Teacher Greg - The First Kiss: ESL Reader American English

THE FIRST KISS

An ESL Reader for Advanced Students of American English

A SHORT STORY BY

GREG KROJAC

ADAPTED BY

TEACHER GREG

This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Please note that this story is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.

Copyright 2020/2021 Greg Krojac/Teacher Greg

All rights reserved

BEFORE YOU START READING...

Please be aware that this story is an adaptation, for ESL students, of an already published story (of which I am the author).

As such it contains adult themes and is not recommended for anyone under the age of sixteen years.

Bold text signifies that the word or phrase can be found in the glossary. Annotated definitions to assist the ESL reader are drawn mostly from the Cambridge English Learners Dictionary. Definitions are given relevant to their context in the story.

At the end of the story, you will find reading comprehension , gap fill , correct the errors , and true/false exercises sourced from the story.

THE FIRST KISS

D aniel looked across the table at the person sitting opposite him. Hed never seen a woman as beautiful as Melody. There was something about her eyes, something that he couldnt quite put into words.

Then it hit him.

It was the sparkle that was the special thing that separated her from the other women hed dated. It wasnt that those other womens eyes looked dead and lifeless far from it (their eyes were lovely in their own way) but Melodys eyes had something extra, a je ne sais quoi that made it so difficult to draw his own eyes away from them.

His fascination hadnt gone unnoticed by his dinner date. Melody knew she had striking eyes her mother, Katia, had told her since the day she was born that she had beautiful eyes but it wasnt until she was in her teens that she started to believe what her mother had said.

The beginnings of her epiphany had fallen on the day of her thirteenth birthday. She still had to go to school a birthday wasnt enough of a reason to miss a days schooling but she didnt mind. She enjoyed school. But, at the lunch station, she was acutely aware of two boys continually glancing her way.

At first, she thought maybe shed gotten something stuck on her face, something that shouldnt be there, but a brief brushing of her face with her hand dispelled that theory. Melodys best friend, Colleen, rested her chin on her best friends shoulder and whispered into her ear.

Its your eyes. I heard them talking in the classroom. They really like your eyes.

As soon as she arrived home, Melody rushed upstairs, closed her bedroom door behind her, and stared hard into the mirror of her vanity . She addressed the eyes whose reflection looked back at her from the mirror.

Theres nothing special about you. Youre nice, Ill admit that, but youre nothing to write home about.

She had naturally long lashes and her eyes were certainly a little larger than those of her school friends, so perhaps thats what made her stand out from the crowd . But she didnt think her eyes were any more attractive than anyone elses. No, there was nothing extraordinary about them. And, anyway, she wasnt even wearing makeup.

Actually, her mom didnt allow her to wear makeup. Katia said we spend enough time being adults; we shouldnt be in such a hurry to leave our childhood behind . But Melody was just like any other kid of her age, in a hurry to grow up and do what the grown-ups do. Shed been a child long enough. Her body had recently told her that she was turning into a woman and if her body thought that, then surely she could wear makeup now and again. Its not as if she expected to wear makeup every day certainly not to school but an hour or so in the evenings couldnt do any harm. She tried telling her mother that all her friends wore makeup but that just drew the response that Melody wasnt all her friends . That seemed to Melody to be a particularly silly thing to say. Shed have to be a clone to be all her friends and even then theyd all have different personalities. Moms say the dumbest things sometimes.

As it happens, she didnt have to wait long for her mother to relent . On her fourteenth birthday, Katia booked the two of them into the local spa where they were both pampered with massages, mud baths, and something her mom said was a makeover . That seemed a very strange word to Melody. Surely something had to have been already made to be made over, but she accepted her moms explanation that it was just a word and that she shouldnt bother herself about it. There were far more important things in the world to worry about.

That spa day changed Melodys life. Katia accepted that her daughter was blossoming into a young woman and took it upon herself to help ease Melody through the mental and physical transition, guiding her along the emotional rollercoaster that she was about to face. She gave her daughter lessons in how to choose the best cosmetics to use for her darker complexion and to enhance the best features of her face especially those eyes. Best of all, Melody was allowed to wear makeup at the weekend all weekend.

Katia was a good teacher. Although she was old well, old to Melody she always looked stunning . The teenager always felt proud when she and her mother walked down the road together, laughing at the men trying to be discreet as they stole furtive glimpses of her mom. One time, Melody thought one young guy he could only have been seventeen or eighteen years old was going to dislocate his neck as he contorted his body to hold his gaze on her mother for as long as possible. Melody had asked Katia if she ever felt uncomfortable about men looking at her but her mom was pragmatic about the attention, saying that they could look but they couldnt touch. Melody knew what her mother meant. She was a strongminded woman and anyone who looked like they were about to cross a line was met with Katias dont even think about it look. It was the same look that Melody had known all her life, the one that was so stern , so piercing, that she knew she had to stop whatever she was doing wrong immediately. Anyone on the wrong end of that look immediately knew that they were in trouble. Melody spent endless evenings practising in the mirror, trying to cultivate an equally devastating glare.

Her mom was the coolest. The two of them were more like sisters than mother and daughter.

And then, when Melody had just turned seventeen, her mother was stolen from her when a self-driving car accelerated through a red light as she and her mother were crossing the road. That wasnt supposed to be possible. There were fail-safes to stop that kind of thing happening. But it did happen. Katia took the brunt of the collision, pushing her daughter out of the way at the very last minute, leaving Melody with a few cuts and bruises as she tumbled to the ground out of harms way.

Katia died instantly.

Melody received a substantial amount of financial compensation from the cars AI manufacturers but whats money when a daughter can no longer laugh and joke with her mother, a daughter can no longer hold her mother in her arms and tell her that she loves her. Money cant take the place of that.