Caught in the Act

“What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?” This question was posed to my writing class on the first day. People squirmed around in their seats, recalling. My face felt flush like I just had a glass of wine — my most mortifying moment happened only a week or two earlier. 

I wrote “Caught in the Act” for my MediaBistro writing class in Fall 2007. At the time, I was dating the guy in the essay’s opening, but the real point of the piece was examining the relationship between me and my mother. My essay never got published, but if you were friends with me at the time, you certainly heard the story. 

So here is an excerpt below of “Caught in the Act” in all of its ICOHTY-glory. (Note: it wasn’t THE act.)

 

His hand pulled at my dress strap. His other hand was reaching beneath the hem of my dress. It felt good. Then someone knocked– no, banged – on the door.

            “Is that your sister?” A asked.

            “Amanda?!” came the muffled, yet commanding voice through the door.

            I froze. It was my mother.

Nothing can ruin an intimate, wedding wine-induced moment more than hearing the voice of the one who gave birth to you. In my case, the voice belonged to a traditional Filipino Catholic mother with God on her right shoulder and possibly the rosary in her left hand as she banged on the door Law & Order SVU-style that night.

            “Just ignore her, she’ll go away,” my cousin’s best friend said, while trying to take off my dress.

            Ignoring was not an option. As scared as I was of confronting the woman on the other side of the door I knew, without a doubt, that not answering would be a much scarier fate. I was too frightened to imagine.

            “That’s my mother,” I said defeated. There was no way out.

“Your mother?!” he exclaimed.

My mom and I earlier that day (pre-embarrassing moment).

Earlier that day A gregariously warmed up to my family as we rode from the church to the hotel in our rental car. He told us in his thick Queens accent about the pranks he and my now-married cousin used to play. My parents were impressed with A’s pursuit of a doctorate in physical therapy, more so since his coarse-sounding, error-laden speech made them think otherwise. While my parents had accents of their own they were fanatic about grammar in only the way people who learned English as a second language can. Born to Venezuelan parents in Elmhurst, Queens and attended a top state school, A had an accent that is a mix of Spanish, street, and when he wants to, proper schooling. Whatever favorable thoughts my parents had of A were dispelled with each thump on the door.

I stood up from the faux-luxe Comfort Inn sheets and cursed myself for taking the risk of hooking up at my cousin’s wedding in the same hotel as my parents. At twenty-five years old, I didn’t live at home, but I quickly remembered my mother’s ire. I swallowed down the growing lump of embarrassment, anxiety, and guilt in my throat and stoically moved toward the door. 

            “What are you doing here?!” my mother demanded.

            “Uh, we were all hanging out here and then I just fell asleep,” I said feebly.

            “Why aren’t you sleeping in your own room?! Go to your room!” She pointed down the hall, her face twisted with anger.  I quickly turned around, grabbed my purse off the dresser, mumbled goodbye in the direction of the bathroom where A was hiding, and did the walk of shame past my mother and down the hall. While my cousin was elsewhere in Joliet, Illinois consummating his marriage, there I was at the same age being sent to my room. There was to be no pre-marital sex, not while Mama Muñoz was around.