Honey Daiquiri
Feelings; an example of something really important that doesn’t matter. Like Lord Sugar. Or paying back your student loan #paradox…
by Miniq Brown
Honey’s Hush
I’ve decided to take up meditation. I need something that will calm me, bring me to my centre, restore my sense of self-control. My only issue is that here, in the quiet, I am most clearly able to hear the resounding echo of the barren wasteland that is my empty womb.
Yup, it has officially been six months since Whit and I started trying for a baby and I am pretty certain that I’m infertile. Now, as you know by now, I’m not a pessimist- hey, stop it, stop laughing, stop rolling the cut-to of everything negative I’ve ever said!- Like I was saying, I’m not a pessimist. I won’t call myself a realist, people say that as an excuse to be cynical, I would just call myself incredibly self-aware. And this awareness has allowed me to understand that my body is totally useless and broken and fit for nothing but being tossed into the scrap heap of my youth and propelled prematurely into the abyss of early-onset menopause.
There, I’ve said it, the worst possible thing, now please, please, don’t let it be true! I know it’s only six months, six months is nothing, and really with the last eight months of uni up ahead of me, this is the worst possible time to get pregnant, but it’s all I think about! And there are pregnant women everywhere. Have you ever really looked? Between the months of July and October you can’t go more than two steps without seeing a woman in her third trimester. Go on, try it. She her? Now take two more steps and you’ll still see her, (seriously they’re huge, they must ALL be having twins).
The other day I was in H&M looking for new underwear and just as I got to the end of the aisle I came bump-to-face with a pregnant mannequin. That’s right, even the plastic skank got to have a baby before I do. It was like I had PTSD, I saw She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named a.k.a. Jezebel’s face. I smelled Alli’s new mom smell. I thought about Don Simon. And I couldn’t help it. I slapped her. I slapped the mannequin right across her stupid plastic pregnant face.
I’d like to say that I’m not proud of myself but that wouldn’t be true. It felt good, I recommend it. I’d do it again.
It wouldn’t even be so bad if my periods weren’t so irregular. I’ll go six weeks without a period and think, ‘Yes! This could be it!’ And then, ‘Boom, Clap, the sound of my cycle. Extra Painful, ner ner ner ner ner na!’ #CharliXCX
I don’t know what to do. Dad says stop thinking about it. Stress with make it worse. Leave it alone and let it happen on its own. Not worry about it? Sure, that sounds like me Dad. But hey, I’ll try anything, so here we go. Initiate Honey’s Hush.
‘Ommmmmnnn.’
From the Diary of Marie Sax
17th August 2015
First Anniversary!
We made it! It’s been a year. No murders, no police intervention at all! Much more than I could have hoped marrying an Irishman- I told him that, he sipped his Jamesons and smirked.
I have to take a moment to revel in the sense of achievement. My relationship is officially out of the honeymoon phase- no I’m totally kidding, I know there’s no such thing. We had more murder-rage inducing fights than there were weekends this past year. We’ve gotten under each other’s skin- well, Whit got under mine, I’m an angel and far too good for him. We’ve disagreed. We’ve made up. We’ve realised just how little we know each other and just how long forever is. But we’re still here. That’s marriage people.
Whit took me to dinner! It was good, one of those fancy places where you look like a toilet-trained baboon picking out the correct sized cutlery per course. It was wonderful, except at the end of the night when they charged us 12.5% automatically on our bill. A service charge, the waiter explained- yes, the same waiter that had asked if I wanted to see the wine list and then pointed to all the of cheapest bottles because he thought they would “suit me”. Now, call me crazy, but aren’t tips supposed to be optional? I know it’s the done thing to feel sorry for servers for being paid so little- one might suggest rethinking their life choices- but I really don’t. Why should I pay the value of an extra meal for the pleasure of the waiter walking ten steps from my table to the kitchen to relay my order? If it’s that much trouble I’ll just shout it really loud, or walk to the pass myself to collect it buffet style. I may be a backwards thinking charlatan, but wouldn’t a better option be to pay your staff what they deserve rather than having the struggling young couple desperate for a night away from their demanding lives with the last fifty bucks in their account do it for you? I would rather stay at home than pay for an extra meal that I did not eat. Yes they gave me an awful look as I sauntered, in the dress that was worth the same as they suggested I tip, out of the restaurant, but I did not feel bad. I held my head up high. I will not tip unless I feel compelled to. And this is coming from me, I WAITED TABLES! FOR A YEAR! AND THEN I WENT TO UNI TO MAKE SOMETHING OF MY LIFE! I’m sorry, I just had to get that out. If I ever own a restaurant I will print it on the walls, ‘No obligation to tip my servers, I pay them better than your boss pays you!’, and I bet you I’ll have customers and employees alike lined up around the block.
Anyway, one year. One year of Whit putting up with my tirades (see above). Am I happy? Well, other than thinking I was out-of-my-mind-stoned-drunk-crazy to get married so young, yeah, I’m happy. Plus, I am the sole beneficiary of a pretty large life insurance policy. How many single people can say that?
I arrive at Mom and Dad’s about ten seconds before Daiquiri decides it’s her turn to be exactly anywhere else and goes running out the door, head bowed, headphones in. I sigh. Yup, this is my life now. Honey Marie Sax-Adams, professional room clearer. Antisocial behaviour isn’t just an attribute, it’s a career.
Mom decided to bunker down in her room after only the briefest hello. I wouldn’t say that she was on Daks’s side, but let’s just say if this was Aniston versus Brangelina, I’m rocking the FRIENDS top and she’s adopting several Multi-ethnicity orphans. (I just realised in light of recent events in the Sax household that might seem insensitive, that’s totally not how I meant it). Bugsy has found himself squarely in the middle and so ignores us both in equal measures. Dad, however, totally gets my side, must be an older sibling thing.
‘This whole situation is your fault, as is everything dating back to your sister’s conception, you know that right?’ My dad says as we sit in the living room and he irons basketball kits. Okay, so maybe he didn’t say that exactly, it might have been more diplomatic and “can you see where you may have influenced matters” counsellor speak, but to me, infertile, not pessimistic but perhaps with a slightly bruised ego, that’s exactly how it sounds.
‘Dad I have done everything I can for Daiquiri, I have put up with her crap, watched her make the same mistakes time and time again all with the juvenile naivety that things will all be okay without her ever having to take responsibility for her actions while she prances about her little garden. I am done. It’s over. She clearly doesn’t care enough to fix things so, whatever.’
‘I get what you’re saying. Daiquiri doesn’t take responsibility. But Honey, you’re the older sister. You’re supposed to forgive her.’
‘I do forgive her. I forgive her for being an idiot child, but that doesn’t mean I have to stick around and continue to be hurt by her.’
‘She’s seventeen!’
‘Exactly! She’s seventeen! Not eleven. You can’t keep making excuses for her.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Then why are you always telling me that I should be the one who has to be the bigger person. Make allowances for poor Daiquiri. No! Not anymore! It’s time she put some effort in too. Otherwise she just doesn’t care, and why on earth am I bothering? Listen to me, I’m here, crying, hurting, and where is she? Frolicking around Croydon happy.’
‘She’s not happy. She misses you.’
‘She seems fine to me dad. Her and Rachel laughing, constantly, always on their phones texting, doing the typical passive-aggressive teenage girl thing which I hate. Acting exactly like all those girls that hated me in high school. Knowing that she was my only real friend. And I’m that girl again, eating alone in the bathroom. My own sister is doing this to me, regressing me so far. She doesn’t miss me. She doesn’t even like me.’
‘Daiquiri worships you,’ Dad interrupts. ‘Her whole life’s ambition is to be you.’
‘That’s the problem. She wants to be me, and so she thinks that the only way that can happen is by my total eradication. She wants to replace me.’
‘She loves you Honey, so much. And she doesn’t want to disappoint you, doesn’t want to fail around you. She’s terrified she won’t be good enough so she doesn’t try.’
‘That shouldn’t be an excuse.’
‘It’s not. But surely you can allow her room to grow?’
‘I’m just… I’m exhausted dad. I feel like she’s my child, and she’s not. She’s my sister. She’s supposed to be my companion, my equal. I need her to be what I asked you and mom for all those years ago. I need her to be my friend.’
Blubbering like a preadolescent Gossip Girl in front of my dad, check. Yet another thing marked off my humiliation bucket list to go alongside wetting myself in front of the guy I like and my mom waving my first ever bra above her head at my tenth birthday party. The rate this is going I just might make my way up to borrowing clothes from Miley Cyrus’s VMA closet after all.
Dad was right, I know he was. I should give it time, I shouldn’t write Daiquiri off, but I wasn’t lying, I’m exhausted. Maybe it’s an omen, maybe I’m not supposed to have a baby with all of this immaturity hanging over my head. So, I bite my tongue. I wait for Daiquiri to get back home. I go into the dining room.
‘We need to talk,’ she says before I have a chance to open my mouth. That’s new…
