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"Now that I've unlocked the door adjoining our two rooms, I want to keep it unlocked. How about you?"

"Sure," I said.

"We don't even have to knock before entering each other's rooms. Except when one of us has some special visitor," she added with a smile.

The next day we both did well on the math test. When the other students saw us walking and talking together, they stopped gazing at me with suspicious smiles. Beau looked very relieved, too, and we had a good play rehearsal after school. He wanted to take me to a movie that night, but I told him I was going to Claudine's pajama party with Gisselle.

"Really?" he said, concerned. "I haven't heard anything about any pajama party. Usually, we boys find out about those things."

I shrugged.

"Maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment idea. Come by the house tomorrow afternoon," I suggested. He still looked troubled, but he nodded.

I didn't know that Gisselle hadn't gotten permission for us to go to Claudine's pajama party until she brought it up at dinner that night. Daphne complained about not enough notice.

"We just decided today," Gisselle lied, shifting her gaze at me quickly to be sure I didn't disagree. I looked down at my food. "Even if we knew, we couldn't tell you or Daddy before anyway," she whined. "You've both been so busy these last few days."

"I don't see any harm in it, Daphne," Daddy said. "Besides, they deserve some rewards. They've been bringing home some great school grades," he added, winking at me. "I'm very impressed with your improvements, Gisselle," he told her.

"Well," Daphne said, "the Montaigne's are very respectable. I'm glad you've made friends with the right class of people," she told me, and gave us permission.

As soon as dinner was over, we went upstairs to pack our bags. Daddy drove us the three blocks or so to Claudine's home, which was almost as big as ours. Her parents had already gone to some affair outside of the city and wouldn't be back until late. The servants had gone to their quarters so we had the run of the house.

There were two other girls besides Claudine, Gisselle, Antoinette, and I: Theresa Du Pratz and Deborah Tallant. We began by making popcorn and playing records in the enormous family room. Then Claudine suggested we mix vodka and cranberry juice, and I thought, oh, no, here we go again. But all the girls wanted to do it. What was a slumber party without doing something forbidden?

"Don't worry," Gisselle whispered. "I'll mix the drinks and make sure we don't have too much vodka." I watched and saw that she did what she promised, winking at me as she prepared the drinks.

"Did you ever have pajama parties in the bayou?" Deborah asked.

"No. The only parties I attended were parties held in fais dodo halls," I explained, and described them. The girls sat around listening to my descriptions of the food, the music, and the activities.

"What's bourse?" Theresa asked.

"A card game, sort of a cross between poker and bridge. When you lose a hand, you stuff the pot," I said, smiling. Some of the girls smiled.

"We're not that far away and yet it's like we live in another country," Deborah remarked.

"People aren't really all that different," I said. "They all want the same things--love and happiness."

Everyone was quiet a moment.

"This is getting too serious," Gisselle declared, and looked at Claudine and Antoinette, who nodded.

"Let's go up to the attic and get some of my grandmere Montaigne's things and dress up like we lived in the twenties."

It was obviously something the girls had done before.

"We'll put on the old music, too," Claudine added. Antoinette and Gisselle exchanged

conspiratorial glances and then we all marched up the stairway. From the doorway of the attic, Claudine cast out garments, assigning what each would wear. I was given an old-fashioned bathing suit.

"We don't want to see what each other looks like until we all come back downstairs," Claudine said. It was as if there were a prescribed procedure for this sort of fun. "Ruby, you can use my room to change." She opened the door to her very pretty room and gestured for me to enter. Then she assigned Gisselle and Antoinette their rooms and told Theresa and Deborah to go downstairs and find places to use. She would use her parents' room. "Everyone meets in the living room in ten minutes."

I closed the door and went into her room. The old-fashioned bathing suit looked so silly when I held it up before me and gazed in Claudine's vanity mirror. It left little really exposed. I imagined people didn't care so much about getting tans in those days.

Envisioning the fun we would have all parading about in old-time clothes, I hurried to get into the bathing suit. I unfastened my skirt, stepped out of it, and unbuttoned my blouse, quickly slipping it off. I started to get into the bathing suit when there was a knock on the door.

"Who is it?"