"How often does he come up in your head?"

"Oh, I don't know. Like anyone who's been important in your life, he becomes part of the fabric of your life. He's there. He's always going to be there as someone who shaped you. There are a whole lot of other things crowded in."

I sneak a glance at the banana burrito. She hasn't touched it. "I've always loved 'Sally Rose,'" I tell her, referring to her 1985 vinyl roman à clef about Parsons. "Was 'Sally Rose' a disappointment saleswise?"

"It didn't sell many records, so it was a commercial disappointment," she answers, hunting for another of her slender Indian smokes. "But you know, it was just so amazing that I finished that record, that I actually set out to do what I said I'd do. I had to do that record for myself. That was a point where I had something to say. I had the bits and pieces. I had to finally sit down and complete it and go with it, whether anybody got it or not. I never thought of the record as a failure. It made me realize that one's career definitely has peaks and valleys. You have to surf them. If you just keep escalating on and on until infinity, you're not going to survive in this business."

I ask her if she has helped any of Parsons' biographers.

"No," she says quietly. "I was asked to once and I just thought I had my own history, my own take. I still have opinions forming on autobiography and biography. I'm not so sure I believe the books because I think there is so much fiction even in an autobiography -- even when you think you're absolutely telling the truth. It's very hard to say, This was who that person was. Even if you watched a video on someone's life from the moment they were born until their death, you still don't get the inner life, do you?" She pauses and adds, "I'm not saying that I won't ever do one, but if I ever did, it would probably be to counteract other things that have been written."

"Do you have to worry about your kids writing books?"

"I'm not going to worry about it," she says, lighting a Bidi. I can see the ghost of Cary Grant shaking his head at me over her shoulder. Should I have offered to light it for her? Humphrey Bogart appears along with Sydney Greenstreet wearing a fez. They both shake their heads. Dames like to light their own Indian cigarettes. "If my kids want to, they can write one," she continues. "But I don't think so. In fact they're very, very protective of me. They also are really sensitive about us being in a social situation, when everybody zones in on me and kind of dismisses them. And then they find out that these girls are my daughters, and all of a sudden they get attention. My kids just dismiss those people. It's not like, 'Oh, mom gets all the attention.' It's, 'That person is a jerk because they're being rude.' It's an interesting thing to see. My kids are pretty savvy. But they are very protective of me."

"How small as a small town is Nashville?"

"The smallest. But it's so small that it's very comfortable. In all the years I've lived smack-dab in the middle of Nashville, I've never had any of those tour buses drive by. For one thing, I'm not on the charts anymore, so nobody is really interested, which is great. And everybody is in the business and everyone is a songwriter. Even your plumber! My road manager, Bill, has this thing about, 'Are you an ASCAP plumber or a BMI plumber?'" I ask Harris if a plumber ever came to fix her sink and left a song. "I remember a plumber was doing some work and couldn't believe I was me. Finally he said, 'You mean, you're her?' So ever since then I have this whole thing about how I have to become 'her' -- 'I have to leave now. I have to become her.'"

"That's a great way to describe it," I laugh.

"I've always just thought of myself as myself," Harris says. "I don't do anything special. I know there are times when I'm buying groceries and if the sun is out, no matter what time of year it is, I wear sunglasses because I have very sensitive eyes. A lot of time I wear a hat because I like to put my hair up. Somebody will go, 'I know who you are. You're incognito.' You feel like saying, 'But I'm not!'"

Suddenly Italian music begins playing in the restaurant, as if this is the soundtrack to a Fellini movie.

"I don't have to ever worry about camouflaging myself," she continues. "I've never had that. I just don't elicit that in people. I'm not a household name. I'm not a star, you know what I mean? Gratefully, whatever normal is (besides being a cycle in a washing machine), I have that kind of life."

And with that, I signal for a check.

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