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.