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mattress.
    “Okay.” Will smiled. “See you later.” He started to turn away, then stopped again. “Should we meet down in the lobby and go to the reception together?”
    “That sounds fine,” I told him.
    It was about four o’clock now, and the reception started at seven at the theater where the performances would be held during the festival. The theater was in walking distance of the hotel, only about three blocks away. Everything was close to everything else in the French Quarter.
    “I’ll see you down there at six-thirty,” I went on. Actually, now that I thought about it, I was a little tired, and it might be a good idea to try out that mattress for real and catch a nap. If Will and I had that late supper, I might not get back to bed until after midnight.
    And for that matter, I thought, once I did get to bed, I might not be going to sleep right away …
    “All right,” he said. “Six-thirty. I’ll see you then.”
    With a little wave, he went on down the hall with the porter and the luggage cart. I closed the door, leaned against it for a second, and then turned back toward the bed.
    “Mattress,” I said as I kicked my shoes off, “here I come.”

    I wore a white-trimmed dark blue dress with a matching jacket and white heels, and a single strand of pearls around my neck, going for simplicity and elegance. What took the longest getting ready for the night was pinning up my unruly red hair into a partial updo. I knew that I cleaned up pretty good, as we say back home. Pretty good wasn’t enough for tonight, though. In addition to Tennessee Williams scholars from around the country, there would be the movers and shakers of New Orleans high society in attendance, along with folks from Broadway and Hollywood.
    Judging by the look on Will’s face as I walked toward him across the lobby, I’d done all right. He was smart enough to know not to gush about how good I looked as I came up to him, because that would have implied that I didn’t look all that good normally. But he was definitely impressed. He went for simple, too, saying, “You look beautiful, Delilah.”
    “Thank you, kind sir.” He wore a black suit and a charcoal tie, and his hair was neatly styled for a change, and as I looked him over, I went ahead and used the line I had thought about earlier. “You clean up pretty good, too, Doctor.”
    He grinned. “Thanks. I’ll admit I don’t like dressing up very much, but I don’t mind when the occasion warrants it. And I’d say it’s definitely justified when I’m going out for an evening in New Orleans with Delilah Dickinson.”
    I linked my arm with his and said, “Honey, you just lead the way.”
    I had spotted several other members of the tour group in the lobby, and as we left the hotel I saw more of them walking along the narrow sidewalk. Night had fallen, but the streets of the French Quarter were brightly lit with gas lamps on iron posts along with the light that came through the windows of the nearby buildings. The area wasn’t nearly as crowded as itis during Mardi Gras, of course, but there were still a lot of people making their way along the sidewalks. Some of them were pretty disreputable-looking characters, too, because, after all, what would the French Quarter be without some lowlifes? It was a microcosm (there’s one of those words I’d picked up, again) of society, from the highest to the lowest, and sometimes there wasn’t all that much difference between them. In the great scheme of things, the spaces that divide humanity are small.
    Dr. Callie Madison and her husband, Jake, were about half a block ahead of us. As I watched, what appeared to be a homeless man came up and started talking to them. Jake shook his head, tightened his hold on Callie’s arm, and started moving faster. The man stayed with them, though, and I caught some of what he was saying.
    “ … no place to live since Katrina, man. You can help out a little…. All dressed up to go to some fancy