I Loved Him First

I Loved Him First
By Jennifer Prado
Word Count: 3,282
Copright 2002, Jennifer Prado

The Mother and The Daughter do all of their real talking on the phone.
There is something about seeing each other face-to-face that makes them
both clamp up and they resort to being overly polite.

"One of the students in my Psychology class invited me out for coffee,"
The Mother says.

"It is kind of strange for me to hear about you dating," The Daughter
says. "I haven't quite absorbed it as a concept."

"He has a Porsche."

"Well, that doesn't sound good. The car is hiding the raging flaw in
his personality," The Daughter says.

"He told me the year and model, but I can't remember what it is."

"Now this is sounding even worse," The Daughter says. "He says, Hi,
Let's go out for coffee and this is the year and model of my
car?"

"Something like that."

"Mother!" The title reserved for moments of exasperation. "Don't go out
with him. He probably skimmed the car from the last lonely divorcee he
invited for coffee."

"When I was sixteen, I went out with Roger Stanton, just because he had
a beautiful classic MG. It was the color of cream and had running
boards on the side."

"And how was Roger?"

"Oh, Roger was a stiff. I only went out with him once, because of the
car."

"So if you learned that when you were sixteen, why do you want to
relearn it at sixty?"

"It was nice to be invited. That's all. It's not easy for a woman my
age."

"You need to find a man with a bicycle."

"I married the man with the bicycle and he walked out on me after
thirty years!" The Daughter sighs and twists the phone cord. She was
exactly where The Mother wanted to place her, in the middle of her
divorced parents.

"Mom, I think you are looking at it the wrong way. You married the man
with the bicycle, and you had a nice, long ride. But then you got a
flat tire. It's nobody's fault. The road was full of broken
glass."

It is a strange dance the two of them do. The Mother tries to ignore
that The Daughter still has youth, and The Daughter tries to forgive
her for everything else.

"I met a man on the Internet."

"Mother! It's a magnet for weirdos," The Daughter says.

"I'm using a fake name, so he won't know who I am."

"What is your screen name?"

"I am using my mother's name."

"What if he is a weirdo who is into genealogy? He could track you
down."

"I'm not going to be talking to him anymore."

"What happened?"

"He asked me for my favorite sites so I mentioned ones on gardening and
bird watching. Then he said his favorite site was about
spanking."

The Daughter has misunderstood. "More and more people are using on-line
banking. That's really very forward thinking."

"Not banking. Spanking! I went to the site. Everyone was wearing black
leather."

"Mother! The guy is a freak. Disconnect your account. God! I thought we
were talking about Personal Finance."

The Daughter takes a deep breath when she hangs up the phone. The
Mother is driving down the Highway of Love in a Model T. It doesn't
seem fair that a woman who has not been single since the early sixties,
should be thrust into this world that she can't possibly understand.
The phone rings again.

"Yes, Mom." There is a long pause and the telemarketer begins her spiel
about a survey that she is conducting for the local newspaper. "I'll
answer your survey if you answer mine," The Daughter says. "Do you get
along with your mother?"

"I've joined a Hiking Club for Single Seniors," The Mother says.

"That sounds vigorous. How was it?" The Daughter asks.

"It was depressing. The men were grumpy and talked about their medical
problems or sports. The women were all younger and thinner than me, and
they were much more interesting than the men."

"Well, maybe that's an angle you haven't thought about. Women can be
more considerate friends and lovers."

"Are you speaking from experience?" There is a long silence.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Not really."

"Good." There is a mutual sigh of relief.

The Daughter had declared a silent war against The Mother when she was
a teenager. She would come home from school to vent about the unfair
teacher, the advances of an undesired boy, or the unjustness of teenage
love. The Mother invariably would listen, interrupt, and take the other
side.

"Side with me," The Daughter would say. "You are supposed to side with
me."

"You have to see it from the other person's perspective."

"I'm talking about me, not the other person."

"You are young. And not always right." The Daughter would grind her
molars together and squeeze her fists.

"I am young, but I am right." The Daughter knew what she would have to
do. So she wouldn't have to hear that what she did was wrong, she would
have to hide everything. She would give her mother a blank canvas at
which to gaze. Behind the canvas, a second girl lived and breathed.
There the girl was always right.

"I met a man in the gym," The Mother says.

"In the gym. That's very young of you. Is he in good shape?"

"Ehh. Not really."

"What does he do?"

"He's a salesman. He imports equipment."

"Mother! Never trust a salesman."

"My father was a salesman!"

"That's different. That was in the forties and fifties. These days, if
you meet a salesman in his twenties, he is just getting job experience.
But if you meet a salesman in his sixties, he's been branded for life.
He can't do anything but spin."

"Spin?"

"You know. Sell a story. Sell you a bag of goods. How old is he?"
"
He is younger than me."

"By how much?"

"Two years."

"So he's fifty-eight. You've got yourself a branded man. Don't believe
anything he tells you."

"You aren't very encouraging."

"I'm trying to help you. I am trying to give you skills."

"How is your marriage?" The Daughter sighs.

"It has its Ups and Downs."

"Well, hold on to it. It's worse out here."

When The Daughter was fifteen, hormones took over her body. They
propelled her like rocket fuel, and made her do crazy things. She would
climb out of the window, down a tree, and run in the dark to meet The
Boyfriend. They would stand in the street, kiss, and crouch in the
bushes like the raging animals that they were. Then The Daughter would
race home, climb the tree, and stand in front of the full-length
mirror. She would pull the leaves from her clothes, press her lips onto
the mirror's smooth surface, and open one eye. She wanted to see what
she looked like when he kissed her. The Mother called a landscaper and
had the tree cut down. The Daughter watched in amazement.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked.

"I'm afraid it is going to fall on the house," The Mother said.

"I am going to look for Edwin Thompson." The Mother says. The name is
vaguely familiar to The Daughter. It was a name that appeared in the
story her parents would tell her, when she was a girl, about how they
met. It was a story they liked to repeat. The Father would tell his
version and The Mother would tell hers.

"She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. When she walked into
a room, all the heads would turn. She looked like a movie star." He
would say.

"He had the most wonderful voice I had ever heard. He sat behind me in
class and asked the most provoking questions." She would say. They fell
in love with each other's beauty. This had never failed to charm The
Daughter, and give her hope.

Edwin was the Mother's fianc?. They had dated for two years and when
her senior year began they had gotten "pinned." She was wearing the
golden tie tack of his Fraternity on her sweater. It meant that at
Christmas he would give her a diamond engagement ring, and in June,
after graduation, they would get married. Edwin was an engineer and
religious. He had asked The Mother to button her shirts all the way up
when they went out together, so that she wouldn't tempt him and other
men. The Mother and The Father met for coffee after class and found
they had a great deal to talk about. They had both gone to Europe that
summer, which only the adventurous did at that time. Edwin had stayed
in Indiana and worked for his father's company. The Mother's life was
set. Her Parents had been delighted when they met Edwin. Then The
Mother broke it off with Edwin to marry the man with the wonderful
voice and the bicycle. Her Parents were crushed, and Edwin faded
away.

"Why do you want to talk to Edwin? That was forty years ago."

"Because I loved him first. Maybe he still loves me."

"Mom. I don't think this is a good idea. You are attached to a memory
of this man. He will not possibly be the same person. That was a whole
life ago."

"Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have married him."

"You can't expect to pull off a do over. That's a child's logic."

"Maybe Edwin wouldn't have abandoned me, like your father did."

"By trying to find him, you are doing more than wishing away the
frustration with your marriage. You would be dissolving my brother and
I as well. We wouldn't exist if you had married Edwin. I wouldn't look
the same and I wouldn't be the same. Would you want that?"

"I don't want to be alone. Edwin was dependable. He wouldn't have left
me."

"But you would want different kids?"

"You would still be my daughter."

"I would look like Edwin! I don't want to look like him."

"You never met him."

"I can imagine him. I like the features I got from you two. I wouldn't
want it any other way."

"He was a good man."

"Was, was, was is the operative word. You are enamored of a
ghost."

A young woman's first time can be traumatic, because she builds too
many expectations. She is filled with love and desire, and driven by
the dueling forces of instinct and fear. The Daughter's Parents were
out of town. The Daughter and The Brother had been parceled off to
friends' houses for the weekend. The Daughter had the key. She had been
scheming with The Boyfriend all week. They were going to pretend they
were on their honeymoon. The Daughter had shopped for a silky bodysuit
that created cleavage out of her non-existent chest. It was going to be
a night to remember. They had entered the house and groped through the
darkness. They were afraid to turn on the lights in case the neighbors
were keeping an eye on the house. It was all going to happen in the
dark. She showed him the body suit and posed like a centerfold. He
played a tape, he had made, of all of their favorite songs.

It had just gotten started, when she heard The Mother's voice at the
stairs. She had come back early, and The Father was still away. She
knew The Daughter wasn't alone. The Boyfriend had reacted like a
cornered animal. He had thrown his clothes on, raced down the stairs,
passed The Mother, and run out the front door. The Daughter had stood
on the front steps and listened to the sound of his tennis shoes
slapping on the pavement of the silent street.

"You are a slut!" The Mother said.

"I am not. He is my boyfriend."

"You are wrong."

"I am right." The Daughter was grounded for eternity. Her wings were
clipped.

The Daughter has heard about the problems with the house and wants to
change the subject.

"When was your first time?" The Mother clears her throat.

"With your father. On our honeymoon."

"You two waited?"

"That's the way it was."

"So you were a virgin and then were only with him for thirty
years?"
"
Yes. That's what works."

"What a concept. That's what worked for you."

"It didn't really work."

"So, you bought the car without a test drive. That's amazing."

"There was no other way."

"I have dumped guys who gave me a lousy test drive," The Daughter
says.
"When was your first time?" The Mother asks.

"You know. You caught me. How could you forget?"

"I was never sure if it had been that night or if it had already
happened.
That boy was awful. I never liked him."

"Well, my taste improved. He was a good runner though." They both
laugh.

"He was the reason I had the tree cut down."

"You knew about the tree?"

"Of course I did. I had to remove your escape route."

"I never knew." The Daughter pauses for a moment. "Mom, your life would
be completely different, if you had been born eight years later. You
would have been a part of the Summer of Love."

"I was pregnant with you that summer."

"You were definitely sidelined from all the fun."

"I never expected my life to turn out this way," The Mother says.

"Life is not supposed to follow a formula. The divorce was an unhappy
surprise, but you became a more interesting person. Why don't you
concentrate on that?"

There was a rebellion stirring behind the blank canvas. There was a
seething energy that percolated and spattered. It had a voice that
shouted, "I am not you. I will never be you. I will prove it."

At the last moment, The Daughter and The Guy Friend had decided to go
to the Senior Prom together to make a statement. They were the Anti
Prom Patrol. They were going to show everyone. The Mother had stood on
the front lawn with a camera and studied her daughter with a puzzled
expression. The Daughter had painted her eyes with purple eye shadow
like a punk Cleopatra. She wore a vintage dress filled with satin blue
flowers, black fishnet stockings, and red high-top basketball shoes.
Two safety pins dangled from her ears.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because this is all bull shit."

"You have a larger vocabulary than that."

"It is all so exquisitely unsatisfying." Her date arrived on a moped
with a hole in its muffler that had announced his impending arrival
from two blocks away. He wore a helmet and a gas mask. He stepped off
the vehicle while it was still running, threw his hands in the air, and
removed the mask. The moped crashed into their hedges.

"Your dream date has arrived." He was wearing black jeans and a jacket
with tails. "You look lovely, my dear."

"You look cool," The Daughter said, pulling on his tails.

"Give him the flower for his buttonhole," The Mother said. She had
bought it for The Daughter.

"Wear this," The Daughter whispered as she pinned it to his jacket. "It
makes her happy." The Mother took their photo.

"I forgot to get you flowers," he said. "Hold on." He ran across the
street to the neighbor's flowerbed and yanked a fistful of Daffodils
from the ground. He handed them to The Daughter and the dirt still
clung to the roots.

"Stop that!" The Mother yelled. "What will the neighbors think?"

"If they don't like it, they can move," The Daughter said. She thrust
her nose into the flowers and imagined they had a wonderful
scent.

"I had an awful flash forward today," The Mother says.

"What happened?"

"I went to the gym at six in the morning to try the water aerobics
class. It was full of old women. They had all outlived their husbands.
They were shriveled and frail. None of them could hear the instructor.
I left halfway through. It made me very depressed."

"I don't know what to say to that. There is no way to fight it. It will
happen."

"It's horrible," The Mother says. "It's awaiting us."

"I have found Edwin," The Mother says.

"How did you manage that?" The Daughter asks.

"I wrote to my Sorority Sister. She tracked him down."

"And?"

"He's a widower. I'm waiting for news."

"Why don't you call him?"

"I couldn't do that."

"That's the way it's done now."

"I'm afraid."

"Oh Mommy." The title reserved for fleeting moments of tenderness.
"Don't be that way. Be brave."

The Daughter had gone to France to study during college. She fell in
love; first with the country then with a man. She had decided she loved
him when they were in a bookstore. The Daughter had pulled a book from
the top shelf, and the one next to it wobbled and started to fall. He
covered her head with his hands and the book clattered to the
floor.

"What a scare you gave me, mon chere. I thought you were hurt," he
said. They returned to New York City together and The French Husband
constantly turned up his nose at the peculiarities of his American
in-laws. "I will never understand your culture," he said.

"What culture? That's what I went to your country to find." The Mother
had felt betrayed.

"You two speak French in front of me. I feel so excluded. He won't eat
my food. He makes me feel wrong."
"
He is used to different things. He has a picky palate."

"He's a snob."

"Don't force me to defend him, because I will."

"I wish you had never studied French. I wish you had never gone
there."

"Mother! I have a surprise for you. It's my life!"

Sometimes The Daughter hid. She let the answering machine pick up. She
had programmed the machine to cut off any message over three minutes in
length. The Mother would call again.

"Your machine cut me off! Where was I?" The Mother would start over
again. The Daughter lay on the sofa with her arms wrapped around The
French Husband and would grind her molars and clench her fists. And
then she would feel hopelessly guilty.

"Jean Louise got to him," The Mother says.

"Who the hell is Jean Louise?" The Daughter says.

"My Sorority Sister."

"Oh right. Your friend from forty years ago who you never saw
again."

"We write letters at Christmas. She spoke to Edwin."

"What did he say?"

"He doesn't want to see me." There is a long silence.

"Well, maybe it is best if you both leave it alone then."

"He told Jean Louise that I had hurt him so badly all those years ago,
that
he couldn't bear being hurt by me again."

"He was that bitter about it?"

"Yes. He was."

"I don't know what to say."

"Poor Edwin. He ended up alone, too."

"Listen. I have some exciting news for you. You are going to be a
grandmother." There is an audible gasp.

"Oh, sweetheart. That is a wonderful gift. I'm so happy for you."

"I'm a little scared."

"Don't be scared. Be brave. It will be fine. Did you tell your
father?"

"No, not yet."

"Thank you, for telling me first. That makes me feel very
important."

So that's how it would always be. They would try to be kind and
understanding with each other. They would forever be different. They
would learn to forgive each other for their mistakes, and unwittingly
The Daughter would make some of the same errors with her own Child.
That is the way it has always been.