Sometimes, I Miss Southern Belles. This Is Not One of Them

Just because my cousin Caroline from Nashville was voted “Best Legs” our senior year of high school doesn’t mean she walks anywhere. . . .

Our best friend Liz, a former Miss Confederacy who’s now an art restorer in Italy, had visited me in New York the year before with her Italian boyfriend, Flaviano. . . .

Liz and Flaviano have since split, after three years together. . . . “Will I ever meet someone else?” she asked me and Caroline as the three of us slid onto barstools at the Gold Rush, in Nashville, home for a week of Christmas vacation. This question was mostly directed toward me, in the hope that I would say what she wanted to hear, possibly tossing in a box of bonbons.

“Of course,” I told her.

“Hell to the no!” said Caroline. She re-crossed her legs, and a man slumped at the end of the bar suddenly seemed very much awake. “Not unless you reacquaint yourself with a hairbrush and burn those sweatpants.” She waved her left hand and its wedding ring in the air. “Jesus Christ is the most important man in my life—pass me another beer—but if there’s one thing I know, it’s boys.”

“And?” Liz sniffed.

“Sparkling conversation, sparkling eye-shadow, matching bra and panty sets, and always invite him to church.”

Before that passage could chase me to the sanctuary of the fetal position and the gentle, comforting rocking that it makes so easy, before I could fully invoke my Happy Place with the mantra of "Cool, blue ocean; cool, blue ocean. . .," I found salvation in this:

"On St. Mark’s Place, she surrendered to temptation. ‘I know that this is not something my pastor would approve of, but I am dying to get my fortune told.’ She pointed to a row of a neon signs for street-level psychics. ‘How is it possible that all these gals can see into the future?’

"‘It’s not.’ I stepped over an empty 40-ounce beer bottle. ‘Did I tell you what happened to my neighbor Brian?’

"‘He had his tarot cards read outside of Penn Station and the woman told him that he’d be dead within 18 months.’

“‘Oh no!’

“‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘His girlfriend was shaken up for about a week, until Brian tried to convince her that this was the universe’s way of letting them know there was no need to use condoms.’"

That restoreth my soul. If somewhere some guy was using a death sentence to get out of using a condom, the world — my world — was a safe place to be.

Thanks, Brian. I owe you a beer.