Lemon and Salt

Lemon and salt is the taste of her third year in college.1

She hates tequila but she drank it anyway only because someone had brought back the premium stuff from Mexico, and it seemed rude to refuse good liquor on account of differing tastes.2

That was a one off though. The love affair with the liquor didn’t begin until after the car crash.3

She still hates tequila but she drinks it anyway, just because there's something about being in an empty apartment that makes you feel like you're choking and the tequila helps to drown out that feeling, a little.4

After the funeral, she starts knocking back doubles. She figures it doesn’t matter anymore. She dyes her hair pink and she ignores the fact that the bills are piling up and she really needs to start looking for another room-mate.5

She keeps a bottle of tequila in the bottom drawer, under her pajama pants, the same place she used to hide chocolate so he wouldn’t eat it.6

Lemon and salt on the wrist with that puckered up mouth, and down the hatch. She still hates tequila but it burns in just the right way, that salty-sour taste strangely right when the liquor rolls over her tongue.7

Eventually she gives it up. She’ll never drink anything else but tequila, and moves into her first home after college making sure that her cupboards are stocked with salt and her fridge is stocked with lemon.8

She leaves the tequila in the bottom pajama drawer. Call it an old habit. Sometimes she skips the tequila just to lick the lemon and salt and remember when life was less complicated; when he was still alive, older sisters didn’t exist and all she had to deal with was a fucked up nuclear family with a dark secret.9

Imagine her surprise when she finds out that lemon and salt are not only an acquired taste, they’re a family taste as well. When she finds herself at Lorna’s house and the first thing her older sister pulls out is a bottle of tequila, she learns that salt can taste sort of sweet, too.