Honey Daiquiri
If you still don’t get it, me and my sister are totally going to spill secrets here. We’re going for memoir, but low profile enough that every member of our family doesn’t sue or dismember us…
by Nicole Brown
Meet Daiquiri
So look, funny story: One night a happy married couple leave their son and daughter with their parents for a night out on the town. They go to their favourite bar ‘A Shot of Tequila’ and get pretty laced. Then nine months later they name their new daughter Daiquiri. Yes, you heard right, Daiquiri Katherine Saks, subjecting her to a life filled with torment.
By now you can guess that the poorly-named, misunderstood girl in this story is in fact me. Yes…I am Daiquiri Katherine Saks. Although in retrospect you could say I’ve got it easy; my sister’s name is Honey. Aww… Honey…
I have lived a very simple life. There is, in fact, nothing special about me. Unless you count having ginormous double-D breasts before the age of thirteen ‘special’ and not ‘paedophile bait’, then I’m a national treasure. Oh right, and my name is Daiquiri.
Still, growing up and attending an all-girls primary school I had no friends and spent the majority of my years trying to get people to like me and/or crying alone on the playground because they didn’t. I was invisible. And when I finally did make a friend, Robin, she was ripped right under me by the girl that made it her primary goal to make me an outcast. She spread her rumours, she ostracised me at all our breaks, never invited me to her ‘rad’ parties and deemed anyone who hung out with me for more than twenty minutes my lesbian partner, until eventually the entire school took the hint and left me alone in limbo. And for a nine-year-old girl that was sick of being different, that was probably the moment I realised- all girls suck. So I did what any nine-year-old would do. I turned… to BOYS.
Into a boy my mother would say, because this is where I pull a classic Barney Stinson over-correction. I didn’t cut my hair or burn my bras but I did refuse to take part in anything ‘cool and girly’. The girls in school all read Jacquelyn Wilson, I read X-Men comics- and the occasional Honey Saks novel. And Honey should not write books for nine-year-olds. They all joined gymnastics, I quit ballet and joined my dads basketball club. My father was proud at least, but my mother…not so much, but let’s be honest, I only joined ballet because of Honey. I was still in that phase where you assume your older sister’s identity because it makes you feel whole inside. But I totally grew out of that. Right Honey?
Then halfway between my ninth and tenth birthday I realised a sad sad thing. You can cut your hair, burn your bras, quit ballet and even refuse to shave your legs, but you can’t…escape…hormones. Enter Teddy Lucas, my first love, and a loong story.
I’m a survivor of St Matthews CE High School, and I really do mean survivor because at any given minute I was sure a student would go crazy and start chopping off people’s heads with their dad’s stolen machete…Namely me. I would have hardcore killed them all because I know it sounds like a Church of England school, but because of recent changes in headmaster, it conformed into becoming a refugee camp for slut-bags, drug addicts and ‘dem badmans’ on probation.
Be that as it may, it did teach me five main things:
- You can’t trust anyone. Not your friends, not your crush and definitely not the cafeteria ladies.
- When you think it can’t get worse, believe me it can, with an extra dose of hormones and a dash of self-loathing.
- Girls – are A Lot more vindictive when guys are present. #TheJoysOfAMixedSchool.
- No matter what environment or however many girls are present, I will always have the biggest breasts in the room, making me both a target and an ideal friend to have close – but not too close! – to act as a homing beacon for guys. And –
- I would rather peel off my eyelids, dance in a fire pit and then swim in a vat of toxic acidic waste then allow myself to be anything like any of these skanky wretched girls. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
Honey would be so proud; I actually made a list.
Coming into College I thought I would need to leave this list behind me. People are older, they don’t value the same things they used to – maybe I’ll be cool! But as it turns out, I was really really wrong.
Rule number One Daks, what’s rule number One!
*
Daks’s Diary
Friday 10th September 2014
Why won’t she stop talking? I think to myself as I stare ahead at this clearly emotionally damaged, insecure, train wreck waiting to happen – Katrina Martins. She has more piercings on her face alone than I have the time to try and count and let’s not forget the one dangling seductively from her belly button that makes her look like a stripper trying to make ends meet Les Mis style.
Her face is pasted from top to collarbone in make-up, so much so that I can’t tell if she’s mix-raced or just been shot by the Homer Gun #TheSimpsons-TryToTakeThemOffTheAir-IDareYou. She has the longest weave I’ve ever seen tangled in her hair and what I like to call the John Cena ‘you-can’t-see-me’ fringe swept across her entire forehead framing her face. She’s pretty I guess in some sense, but if you can’t tell already by that description, she’s trying way too hard. And after all of that weighing up can you believe she is still talking?
Why won’t she stop talking?!
‘…And I was like to her, look if you don’t like him then could you please like just stop talking to him ‘cause like, it makes me uncomfortable and then she was like, I don’t like him it’s just complicated ‘cause he’s like a brother to me, which is fine like, I don’t want to seem like a clingy girlfriend – ‘cause remember I said before I hate feeling like I’m bugging people? So yeah it’s like really annoying ‘cause she’s my best friend but I just really wish they’d not talk as much like…do you get what I mean? Am I making any sense at all?’
I blink back at her perplexed. ‘Like, define sense?’ I say as she laughs, leaning back against her seat, and something tells me she didn’t get my sarcastic mocking tone. She sighs.
‘See I told you this is what I mean I’m really like bad at my words, I’m not good at explaining things.’
‘No I think I got it… You’ve got a boyfriend-’
‘Mo.’
‘Right, and he’s friends with Selam-’
‘No but she’s also my best friend.’
‘Ok, and you’ve been friends for? -’
‘Like seven years, it’s been ages, but she knew Mo first and they sort of had a thing so he asked her out but she said no – but I don’t know I just think they might still have feelings for each other – like, do you see what I mean now?’
I watch her a moment completely mystified, deciding whether or not to follow my urge from last week and just stand and walk far far away, but instead take a deep breath and listen to the scorned teenage girl inside me who was slightly and regrettably intrigued.
‘So let me get this straight.’ I say as she stares up at me, wide-eyed. ‘Your boyfriend, Mo, had a ‘thing’ with your best friend Selam. He asked her out and she said no and so now – months later – he’s with you, while still talking to her, calling her pet names like baby and beautiful and turning up at her house at odd hours of the morning and night. He gets her to lie to you for him so he could go shopping with her and his mum, during which he screened your calls and then basically said he wasn’t sorry?’ She nodded clearly oblivious to the obvious message he was sending. ‘Katrina…I’m confused.’
‘See so am I and I don’t know what to do-’
‘No-no, I’m confused at your confusion because you don’t know what to do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Break up with him.’
‘What? No – then he’ll hook up with other people!’
‘My point exactly! What are you missing out on?’
‘But he’s my boyfriend.’
‘And he’s scum. Katrina you should have never gone out with him in the first place.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s in love with Selam! Who’s also – for whatever reason and if I remember correctly – your best friend!’
‘So?’
‘So it’s not a coincidence sweetheart he’s using you to get closer to her!’ She pauses a moment trying to decipher this brand new puzzle of information in her ignorant little brain while I shake my head turning back to the window of the train in disbelief of what this generation has come to.
So stupid, and I know that I sound like I’m being harsh to this stranger I met just a week ago, but there are certain people that give off the vibes of someone you once knew. Unfortunately for Katrina, that person is Brianna Orlebar. – Another long story.
‘So say you’re right, and he is just using me to get closer to her, does that mean that he still loves her or… ooh Daiquiri I don’t understand.’
‘Katrina, I can’t help you. In all honesty I’ve never even met the boy or Selam so for all I know they really could just be like brother and sister. They’re not, but who’s to say? I did, but it’s up to you.’
‘So you’re saying I should keep a close eye on them?’
‘I’m saying you should dump him and run like the wind, but sure, ok, keep a close eye on his cheating.’
‘But that’s what I’ve been doing though but I don’t know.’ I shrug, unhelpfully I admit, but it’s gained me enough time to steal a look at the station as the train pulls up to West Croydon. I stand as she looks up at me desperately. ‘Where are you – is this your stop?’
‘Yup.’
‘I thought you said Thornton Heath?’
‘Yeah but the bus.’ I manoeuvre around her quickly gathering my belongings before she has a chance to realise that sentence didn’t quite make sense as she follows after me.
‘Ok well I’ll talk to you about it Monday then yeah? I’m about to meet Selam now so I’ll tell you what she says.’ I step off the train as she smiles back at me thankfully. ‘Bye babes.’ My body cringes.
‘Bye Katrina.’
And it really should’ve been…
*
It’s a new day. The sun is out, my sister will soon be pregnant (I mean, it’s inevitable) and I will be an aunt. I will no longer think about jerks from my past, Brianna Orlebar, or the fact that my last ‘sort-of-not-really’ boyfriend was Quest Strikers. It’s a new day.
I stretch my arms out on my tiny bed as the bottom of my legs dangle off the end of it freely. I yawn happily, because whenever I wake up past noon, I know it’s going to be a good –
Vrmph-Vrmph, says my tiny Sonny Ericsson. Oo I have a text. Oh it’s from Honey!
‘Gerard Butler isn’t Irish. He’s SCOTTISH!’ I stare down at the screen, and in one moment –
‘All hope is lost.’
Stay tuned for more Honey Daiquiri, including Honey’s Hunky Husband.
