Salon Wanderlust | The belles of St. Mary's

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
Have you ever seen a passenger go berserk on a plane? Share your tales of air rage in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y
Afoot in the South African bush
By Lance Gould
A New Yorker ventures on a walking safari into the wild world of wildebeest, Cape buffalo and dung beetles
(11/30/98)
The Khan men of Agra
By Pamela Michael
In India, a moment of trust opens the door to a traveler's richest reward
(11/25/98)
The rabbis of Bangkok, Part Two
By Douglas A. Konecky
A live sex show reveals more than flesh to an American musician in Thailand
(11/24/98)
The rabbis of Bangkok
By Douglas A. Konecky
A traveling Jewish band from California meets a trio of Hasidic Jews in the teeming city of Live Sex Shows and Thai Full Body Massage
(11/23/98)
This week in travel
A new U.S. passport, a fictitious country in the South Pacific and a buyout of Reno Air
(11/20/98)

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THE BELLES OF ST. MARY'S | PAGE 1, 2
- - - - - - - - - -
"Well then," this new lady -- a very close approximation, in my estimation, of the last lady -- says after I finish my explanation, "Aren't you two girls lucky to have each other?"
"Yes we are," I say.
"Of course," she continues, "in my day, St. Mary's was a finishing school. Mamma just insisted I go -- after all, Grandmother was a St. Mary's girl -- and in those days we did what we were told to do." She winks, then says to a bald man hovering near the bar, "Will you be a dear and get me another one of these?"
"What's finishing school?" I ask Sarah as we give ourselves an unauthorized tour of the high-ceilinged, Oriental-carpet-strewn rooms.
She rolls her eyes. "It's where a girl goes to get finished, of course."
Back in the dining room, I'm once again engaged in conversation, this time by one of the husbands, a man who apparently has never heard of the term "personal space," and keeps leaning in on me in a way that makes me hyper-aware of my person. My legs -- which in an effort to look respectable I'd squeezed into my one pair of pantyhose -- itch. Normally I don't wear pantyhose, which were invented by men. They leave red welts on your stomach and make your crotch feel untidy, and if you, like me, don't shave your legs every day, or even every week, they rub against your leg-hairs in just such a way as to cause a little tingle of unpleasant electric shock. And now, as I inch slowly away from this joker who keeps leaning in on me, I can't help but notice that, in fact, I'm the only woman in the whole room who is wearing the damn things.
"Excuse me," I say. "I'm going to go get a breath of air."
Meanwhile, our hostess, wearing enormous, brightly colored plastic Halloween earrings, is bustling back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing out platter after platter of all the foods that I don't eat: sliced Virginia ham on biscuits; shrimp étoufée; crab dip; something else with little shellfish in it; more crab dip; pigs-in-blankets. Fortunately, by now I'm on my second drink so I don't really notice how loudly my stomach is rumbling.
Our hostess, however, does notice. "Won't you have anything to eat?" she says. And though I truly hadn't meant to make an issue of it or draw attention to myself in any way, I say, "I'm Jewish and I don't eat that stuff." Whereupon I immediately experience one of my not-infrequent Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" moments, and my armpits sprout sweat.
But of course nothing frightening or embarrassing happens because I'm not in a movie but at a party in New Orleans, which is, as everyone knows, the loosiest-goosiest, most accepting, welcoming, rollicking and frolicking place on the planet, and I know I'm only being paranoid and neurotic, which is, if I do say so myself, my right as a Yankee Jewish struggling writer with three small children and air-conditioning that frequently breaks down.
"Well Lord have mercy, dear," the hostess says. "Why didn't you say so?" And the next thing I know she's taken me by the hand to the kitchen, where she grabs a plate of fried chicken and says, "Is this OK?"
Finally, my stomach filled with chicken and my ethnic and religious ID established, even I, a poster child for Prozac, begin to relax a little. From across the room I can hear Sarah telling someone about her two wonderful college-age daughters, and then I, too, am talking about my kids: my 9-year-old, Sam, who runs like a gazelle; my 5-year-old twins, Rosie and Scooter, who periodically switch personalities just to confuse me.
The subject of how the various St. Mary's graduates had migrated to Catholic Louisiana from Protestant North Carolina is front-and-center for a while. This subject then gives way to the "Are you related to?" game, which resembles Jewish geography except that everyone's last names are Coates and Worthington and Higginson. Finally, there's this general, well-oiled, room-wide affirmation about how absolutely wonderfully darling it is that I had agreed to be Sarah's date for the night, because isn't it just wonderful to have such a sweet precious friend and aren't we girls lucky to have each other in this day and age? And the thing is, the St. Mary's girls mean it.
And once again, I'm faced with the realization that people in the South are just so damn nice. Here's what I mean: In the North (where I lived until my 36th year), people say, "How ya doin'?" but what they mean is: Where did you go to college? What do you do for a living? How much money do you make? Is your house bigger than mine, and if so, how much did you pay for it? Do you have children? How old are they? Are they smart? Do they attend the "right" private school?
Because there is this wretched competitive soul-deadening attitude that I could never escape when I lived in Washington and points north, that is utterly and entirely absent from social discourse in Louisiana. In Louisiana, people say, "How y'all doin'?" and they mean: I hope you are having a really, really great life, and would you like a glass of iced tea or if you're down in the dumps, perhaps something a little stronger?
The South is different from the North.
The blue-eyed former debs and sorority girls are chatting all around me, their voices floating through the airy rooms of this lovely old house, and it occurs to me, well, duh, that the social strictures that I felt as a child and that my ancestors faced have simply melted away, and my stomach aches and paranoia have become boring relics. The St. Mary's alums are sweet and warm and welcoming, and I feel like a sneak and a spy, appearing among them, as I am, in order to soak up some "deep background" to help me flesh out my novel's family of rich Louisiana self-styled aristocrats. But as it turns out, it's a wash, because my rich Louisiana self-styled aristocrats are too fucked-up to draw life from these sprightly gals with their jangling earrings and milky blue eyes and life stories that I will never, never in a million years know.
SALON | Dec. 1, 1998
Jennifer Moses is the author of "Food and Whine," a forthcoming book from Simon & Schuster.


	T A B L E_T A L K Have you ever seen a passenger go berserk on a plane? Share your tales of air rage in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Afoot in the South African bush By Lance Gould A New Yorker ventures on a walking safari into the wild world of wildebeest, Cape buffalo and dung beetles (11/30/98) The Khan men of Agra By Pamela Michael In India, a moment of trust opens the door to a traveler's richest reward (11/25/98) The rabbis of Bangkok, Part Two By Douglas A. Konecky A live sex show reveals more than flesh to an American musician in Thailand (11/24/98) The rabbis of Bangkok By Douglas A. Konecky A traveling Jewish band from California meets a trio of Hasidic Jews in the teeming city of Live Sex Shows and Thai Full Body Massage (11/23/98) This week in travel A new U.S. passport, a fictitious country in the South Pacific and a buyout of Reno Air (11/20/98) Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		THE BELLES OF ST. MARY'S \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - "Well then," this new lady -- a very close approximation, in my estimation, of the last lady -- says after I finish my explanation, "Aren't you two girls lucky to have each other?" "Yes we are," I say. "Of course," she continues, "in my day, St. Mary's was a finishing school. Mamma just insisted I go -- after all, Grandmother was a St. Mary's girl -- and in those days we did what we were told to do." She winks, then says to a bald man hovering near the bar, "Will you be a dear and get me another one of these?" "What's finishing school?" I ask Sarah as we give ourselves an unauthorized tour of the high-ceilinged, Oriental-carpet-strewn rooms. She rolls her eyes. "It's where a girl goes to get finished, of course." Back in the dining room, I'm once again engaged in conversation, this time by one of the husbands, a man who apparently has never heard of the term "personal space," and keeps leaning in on me in a way that makes me hyper-aware of my person. My legs -- which in an effort to look respectable I'd squeezed into my one pair of pantyhose -- itch. Normally I don't wear pantyhose, which were invented by men. They leave red welts on your stomach and make your crotch feel untidy, and if you, like me, don't shave your legs every day, or even every week, they rub against your leg-hairs in just such a way as to cause a little tingle of unpleasant electric shock. And now, as I inch slowly away from this joker who keeps leaning in on me, I can't help but notice that, in fact, I'm the only woman in the whole room who is wearing the damn things. "Excuse me," I say. "I'm going to go get a breath of air." Meanwhile, our hostess, wearing enormous, brightly colored plastic Halloween earrings, is bustling back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, bringing out platter after platter of all the foods that I don't eat: sliced Virginia ham on biscuits; shrimp étoufée; crab dip; something else with little shellfish in it; more crab dip; pigs-in-blankets. Fortunately, by now I'm on my second drink so I don't really notice how loudly my stomach is rumbling. Our hostess, however, does notice. "Won't you have anything to eat?" she says. And though I truly hadn't meant to make an issue of it or draw attention to myself in any way, I say, "I'm Jewish and I don't eat that stuff." Whereupon I immediately experience one of my not-infrequent Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" moments, and my armpits sprout sweat. But of course nothing frightening or embarrassing happens because I'm not in a movie but at a party in New Orleans, which is, as everyone knows, the loosiest-goosiest, most accepting, welcoming, rollicking and frolicking place on the planet, and I know I'm only being paranoid and neurotic, which is, if I do say so myself, my right as a Yankee Jewish struggling writer with three small children and air-conditioning that frequently breaks down. "Well Lord have mercy, dear," the hostess says. "Why didn't you say so?" And the next thing I know she's taken me by the hand to the kitchen, where she grabs a plate of fried chicken and says, "Is this OK?" Finally, my stomach filled with chicken and my ethnic and religious ID established, even I, a poster child for Prozac, begin to relax a little. From across the room I can hear Sarah telling someone about her two wonderful college-age daughters, and then I, too, am talking about my kids: my 9-year-old, Sam, who runs like a gazelle; my 5-year-old twins, Rosie and Scooter, who periodically switch personalities just to confuse me. The subject of how the various St. Mary's graduates had migrated to Catholic Louisiana from Protestant North Carolina is front-and-center for a while. This subject then gives way to the "Are you related to?" game, which resembles Jewish geography except that everyone's last names are Coates and Worthington and Higginson. Finally, there's this general, well-oiled, room-wide affirmation about how absolutely wonderfully darling it is that I had agreed to be Sarah's date for the night, because isn't it just wonderful to have such a sweet precious friend and aren't we girls lucky to have each other in this day and age? And the thing is, the St. Mary's girls mean it. And once again, I'm faced with the realization that people in the South are just so damn nice. Here's what I mean: In the North (where I lived until my 36th year), people say, "How ya doin'?" but what they mean is: Where did you go to college? What do you do for a living? How much money do you make? Is your house bigger than mine, and if so, how much did you pay for it? Do you have children? How old are they? Are they smart? Do they attend the "right" private school? Because there is this wretched competitive soul-deadening attitude that I could never escape when I lived in Washington and points north, that is utterly and entirely absent from social discourse in Louisiana. In Louisiana, people say, "How y'all doin'?" and they mean: I hope you are having a really, really great life, and would you like a glass of iced tea or if you're down in the dumps, perhaps something a little stronger? The South is different from the North. The blue-eyed former debs and sorority girls are chatting all around me, their voices floating through the airy rooms of this lovely old house, and it occurs to me, well, duh, that the social strictures that I felt as a child and that my ancestors faced have simply melted away, and my stomach aches and paranoia have become boring relics. The St. Mary's alums are sweet and warm and welcoming, and I feel like a sneak and a spy, appearing among them, as I am, in order to soak up some "deep background" to help me flesh out my novel's family of rich Louisiana self-styled aristocrats. But as it turns out, it's a wash, because my rich Louisiana self-styled aristocrats are too fucked-up to draw life from these sprightly gals with their jangling earrings and milky blue eyes and life stories that I will never, never in a million years know. SALON \| Dec. 1, 1998 Jennifer Moses is the author of "Food and Whine," a forthcoming book from Simon & Schuster.