This Lullaby

2 uses

"I think," he said, "that you are actually, secretly attracted to all the parts of my personality that you claim to abhor."†

2 uses

"Well, not exactly," I said, which only made them look more aghast.†

1 use

"Oh, come on," I said, looking at the dance floor, where of course my mother was now staring right at me, smiling beatifically and waggling her fingers in that come-here-now kind of way.†

1 use

Every few minutes, one of the salesmen would walk someone right to the center of the window, hand them their shiny new keys, and then smile benevolently as they drove off into the sunset, just like in the commercials.†

3 uses

He's bilingual.†

2 uses

Or maybe you wear some sort of camouflage, something that will help you disappear quickly in case they don't take it well.†

1 use

The Muzak was now building to a crescendo over us, the speaker popping, as if close to short-circuiting.†

3 uses

I could feel John Miller looking at me, even as I pretended to be completely engrossed in a news story about structural problems with the new county dam.†

1 use

Most people put off my mother's erratic behavior to the fact that she was a writer, as if that explained everything.†

1 use

I even saw my mother licking her fingers after consuming a second piece of Jennifer Anne's chocolate pudding pie, which was garnished with a healthy scoop of Cool Whip.†

3 uses

I really did hope this was my mother's last marriage: I wasn't sure she, or I, could take another incarnation.†

2 uses

I could feel the trampoline easing up and down, moved by our own breathing, bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.†

2 uses

I turned around: it was Don, and he was holding a croquet mallet in one hand.†

2 uses

Truth Squad was still going, playing a medley of camp songs-played Led Zeppelin style, with crashing guitars and a lot of whooping-that I recognized as being a set-ender.†

1 use

In the next fifteen minutes, we had equally fascinating discussions about genetic engineering, global warming, the possibility of books being completely obsolete in a few years because of computers, and the arrival at the local zoo of a new family of exotic, nearly extinct Australian birds.†

3 uses

It was loud, had a clanging bell that sounded whenever she reached the end of a line, and looked like some remnant from the days of the Pony Express.†

1 use

These were rhetorical questions.†

1 use

He played a little riff of something, a Beatles song, then a few lines of the latest version of "The Potato Opus."†

1 use

Living off of beans is proper English, which brings with it the connotation of higher society, accepted standards, and the status quo.†

1 use

Luc, so suave and debonair, so steady and strong.†