I passed a wooden billboard that said THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS WELCOME YOU TO VILLE PLATTE, LA. "HOME OF THE COTTON FESTIVAL," and then the highway wasn't the highway any more. It was Main Street. I passed gas stations and an enormous Catholic church, but pretty soon there were banks and clothing and hardware stores and a pharmacy and a couple of restaurants and a record store and all the places of a small southern town. A lot of the stores had posters for something called the Cotton Festival. I turned off the air conditioner and rolled down the window and began to sweat. Hot, all right. Several people were standing around outside a little food place called the Pig Stand, and a couple of them were eating what looked like barbecued beef ribs. A million degrees outside, and these guys were slurping down ribs in the middle of the day. Across from the Pig Stand there was a little mom-and-pop grocery with a hand-painted sign that said WE SELL BOUDIN and a smaller sign that said FRESH CRACKLINS. Underneath that someone had written no cholesterol - ha-ha. These Cajuns are a riot, aren't they?

I drove slowly and, as I drove, I wondered if any of the people I passed were in some way related to Jodi Taylor. I would look at them and smile and they would smile back, and, with a curious feeling, I searched for Jodi Taylor's reflection. Were those the eyes? Is that the nose? If Jodi Taylor were beside me, and were not familiar from being on television, would one of these people catch a passing glance of her and call her by another name? I realized then that Jodi Taylor must sometimes wonder these same things.

If I was going to find Jodi Taylor's birth family, I would have to interview people, but the question was who? I could check with local medical personnel, but any physician who was a party to the adoption would be legally bound to remain silent. Ditto clergy and members of the local legal community. Also, they would ask questions that I didn't want to answer and would probably notify the cops, who would come around to ask similar questions. Small-town cops are notoriously territorial. Therefore, ix-nay the more obvious sources of information. Perhaps I could forgo interviews altogether and use the concept of familial resemblance to find said birth parents. I could post pictures of Jodi Taylor all over town. Do you know this woman? Of course, since she was famous, everybody would know her, but maybe there was a way around that. I could have Jodi wear a Groucho Marx nose when I took the picture. That should fool 'em. Of course, then everybody might think she was Groucho Marx. Ix-nay the nose.