Tavia and I spent many happy hours of childhood standing between the two giant mirrors (eight by six feet, crowned with gold-tipped pagodas) that faced each other from either end of the tiny living room. Kent had had the seats of those chairs reupholstered in hot-pink patent leather. The dining-room chairs were spring green, with backs carved to mimic the signs of the Paris Métro-a flourish of Art Nouveau transplanted to Nashville. burped out cascades of fog from the kitchen counter. A round, footed machine that looked like a plate-size U.F.O. The walk-in closet in Kent’s bedroom had been converted into a shrine for meditation and prayer.

Candles were lit at all hours of the day. And, though our house was much larger (it was a house, after all), the domain of the Cathcarts-Kent and Tavia and Tavia’s older sister, Therese-had a glamour and an exoticism that far exceeded anything most Catholic schoolgirls had seen. We knew the contents of each other’s pantries and the efficacy of each other’s shampoos. I grew up in 24-S, in the same way that Tavia grew up in my family’s house. He laminated the receipts and letters of authenticity that came with his purchases and filed them away, along with handwritten prayers, in zippered leather pouches. Kent taught drama at a public high school, and, on his schoolteacher’s salary, in the years before the Internet, he shopped the world from home-mala prayer beads carved in the shape of miniature human skulls, an assortment of Buddhas to mix in with his wooden statues of saints (Padre Pio in his black cassock, as tall as a five-year-old). Over the years, we had borne witness to every phase of his personal style: Kent as sea captain (navy peacoat, beard, pipe), Kent as the lost child of Studio 54 (purple), Kent as Gordon Gekko (Armani suits, cufflinks, tie bar), Kent as Jane Fonda (tracksuits, matching trainers), Kent as urban cowboy (fifteen pairs of boots, custom-made), and finally, his last iteration, which had, in fact, underlain all previous iterations, Kent as cosmic monk (loose cotton shirts, cotton drawstring pants-he’d put on weight).Įach new stage in his evolution brought a new set of interests: new art, new cooking utensils, new reading material, new bathroom tile. Her father, Kent, had moved there in the seventies, after his divorce, and stayed.

Tavia, my friend from early childhood (and youth, and middle age, and these years on the downhill slalom), grew up in unit 24-S of the Georgetown condominiums in Nashville. I started thinking about getting our house in order when Tavia’s father died.

Cosmic silverback