Mimosas By The Pool

The pizza tasted funny, almost foreign. She couldn’t really tell if it was the residual bile in her throat or if all the flaming shots last night had burnt her taste buds off. For the first time in years, Domino’s tasted foreign. Hangover gourmet had failed her. To top it all, the curtain-less sunny room didn’t help the raging headache. She’d packed the curtains up in one of the many cardboard boxes. She’d sent all the stuff with the moving men. All that remained were packed suitcases, her lay over clothes, the mattress, her laptop, and random going away presents.

Last night was the customary farewell drinks. It’s like she’d earned a professional degree in how to handle farewell drinks, just the right amount of melancholia, right amount of laughter, and total, utter blackout. The lack of memory made walking away easier. Also, hangover auto-pilot mode was somehow very effective in getting work done. But today, for a change she had time. Usually she’d leave early morning. Out before anyone woke up and gone before they could realize. And by the end of the day she’d be home, but this time she wasn’t going home. Not returning to the comfortable old corners of her grandmother’s stories. To be quite honest, she was shit scared.

For someone so unfit, running away had been surprisingly easy for her. The idea of just bolting came easy. Her pace and gait varied, to suit the need of the hour, but always moved steadily forward. Maybe she was looking for something. Maybe she’d left something behind but forgot where and spent her entire life in circles searching for it. She would try very hard to remember, but it’s so easy to forget. Memories get washed out in the rains, clouded like the skies that pour down. Sometimes the sun was too harsh and her photographic memory was useless, for the pictures were over-exposed and blinded white. She tried hard, but failed. So she did what she knew best to do. She just pack her bags and returned to the cozy warm blankets she slept in as a kid.

Life was simple back then. She was simpler back then. She had goals and priorities and unshakable belief in the beauty of her dreams. Yet somehow, nightmares found her. The only cure she had ever known to these night terrors was the familiar smell of her Jaipuri Razai back home. So every time her dreams were on the verge of shattering — or simply put, she was on the verge of shattering — she’d pack her suitcase. Fate seemed to be on her side and ‘Tatkal’ tickets were easy to buy. To fit her life into suitcases and wrap up stories in bubble-wrap was the bane of her urban gypsy lifestyle choices. Yet somehow lugging this baggage along was charming in its own way.

What isn’t charming is the auto-pilot hangover mode she was in. She returned the keys to the landlord and signed the final leave annulments. She’d called the parents. She’d called him. She’d typed in heartfelt goodbyes to friends. She’d had her closure. She was showered and ready. She’d bathed clean of her grime and memories, and her bag was finally packed shut.

Tragically enough, she woke up too early when she was hungover. This meant that it was still too early in the day to have finished wrapping up. And there was still too much time on her hands to go land up at the airport already. She did what any self-respecting individual would do; she opened up her social media accounts to check notifications. He’d tagged her in something. The link redirected her to SoundCloud, to a page with the header: Mimosas By the Pool. She hit ‘Play’ and unwittingly dived head first into nostalgia.

“Maybe we can’t be sitting sipping Mimosas by the pool,
But I’ll still hold you, when you’re falling off the stool,
For second hand furniture’s all I can afford
But never for a second, will you ever be bored,
Of my love…”

The song ended in her tears. She hated how he could melt her supposedly frigid heart. That asshole.

She texted him.
“Heard your song. Could you be less gay?”

He texted back promptly as ever.
“Could you be more of a dick.”
“Admit it, my being a dick turned you gay.”
“Admit that you love my sappiness.”
“Lol. Keep telling yourself that.” She lied to him.
“Better, I’ll include it in our vows.”
“Oh no you wouldn’t. I think I need a divorce lawyer already. You’re putting me on the edge.”
“No, you don’t need a divorce lawyer. You just need me, and mimosas, by the pool.”

She hated to admit it, but he was right. He was always right, that bastard, so much so, that he was Mr. Right. Worse, she, the self-professed cynic believed that he was Mr. Right. Oh god, she hated him. And the worst part was, she loved him more than life itself. And after all those years of running away, she’d run into him. Maybe he was the reason she had been running. Maybe she had been looking for him. Maybe he had been looking for her. Maybe all that running was so that she could sit across from him, look into his eyes and tell him her stories. Maybe it was so that she could find a new cure for her nightmares. The cure was there, in the fold of his elbow. Ugh. She hated him.

In spite of all the alleged hate, he was all she thought about for the rest of the day. He was all she thought about anyway. The hours passed quickly, thanks to many notifications about how brilliant the new song was. She was so busy hating on his fan-girls that she didn’t realize it was almost time. She had to leave. She booked herself an Uber, because this time around she couldn’t run. Somehow this change felt good. Her feet, which had been anticipating the running, learned how to relax for the first time.

She rushed through check-in. She texted him.
‘Taking off now. Hopefully the plane won’t crash.”

So proud of herself right there, she figuratively patted herself on the back for the beautifully cynical text. Then she admonished herself for tearing up a little at his reply.
“Cool, will be there to pick you up either way.”

Her plane took off, and she caught the last few glimpses of the city as it slept in the night. She always felt nights were easier to handle. Nights hugged her in cold windy embraces, like a love she didn’t recognize. It made her shiver. Nights had the shining city lights. Something about city lights told her that there are people sitting around in their homes as lonely as her, working their way through the night for a brighter tomorrow. It was for a tomorrow that they’d walk through, all hazed and sleep-deprived, never really enjoying it. Some nights were lost in nightmares like those.

But then again, nights also showed her the glorious skyline lit by construction lights, and the idea of growth, hope and the coming of something new. It was right then that she knew — somehow she knew — tomorrow was going to be brave and beautiful. And if tomorrow had nightmares in store, she’d finally found her cure.