So I put my hand on her knee, and crossed the Rubicon. She turned her head and offered me her parting lips. No embrace, just a kiss, my hand on her knee and hers on my thigh. In that single instant we became lovers. A long kiss that could never be long enough set in motion a series of events that has fueled my fantasies, dreams and outlook for my entire college career and beyond.
Patricia Nolan, you see, was the epitome of everything an insecure Tulane freshman like me was afraid of: a Newcomb senior, quite rich, terribly intelligent and Vogue model beautiful. She was a member of this trendy sorority, the Delta-somethings, and engaged to a naval officer, who had graduated in engineering the year before. They were to be married when (and if?) he got back from Vietnam.
She had a little job of sorts passing out study tapes in the language lab to would-be polyglots, which she expected to blend into a position as a graduate student in Spanish and Portuguese the next year, here at Tulane or wherever her beau took her. Things were like that in the mid-1960s.
The first words she said to me on my very first visit to the language lab: "Mr. Strange, did you break the tape again? Freshmen can be such klutzes." Not exactly a confidence building introduction. But the put-down, intended or unintended, had happy consequences in the end. When I returned my tape - one of those six-inch wheels of magnetic film - she apologized: "I guess being a freshman you have enough problems without a someone making fun of you."
And so for the remainder of the term, we greeted each other in the language lab with a smile and an exchange of last names, a Mr. Strange and a Miss Nolan. With my classes on the front quad and hers in back, I very seldom saw her except in the language labs. Seniors, especially seniors who lived off campus apparently didn't spend much time at the University Center.
#
The week after Christmas I was walking down Charters and daydreaming about women, what else and my acute paranoia about Newcomb girls, smarter and richer and scarier than their counterparts at Loyola or LSU or just about anywhere. I was dating too many Catholic high school girls. That must stop.
"Mr. Strange."
I turned and there she was. Patricia Nolan. Her blackest of hair, reddest of lipstick and softest of makeup. She didn't look this good in back of the Dutch door at the language lab. She wore a gray tweed suit, with the terribly short skirt then in style which, aided by high heels and dark nylons, showed off her great legs. My ego soared at being remembered.
"Miss Nolan. I didn't expect to see you." I never expected/expect to see anybody. "What brings you to the French Quarter on this bright, chilly afternoon?"
"Queen's luncheon at the Oxford Club. I was never the queen but I was in their ball last year, so I got the invite."
So, not only is this girl smart, rich and good looking, she is a former debutant from a socially well connected family.
"I'm just going down the street to the Attic to get a sandwich. You've eaten, I imagine, but you're invited to join me."
"OK, but you must call me Patricia. John?"
"Jack. Come with me to the Attic I'll buy you a cup of coffee."
"No, we can both eat at the Attic. You're not supposed to eat at these Carnival luncheons. I'm starving. Besides, there's something I need to talk to you about, John."
"Jack."
Something she wanted to talk to me about? That of course explains why she would flag me down on Chartres Street. I'll accept any excuse. What could it be? I'll be surprised.
#
"You will love the turtle soup here," she said after we had been seated by the windows along Chartres Street. I ordered a Dixie beer, she had ice tea. We both put ourselves down for the turtle soup. Gawd she was good looking... and sophisticated and rich and smart and everything else that I wasn't. I wanted to plunge right in with dozens of questions I had been dying to ask about chichi Newcombians, but I thought some obscure rule of etiquette demanded that we settle her affairs first and put off my interrogations, which I realized then were a bit on the accusatory side.
"Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
"My little sister Marilyn asked me find her a Tulane date for the Sisyphus Ball in two weeks. It's a pre-debutante dance, really. I thought you'd be interested. I am sure you'd like my sister. She's very good looking, I understand."
Experience now dictates that I should have made a reference to how she, the little sister, must take after she, Patricia Nolan, the big sister. But this is now and that was then. I was also a bit disappointed. I mean sister and all.
"Actually I was looking forward to asking you out." It was the dumbest thing I could think of.
"Thank you for the compliment, but I am engaged, and, besides, Byron is considerably bigger than you."