STELLA [mildly]:

Don't holler at me like that. Hi, Mitch.

STANLEY:

Catch!

STELLA:

What?

STANLEY:

Meat!

[Be heaves the package at her. She cries out in protest but manages to catch it; then she laughes breathlessly. Her husband and his companion have already started back around the comer.]

STELLA [calling after him]:

Stanley! Where are you going?

STANLEY:

Bowling!

STELLA:

Can I come watch?

STANLEY:

Come on.

[He goes out.]

STELLA:

Be over soon.

[To the white woman]

Hello, Eunice. How are you?

EUNICE:

I'm all right. Tell Steve to get him a poor boy's sandwich 'cause nothing's left here.

[They all laugh; the colored woman does not stop. Stella goes out.]

COLORED WOMAN:

What was that package he th'ew at 'er?

[She rises from steps, laughing louder.]

EUNICE:

You hush, now!

NEGRO WOMAN:

Catch what!

[She continues to laugh. Blanche comes around the corner, currying a valise. She looks at a slip of paper, then at the building, then again at the slip and again at the building. Her expression is one of shocked disbelief. Her appearance is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. She is about five years older than Stella. Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.]

EUNICE [finally]:

What's the matter, honey? Are you lost?

BLANCHE [with faintly hysterical humor]: