Chapter Seven

"Oh, baby." Eugenia said, with compassion in her eyes while she walked hurriedly towards her daughter who was rising slowly and in a disheartening posture from the stairs by the porch.

"Mum." Imelda said softly as her arms went voluntarily over her mum's shoulders while they hugged, saying nothing but feeling everything.

Imelda smelled like peach, and this was really freshly intoxicating for Eugenia.

"You know what? Let's get to the beach." Eugenia said, with her eyes reading every message and feeling from the interior of Imelda's eyes.

*** *** **

At the beach, Imelda and her mum sat on the multicoloured ash duvet that Eugenia had spread on the beach sand while they gazed into the water that danced spiritedly.

There weren't many people at the beach, just a number of young boys in bodies that could pass for celebrities' over at New York.

"Have you ever put in your whole heart, your everything into something, hoping that it'd be the one that works this time, and at the end, it just turns out to be yet another one of your remarkable failures?" Imelda asked with a forlorn pitch outweighing her voice as she scrolled her fingers into the sand by her right side.

"Oh, baby. That's really depressing. I'm sorry. Come here." Eugenia said as she opened her arms and palms which she had placed on the duvet, and hugged her daughter so warmly.

"On a brighter note, you certainly are a good hugger. Look at all that energy. You still have a lot of that in you to give. Your heart is full, I know it. Don't let all of those fucked up moments ruin the great ones that are to come." Eugenia said with intermittent smiles coming from her face.

"What are you now, Dr. Seuss?" Imelda replied with warmth in her words, and with a sarcastic tone, she chuckled slightly.

"You know, when you smile, you remind me of your father, maybe not him, but the man I fell in love with."

"Mum, you never talk about him much. What was he like?" Imelda asked curiously with the sun's rays bouncing off her face.

"He was warm, kind, charming, and he was my dream come true. You know, I don't know how you Gen Z's say it these days, but for me, when you know, you know. It wasn't too hard for me to figure out that he was the one I wanted to make love with."

"Oh, God, mum! You didn't have to say that." Imelda hastily cut her off as she laughed in little details.

"My bad. You guys call it shag, fuck and some other names that couldn't get you laid back then." Eugenia said with a youthful accent which she mimicked so well that they both burst in laughter.

They smiled and laughed in slow motion until the evening was upon them. Imelda had not felt this good about life or herself in a long time and she was sincerely glad she came here.

*** ** ***

Over at New York, Bruce walked into the bar where he was a regular, and went over to the counter to get his liquor.

"Good evening, sir. What would you be having?" The mid-aged muscular guy with a tattoo stretching from his elbow to his wrist said to Bruce in a deep baritone pitch.

Bruce had not been paying much attention to the bartenders but he certainly knew that this wasn't the other guy who'd always attended to him in the past. He felt offended that he'd have to spell out his drink to this guy unlike the other guy who already knew his order.

In this moment of unuttered anger and silence, a lady, pretty to behold and elegant in stature came to his right side, resting her elbows on the bar's table before her.

"He'll be having a margarita with a slice of lemon and my lips on top" she said with crystal clear audacity and lovely voice that was too hard for Bruce to not pay attention to.

Bruce was dazed, and he hardly ever was. In this curiousity and surprise, he turned his head over towards her face and took in the view from her double-coloured hair and super clean neck to her gracefully curved behind that firmly stood within her red body con, right above her light chocolate thighs. She was a delightful sight for Bruce, and after his perusing of her body and all that she was before him, he wore his Playboy's look and held on to the drink that the bartender gave to him on her request.

"Your lips would really do this margarita a whole lot of justice." Bruce said with his finger seductively rolling around the edge of the glass in his hands and this appealed to her as she gulped her saliva while taking in the view of his manly countenance and god-like accent and trading it all with a smile underneath her eyes.