Dirty Dancing, Carrots, and Awkward Chats

Jace isn't quite sure how to bring up the topic of seeing an "inappropriate" movie...

Every Tuesday night, I cook with my mom in our fluorescent-lit kitchen. This only started a few months ago, because I think she was getting worried that as soon as I turned sixteen I would become angstier than usual.  Mom and I have never really butted heads in the past, except for my surprising new mood swings that began right around my first period when I was thirteen. She quickly learned that keeping a bowl of chocolate and Midol in her room was the best way to go.  Whenever she could tell I was getting testy, but I didn’t want to admit it, she would go into her room and produce two pills and two pieces of chocolate.  We would never say anything, because it was just understood that I was PMSing and she didn’t want to deal with it.  But it seems as I edged closer and closer to sixteen, she became more worried of my potentially inevitable teenage breakdown and the possibility of me hating her forever. 

Personally, I’m not too worried about that.  The only time I ever have trouble with mom is around the subject of sex.  It’s not like I’m having sex or even necessarily want to talk about sex with her, but she gets really fidgety whenever we’re watching a movie with implied sex, and she sometimes even turns it off and tells me to do my homework.  Unfortunately for her, as a sixteen-year-old I want to watch movies that may or may not have sex in them.  And unfortunately for me, she can easily monitor what I watch, since we only have one TV and it’s in the family room.  My only hope of seeing PG-13 movies is going to the cinema with friends, which she’s usually okay with as long as she knows what movie we’re seeing.  Plus, she desperately wants me to spend more time with my friends and other people my age, so she is often the one to suggest that I go out in the first place.  So as we start cooking a beef stew for dinner, I ask about going to the cinema to see the movie everyone at school is currently talking nonstop about.

“What’s Dirty Dancing?” Mom asks while stirring the beginnings of the stew, the steam causing her thick bangs to curl.

“It’s a movie,” I answer evasively, carefully chopping carrots in even circles at the counter in front of the stove, so we are facing each other.

Mom wipes her forehead with the back of the hand not being used for stirring, her eyes still on the contents of the pot, while mine are on her face. “Okay, but what is it about?”

I really don’t want to tell her because I know she’ll tense up and suggest I go see Who’s That Girl instead. I continue to chop in silence, hoping that I could pretend I didn’t hear her and she’d change the subject.

Mom looks up from stirring and looks at me. “Jace, did you hear me? I asked what the movie was about.”

I stopped chopping and looked up, feigning surprise, “Oh, sorry! Right, the movie is about…” I think for a moment, choosing my words carefully, “It’s sort of a Romeo and Juliet type storyline.” It’s not a lie. Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze definitely aren’t supposed to be together in that movie.

Mom raises her eyebrows, “In what way is it like Romeo and Juliet?”

I run out of carrots to chop, so I start dicing the slices I have. “Well, the guy and girl in it aren’t supposed to be together, I guess, and the girl defies her parents and sees the guy anyway,” I say in nearly all one breath, not looking up from my wooden cutting board. 

I can feel her eyes on me. She turns the fire on the gas stove down and lets the stew simmer as she walks over to me, drying her hands on a kitchen towel.  “You are being evasive, Jace,” she states simply, her arms across her chest.

I finally look up from my carrots and shrug, “I just want to go see the movie with Delaney" it’s no big deal.”

But she knows why I’m being this way, and she cuts right to the chase, “What’s it rated?”

“PG-13.”

“What for?”

I sigh, resigned, and quote from memory, “Mature thematic elements involving sexuality.”

But to my surprise, she doesn’t tense up and change the subject, or suggest I see something more family-friendly.  She just nods for a moment and uncrosses her arms. “Alright, well, enjoy yourself.”

I feel my jaw slacken, and I quickly close my mouth. “Wait, seriously?”

Mom walks back to the stove and turns the fire up again, seemingly unaffected, “Sure. You’re sixteen, and you can decide what movies are appropriate for you. As long as you don’t go tonight, because you’re mine and Dad’s on Tuesdays.”

I nod, unable to come up with words fast enough.

“Could you bring the carrots over here now? The beef is getting lonely in this pot.”

I bring the cutting board of carrots over to her and slide them into the pot of stew.

Author's Note

The second "scene" involving Jace. This series of scenes is an assignment for my senior project.

Reviews

[Inyourshadow]

Have we not all feared the age restrictionof events from film to dancing, dreading the asking of parental permission only to find that not all things are off limits if only we are honest about them. You penned the scene with varied emotions and pensive tense intrique. keep em' coming