I forced myself to listen to SueEllen, who was stretched out in the tub, rambling on about her childhood in the Deep South.

“We may not have had much money,” she said, “but from an early age I learned the art of gracious living.”

She picked up a pumice stone from a bath tray and began scraping away at her calluses. In addition to the pumice stone, her bath tray held such grooming necessities as a bottle of Cristal champagne, a Walkman TV, and a half-eaten salad. I eyed her salad covetously. Mainly because I was starving.

I’d shown up at one o’clock that afternoon, as instructed. Conchi fixed us lunch, eensy weensy turkey Cobb salads, with hardly enough turkey to feed a flea. I snarfed mine down in nanoseconds, sitting on the toilet bowl. SueEllen barely nibbled at hers. Now it was going on four o’clock and I was ready to eat the wallpaper.

“Mother and Dad came from old Southern aristocracy,” SueEllen said, flicking the dead skin from her calluses into the water. “By the time I came along, the family money was pretty much gone. Mother clung to the old traditions, though, and passed them on to me. She taught me how to make chicken and dumplings and mint juleps and sweet little lavender sachets. I was a rebel, though. Back then, I was more interested in boys than good manners.”

She looked up from her pumice stone and frowned.

“How come you’re not writing any of this down?”

“Because Margaret Mitchell already wrote it. It’s called Gone with the Wind.”

Okay, so I didn’t really say that.

“I’m sorry,” I smiled. “It was just so interesting, I guess I forgot to take notes.”

I scribbled down the stuff about the lavender sachets and dumplings. Any minute now, I expected her to tell me about her Mammy, and them cotton fields back home.

“Of course,” she said, “the biggest influence in my life was my Aunt Melanie.”

She reached for her champagne, and took a sip. I’d long since polished off the Diet Coke Conchi had served me.

“Aunt Melanie married well and had scads of money. She threw the most marvelous parties, and I never forgot them. Yes, I guess you could say Aunt Melanie was the one who taught me everything I know about party planning.”

So I wrote that down, too, wondering if she’d notice if I reached over and filched some croutons from her salad. I wouldn’t have minded another Diet Coke, either. And a cushion. I was getting a mighty sore tush from sitting on the toilet for three hours. SueEllen had a bathroom the size of a football stadium; why on earth couldn’t she at least bring in a chair for me?

SueEllen droned on about Aunt Melanie, and her recipe for bourbon pecan balls. I was alternately taking notes and fantasizing about a cheeseburger with fries, when I glanced out the window and saw an elderly man standing on the balcony of the house next door. Normally I don’t get upset when elderly men stand on their balconies. But this man was looking through a telescope that just happened to be pointed straight at SueEllen’s boobs.