✔️Romance || WomanxWoman || short novelette was written together with bibi_the_nomad
Sarcastic, sharp-tongued Ava Allard didn't get to college. Almost ten years have passed since then, but the young woman is still working at her mom's misfortunate (...
"Your cassoulet is as tasty as usually!" Libbie is purring like a cat after a particularly tasty late dinner.
"You words are as flattering as usually," mama answers indifferently, but she is blushing.
"You need to cook it in Deux Amis, it's gonna be your hit! I'm sure you need more French food. Do you want me to film some reels or TikToks about your coffeeshop? You can cook something tasty while I'm making videos or taking some nice aesthetic pictures. Avz and I could decorate everything with your beautiful bouquets and other floral compositions. Like this one," my friend pointed at different flowers that were dwelling all around the apartment.
Maman used to be a great florist. Our cute place was decorated by her design: pastel colours were dominant, white furniture and light-coloured floors, fresh flower bouquets and houseplants in adobe clay pots. Elegant light: mama and I were fond of flea markets and garage sales where we bought some really unique lamps. I adored handmade floral patterns on walls and some parts of furniture. If you looked at kitchen walls you could find ceramic plates of different sizes (Morris, Libbie, and Agatha are always giving mama ceramics when they come from Mexico or overseas).
I got distracted by my thoughts about mama's underestimated talents, when Libz seemed to jump off the chair to make new content to promote our cursed place.
Mom laughed, fixing her red locks, "If I do so, you'll never leave our café. You need to do your own work. Avie said you are saving money."
"It's my pleasure to help you, both of you! I swear! We could make your place great again."
Mama laughed, looked at Libbie's face attentively, and asked her a question, "How's your dad, by the way?"
Libbie said something like "MMMRR" almost like her cat when he pretended to be an evil beast.
"I see, I see!" mama sipped her white wine, forcefully compelling our wineglasses away from our plates, our cutlery, and us as if that act would save us from drunkenness and revelry. "I'll talk to him tomorrow. He must stop suffering for your mother. The woman loves freedom, young men, and Mexico, especially young Mexican men. No one can change her mind. Is he in his room like a sad emo kid again?"
We both giggled. She hit the target. Libbie's dad has never been a toxic or abusive alcoholic. Once or twice a year he had that classic moment (usually it happened when Libbie's mother came to visit her daughter or he had to drive Libz to Mexico to her mother).
Morris was always desperately sure he could bring his wife back though they divorced almost twenty years ago, while Agatha was sure her ex was just joking talking about happy family reunion and an eternal flame. Nothing happened between them two no matter what plans he would prepare, of course, and Morris would buy expensive wine, expensive cheeses, expensive cigarettes, and stay in his bedroom for a week or so, sometimes he would sneak to a fridge to get more cheese, pretending to be super sober. He would churn out some classic dad jokes and vanish into darkness of his big cold wifeless bedroom like a ghost of opera.
Libbie was always pissed: she was sure he was a diva who needed to find a new wife. She lived with him in their big house only because she was afraid he could forget to put out a cigarette when in bed or drown in a bubble bath to Whitney Houston songs.
Libbie's father was a relatively wealthy man; he would definitely give her money to rent or buy an apartment, but she was proud as the embodiment of the Soviet proletariat: a weak bourgeois man cannot bind her with money. They both could be such idiots.
We moved to the couch. Mama found her favourite French comedy Fantômas. I think we watched it thousand times, but every time I giggle like a silly teen watching Louis de Funès's funny and charismatic face. We watched it in French. Neither mama nor papa were born in France, but my grandparents moved to America almost together, befriended each other and befriended their kids mercilessly drowning them in French culture. Why, why on earth did my grandparents leave France if they didn't want to accept new culture? France was not North Korea or Russia to struggle for freedom.
I met Libbie in elementary school. She has always been nice to me. The girl confessed me that she wished my mom and her dad married so we could be together forever. It was about that time her mother married to her second husband and moved to Mexico. It was obvious that she didn't like Hispanic men, she denied this, but you should have seen her face when she heard Spanish. When her mother married a third time (again to a Latin American man) her dislike increased. Probably, she, like her father, wanted her mother to come home.
At school, she, like me, attended French classes, showing her love for my culture in every possible way, which, of course, flattered me. None of my ex-girlfriends did anything like that, all they had in mind about me and France were frogs, croissants, baguettes, and the Eiffel Tower. Jerks, they didn't even know how to kiss in a romantic way; they just shoved their tongues into my mouth, thinking that IT was a real French kiss. I hoped their bi curious phase was over, and they were all disgustingly pregnant right now serving beers to their stupid redneck husbands somewhere in Idaho.
When my father married my aunt ughhh, to tell the truth, I also dreamed that Morris and my mother would get together, we even arranged unobtrusive dates for them in the spirit of the parent trap, but alas and ah! Ce la vie. Mom was sick of thinking about becoming dependent on another man again (I second this), and Libbie's father seemed to never fall in love with another woman again dreaming of his preciousss Agatha (maybe she was a witch who cast a spell on him (and other Mexican citizens)? Just like that straight vibe Bo I could not stop thinking about).
Mom and Libbie were chatting while watching the movie not paying attention to me. I did not mind. They loved each other though Libbie said that she was a bit afraid of her. Maybe we were not biological or official sisters, but in my heart they were always my family. I thought about father at that moment and squished my lips: I wished Morris were my father.
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