A Strong Drink
As a youth, I was root beer, scummy brown,
In a sea of shandies, all watered down.
And she was pink lemonade.
Didn’t taste quite right, so I tried to blend in,
Drank with the rest, preferred percentages less thin,
I changed, but she remained the same.
Swapped my brown from tinned to bottled,
Felt mature, thick-skinned, and hair mottled.
And she was pink lemonade.
My sweet parts melted into dismay,
Quirks and uniqueness’ faded away,
I changed, but she remained the same.
I became a British shade of dandelion and burdock.
Spat with the lads, till mottled became dreadlock.
And she was pink lemonade.
I grew bitter, and thought her life peachy, and breezy,
Mistook her pink life to be simple and easy,
I changed, but she remained the same.
I flailed and slunk, and drunk as I drowned,
In the world, as they pushed us, she stood her ground.
I changed, but she remained the same.
And she was pink lemonade.
Quivering Moonlight
Sweltering, silence stirs and crickets abound
In darkness, moonlight quivers all around
Lingering, liquid sensations surpass to surround
Endlessness escalates, knowing no bounds;
Nestling, seeking nature's refuge thus entwined
Ceasing all else, lounging lazily 'neath tall pines
Enraptured by the essence of summer sublime.
Cynthia Calder, 08.29.24
Dreaming of Summer
In the season of mittens and frozen fingers,
And calm quiet nights
The taste of pink lemonade lingers
And her thoughts drift to a sunny paradise
When the blankets are piled sky high
And boots trek daily through the snow
She dreams of winter's goodbye
And the warmth of a summer sun's glow
She imagines the crashing of waves
And sandals and sun dresses and ice-cream
And the seemingly endless summer days
Have already arrived inside her dreams
She pretends that the snow is sand,
And that the grass underneath is still green
She pretends that the glass in her hand
Is full of pink lemonade, not lukewarm tea
Just Once
The pessimist is adamant that his glass of pink lemonade is half empty. The optimist counters that the glass is clearly half full. I’m a pacifist who doesn’t want another atomic war in the nuclear family, so I pour the liquid into an empty glass that’s half as small. “There, now the glass is full so there’s no room for argument.”
Geez, can’t we just once have a summer barbecue without all the drama?
summertime
if only you hadn't left your drink
sitting there on the balcony
in hot, carolina heat
sweating, swirling with the pulp,
beads of perspiration
counting the seconds
like a clock -
then maybe
when you lost it
and your temper finally snapped
and your hand slipped and
the knife thudded to the deck,
the drops of blood
wouldn't have dripped
dripped
dripped
right into the glass
with the striped paper straw
and the long-melted ice
and I would not have looked down
and seen my own life
blossom and bloom in the glass
and I would not have
any reason to hate
pink lemonade
or any lemonade,
the way that I do now.
Pink Lemonade
She didn’t remember much about her father leaving, just that it wasn’t loud. Melissa never heard glass shattering, or loud profane words meant to break down every bit of confidence the other might have in themselves. She just remembered silence.
Then one afternoon, her father stood in the doorway with a couple of suitcases packed to the brim. He looked skinnier, and his eyes were heavy and sunken. He still smiled the way he always did, but it didn’t look right. Greg Wasteman, hugged his daughter, kissed her forehead and that was it. Gone, baby, gone.
The first thing her mother said was “forget about him, baby. It’s me and you, now.”
He’d been gone under five minutes, and it was already time to forget about him.
Angie Wasteman spent that entire summer and many subsequent summers in the backyard by the pool that was paid for by the man Melissa had to forget. Her father did something that the average layman wouldn’t understand. Something to do with stocks, and dealing with the money of people who had too much of it to keep track. Greg made a lot and the alimony payments were enough to keep Melissa and her mother in their nice suburban home on Crestfield.
Angie read, tanned and drank pink drinks by the pool for hours on end. She liked books with shirtless men wearing cowboy hats gracing the cover, and sometimes Melissa would catch her biting her lip or waving her hand in her face, “Good lordy.” she’d say, and Melissa would ask, “What is it?” “Oh nothing you need to concern yourself with yet, darling. They’ll come into your life soon enough.”
“Who will?”
“Men, honey. The best and worst thing on God’s green earth.”
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“Will you get me a refill, sweetheart?” Was a question that Melissa heard many times during those summers without dad. She’d be swimming in the pool, or laying on the couch in the living room and she’d hear the ice shaking around in the glass, and the elevated left arm of Angie Wasteman.
Melissa became her mother’s personal bartender by the age of 6. In the fridge she mixed gin, tonic, ice ,and always threw a couple of cherries in for good measure. The drink sparkled, and it looked so eloquent to young Melissa. So much so, that she began to pour pink lemonade in a similar glass with a similar amount of ice.
She’d sit in the lawn chair next to her mother, with the glass on the left arm of the chair, like her mother. While Angie read Cosmopolitan magazine, Melissa would pretend to read another magazine that was in a little wicker basket in between the two chairs.
Melissa would occasionally peak over and wonder what her mother was reading. Articles about beauty, and sex. Top tips to get your man excited, every single time. Excited about what? Melissa asked, and Angie looked at her daughter, looked back at the magazine and let out a big hearty laugh, almost like a disney villain. Her head tilted back, her giant bumblebee sunglasses raised to the sun, and she’d let it all out. It would automatically put Melissa over the edge, into her own fit of laughter. And the two of them, in their lawn chairs, with their pink lemonades, laughing like wild hyenas about absolutely nothing.
As she got older, the glamor of constantly serving her mother drinks, no matter what day of the week it was, began to wear off. As she entered her early teens, Melissa started to understand quite well that her mother was an alcoholic with the means to do so. Plenty of people were alcoholics, she’d later discover, but it seemed glamorous when you could keep a roof above your head in a nice quiet suburb. When the man with the scraggly beard on main street begging for change, while sipping gin out of a dirty paper bag did it, it was a filthy habit. But in a nice shiny glass, with circular ice cubes, and cherries wrapped around the rim, it was fashionable. It was debonair, as her mother would say.
But what bothered Melissa the most, was Angie’s constant bashing of men. She only saw her father occasionally, and he was the first to admit that Angie gave him all kinds of hell anytime he wanted to be around his daughter. He said he was sorry, and Melissa understood. Though it pained her somedays to think like this, she knew that once she turned 18, she’d move on with her father and experience all the things that her mother never allowed them to during her childhood.
“Your father is not a good man, darling. He’s a snake, just like the rest of them. We don’t need em. Okay? We got each other. Now, get your mom a refill.”
“Yes, mom.” Melissa would say.
Her problem with her mother’s whole view on men was simple. If Angie didn’t need men, then she should go get a job and get her own place. Melissa was all for women not needing anyone, but her mother was a hypocrite, living off a handout. Plain and simple. She needed men for every drink that Melissa poured her, because her father paid for it. That wasn’t solidarity.
When her mom turned 50, the results of a couple of decades sitting poolside drinking began to show in her skin, and in her eyes. She slurred her words more, and fell asleep snoring with half-read magazines in her lap as the sun beat down on her tanned skin.
Melissa heard her mumble her father’s name in her sleep, it was hard to make it all out but she heard the words sorry, and forgive. Then Melissa kissed her head.
But Angie still had the occasional day of laughter, and music. She loved Madonna, and when she came on the radio, she didn’t ask, rather insisted that her daughter come and dance with her.
They’d twirl each other to Material Girl, or Like a Virgin and laugh. Angie would tell her about being a teenager in the 80s. The hairspray, the music, the makeup, all of it and how badly she missed it.
“Is that when you met, dad?” Melissa asked one afternoon, and Angie stared off for a moment, a tear escaping her eye and she answered. “Yeah, I met him at one of my girlfriends houses. She threw a party and there he was. A big mess of hair and a million dollar smile. Jesus, that man could make me weak at the knees.”
“You loved him?”
“More than the world, until you.” She brushed Melissa’s cheek and smiled. Angie looked old, she looked tired, but she looked ready. Ready to answer Melissa’s questions.
“What happened, mah? Dad isn’t a bad guy. I know he isn’t. Why do you hate him so much?”
“I don’t hate him, honey.”
“Then why aren’t we together?”
Angie asked for a refill before she’d spill her guts. Madonna finished singing and Angie sat back down on the lawn chair. Melissa grabbed her empty glass and poured them both pink lemonades mixed with 7up instead. She still wrapped the cherries around the top and wondered if her mother would even know the difference. She hoped not. She wanted the story before Angie passed out again in the sun.
She took a sip and gave Melissa a sad smile, like she knew what her daughter was trying to do. It was like the guilt of years of being drunk all hit her like a tsunami with one sip of pink lemonade.
Angie told her daughter about her father. Smart as a whip, handsome. A man who knew what he wanted and didn’t question the world, or his place in it. Angie never stopped doing that. Always prone to depression and manic episodes, Greg’s constant things will get better, look at the bright side of life mentality began to drive Angie crazy.
“He was a fucking self help book, Mel. He never stopped trying to fix me, instead of just saying, I’m this way and you’re that way. He wanted me to be him. There was no one Greg was more in love with than Greg, honey. Don’t ever doubt that for a second.”
Then she paused and took another sip of lemonade.
“Then we got pregnant with you, baby. And I was scared. I wanted you to be okay being broken, because if you came from me, there was a chance you were going to inherit some of my shit. And I knew that your father wasn’t going to accept it, hun. He was going to spend every day of your life telling you to just stop being broken. To just move on. To just be a fucking humanoid robot. And I know, baby. I know that I wasn’t a great mother and your father leaving hurt me more than I expected. But I never wanted you to be anything other than what you were. That’s all I ever wanted.”
Melissa stopped asking questions, and the two of them sat in the lawn chairs, drinking pink lemonade and listening to the radio.
On her 18th birthday, her father called her. Melissa had just gone through her first real heartbreak. The boy she lost her virginity to. Benny Maxwell had dumped her for another girl, and that was it. She came home and cried, and Angie held her like a child, never once telling her to get over it, or that it would pass. She remained quiet, except occasionally telling her, “It hurts, baby. It hurts like hell.” That’s it.
“How’s my girl?” He asked.
“Not bad, dad. Still a little sad.”
“Oh well you’ll get over that, honey. You know how I know that?”
“How?”
“Because you’re my daughter, and old Greg never let a cloudy day stop him from taking a walk. And you won’t either. Pain is just weakness leaving the body, baby, remember that.”
“Yeah, thanks dad.”
“No problem, sweetie. So, you’re 18 now, are you still thinking about moving in with your old man? Making up for lost time?”
Melissa walked to the window of her bedroom and saw her mother swaying to the music, singing a lot with the radio and smiled. She laughed, and her father asked what she was laughing about, and she said nothing, just something her friend had said at school earlier.
She kept watching her mother, sway and twirl, and then watched her fall in the pool. She burst out into laughter, and her father, annoyed, said, “What’s going on over there?”
“Nothing, daddy. Just mom being silly.”
“Uh-huh.”
Angie gave Melissa a thumbs up from the pool. “I’m okay, sweetie.” She said, “Mommy is okay.” And she pulled herself back out of the pool and continued to dance, like nothing had happened.
Melissa talked to her father for a few more minutes and then told him she had to go and that she’d think about moving in with him.
Melissa walked downstairs and opened the back door. “Do you need a drink, mom? I’m going to pour myself one.”
“I’d love one, honey.”
Melissa walked to the fridge and poured them both pink lemonade with 7up. That’s all Melissa had been pouring them since they talked about her father, and Angie had not once asked her to change it back to gin.
They sat by the pool drinking their lemonades and Angie said, “I got a job interview.”
“What?”
“Yup. I’m going to get my ass back to work and I’m thinking of getting out of here. Getting a small place downtown, and be a part of the scene again, you know? This place is boring.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And Mel, no pressure at all, but you’re more than welcome to join me.”
Melissa smiled.
The Semester Has Ended... And You’re Still Here
Spring uniforms.
As usual Fuwa-san wore it with confidence, a shirt just one size bigger and a longer skirt than was expected. But boys still looked anyways.
She would swap out the charms on her bag from snowmen and cool tone anime characters for summer edition shoujo girls in their beach outfits and a smiling sun.
Smiling vibrantly toward me, while I cringed at the length of my own short skirt she offered up, one of her wonderful, fun ideas. "We should hang out over the summer Kita-chan! Whaddya say? Come on please say yes," holding my manicured hands in her own equally long and delicate fingers.
She still wanted to hang out. Even without a cake to make or a fall festival plushie fundraising stand to organize.
People called me smart, they called me astute and collected. A prim, perfect little lady.
That is not what happened.
All I could force out of my gaping mouth was a squeak, nodding my head as my whole body to my hir went hot.
"I hate you," I despaired a bit later, clutching my bag close.
Fuwa-san laughed in delight. "I am so sorry, genuinely."
Placing that sisterly hand on my shoulder, holding me safe from the eyes I always imagined found me worth even a single glance.
But then, I figured she'd sign up for some athletics camp or a neighborhood contest and forget all about it. And it would be training season, me with the stopwatch as I wrote up her scores. And printed them out for her later.
We'd go for boba tea and my choice of sweets to get out of the hot sun. I did know food.
She did not forget. As the sun beat down outside, two days into the school break I'd received my first guest.
Fuwa-san marveled at the property and then the spacious apartment I and occasionally my parents called home.
"Oh wow, diligent as usual!" she called out already in the living room. On an oblong apple wood table I had spread out my booklets and a new notebook for scratch work. "Man you've run through your Calc like it was nothing. That's amazing."
"Thanks," I said quietly.
She had on quite a nice casual outfit with a white pin up skirt and thick black overalls, a graphic tee, and a pink plaid shirt over that several sizes too big.
I was looking way too much.
She continued talking and praising me.
I put a hand to my mouth, feeling that rush of butterflies in my stomach, taking well-detailed note in my mind of how she bent over my notes. How her hair hung down her face.
"I-- I wasn't, do you need some help?"
Her eyes went a bit big before she quickly swatted a dismissive hand. That she had manicured with the Nexus Violet I had once recommended her over Christmas.
"No, no nothing like that I swear. Like I said, I hoped we could hang out some."
Fuwa-san put her hands behind her back and smiled, looking to me for permission, the picture of innocence.
As I was in a horrible grey nightgown not having bothered to change or even run a comb through my hair. And I knew it was horrible, I knew it was the last sort of garment to take for a sleepover with girls-- exactly so my mother didn't insist on it!
"Just let me change," I decided with a nod.
"Okay," she acquiesced happily.
"Please, raid the fridge if you want. The housekeeper made chili pepper karaage last night," a comment that made stars light her eyes. "Housekeeper! Dang your parents must really do well! That is so cool. My Mom runs a gym," and said with as much pride a princess might, wrapped up in a nostalgia, "I never had a chance I guess. It was run like my life depended on it or don't bother coming to where Mama was during work hours!"
"I suppose so," I agreed smiling softly at the absolute beauty of her laugh. That brought to mind a storm of flower petals. Their sweet smell. Their delicate texture and the way one had to be so gentle to hold them between two fingers.
I'd labored in my closet for at least a day to try and find something that was remotely fun and fit for the season. And not another grim, notice-me-not ploy or just my absolutely abysmal grasp of femininity.
The best I could end up doing was scorching hot black pants that wore a bit tight around my hips and a large red crop top shirt.
And then went through the agonizing process to make my hair remotely presentable with one right-sided length brushed just so in a sweep over my brow.
Beginning to hear the sounds of oil sizzling in a pan and then the hiss of ingredients being added-- I incredulously wondered just what in the world Fuwa-san was doing.
But I otherwise surrendered. Having gotten used to much more audacious and out-of-pocket. My parents need never know of such a borderline rude friend.
Not that they'd seemed so disapproving of my very passive walk across the cherry lined walkways of school life.
I decided some makeup could, make such a ridiculously bold look work for me. Exercising just a moment of caution before darting for my Mother's room and her bloody red deep lipstick.
When I finally came out, it was with tense shoulders-- a constant run of thoughts darkening the corners around my mind-- but in some little corner protected by white lilies and the fond touch lined with dirt, was the knowledge at least Fuwa-san was never laughing.
Even so, she was struck completely dumb to see me.
She was struck, with such overwhelming pride. She was struck from seeing me at my best.
"Oh my goodness, I wish we could take you out and show you off. But men better stay away because you, you are all mine," and in that sentiment collared me by the neck with her upper arm. But it didn't hurt. It never did.
She had prepared braised asparagus shoots with carrots and red potato in black pepper and virgin oil to join the spicy chicken.
Fuwa-san had also found a pitcher of pink lemonade. I got out two large glasses and filled them with ice, then poured in the drink to the tip.
"Thank you very much for the add on," I said as I passed each glass, one for her and in front of her, one for me. "And you did it perfectly."
She put a hand to the back of her head, I noticed how she sat on the chrome stool with her legs splayed much as they would go. "Thanks, that's high praise. Heck Zoo-zoo you really surprise me, I mean you never do have to cook if you don't want to," Fuwa-san blew her piece before placing the entire fried meat in her mouth.
I looked down, a bit abashed when remembering--
"And you just up and decided I'mma learn this all new skill and the lifestyle associated with it for a guy," Fuwa-san huffed, "I still say he's absolutely an idiot to pass on someone that dedicated. But then again not that I'm complaining, I like in-her-books, fashion forward schooltime goth princess much better."
I jolted at the remark. And guzzled my lemonade.
Standing, I took up the landline, "I'm going to order some dessert. They have no strawberry flavor, so is raspberry flavor and lemon custard cookies okay? Or we can go with strawberry cheesecake."
"That raspberry thing sounds absolutely perfect. Don't worry too much," she assured, "I can't wait to taste your upper crust bakery sweets."
I turned away, angrily humiliated and having turned a vibrant pink.
I took up a happier tone than usual to speak with the representative on the call. See Fuwa.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon, summer assignments completely forgotten that I was criss crossed behind Fuwa-san, weaving a braid into her usually wild dark hair. She'd elected to take off her flats, letting bare toes experience cold air, and often fidgeted her legs.
The bakery box was just beside me, half empty.
Our glasses sweating on the carpeted floor of my room as well.