It was a voice at his elbow—Joe Ewing sitting in an automobile with Marylyn Wade. Nancy Lamar and a strange man were in the back seat.
The Jelly-bean tipped his hat quickly.
“Hi, Ben—” then, after an almost imperceptible pause—“How y’ all?”
Passing, he ambled on toward the garage where he had a room up-stairs. His “How y’all” had been said to Nancy Lamar, to whom he had not spoken in fifteen years.
Nancy had a mouth like a remembered kiss and shadowy eyes and blue-black hair inherited from her mother who had been born in Budapest. Jim passed her often on the street, walking small-boy fashion with her hands in her pockets and he knew that with her inseparable Sally Carrol Hopper she had left a trail of broken hearts from Atlanta to New Orleans.
For a few fleeting moments Jim wished he could dance. Then he laughed and as he reached his door began to sing softly to himself:
“Her Jelly Roll can twist your soul,
Her eyes are big and brown,
She’s the Queen of the Queens of the Jelly-beans—
My Jeanne of Jelly-bean Town.”