What we're writing: Hallie unearths a personal essay

HALLIE EPHRON: I was still working a day job, evaluating programs and writing marketing copy for high tech companies, when I set my sights on becoming a writer. Storytelling doesn't come naturally to me, so I began (as so many of us do) writing personal essays. By then my parents were both dead so I could write about them with impunity, and a number of my early essays were about my mother who was... complicated.

Here's a revision of one of the first pieces I wrote about her. I submitted it to an anthology, and when it was accepted I was overjoyed. Revisiting it today, of course all I can see are flaws. I wrote it as if it really happened but the details are mostly made up. Backfilled, as it were, fit into place. Is that cheating? Can a piece purporting to be memoir be filled with details that the author makes up to suit some sense of what really happened?

The other problem with the piece, according to my much more critical brain today, is the ending.

And so I invite you please to weigh in. Am I right that this ending isn't working, and if you have any brilliant ideas for alternate finishes, please chime in.

NICE ENOUGH FOR ALL NORMAL PURPOSES

My mother grew up in the Bronx and didn’t learn to drive until she moved to Los Angeles in her thirties. Transplanted to an endless suburb defined by the automobile, the only place she drove to regularly was a nearby beauty salon. She drove slowly, intently, clutching the wheel like a life preserver and peering over it, as if afraid that if her attention flagged for an instant, the car would take off without her. She kept one foot planted on the brake pedal while she pumped the gas with the other.

Like her car--a white Thunderbird, a two-seater with bucket seats and a portholed roof--her style of mothering precluded carpooling. She prided herself on having little in common with my friends’ mothers, or with women in general for that matter. She once told a New York Times reporter, “I’ll kill you if you describe me coming out of the kitchen with flour on my hands and sitting down and writing funny lines I don’t go in the kitchen very often except for ice cubes for a drink. We have a cook for the cooking and a nurse for the children. I’ve been a full-time screenwriter since 1943 and put in a full day in the office.”

She wasn’t big on hugs or cuddles, or even pats on the back. If I asked her if I was pretty or smart, for example, her stock response would have been: “Enough for all normal purposes.”

I traveled with her once, and although my three sisters and father must have been there, in my memory it’s just her and me. I’m about twelve years old we’re at LAX waiting for our flight to New York. I’m dragging a wool coat, bought specially for the trip. My mother carries a coat too--a mid-calf length swirl of black cashmere.

Her legs hiss against each other each time she crosses or uncrosses her legs. She snaps open a black leather handbag and pulls out a compact. Peering into the mirror, she quickly runs the powder puff over her nose. Then she brushes her fingers through her hair on one side, pushing the short dark curls up and away from her face. She puts away the compact and applies red lipstick. I’m fascinated that she can paint her lips entirely by feel. She seems completely self-absorbed, but when I reach down to scratch an itch, she stiffens in disapproval, raises an eyebrow in my direction, clears her throat, and gives her head a tiny shake.

On the plane, I grip the arms of my seat as the plane accelerates down the runway, faster and faster until it lets go and rises. As the plane banks and straightens and we clear a thick layer of amber-tinted smog, my stomach flip-flops. I gingerly touched the edge of my porthole-sized window and watch as everything on the ground turns miniature . My mother is leaning back, eyes closed, her mouth set in a grim line. She hates to fly. During the flight, she picks at her meal, drinks Scotch on the rocks, and tucks two more single-serving bottles into her purse.

We take a cab to the Algonquin Hotel in the heart of the theater district. I fidget in a prickly red chair while my mother checks us in and then drifts through the dark-paneled lobby, lingering in front of framed photographs and clippings on the wall. She pauses at an open doorway near the back and motions to me to join her. I peek into a vast, dark, dining room.

"There," she says in a hushed tone. She gestures toward a large table covered by a dark green cloth with a plaque in the center of it. "That’s the Round Table.” She smiles. “Your father and I once ate there. I sat beside Dorothy Parker."

I have only a vague idea who Dorothy Parker is but I know she’s a writer, like my mother, and my mother must have dined here when the hit play she and my father wrote was running on Broadway. I’ve never met another lady writer. I examine the empty chair, as if it might reveal some secret truth about a woman whom my mother doesn’t dismiss with a snort and a witty aside.

"Does she have children?" I ask before I realize the question has even formed itself.

My mother barks a laugh. "God forbid!"

The next day, we go out to see the city. I tag along feeling unbearably unsophisticated and uncomfortable in my East Coast coat as my mother strides up Fifth Avenue. Her clothes that seem so stiff and off-putting in Los Angeles are exactly right in New York. Disencumbered of a car, she moves with agility through the crowds, oblivious to the car horns and bus exhaust. I cling to her as we race across intersections against the traffic lights, terrified that we’ll be arrested for jaywalking.

We stroll through Saks Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwartz, and Tiffany’s. In Delman’s, I perch on a white brocade-covered chair while she tries on pumps. We walk through the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, past arched doorways framed by potted palms. I check out the Oak Room where Eloise hung out. I inhale the perfumed wake of fur-coated ladies and watch uniformed porters soundlessly push piles of luggage across plush carpet.

Then we head across 59th street to Rumplemeyers, an old-fashioned ice cream parlor opposite Central Park. I follow her, pushing through the revolving door and into a cool, malt-scented interior. I tuck into a hot fudge sundae while my mother sips coffee, light and sweet. She lights a cigarette and takes a deep inhale, tilts her head back and shoots a stream of smoke towards the ceiling.

"You like New York a lot, don’t you?" I say.

She’s quiet for a moment. "I do," she replies, taking another quick drag and exhaling. "It’s home."

I hunker down over my ice cream as the words sting. If home is here, then what’s the place I call home?

"And what’s your opinion, Madam?" she asks with mock formality. "Do you think it's nice?"

I can't remember my mother ever posing a question like this, asking how I feel about something that matters to her. I wonder if I could ever feel as comfortable as she obviously does in this place where everyone seems so smart, chic, and impatient. I want to prolong the moment, savor the intimacy as I try to imagine myself here without her pulling me in tow.

Twenty years later, long after my mother's death, I take my daughter to New York. We stroll through Saks Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwartz, and Tiffany’s. We eat hot fudge sundaes at Rumplemeyers, and I show her the Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel where my mother dined beside Dorothy Parker. I think of New York as a legacy, something I can pass on to the granddaughter my mother never met. To me, it was what she had to give.