Copyright 1998 Sarah Siegel

We spent a sweet summer: We were mistaken for brother and sister at Central Park when we went to see Shakespeare in the Park; we saw The Police in Hartford during their Synchronicity tour; and we wrote a story together, chronicling our feelings via "Stu" and "Sally...."

I went to the Chinese booth of New London’s International Festival after our fourth date and asked the person holding the brush to draw the following message in Chinese characters:

With you, Eric,
I stand at the foot of
Chinese mountains, and
Next to dragons,
And Buddhas and
Patches of wild flowers.
And you are my chí [energy].

The artist told me she wrote in Chinese:

Dragon Buddha flower cloud mountain
You, my life source.

Laura and I had always regarded each other as something nice while we searched for the love of our lives, namely, men, so she was expected to understand my involvement with Eric. And Eric and I agreed to see other people in college, since we would be so far from each other. If I had been in love with him and he with me, I don’t imagine we would have struck such a bargain. At the time, it seemed sporting of both of us and it didn’t pose much of a threat to me.

I made Eric spend a secret day with Laura; he didn’t demand I explain why seeing her was a secret from my mom. The three of us rode the carousel in Central Park and Eric said he wanted to get on my horse with me. I turned to Laura and told her, "Eric wants to get on my horse."

"So do I," she said through the loud carousel music. We went back to her apartment and she and I "soaked our feet" for a minute while Eric waited in the living room. Actually, I licked her salt-sweaty neck while we let the water run in the bathtub....That night, we went to a tri-level dance club, Danceteria. Eric, Laura and I danced until we had to catch the last train back to Stamford from Grand Central.

Soon, I will add another excerpt. Meanwhile, you can return to the home page of Sarah Siegel's Coming-of-age Memoir.

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