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Show Motherlunge a novel 232 half-nelson-and when she turned around (a three-point turn here, my mother taking tiny concubinage steps to shift her point of view) I would already be moving away into the crowd. I would be floating away in my turquoise dress which, in contradiction of the usual bridesmaid joke I genuinely loved, as my mother turned around with the feel of my elbow still on her neck. And I thought of this: my mother with someone from the bar, in the dark, his body against hers. My mother's thrilled whispers, high-pitched, baby-talk. For my twenty-seventh birthday, we rode the train to New York. It was my first trip there. We stayed in the East Village, in the empty apartment of one of Eli's friends. The apartment was like a dark shoebox, with one small window that opened onto an airshaft. We walked around a lot, going in and out of shops so small and coherently decorated I began to feel oppressed. The salesgirls, blank as emery boards in their sleek outfits, ignored us. On a sudden defensive impulse, I insisted we go to the museum, the Metropolitan. For several hours, I walked behind Eli through the wings of the Met, becoming increasingly aware, on the miles of hard flooring, that I was engaged in a weight-bearing activity, one that would, with luck, stave off osteoporosis for a few minutes in fifty years. As a person lacking the bone-protective effects of endocrine balance-not to mention pregnancy and lactation-the thought was mildly soothing to me. But my feet were killing me. |
