Dr. Q.

Salsa had no last name. She had only an initial: Q. I had to admit that having a girlfriend named Salsa Q. was a turn-on, especially when I needed to introduce her to someone, which wasn’t that often owing to the fact that nude burritos don’t engage in social networking as much as the rest of humanity. When it comes to the ebb and flow of life, nude burritos mostly ebb.

But I digress. Salsa Q. was an exotic dancer on Bourbon Street. During the day, she worked on a doctorate in anthropology at Tulane University. Tulane is expensive, and Salsa made a thousand dollars a night in tips.

“So you’re going to be Dr. Q. one day?” I asked after one of our pretzel sessions.

She slapped me on the face, as she’d done on the day we met.

“What did you do that for?”

“You make me sound like a bimbo antagonist from a James Bond movie,” she said before kissing me passionately.

“Oh.”

I had to admit her rationale made sense.

“Why are you interested in anthropology?” I asked.

“I dig bones.”

I could have engaged in all kinds of literary analysis with her reply, but I decided not to. I let Salsa be Salsa. In fact, that would become my mantra: Let Salsa be Salsa. I didn’t know it then, but I had a lot more slapping in store from the fiery pole dancer and future bone digger, and each time she made the fillings in my molars rattle, I merely said, “Let Salsa be Salsa.” I knew a good thing when I saw it.