Pepsi

The kitchen counter was scattered with spatulas, spoons, dusted, patiently waiting cake tins, and containers marked with names like sugar, milk, and flour. A warm breeze pushes its way through the screen of a cracked window above the sink, giving wing to the golden wisps of hair that frame the face of the young girl perched next to the display of bakeware. Her mother moves from one step to the next in the process of birthday cake making, carefully sifting, measuring, mixing, and pouring until two, sweet smelling pans sit cooling by the skirt of the young helper. “Just a few more moments…” forecasts mom. “If we put icing on too soon, it will melt right off.” Four small ramekins of frosting are prepared for what would soon create the hair, dress, face, and body, of the doll shaped cake that the mother had meticulously worked at carving from their original circular states. “Would you like her dress to be blue or pink, Pepsi?” the little girl didn’t hesitate to say, “Blue!” while lifting her arms in an enthusiastic V. Her name received at birth was Clara, but it was changed to Pepsi at age 3 when her older brother, in an attempt to replicate a scientific experiment involving a shaken bottle of soda and mentos that he viewed on youtube, shot the cap of a pepsi bottle into the right corner of her forehead, leaving a slight dent. After the incident, Clara had felt a need to explain its origin to each new person she met. So when greeted by or introduced to someone, she would simply point to the mark and say, “Pepsi.” This led to a misinterpretation of identity that soon evolved from a humorous nickname, to her permanent title. Pepsi had not been referred to as Clara in two years.

Once decorated with the various colors of icing, and topped with a red twizzler mouth and blue m&m eyes, the doll cake was set upon the kitchen table. Pepsi sat perched at its head, admiring her mother’s work, while the arms on the face of the antique clock above her, wound round. Pink, white, and golden streamers appeared over time, and Doris Day’s album featuring Que Sera, Sera began to float melodiously through the air. Soon, other mom’s and their minis bearing colorfully wrapped gifts began to troop through the front door. A bobbed Brunette busts through ahead of her mother, waving a small rectangle wrapped with white and purple polka dots. “Happy, happy, happy, happy…!” she lands on a final bound with her arms wrapped around Pepsi’s neck. “Birthday!” She gleefully thrusts the package into Pepsi’s arms and commands the paper be torn off immediately. Pepsi obediently peels off the front of the wrapping and shrieks with joy. “Mommy!” She exclaims, waving the gift in her hand high above her head. “The Swiss Family Robinsons!” The little brunette, known as Holly, claps her hands together and jumps up and down, evidently just as thrilled with her friend’s reaction to her present as Pepsi was with the gift itself. “I knew you loved that movie!” She explained, pointing to the VHS. “I saw it when I was out with mommy and told her it was perfect for your birthday!”

Holly and Pepsi didn’t have any memories of life with out the other. In many ways, they were twin sisters. Apart from sharing a womb, they had spent practically every moment of their early existence together, from infant to toddler. Their mothers, before conceiving and carrying the girls through their pregnancies, had spent the majority of their college and early years of marriage together. Their friendship had been iron clad through the shared trials of back aches, swollen feet, and acid reflux, and now, their daughters were even closer in mind and spirit than they themselves were.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!” A chorus arises among the guests as the living room lights dim and a flicker of candle light announces the arrival of the birthday cake. “Happy Birthday, dear Pepsi! Happy Birthday to you!” Pepsi scampers over to the chair at the head of the table where her cake sits waiting to be wished upon. “Happy Birthday, my darling.” says mother, sweeping a stray wisp of hair behind her daughter’s ear. “You are so very loved.”