The Princess Dies

I never felt closer to Susan than on our return from West Virginia. The newlyweds were about right behind us as Susan and I split the drive back to Nashville. The just marrieds planned to attend Fan Fair now called the CMA Country Music Festival with tickets to see Montgomery Gentry and Confederate Railroad- neither of which I had even heard of at the time. Their arrival happened to coincide with Susan's birthday. They came in at a late hour with Susan's sister driving and her brother-in-law chewing tobacco in the passenger seat, using a soda bottle as a spittoon. Due to the lateness, around ten and the prospect of a free birthday meal for Susan-I suggested we eat at Denny's when they pulled in and announced they were hungry. I was a bit miffed when we arrived at the restaurant and was told they had discontinued the birthday promotion, so miffed in fact I did not order for myself. The next evening after the festivities had ended for the new marrieds, I offered to take them to a real dinner to properly celebrate the honeymoon and Susan's previous day's birthday. We ate at a Japanese restaurant in Green Hills that was owned by a former employee of the sushi bar my family regularly ate at, where we have literally spent over a hundred thousand dollars in twenty or so years. The last time Susan and I had dined at the place in Green Hills was the previous Halloween when a bizarre incident happened. The food was fine, the service impeccable, but when we went to leave two costumed couples were chatting, leaning against my car. I wasn't over-happy about that but said nothing, preferring to avoid a confrontation and drive away, but the devil fellow and his date refused to move from my car's path, preventing me from backing out. I rolled down my window and gently said we had to get going and asked them to make way. They ignored me. I asked two more times if they could move aside and they looked at me, seemingly annoyed, and refused to move. I then honked the horn only to be met by the guy in the devil costume, irate, probably drunk, stoned, or a combination of the two, moving from the rear bumper, but not out of the way as I requested but right at my driver's side door. Susan yelled, "Don't!" But I could not resist such provocation and though the fellow was quite tall, six-six to six-eight, I raced to confront him. He swung at me, I ducked and he missed, managing only to punch my car, seeming to injure his hand, and I managed in the close confines between the cars to draw and open a pocketknife I was carrying. At this point, his date and the other couple he was talking with intervened, pulling him back, but we were shouting a stream of invective at each other. They finally cleared the path and I backed the car out and drove away. So far as I knew, no one called the police over the altercation. None of what had happened then reflected on the restaurant, per se, except in as much as we were immediately in front of it and no one came out to assist us or stop it. But on this day after birthday, I had concluded the chances of running into a madman in a devil costume were pretty slim. We ate, I spent around $120 because of the large sushi order which was fine; I did not want to come across as cheap after not eating at Denny's. The food was OK although the portions were scant for what I paid. I noticed an Asian party was being feted with enormous portions and ours certainly seemed short by way of comparison, although we were ordering the same things. I had heard that the owner of this restaurant did not particularly cater to Caucasian customers but really bent over backwards for fellow Japanese. The groom claimed great experience with Japanese food from being stationed on Guam back in service and visiting Japan but the new bride seemed less comfortable. The honeymooners, no not Gleason and Audrey Meadows but our West Virginia pair, wrapped up in Nashville and headed back for the hills. Susan wanted me to help clean up the condo and I ended up staying there through  June and much of that summer, occasionally being picked up by or meeting my parents as a couple for dinner and heading the five miles down the road to my parents' home only a few times. I was walking around much of the time in shorts and t-shirts borrowed from Susan. I was really quite domestic, doing much of the cooking and cleaning. One night I made sweet and sour shrimp with pineapple over rice. It was comparable to what Susan would have ordered in a restaurant, but I was greatly insulted when she claimed to have eaten it all but actually had scraped almost all of it into her garbage that she was too obtuse to realize I was largely responsible for emptying.I hoped it was her eating disorder and not lack of appreciation for my efforts that caused her to discard my delicacy. I had mixed relations with Susan's neighbors. The lady immediately across the hall was elderly and shared my last name, and I often found myself helping her with packages while Susan was at "work." Susan seemed to be working long hours while I was at the condo. I was often there alone eighteen hours a day, reading, doing chores, watching cable. Susan's other neighbors were the director emeritus of one of the Vanderbilt medical school departments who was afflicted with Alzheimer's and his wife and an attorney who would gain notoriety later in Nashville's infamous Perry March case and his family. My first experience with the doctor, who was the major contributor to Vanderbilt's libraries of Twain and Lincolnalia collections, next door was when he managed to lock himself out of his office and Susan and his wife asked me to pick the lock which I managed after having some experience playing around with locks as a child. The neighbor I had a problem with was a Roman Catholic priest. I would follow the laundry room rules meticulously as is my wont, only to find our clothes removed from the washer or dryer and strewn variously on the floor or in the utility sink. I left a few handwritten notes suggesting others follow the posted rules as well, but the vandalism continued. I had no idea who was doing it, even though before I started carrying my detergent, bleach, and fabric softener back to our own condo, the mischief maker was liberating it for his/her own use. One evening, I decided to lay a trap as it were for the culprit, and returned when Susan's clothes were mid-cycle only to find the priest who was in his seventies and was wearing his short-sleeve shirt complete with clerical collar, unceremoniously dumping her clothes, waiting with his own basket to replace them. He started to chide and lecture me. I told him I wasn't an altar boy, wasn't Catholic, and that he was in no position to lecture me. He said he had more right to the laundry than "renters" which was not true and which in any case, Susan wasn't. He grabbed my wrist and I shoved him away with sufficient force that he was cowering, literally whimpering in a corner of the utility room. We never had a problem with the laundry again. One evening that August, I helped Susan bake a pie, making my first meringue in the process. I thought I was assisting for us on one of her rare nights off. She never indicated anything else while I was doing everything but make the crust. As it turned out, other than licking spoons which were plenty good, I did not even get to taste my own creation. She had me baking to ingratiate herself to the wife of the doctor next door who she was occasionally watching for pay when she was not otherwise employed. I was left wondering if my pie was as good as it seemed and upset that Susan had not told me it was for a neighbor, in which case I would have suggested we double batch. I was watching the cable when a headline broke that Princess Diana had been injured in an automobile crash. I remember distinctly an interview with a noted royal watcher who said he thought the wreck was not so serious, that the Princess had sustained an injured arm. In any event, assessing the event with some gravity, I trotted next door to play town crier. Susan seemed a little peeved to see me but when I explained the reason for my interruption, she relented and we and the rest of the world that had any interest marshaled our prayers to save our true to life Tinkerbell.