Loving Your Inner Velma

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How to cope with having a gorgeous best friend

Left to my own devices, I have the innate fashion sense of a 1972 elementary school librarian. You know, the one who wore beige spongy-soled shoes, a twill blue just-below-the-knee skirt, and a brown pilled sweater. She lived at school -- we all knew this to be true -- and the most eye-catching object ever to grace her person was the pearl and rhinestone brooch her mother left her.

This look was destined to be my fate, but thanks to Selena McCall's early intervention, I was saved. Selena was my best friend in college in the early '80s, those unenlightened days when I dressed to attract men but failed miserably. I couldn't have attracted an escaped convict who'd spent the last 15 years looking at nothing but a hairy, check-kiting, breaking & entering felon named Pork. Though it seems funny to me now, at the time it bothered me.

Having a best friend who was not only extraordinarily gorgeous but also smart and unabashedly friendly with everyone was a little frustrating. It was hard to find anything wrong with Selena. She was like the title character from There's Something About Mary. I couldn't possibly hate her. She was too gracious, warm, courteous, and fun to be around. Still, I never got over the feeling that if we'd both been born 200 years earlier, I'd be filling her coal scuttle and bringing her tea as she reclined in a copper tub full of hot water, reading a decadent French novel.

I loved going places with Selena. Waiters tripped over one another to serve this lovely, long-legged Southern blonde. I got free meals and desserts and the best seats in all kinds of establishments. I basked by association in her beauty and desirability. I used to get a kick out of walking into a new place with Selena and counting how many stares she got. She seemed oblivious to the attention, and I felt invisible. I could gawk right in the faces of men, but they stared at Selena like deer trapped in the headlights. I could have mooned them all, and no one would have noticed until the initial trance created by her beauty wore off.

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