Snippet 8
Through a lens of time I marvel at how we believed our firsts were events only we had experienced. Our first kiss, our first scotch, our first dance, each experience was a solo discovery, as if we learned what others didn’t. In my case my first cigarette, a Parliament, was offered to me by the girl next door. She was a senior in the all-girl Academy of the Holy Angels in Fort Lee, NJ, and I was a newbie freshman in the same academy merely a month into autumn of the late fifties.
On that October day and four blocks from our homes, we scouted the wide median that divided our suburban boulevard into one lane north and one lane south. The homes were randomly situated on each side of the thirty-foot deep median that was flat in many areas except one section that had boulders and trees. We selected the rocky secluded section as our safe spot. Two large boulders, surrounded by brush and trees yet to reach their peak of color, instilled a sense that we were indeed hidden from everyone. Barbara fiddled with her half-empty pack of Parliaments to pull a cigarette and light it, inhaling like an experienced smoker. She held the flipped lid for me to take one, instructing me to inhale as she put the lighted match to the tip of the cigarette. I felt the smoke touch the back of my throat and I coughed so hard I dropped the cigarette to the ground.
“That’s what it’s like the first time. It won’t happen again. Here take another,” were her consoling words.
The second time I shallow puffed my way into the adult world. I became conscious of the way I was holding the cigarette; first, between my pointer and middle finger then between my pointer and thumb like truck drivers held theirs. I even leaned back on the boulder in a semi reclined position pretending I was a movie star. Barbara laughed at my antics as she inhaled and tried to exhale smoke circles. We made a plan to meet there again the following weekend.
My well-kept secret added a little bounce to my step whenever I thought about it. A month later after meeting with Barbara several times more, I returned home to an upset mom. She attended a card party fundraiser at my school and someone viciously told her in front of the other women at the table, “You know that your daughter smokes.” As she retold the event, the pain in her eyes reduced me to the size of an insect and that little bounce in my step flattened forever. The mixture of emotions that traveled the nerves throughout my body ignited thoughts that ran from I’ve been caught, what a stupid think to do, to what would be the consequences. My confession came forward easily as did my promise to not smoke again, but the consequences were more painful than I had anticipated. I was not punished, but the hurt and humiliation my mother had endured because of me was enough to make me see how my alleged solo actions were not solo at all.