CREATIVE MENTOR
Mom’s friend Arlen was pretty, with a lilting voice and very precise diction (her parents were immigrants, and she didn’t learn to speak English until she was six); she was graceful—even taught ballroom dancing at an Arthur Murray studio at one time—and musical, with...
QUICK GETAWAY
Dear Ella,
Sorry for the hasty departure and for burdening you with the trunk! The last couple of days have been a mind-blowing experience. Though I’m sad and bewildered—and anxious to start…
RETREAT
One afternoon shortly after I got back from Tucson, Jack and I went walking on the USC campus, and rather than listening to what I was saying, his head kept swiveling, his eyes following every passing co-ed. I remember waking up in the middle of the night with an awful…
DIVORCE AGREEMENT
Among the contents of a box of mementos my father showed me during this visit, I found five-by-seven studio photos of my grandmother Marie in a high lace collar, holding a rose; slides of a naked, full-breasted brunette; and my parents’ divorce agreement. This last I...
RELIEF
The day after my abortion, I boarded a bus to Tucson, where my dad had moved a few years before. I’d tried to reach him at the university to let him know I was coming—he lived out in the desert and didn’t have a phone—but a secretary had told me he only came in to the...
MISTAKE
Jack didn’t bother to use a condom properly, which I was too inexperienced to realize. Not only would he wait until he’d completely lost his erection to remove it, he’d wash it out and use it again, which made what happened next practically a foregone conclusion…