’d have to eventually experience herself firsthand, “This place is weird,” she says, “A lot of unexpected things happen, unexplainable. A lot of people show up. Your past follows. Things go bump in the night. Sometimes you see things. What’s not to like? Aside from the really droll outfits.”