by J Hoffman
Natalee snorted and nodded. “Yeah. I eat a branch and drink a leaf every day.”
“What in the fuck are you talking about? Drink a leaf? You can’t eat a fuckin’ branch, dude,” her words began to slur together.
Natalee threw her head back and laughed. “I thought it was insane too, but I feel fuckin’ great all the time so,” she held her hands up in surrender.
“Let me try it,” Liz demanded.
“It’s pretty gross,” she warned.
“Shut up, you just wanna keep your meth bush all to yourself.”
“Meth bush?”
“Yeah, the only thing that can keep you feeling great all the time is fuckin’ crystal meth so,” Liz mocked her surrender motion.
Natalee shrugged, “Alright, I warned a bitch.”
She went into the kitchen and snapped off a branch, picked off the leaf and set it under the bush to dry out. She grabbed a dry leaf and brought it to Liz. She held it out to her, and she stared at the contents in Natalee’s hands.
“You weren’t kidding? That’s really a branch?”
Natalee nodded, “Yeah. I eat a branch and drink a leaf.”
“Well I don’t have a drink, so I don’t know what you want me to do with that.”
“I’ll get you a damn drink, just eat the branch first.”
Liz took the branch and examined it, reminding Natalee of the first time she had tried one of them. She watched her confusion change to curiosity, and finally, she popped it in her mouth with a crunch.
“Oh my God it’s so loud,” Liz muttered. “I don’t know what else I was expecting, though.”
Natalee nodded, “I felt the same way.” She jogged to the kitchen and grabbed Liz a bottle of fruit-flavored water and brought it back to her. Natalee took the leaf from her hand and crushed it up into the bottle.
“This tastes so good, I don’t know why you said it’s gross.”
Natalee smirked, knowing it was only a few seconds away.
“Three, two…” Natalee pointed to her as soon as she gagged.
“Oh my God, what happened?!”
“When it’s mush, it tastes like shit.”
“Why do you eat this?” Liz panicked and looked for somewhere to spit it out. Once she realized there was nowhere for her to spit that wasn’t going to be rude, she forced herself to swallow. She immediately grabbed the bottle of water and chugged half of it.
“Shit dude, take it easy.”
Liz gasped for air as she took a break from chugging the water. “Why would you do that to a person?”
“Dude, I told you it was gross!” Natalee argued.
“You did not tell me enough,” Liz shot back.
She shrugged, “Just finish that bottle and you’ll see what I mean. It’s not like you’re on drugs you’re just… Better.”
“’Better’ would be nice. Why did your friend give you this?”
“She said eating the branch would build my immune system. She told me to throw away the leaves though. But to boil the roots and drink the root water. I haven’t tried that yet.”
“Well, no, because root water sounds so much nastier than branch mush,” Liz stated matter-of-factly.
Natalee giggled, “Yeah, right?”
“So, if she told you to throw them away, you drink them because…?”
She shrugged, “I don’t know, she said it’d make me sick in three days, but I’ve been doing this way longer than three days now and I feel fuckin’ great. There’s no other way to describe it. My headaches stopped, my back never hurts. I remembered everything on my grocery list after I left my list at home.”
Liz’s jaw dropped, “That last part is a damn miracle.”
“Isn’t it? The only thing that changed in my diet was this thing. I figured it if it was going to make me feel bad it probably would’ve started already.”
Liz shrugged, “I mean, fuck it. I’ve put worse things in my body on purpose.”
Natalee smirked, “Amen to that!” She made some coffee to help sober them up and they opted to head to the schools to pick up all the kids together.
After they had parted ways, Natalee grabbed her phone and sent a message to Svetlana.
Natalee: Hey, the miracle root is great and I’m so glad you gave it to me. Thank you! Oh, and I think I have a friend!
Svetlana responded instantaneously.
Svetlana: Good for you. What is she like?
Natalee: She’s loud.
Svetlana: Perfect.
Natalee: Can you send me another bush?
Svetlana: You need a new one already? You are eating too much, slow down.
Natalee: No just for a backup, that’s all.
Svetlana: I will send you one when you need one. You will be fine for now.
Natalee: I didn’t realize it was such a big deal, Svetty.
Svetlana: It is not, it is just a hassle to ship a plant halfway across the world, Nat.
Natalee smirked, she hadn’t thought of it that way.
Natalee: Fair enough. Love you!
Svetlana didn’t respond again that night, but Natalee wasn’t surprised.
Twenty-Two
The next morning, however, Natalee woke up to two text messages from Liz.
Liz: Bitch are you awake.
Liz: Can I get your bush?
As she was reading the second one, a third came through.
Liz: Hahahahahaha we’re lesbians now. Lesbians from the 80s. Deal with it.
Natalee giggled, heading down to the kitchen to start her morning.
Natalee: You are ridiculous. Yeah you can come get some but I don’t think you can take a branch until you intend to eat it so you can’t take any home.
Liz: You’re just greedy.
A few minutes later, Liz was at the front door in her robe.
Natalee pulled the front door open and shook her head, “Seriously? You couldn’t get dressed first?”
“What lesbian puts clothes on to see her other bushy half?”
Natalee rolled her eyes, “Literally all of them.”
Liz pushed past her and headed to the kitchen, “I actually slept through the night last night. None of the kids woke up and I didn’t wake up thinking they were awake. It was a miracle.”
“Well, that’s good. You look much less… Tired today.” Natalee chose her words wisely.
“I know! And I don’t feel a hundred percent, but I definitely feel a solid eighty-five.”
“That’s excellent.”
“What are you working on today?” Liz leaned forward on the kitchen island and smiled.
“Um, I have some paperwork to do. Why what’s up?”
She shrugged, “I just thought we could hang out again, but if you’re busy… I’ll just take my branch and go.”
Natalee chuckled, “Nah, you can hang out. I don’t care. I just have to go to the school to pick up said paperwork this afternoon.”
Liz snapped a branch off and started chewing it. “It almost sucks that this tastes so good at first.”
“Yeah, I felt cheated at first too.”
“Does it ever get better?”
“I have no idea. Svetlana swallows it with vodka so I’m sure that helps.”
Liz nodded, “That’s a great idea.”
“You do not need vodka at seven twenty in the morning.”
“Why not? It doesn’t sound like you stopped the Russian.”
“Well, no, but she’s scary.”
“And I’m not?”
“Please,” Natalee rolled her eyes. “The only thing scary about you is that look you give to your kids when they do shit like break people’s windows.”
Liz snorted, “Yeah, that’s a good look.”
“Definitely a strength,” Natalee pointed.
“Every single one of them is petrified of it.”
“Are you kidding? I’m petrified of it!”
Liz snorted, “Shut up!”
Natalee pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and hand
ed it to Liz, “Here. I think the leaves are good in this so this is what I drink every day.”
Liz took the bottle and held it up, examining it as if it would tell her there was anything but water in it. She looked from the bottle to Natalee and back again. Finally, she sighed heavily. “It doesn’t look like there’s any vodka in here.”
Natalee sniggered, “There’s definitely no vodka in there.”
“What a let-down. The Russian gets to drink vodka with it.”
“No one in Russia can survive without vodka. You’ll live, I promise.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Liz crushed up a dried leaf into the bottle and took a swig. “This isn’t bad.”
“Are you sure? It was so difficult for you to suffer through that.”
Liz rolled her eyes, “I’ll live, remember?”
Natalee smirked, “So what’d you want to do today, then?”
“Well, I wanted to drink another bottle or two with you, but I really don’t even feel the need to drink, honestly.”
Natalee nodded happily, “I know the feeling! It’s pretty great, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, man. I wish you could bottle this shit and sell it.”
“Pfft,” Natalee blew a raspberry through her lips. “I’m not even a hundred percent sure this damn thing is legal,” she motioned toward the bush on the window sill.
“So what? Nothing good is legal these days.”
“Alcohol is legal,” she pointed.
“Yeah, but it’s only great in large doses.”
Natalee snorted, “Don’t you mean small?”
“Have you ever had a sip of wine and felt okay?” Liz arched an eyebrow.
Natalee shrugged, “No, I guess not.”
Jonah and Liz’s kids opted to take the bus to school that day, which left Natalee and Liz enough free time to do as they pleased. They decided to take a walk through the town, talking about all the gossip they’d heard in the past few months. They went out to lunch and enjoyed small, but plentiful meals. They then decided to head to the spa to get their nails painted but decided against the full manicures or hand massages.
Neither of them felt very “girly” but they figured if they were having a girl date, they might as well enjoy it. On their walk back home, they passed the coffee shop where all the PTA moms were having their coffee.
“I saw a video where some lady knocked a bitch out in here.”
Natalee smirked, “That was me.”
“No, that wasn’t you, she was blonde.”
“The bitch getting knocked out was blonde,” Natalee nodded.
Liz stared at her for a moment, “You knocked the blonde out?”
Natalee nodded again, “Yeah, her name is Rachel Trier.”
“The blonde?”
“Yep, and she’s not so desirable.”
“Seriously?! That was you?” Liz jogged a few steps ahead and turned around, walking backward in front of Natalee.
Natalee nodded again, “Yes, I punched her in the nose.”
Liz shrieked with laughter, “Oh my God, I need to watch out for you. That right hook is something from a boxing movie.”
She giggled, “I didn’t even mean to swing all like that, it just happened.”
“Well, why did you? What the hell happened? I heard something about her son and your son?”
“Well,” Natalee took a deep breath and continued. “It all started at the meeting last month. I brought cookies and cold brew coffee.”
Liz cut her off, “Ooh, sounds like a good time.”
“Right! I thought it was delicious. But no one else did.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know? Too many carbs? Too much sugar? Who the fuck knows?” She threw her hands in the air with frustration. “But they definitely didn’t like it. And that resulted in me flipping out and calling all of them bitches.”
Liz nodded smugly, “Aces.” She paused her step and fell back in next to Natalee.
“Fast forward to the next week. Some kid shoved Jonah down the stairs at school. He had to get thirteen stitches.”
“No shit?” Her eyes grew three times their size.
“No shit! Apparently, the kid said something like ‘My mom’s not a bitch, yours is.’ So that didn’t help, because I called like ten different women a bitch that week.”
“Right so it was like Detective Mom on the case of the Son of a Bitch.”
Natalee snorted herself into full-blown laughter. “Oh my God, you’re so right.”
Liz threw her head back and laughed, too. “That was fun.”
“So, I came down here to reconcile and it just didn’t turn out that way. Rachel was again, being a bitch, and I went to leave because it just was not worth my time. Well, as I was walking away-“
Liz cut her off again, “Someone said something about Rachel’s son, and you went from detective to Mama Bear.”
Natalee nodded, “Yeah, they caught all that on video. I didn’t get to see the aftermath until the video came out, but yeah that’s the reason behind the video.”
“Man, everyone on the internet thinks you’re this, like, rogue beast who is taking over Suburbia or some shit. And yet here you are, eating bushes and living your best life.”
She threw her head back and laughed, “Stop it. I can’t handle you.”
“Is that her? Are those all the women from the meetings?”
Natalee peered into the window and nodded, “Yeah, this is where they hang out when they can’t be taking up space at the school.”
“Let’s go inside,” Liz whispered excitedly.
“What? No!” Natalee shook her head quickly.
“Why not? I bet all of them are terrified of you now.”
“Yeah, probably. So why intimidate them more?”
“Why not intimidate them more? What kind of person throws a fit about having cookies and cold brew at a parent meeting but then hangs out at a stupid coffee shop surrounded with pastries all day? It makes no damn sense. None of them make sense, so why let them think they’re the bee’s knees when they aren’t even the cat’s hairball.”
Natalee stared at Liz, “Did you really just say that? Was that a sentence you really just said?”
“Yes, yes it was. Take it or leave it,” Liz beamed.
“I’m leaving it, let’s go home.”
“Nah, I want some coffee.” Before Natalee could stop her, she had the front door pulled open and whisked herself inside like a gust of wind. Natalee didn’t want to be stuck on the sidewalk alone, so she followed her in, in a huff.
She met Liz at the counter tried her hardest not to peer over at the gaggle of women all huddled around the small coffee table between the couches. They all saw Natalee come in, but no one even dared to whisper her name while she was in the building. Liz ordered a coffee for herself and a cold brew coffee for Natalee, as a joke. Natalee took it happily though because it was her favorite.
The two of them picked a small table with two stools on either side of it and they sat down to enjoy their caffeine. Natalee thought about the last time she had used her coffee pot but reckoned it was sometime around when Svetlana visited. She never noticed, but she stopped drinking coffee around the same time she started eating the branches of the miracle root plant. She tilted her head to the side, gazing out the window, deep in thought.
Finally, she shot a look at Liz who was very obviously mean mugging the women on the other side of the shop. “Hey!”
Liz jumped and looked at Natalee. “What?” She asked as she innocently sipped from her cup.
“Don’t mind them. Just enjoy your coffee.”
“I am enjoying it, see?” She took another sip.
“Hey, did you want coffee when you woke up this morning?”
Liz scrunched her eyebrows together, “What kind of question is that?”
She shrugged, “I don’t know. I just realized I didn’t crave coffee this morning and I was wondering if you did.”
“I did but it wasn’t like a burning des
ire like it usually is, ya know?”
Liz eyed Natalee for a moment, watching her think. “Do you think it’s from the meth bush?”
Natalee shot her a look, “I hate it when you call it that.”
“Well, what should I call it then?” Liz sneered.
“I don’t know,” she huffed. “Miracle bush. Bush on Natalee’s window. Korenchudo, like it’s actually named.”
“That just sounds ridiculous, honestly.”
“Well, so does bush made of meth like you imply.”
She shrugged, holding the cup to her lips but not taking a sip. “What else makes all your ailments go away? How do you know your teeth won’t fall out from chewing a fucking branch?”
Natalee sighed, “I don’t know, you’re right. But I don’t feel like I have bees in my teeth, so it can’t be meth.”
Liz snorted loudly, causing most of the patrons to look at them. “Bees in your teeth, huh? So, you’re familiar with crystal meth.”
“No, not at all. I just read about it online once.”
Liz nodded, “Yeah, okay.”
“Seriously!” Natalee scoffed, offended. “I’ve never done any drug.”
“Not even pot?” Liz accused.
Natalee chewed the inside of her lip for a moment, “Okay maybe pot. But that was like fifteen years ago, so I don’t think it counts.”
Liz shrugged, “I drank wine fifteen years ago, didn’t change shit from now.”
Natalee attempted to defend herself, “That’s different. You kept drinking wine. I didn’t keep smoking pot.”
“You’re right. Keep it up, Mrs. Saint of all drugs but Meth.”
“It is not meth!” Natalee yelled, causing everyone in the coffee shop to look at them again. Her cheeks burned bright red and she stared out the window for some type of shield away from all the people in there.
It didn’t take one-second longer for Rachel to approach them, making Natalee wish she could melt into her stool and disappear. “You’re back to cause a scene, I see,” she sneered.
“Actually, we were just leaving,” Natalee cleared her throat and grabbed her cup.
“The fuck we were,” Liz stated abruptly.
Rachel gasped, holding a hand over her chest, “I don’t think that language is welcome here.”
“Are you welcome anywhere?” Liz tilted her head in question.