Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born in Atlanta, and birthed my son at home on the edge of Piedmont Park. I lost some of my accent by being a deejay 50 years ago, when the homogenous “urban” accent was a necessity. Still, a little liquor and it comes right back. Don’t like sweet tea; do like Flannery O’Connor and the outdoors. I moved to Nashville and played on the Southern-only “All Points South” variety show then. Moved to Asheville, but spend most of my time on the south side of Barcelona.
The Proposal and the Purse
Twisting in the passenger-side bucket seat I reached into the back of the little blue coupe for my purse, wanting to refresh my lipstick. The purse wasn’t there.
“Is something wrong?” asked the driver, as I ceased fumbling and slid back into my seat.
“I’m really sorry, Michael, but I must have left my purse at the restaurant.”
Why won’t the car floor just swallow me and be done with it? This was not the first time I had left a purse somewhere; for years I had used pockets instead, avoiding such awful situations, but now it had happened again. This time, my purse was a disastrous distance away in time and space.
“Well,” he said, “I guess we have to go back.”
The air conditioner vents easily blew my hair back into place.
“I’m afraid so.” I shrank a bit and watched his face. Our second date was going well, but this would be a real test—the restaurant overlooking a Florida marina was three hours of drive time behind us. It had been a long day, fun and fishing on the ocean, followed up with oysters, my favorite seafood. Was the fun over?
Michael proved to be a gentleman. No more about the purse was said as he turned the car around, and we headed back to the seaside marina where he kept his yacht. We chatted about other things instead: his children, my son, our work, and how that led to our paths crossing a few weeks ago. We found that we both liked to read history; we both had graduated from a Georgia university, mine in Athens, his in Atlanta. We both had grown up in the countryside. Michael was a widower and my long-divorced ex-husband had recently died. We had a lot in common, though our lives had differed in ways I thought he would never guess.
Three hours later, I retrieved my purse. We skipped a celebratory drink, but it was long after dark when we pulled into the driveway of his farm, still on good terms. The night would deepen our good terms.
The next morning, I met the teenaged daughter and twelve-year-old son, both bright, polite kids. They watched me carefully, even hopefully. Michael cooked us all a tremendous breakfast of pancakes and eggs and sausage and bacon on a stone cooktop island, the first I had seen. Tomato and orange juice arrived from the bountiful refrigerator, and I thought of the quart of juice at home, watered down to last the week. We breakfasted at a marble-topped table in a kitchen lit by floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the plowed fields of his estate. The view faded into a haze of unmistakable loblolly-pine green, where lumber was the crop. We were miles and miles from town and much further from the city. The dew sparkled and glowed, the brown thrasher sang, and all seemed right with the world.
After breakfast, the kids cleared out and Michael leaned across the table towards me, coming straight to the point.
“I want someone who will enjoy living country life and be good to my kids. Someone I can marry, who will stay here with me. I have a lot to offer. Are you interested?”
A sudden proposal. Michael did have a lot to offer. He was handsome, educated, smart and successful, with strong standing in the community. He obviously thought I had a lot to offer, too; in every way excepting financials I was a match for his assets. I had a fatherless son; he had motherless children. Marrying Michael would change my life and upgrade my standard of living; it would provide a good father for my son. In a breath, I weighed these thoughts and the scale tipped.
But I was not in love, and I liked being a TV producer in the mid-market city where we’d met, an hour and half drive away from Michael’s lovely home.
I did not jump at Michael’s offer. It lay on the table, and we left it there, walking away from it to another car, a convertible shimmering the same gold-and-chestnut shade as his thick hair. I made sure my purse was in hand as he helped me into the passenger side. Michael drove me home, where we said goodbye. I watched him take the convertible’s top down and drive away.
We had another thing in common that I admired: When it came to the proposal, the purse hadn’t mattered to either of us.
