You’ll have champagne. All girls like champagne.”

All girls didn’t like champagne. I preferred root beer. Willie preferred anything that smelled like gasoline and burned her throat. She could hold her liquor better than any man, and I wished she was there to help me navigate John Lockwell.

“I had said too much. He was giving me the look. I hated the look. It was the “Y…”

“Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There's love and emotion trying …”

“You got to get outta here, Josie. New Orleans is fine for some people, real goo…”

“I wished I had a friend in the Quarter, someone like Charlotte. Someone I could…”