Vera Lyn

Vera Lyn
By Jill Terry

I admired, loved and respected her, because she demanded it, although I didn’t realize it at the time. Always surprise treats with every visit, and never a birthday missed. I’d sit and listen to her stories while I emptied my own bag of M&M’s or picked the peanuts off the drumstick. The tone of her voice, the sound of her laughter, mingled with the heady scent of her expensive perfume, made my little head spin. As I flipped through the pages of the Cosmopolitan Magazines she used to bring my mother when she was finished with them, I remember thinking that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Then our day came, just the two of us, shopping in the village and riding in her shiny silver Corvette, quite possibly the reason I still love them today. All was right with the world, until I did something I wasn’t aware of that made her mad and she yanked me by the arm and screamed at me in the crowded little shop. As I looked at her in shocked horror, I remember her gaze, darting around the room, checking the number of onlookers as she proceeded to yell and drag me from the store, paying no attention to me whatsoever. I had no idea at the time what was going on, only that my heart was broken and my image of her shattered forever. We didn’t speak all the way home and I couldn’t wait to run to the arms of my mother. My mother, the woman she pretended to be. She told her stories to a happily married couple with two small children, trying to make them believe her life was an adventure, when in reality it was their life she was seeking to duplicate.

Copyright 2007 by Jill Terry. All rights reserved.

~ by Jill Terry on April 27, 2007.