Shortly after I withdrew from the acclaimed J. C. West Academy of Fine Arts my mother, a prominent socialite and artist, Whitney West, and I were enjoying lunch on the veranda of Whispering Breeze, her country estate. Nonchalantly I mention to her what I’d done and she almost choked on her egg salad sandwich. As soon as she gained her composure, she callously says, “Homer West Scooter, I didn’t raise an idiot, or maybe I did, since only an idiot would leave the Academy at the conclusion of their junior year. Furthermore, your unorthodox behavior shall bring shame upon the ancestral name?” “Whitney,” I calmly say, “Must I remind you, a horse thief, drug runner, and numerous corrupt politicians hang from your family tree and no one will notice a college dropout perched on one of its branches. Besides, I don’t need a…show more content… After her melodramatic display, I gave up and left. On my drive home, her comment, the die has been cast, gnawed at me, since it meant her alter-ego, Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, the point of no return, and she would utilize any means at her disposal to force me into submission. As I recall, that’s exactly what she did to my father, Arthur Samuel Scooter, on the night he became her adversary. At twenty-three my parent attended the Beaux-Art School, in Paris. One had talent and a devil-may-care attitude, yet no money and the other had no talent and constantly overwrought, but came from a wealthy family. On a rainy afternoon, by chance, they had gone to the Louver, to analyze Mona Lisa. As they stood side by side my father tried to concentrate on Leonardo’s shading technique as my mother whispered to him, sarcastic remarks concerning the Mona Lisa’s smile. Two years later they married and I enter the picture on their first wedding
