A customer turns the corner and heads toward my sidewalk café on Oak Street.

Just a man walking a dog on a hot day. That’s what the average person might see. But my entrepreneurial mind races through the demographics and likely spending habits of this prospective customer.

Disposable income is up for males in the 35-44 age bracket, which is where I place this fellow. And when I calculate the entertainment and dining percentages, especially on a Saturday afternoon scorcher in August, I think my café is exactly where he needs to be. And, yes, he starts to reach for his back pocket.

“Hey, mister! Over here. May I pet your doggie?”

Drat, it’s my competitor! He is trying to lure MY customer to Louie’s, that new establishment across the street. Who does he think he is? Doesn’t he know that most startups are doomed to fail?

No! My customer is stopping. His dog tugs on the leash, and they start to cross the street.

But I wasn’t born yesterday. I hop on the sidewalk with my delicious product in my left hand and a doggie treat in my right.

“What an adorable Labradoodle, sir!” I coo.

The dog sees my outstretched palm and pulls MY customer back to me. The dog snatches the treat and I offer a tall cool glass of my blushing liquid refreshment, with three glistening ice cubes.

The customer licks his lips between sips. He reaches for his wallet, but I gently shake my head.

“No sir,” I say confidently. “This one is on the house.”

I know that repeat business breeds success. And this customer will be back.

He returns the empty glass and adds, “That is just the cool break I needed.”

As my customer leaves, I catch a glimpse of my glum competitor across the street.

I lean on my card table by the curb, and I pat my taped-on sign, “Carol’s Pink Lemonade.”

“Yes,” I give myself a mental attagirl, “you’ve got to get up pretty early to put one by this seven-year-old.”

dropped

the keys

to the Largo

at the high bar

had to refuel

and the waitstaff

had a nice smile

clicking the notepad

with French manicure

checking her feet,

matching Pedi, too

anything special?

in appropriate drawl

as false lashes drew

attention to the list

on the wall

stuck to my metal

swiveling chair

and shook, no

that's not me

something plain?

well then

she added

off the wall

we, still, have

that pink

lemonade

09.13.2024

If you think

pink

is the optimum color

for a drink,

why not set it down

in ink?

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.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“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.

In the season of mittens and frozen fingers,

And calm quiet nights

The taste of pink lemonade lingers

And her thoughts drift to a sunny paradise

When the blankets are piled sky high

And boots trek daily through the snow

She dreams of winter's goodbye

And the warmth of a summer sun's glow

She imagines the crashing of waves

And sandals and sun dresses and ice-cream

And the seemingly endless summer days

Have already arrived inside her dreams

She pretends that the snow is sand,

And that the grass underneath is still green

She pretends that the glass in her hand

Is full of pink lemonade, not lukewarm tea

Sweltering, silence stirs and crickets abound

In darkness, moonlight quivers all around

Lingering, liquid sensations surpass to surround

Endlessness escalates, knowing no bounds;

Nestling, seeking nature's refuge thus entwined

Ceasing all else, lounging lazily 'neath tall pines

Enraptured by the essence of summer sublime.

Cynthia Calder, 08.29.24

Pale pink, almost orange

Ice in a frosted glass,

Never ending supply of a lemon’s

Kiss, keeping sweet from overpowering

Lips eager for the quenching an

Event worth waiting for patiently still

Moments of raspberry or blueberry

Oranges could punch through with

Nectarine, peach, and apricot too

Addictive fresh pressed fruit

Deliciously paired with lemon’s tart tang

Endlessly supplied by Mom’s clever hand

The nights grow colder now

As I cling to your warm body

The sun sleeps in

The birds fly south

The flower stalks wilt and crumble

The light is blue and golden now

The wind slaps and bites my face

Alone I shiver

But with you

I have warm toes and a cold nose

I can feel the end is drawing in

The end of warm summer days

It's relentless

...The end of us

I bury my face in your neck and deny

My cough grows louder now

My sore throat throbs, limbs ache

Bloodshot eyes

Ghostly yellow skin

A heart heavy with sadness

You hold my face in your palms

And kiss my fevered lips

Stroke my hair

Hold my hand

And tell me 'summer isn't over'

One more gorgeous sunset

One more night in your arms

You face

Your body

I devour them one more time

And then it ends - with a whimper

I walk away, choking on tears

Heart broken

Shivering

As summer waves goodbye

Must be nice biking

down round Kentucky

pop-o-wheelie

bet the kids at heart

find themselves, out there

& think it rather lucky,

stones roll from Nashville's

muddy waters & several

sueded feet off of

that graced land, too

where snake of rivers,

like smoke, signals

wrapping around

the sense and senses,

of someplace upstream

sockeye salmoned

pink and special

chilling, right on

the other side of

Sunset.

2024 SEP 03

if only you hadn't left your drink

sitting there on the balcony

in hot, carolina heat

sweating, swirling with the pulp,

beads of perspiration

counting the seconds

like a clock -

then maybe

when you lost it

and your temper finally snapped

and your hand slipped and

the knife thudded to the deck,

the drops of blood

wouldn't have dripped

dripped

dripped

right into the glass

with the striped paper straw

and the long-melted ice

and I would not have looked down

and seen my own life

blossom and bloom in the glass

and I would not have

any reason to hate

pink lemonade

or any lemonade,

the way that I do now.