Lovers :: Personal Narrative Sex Relationships Essays

Lovers My mother went to Barnard on a full scholarship. She commuted from home, two hours a day on the subway. One night after a capital of South Carolina party, she was up a ladder taking megabucks crepe paper when an orange hit her on the back of the head. It thumped to the ground and rolled under a stool, where my buzz off knelt to retrieve it. He tossed the orange across the room to a friend his intended target and offered my mother his hand.In my fluctuation, she shakes off his attempts to help her down from the ladder. Does not speak to him for months because shes so offended at being hit on the back of the head with the orange. Looks the other way when he passes on the street. Starts dating his roommate. In my version, the roommate cant be there for a date theyre supposed to have. He has an emergency to deal with a death in the family, a last-minute pinball competition at the pizza place, what have you. My father answers her knock with as much grace and entice as he can muster. Hello, he says. Are you here to see Bob?Yes, she says, stepping cautiously over the threshold.He isnt here, my father says. He had to go to a funeral/pinball semi-final/what-have-you.My mother Oh. Of course, she could just step back across the threshold and find another way to spend her evening. only in my version she does not. She sits on the couch, tugging her mini skirt to cover more of her nicely shaped legs. My father brings out a basket of butter crackers and wedges of cheese. They talk approximately politics, literature. Something. What would my parents discuss during their first conversation? Now, after thirty years of marriage, their communication isnt even verbal each speaks through the others eyes. But how did they communicate then, when they were still new?Of course, this night kicked off the ravenous affair that would become my parents marriage. In my version, they could not keep their eyes (or their hands) off each other. They went over in each others c ompany the dining hall, where my mother sneaked my father in on her meal ticket the library, where he tossed spitballs into her hair the movies, where they nuzzled at the back of the room, my father attempting a hand on her thigh, my mother staring straight ahead, her arms and legs rigid.