“By and by, Zarita said, ‘Honey, send out and get some more to drink.’

“‘Send who?’ I said. ‘We ain’t got no messenger boy.’

“She said, ‘Just gimme the money, then, and I will send that old down-home shmoo who has been trying to make love to me since four o’clock this afternoon. That man ain’t nothing to me but a errand boy.’

“So we sent the old dope after a gallon of beer and pretzels. Soon as he left out the door Zarita grabbed me close as paper on the wall and started to dance. She danced so frantic, I could not keep up with her, so I turned her loose and let her go for herself. She had a great big old pocketbook on her arm and it were just a-swinging. Everybody else stopped dancing to watch Zarita, who always did want to be a show girl. She were really kicking up her heels then and throwing her hips from North to South. All of a sudden she flung up her arms and hollered, ‘Yippeee-ee-ee-e!’ whilst her pocketbook went flying through the air. When it hit the ceiling it busted wide open. Man, everything she had in it strewed out all over my floor as it come down. “‘Lord have mercy!’ Zarita said. ‘Stop the music! Don’t nobody move a inch. You might step on some of my personal belongings.’

“Just about then the downstairs doorbell rung nine times—my ring. I said, ‘Somebody go down and let that guy in with the beer, while we pick up Zarita’s stuff.’

“Zarita said, ‘You help me, baby. The rest of you-all just stay where you are. I ain’t acquainted with some of you folks and I don’t want to lose nothing valuable.’

“Well, you know how many things a woman carries in her pocketbook. Zarita had lost them all, flung from one wall to the other of my room—compact busted open, powder spilt, mirror, key ring with seven keys, lipstick, handkerchief, deck of cards, black lace gloves, bottle opener, cigarette case, chewing gum, bromo-quinine box, small change, fountain pen, sun glasses, big old silver Bow-Dollar for luck, address books, fingernail file, three blue poker chips, matches, flask, also a shoehorn. Her perfume bottle broke against the radiator so my room smelt like womens, licker, mens, and a Night in Paris.

“Zarita was down on her hands and knees scrambling around for things, so I got down on my hands and knees, too.

“‘Baby,’ she says to me, ‘I believes my lipstick has rolled under your bed.’

“We both crawled under the bed to see. While we was under there, Zarita kissed me. She crawled out with the shoehorn and I crawled out with her lipstick—some of it on the side of my mouth. Just as I got up, there stood Joyce in my door with a package in her hand.