LITMIR.BIZ

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that day. Goosebumps all over her body, fire in her chest were making her smile like a baby. She could not keep still.

      She turned on her laptop to find the Teach me, Tiger song and sat down silently listening to the beginning. Her pinky finger between her teeth. Her tongue somewhere in between. She got up and started floating across the room playing with her purple nightgown. Floaty dance was her meditation that morning.

      Finally, she approached the mirror and looked at herself. What did the woman in the purple nightgown see? Did she see the real self? What kind of a woman had she grown into? And how had she been transforming into the one she saw in front of her?

      There stood a tall, ripe woman. The wrinkles on her face and neck suggested she could be somewhere in her mid-forties. She took great care of her skin without any popular injections but with masks, massage, and facial acupuncture. She took hormones to boost her libido. She felt great! No one could ever tell her real age. She was slim, fit from swimming and her recent alfa-gravity classes. Hanging on ropes attached to the ceiling did its wonders to her body. She was proud of her looks. Ekaterina winked at her reflection and smiled. Her hair used to be blonde, but now she was dying it blonde to hide the white color of aging. Her besties had once nicknamed her Blondie, hence, she should remain so. What if they changed the nickname to White-haired? She would never like to be called so, would she?

      ‘Maybe I should stop dying it and let it be natural. Why should I hide age changes? Cuz everybody does. But I’m not everybody. Or am I?’ she asked herself roughly touching her strands making them fluffy from tangling. She danced more in front of the mirror seducingly showing off her hips. The aka stripper abruptly stopped and hunched theatrically when she remembered what day it was. The obligation of this day triggered a sudden lump in her chest which was about to ignite Katya’s whole anxiety of the day. She caught the hue of the thought. Why did the day promise to be full of anxiety? No, she was to tune herself on a positive breakthrough for both herself and her daughter. She sat on her bed. She placed her palms up on her knees and closed her eyes. Katya began her gratitude routine she’d started practising for quite a time already. She was grateful for her daughter, for her functioning body, for a tremendous sea of energy she had felt with Alexandre the day before. She was thankful for being alive. And she visualised the upcoming talk with her daughter to be honest and awakening.

      It was her daughter’s birthday. Eighteen years before Katya had decided to tell her birthday girl about her Dad on her eighteen’s birthday. Back then Katya had named her Varvara, Varya (same as Barbara, to inject some wilderness into her character, some barbarian nature). Today was the time to let her little birdie fly out from under her mum’s wing and enjoy life and freedom. Easy said than done. Blondie still saw her daughter as her little girl. The girl whom she had breastfed, nursed, shared times of illness and success, failures and victories, whom she knew so well and would always care about her as she, Ekaterina Mitrofanova, was simply her mother.

      Blondie had spent months thinking about what kind of present to get Varya. Finally, she had asked her daughter’s bestie, Lyuda. The latter surely had to know what Varya might desire.

      ‘Well, that’s pretty easy. I know what she really wants. I want it too, but we don’t know if you approve. I asked my parents a long time ago and they said yes. But Varya decided to wait till she entered a university,’ began Lyuda with her long introduction, ‘I hope she won’t kill me for telling you this.’

      ‘Of course not. It’ll be a surprise. A present she would definitely like, c’mon tell me, Lyuda,’ Blondie pleaded.

      ‘She wants to go to Cuba to learn how to dance Salsa, to learn Spanish. You know, see the world on her own, well, with me actually. The school years would be behind. We would have a month before we start a university, you know,’ giggled Lyuda nervously repeating herself.

      ‘You wanna feel freedom,’ finished Katya with a knowing smile. Somewhere deep inside she felt a hidden sadness. The sadness of realizing that her daughter was no longer a child. The sadness of realizing that time was running fast. The sadness of the worries she would experience when her Varya would be far away, on her own in this huge, enormous, big- big world.

      Katya gave Lyuda a smile, but inside she was all worry and doubt. The silly predictions first appeared in her head, “And why on earth Cuba? Why would they choose Cuba, an island swarming with loose Cuban hot machos? What do they wanna learn about sex from a one-night stand, well, or from one-month stand? Damn, I AM getting old. Stupid thoughts, go away. Thank you for your protection. But I’ll manage.”

      She recollected herself leaving for an adventure for the first time. She was sixteen when she left her home. She spent a whole summer in England learning a new culture, a new language, a new mentality, new way of life with other teenagers from other countries. The beginning was a bit hard as Katya missed her parents and friends a great deal. But soon she made friends and got used to the new environment, so in the end, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to go back home. Later on, she childishly prided herself for having so many international friends from all over the world. Katya was welcome now in at least three or four countries to stay over at her friends’ in the future. And she understood that she was lucky to have such parents who had trusted her and let her go to broaden her skills, mind, and future possibilities.

      Now that Blondie was a parent herself, it was her turn to play a wise mum no matter how disturbing it could be to let your child move on. After all, any child is an individual, a free individual, especially, a grown-up one with her own life to take hold of. Katya was aware of all that, but how hard it was to let your own kid go. She would imagine placing a protective bubble around her daughter and let her go and know that her mum was always with her.

      She’d been thinking of the changes approaching. She’d been remembering herself during her university years. She’d been working with her feelings of a worrying mother. So now she was playing a wise and cool mum answering Lyuda, ‘What a cool idea, the same thing I would have wanted for my eighteenth birthday. So when are we booking this salsa course, flight, and accommodation for ya, girls, eh?’

      Katya glanced at the clock, it was ten a.m. The very time when her daughter would normally wake up with no alarm clock. She made two cups of coffee, placed Varya’s favorite tiramisu cake on a tray, put an eighteen-number candle in the middle, lit the candle and slowly proceeded towards her daughter’s room.

      ‘Fuck, I forgot the present,’ grumbled Katya, she carefully placed the tray on the floor, opened her purse and fished out a folder with the print-outs of the Cuban trip. She tried to hold the folder and the tray at the same time. It didn’t work. She stood thinking for quite a time. If I put the folder under my arm, I wouldn’t be able to put down the tray; if I put the folder in my nightgown, the folder might fall down; if I put the folder into my mouth…

      ‘Jesus, just fetch the damn folder after you’ve put the tray down,’ a voice commanded in her head. Her self-talk was interrupted by her phone buzzing in her purse. She placed the tray on the floor one more time, checked who it was calling and mumbled to herself, ‘Men can wait, even young, attractive sex machines as Sasha.’

      She put the phone back into her purse and picked up the tray again. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Katya did her best not to flip over the tray while opening the door. She saw her daughter lying awake checking messages on her phone and began singing Happy Birthday to You song.

      As Varya finished reading the message, she sent her phone flying under her pillow and sat up to watch her Mum singing.

      ‘Thanks, Mum, no dancing or poem reciting this time?’ chuckled Varya.

      ‘Oh, shut up, Little Monster. It’s my day off, no working routine today,’ Katya disappeared for a second and reappeared with a folder in her hand. She sat down next to Varya.

      ‘And I have two things

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