“Oh, yes.” She came down the stairs and opened the iron gate and moved out onto the sidewalk. She was at least six feet tall. Back then that was the social equivalent of having terminal cancer. Back then girls were supposed to look like children. Not everywhere, of course, but certainly in the culture of the Deep South. Perhaps this was because southern men were so mother-ridden they had to believe they were kissing little girls to get excited. A woman as large as their mothers might suck them back into the womb, control them body and soul, make them keep on hating themselves forever. Fortunately for the human race the system was imperfect. There were very few mothers who could control their sons’ minds after the testosterone kicked in and very few women who could make their bodies smaller and keep them that way, so breeding kept getting done and babies kept getting born and the species rolled on to better days. Of course, even an imperfect system can be made to work by a genius, and May Garth was that. She was the most tenacious person, man or woman, I have ever known. She could focus and she could concentrate. If she had been born thirty years later she might have been a great basketball or tennis player or distance runner. Alas, she had been born in the wrong time in the wrong place. There she was, with that big brain and those long arms and legs and nothing to do all day but brood upon ways to squeeze herself onto the tiny little Procrustean bed of north Alabama society’s feminine ideals. The long torso bent like a mast in the wind, curved down to meet gravity and fate. Stooped. The long legs walked apologetically. The arms barely moved.

She had status. She was a triple legacy to Tri Delt and in those days sororities took their legacies even if they were six feet tall. Also, there was the matter of her family’s banks. The Sheffields of north Alabama owned thousands of acres of cotton land, six gins, and several banks, including the Bank of Birmingham.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Are you going anywhere?”

“I’m just walking around. What are you doing?”

“Nothing. I’m just standing here.”

“You want to go for a walk? I want to walk over to the architecture school. It’s a very inspiring place. I need to be inspired.”

“Okay. I’ll go. I don’t have anything to do until six. I have to do something at six but I’m free until then.” When she spoke, she curved her back and stooped my way. When she listened, she did the same. Immediately I wanted to do nothing that would make her stoop. I began to walk. She walked beside me. If I so much as glanced her way, she stooped to meet my glance. “What are you doing at six o’clock?” I asked.