Tequila Veritaserum Elixir
I never said alcohol made everything better, because it never did, but after tequila shot number six, it certainly changed the way you saw people.
For once, I thought my mum was fucking fun!
And here she was—cheering with the crowd while Chantelle was giving quite a performance on stage, unleashing her wild inner animal spirit that I had no idea she had in her. I had only guessed.
“Oh my God!” my mum exclaimed, her voice barely audible over the thumping bass.
“That man looks like Terry Crews.” A broad, giddy smile beamed on her face, her eyes gleaming, crinkling at the corners.
“Oh! He is so…” She suddenly let out a chuckle, the redness of her cheeks betraying her as she quickly covered her face.
“Hot?” I stared at her with a smirk. “Come on, Mum, you can say it,” I urged.
“Oh! No, I can’t.” She kept blushing.
“Mum?” I teased her playfully.
“I’m a married woman, Florence!” She tried to keep her composure. “I can’t say it, especially in front of my children.”
“Say it, Mum, for crying out loud!” I blurted with a laugh.
“I won’t do such a thing!” She shook her head. “It’s inappropriate!” But, of course, being here was.
“Oh my God! Now you must say it!” I raised a brow, challenging her. “Say it!” I repeated. Jo and Kim started to chant the same words at my side. “Say it! Say it!”
“What are we making her say?” Francine asked as she joined the mantra.
“Say it!” I pressed on.
“Alright! Alright!” my mum sputtered, her eyes closed from embarrassment. Then with a wince on her crimson face she blurted, “That man is insanely hot!”
“Yeeees!” We all beamed, laughing. “Yes, Mum!”
“My goodness! You all make me blush!”
After who-knows-how-many drinks, boy, I thought, the hangover tomorrow was going to be a real bitch. The world slowly blurred at its corners and even my mum, who usually kept her emotions in check, tapped her palm rhythmically against the table to Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack.’
“I’ve got a question for y’all.” Kim’s words wobbled out of her mouth. “What is your favourite body part?” She purred the words with a smirk. “On a man? Or a woman?”
“Oh! That’s easy!” Chantelle rolled her eyes with a snort. “Fingers.” She counted, folding hers one by one. “Tongue and, well, you know.” Her brows wriggled suggestively, making my mum erupt in laughter. “In that exact order!” she quickly added.
Francine merely shrugged. “I’m not even surprised.”
“Anyone else have a better answer?” Chantelle grinned.
“Mum?” I looked at her.
“If I had to pick just one…” My mother momentarily chewed on her lip. “Alright.” She let out a giddy chuckle. “Arms, definitely arms!”
“Elizabeth,” Kim slurred, “I like that!”
“That was the first thing I noticed when I met their father,” she muttered with a bashful smile, then quickly glanced at me and Jo. And those juicy details were probably enough for me to know.
“I’m with you on that, Elizabeth,” Kim agreed, pushing her shoulders back into her chair as her gaze drifted across the crowd. “God, those arms wrapped around you…”
“It has to be his strong jaw for me,” Francine said, her voice dreamy as she sighed. “If you have that, I’m all yours.”
“Ooft.” Jo bit her lip. “That chiselled look. Makes you totally weak in the knees.”
“I know, it’s so…”
“Masculine?” Jo offered.
“Mmm,” Francine hummed with a nod, tracing the outline of her own jawline with a delicate finger. “Deliciously.”
“Alright, Jo-Jo.” Chantelle cocked her brow at my sister. “Now your turn to spill the beans!”
“Yes! Let’s hear what the bride-to-be has to say,” my mother beamed.
“Um, eyes,” she said without hesitation, her voice catching in her throat. There was a tinge of bittersweet there, quickly masked by her quivering lips, and I wondered whose eyes she actually meant.
“You?” Jo darted a look at me.
I traced the rim of my glass, remembering the way Miles’ platinum strands fell over his gaze as he smiled. “Hair,” I murmured, my voice barely a whisper.
Chantelle raised her brow. “What kind? Short? Long?”
“It’s not just the hair,” I admitted, feeling a warmth spread through me as I pictured his confident smile, his welcoming lips…the way he pressed them against mine, slow and deliberate, his warm breath ghosting over my skin as I hummed. Mmm, his scent.
“How short are we talking?” Francine asked while I was still drifting in my thoughts, remembering the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he looked at me, drawing me into them like that day at the beach.
It was his arms and his chest as he curled me into sleep, his low chuckle rumbling against my ear.
“Earth to Florence?” Chantelle chuckled, waving a hand in front of my face. “You gonna answer my question or what?”
“Oh!” I squeezed my eyes shut, then swallowed, shaking off this dizzying rush in my head. “What was the question?”
***
Walking down the street, a few lamps flickered against the wet asphalt, illuminating our way home.
The coolness of the night enveloped us as my mother and I sauntered behind the girls, arms crossed, hands clutching our jackets tightly, a slight shiver running down my spine.
Then a soft yawn escaped my mouth. Surprise, surprise, there were nearly four hours left until my alarm clock would go off.
My feet hurt, my head was slightly spinning, and I was so, so exhausted.
Inhaling the fresh scent of linden, we both let out a deep exhale.
“He does have great hair,” my mother mumbled, her voice tired.
“Yeah. He really does,” I breathed in agreement, then sighed. “And you should probably know, and I hate to admit it, that your plan worked. So, you can gloat now all you want.”
My mother softly chuckled. “Is that your way of saying I was right?”
“Perhaps,” I shrugged. He did bother me. He did vex me. And he did challenge me. My heart quickened each time I saw him. He might have had the best and worst effect on me, but God, he did make me feel. From that very first day we met.
“What you should know, Florence, is that people like you and me sometimes simply need a gentle nudge,” she said with a short laugh, “because with the level of stubbornness you inherited from me, we only harm ourselves.”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, glancing at her, confused.
“Of course you don’t. God, you remind me so much of myself.
And this might not be the comparison you want to hear,” she added with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
But she was right, I didn’t. “But after years of fighting you, I realised it was as ineffective as you fighting me. We are alike, more than you want to admit, and I know you won’t. For the exact same reason.”
“So, your point—”
“My point, Florence, is that I want you to be happy, and that boy brings fire in your eyes. The day I found you two bickering. And, God, all that nonsense about his skin care routine…” Another chuckle left her lips. “…it was way too entertaining to watch.”
“I knew you didn’t buy it,” I muttered.
“At all,” she said, making my mouth playfully tug at its corners.
Maybe because I was tipsy, but, surprisingly, I didn’t feel angry at my mother for doing everything she did over the past two weeks.
“When I saw you that day, I saw myself in you, that girl who stood at the night beach, fighting a man who, too, set the fire in her.” Oh, Mum .
“That’s why I pushed you. Because, just like me, you need a little nudge.
Because, just like me, you are impossibly stubborn. ”
I glanced at my mother, digesting her words slowly.
Yes, I did hate to admit it—so much of her I saw in myself.
Whenever someone would ask who I took after, I tried to put space between her and me, picking the parent I wanted to look more like—my father.
But the truth was, I was deceiving myself and the rest of the people around me.
“This isn’t the relationship I hoped to have with my daughter, but I have to try to hold onto what it is,” my mother sighed. “That’s why I kept that newspaper, Florence. At least that way I could still have a part of you.”
“Mum…” I whispered, my throat tightening.
“I understand that I was harsh with you, and God knows you’re no saint yourself,” she admitted, rubbing her temples.
“Ugh, my head is going to regret this night tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure if she meant the drinks or our conversation.
“You know what makes us alike?” she asked, her gaze locking with mine.
“We’ll do anything to prove the other wrong. And you…you proved me wrong.”
“But, Mum, I don’t want us to be this way,” I pleaded, our footsteps echoing softly in the quiet street. “I just need you to be my mother.”