Southern Lady Code: Essays(12)

If a man doesn’t kiss you, he doesn’t want to kiss you. If a man doesn’t kiss you on the mouth, he doesn’t find you attractive. A fist bump is not a kiss. An ass pat is not a kiss. Don’t trust a man who keeps your kisses a secret.

When a man asks you to “Put your heart out there,” he means: take off your top and get in a Jacuzzi.

When a man puts his heart out there, he leaves the bathroom door open.

Classy women wear one-pieces. Smart women think on balconies. The clearer the ocean, the cloudier the mind. Indecision is a decision. Patience is a curling iron in 100 percent humidity. Throw blankets signify the good life. Ladies who seem like they never have a bad day occasionally have a very, very bad day. Sex is like a funny cat video: everyone thinks theirs is special, but we’ve all fallen off a couch.

Don’t forgive a man who repeatedly hurts your feelings. Don’t choose a man by how you think he’ll treat your kids once you have kids. If a man won’t tell you where you’re going on a date, you’re camping. If a man calls his dog’s name before yours, well dang.

Just because a man is the first to tell you he loves you doesn’t mean he loves you the most.

Sometimes your second choice is the best choice.

A good man is like a pair of bargain bin pricey panties: snatch him up first, and ignore tiny flaws later. You could do a lot worse than a poet who plays baseball and is in line to take over his dad’s chiropractor business. Forget helicopters and exotic locations. It’s easy to fall in love on a front porch under an American flag.





THE GHOST EXPERIENCE





It was a Friday night in Manhattan and I was home with two friends. There was watercress dip and a bottle of wine, an LED swing lamp, and five hundred puzzle pieces of a spooky owl in midflight. My friend Megan writes bestselling mystery novels. My friend Dani reads incessantly. Both women jigsaw. And puzzling women are open to anything. For example, Dani wore yoga pants to work a jigsaw puzzle. My idea of child’s pose is crouching over a box top. Megan wore a cardigan, which we Southern ladies consider active wear.

Megan asked, “Has either of you ever had a ghost experience?”

Before Dani could answer no, I answered, “Who hasn’t?”

Megan said, “I was in Chicago having drinks at a hotel bar. All of a sudden I got a chill and smelled bleach. I thought I was going to faint, and I didn’t want to do it in public, so I left the bar and went to my room.”

“Of course you did,” said Dani, plucking out edge pieces like other women pluck red jelly beans out of a jar.

I said, “The last time I fainted I did it on a bus. I peed a little.”

Dani said, “My husband passed out in a men’s room last week. He gets overheated. They called an ambulance, and I walked into the emergency room shouting, ‘Where’s my husband? He’s totally fine!’?”

Megan said, “So I’m in my hotel room and I get the ice bucket. When I open the door to go get ice, there’s a man in front of my door. Just standing there. Right in front of my door. He’s tall and thin and old and pale and dressed like something out of the past. He’s wearing a hat. And he’s just standing there. Staring at me.”

“Did you shut the door?” I ask.

“No, I was somehow already out in the hallway with my door closed behind me. All I could think to do was ask him where the ice machine was.”

“Of course you did,” said Dani. She plucked out an owl eye.

Megan said, “He pointed down the hall in this weird slow-motion way.”

“And you went?” I asked.

“Of course she did,” said Dani, and plucked out a beak.

“But that’s a closed environment,” I said. “A second location. Oprah says, Don’t let them take you to a second location. Did he follow you?”

Dani finally looked up.

“No,” said Megan. “When I got to the end of the hall, he was somehow at the other end. He’s at one end and I’m at the other. And that’s when I see that there’s no vending machine room. I’m standing in front of a glass door that leads to a gym. And I’m frozen, thinking: do I go in here? And he holds up his hand and makes a gesture, again real slow, moving his hand back and forth like an Egyptian, like slide your key in. And I do it because I’m so freaked out.”

“Is anyone in the gym?” I ask.

“No, it’s totally empty. So I just stand in there with all the treadmills, holding my empty ice bucket until a woman walks in to work out, sees me, and screams.”

“Of course she does!” screamed Dani.

“I know!” screamed Megan.

I asked, “Which one was the ghost?”

“What do you mean?” asked Dani. “The man was the ghost.”

“Where I come from,” I said, “three things could be ghosts: the chill and the bleach smell, the man, and the woman. Just because a woman’s wearing mesh capris doesn’t mean she’s not a ghost. People die nowadays too, you know. All ghosts aren’t going be in tuxedos and nightgowns.”



* * *



————

The first ghost who visited me wore a black flared skirt, a black suit jacket, a tailored white blouse, and black one-inch heels. Mama says she remembers the shoes in particular.