Darcey glanced at Patricia and then back to me. She held my eye for a second before casting her head back in a small jerk that indicated back there.

“She’s waiting for you,” she said as she released my arms. “Got up early this morning and put on her finest clothes. She was all dressed and made up when I brought in her breakfast. And I said, ‘This ain’t Sunday. Why you all done up?’ And she said, ‘My man is coming to visit me today. And I don’t want to look like somethin’ the cat dragged in when he gets here.’ ”

I shook my head in amazement, while Patricia shot me a puzzled look. Before I could reply, Darcey picked up the cooler I had set on the porch and took Patricia by the arm.

“Two dozen crabs ’bout enough for you this time?” she asked as she turned toward the door, taking Patricia with her.

“Yes,” I replied. “That should just about do it.”

“Then you better go on in and see her before she commences to throw a hissy fit,” she said as she went inside.

Patricia looked over her shoulder as she was pulled along. I nodded to her and smiled in encouragement as Darcey said to Patricia, “You come with me, pretty lady, and I’ll teach you some secrets that you’ll never regret the knowin’ of.”

I followed the women into the house. We entered by way of the living room. Darcey and Patricia disappeared off to the right, toward the kitchen, but I moved through the front room, to a small hallway, and then stopped at a beaded curtain that served as the door of a back room. The pattern on the beads was of a beautiful dark-haired woman holding a parrot on her wrist. As I reached my hand forward to part the curtain, a small voice called from inside.

“I hope you brought me a present this time. I can’t stand it when my lovers don’t bring me a present. Makes me mad as hell when they don’t bring me a present.”

I shook my head and smiled, and then, pushing through the beads, entered the room. It was dim inside, the room lit only by the faint light of a single kerosene lamp that sat on a table in the far corner of the room. It was also very warm, with an almost tropical feeling, though there was no fire in the fireplace, nor a heater of any kind in the room. And then, there was the faint but delicious scent of exotic spices that seemed to emanate from the small figure sitting, almost swallowed, in a large, old-fashioned overstuffed chair.