We always laugh until it hurt reminiscing about the olden days. Our favorite pastime is our college days, when we would cake up our face with mascara and apply rouge to our lips and smack them noisily together as if blowing a kiss.
“You were the craziest Jatou,” Joanna managed between laughs.
“No, no, no, you remembered that flirty skirt you got from the junk store?” I said while cry-laughing, tears streaming down the corners of my eyes.
“Yeah, what about it Jatou?” Joanna stopped in mid-laughter, out of curiosity and reached for her nearly-finished drink on the floor.
I laughed and said, “oh nothing.”
“Come on, girl, what about it?” this was coming from Jariatou, she used to be the most beautiful girl in college and still is.
I stared into her larger-than-life dark eyes and answered, “I think that is what these young people are now modifying to suit their style.”
“As a matter of fact , I agree,” said Joanna, “most of the 80’s is brought back to mix with today’s style, they lack a sense of style.”
“But a guy can’t wear a funky afro now,” Jariatou offered.
“I would love to see that.”
We started cry-laughing till it hurt again and I had to force myself to get up and change the Youssou Ndour’s music CD to Viviane’s Wooy Yaay Yooy. I moved my hips to the tempo of the music and before I knew it, I lost track. Joanna gave me a mocking laugh and said, “You need to have some dance class, and work out all that fat, girl,” she downed the remnants of her glass’s content and added, “I would be glad to help.”
I only laughed and tried more maneuvers while Jariatou kept cheering.
An onlooker may think that we are the most contented people in the world, having a girl’s hang-out every Sunday, laughing our heads out as we clink our glasses in merriment. My doctor said the laughter was good for my health and after he said that, my laughter is always the loudest.
The three of us are divorced for one reason or another and with children.
Whenever it is my turn to host the girls’ hang-out, my eldest daughter who is 17 years old, sees it as a silly thing, thus, she goes out before my friends come. She distastes our choice of music, but I say ours is the best. When the rhythm catches you, you just flow with it.
Now that Jariatou and Joanna (who is now struggling with diabetes) and I are thrown in the 21st century, we try to blend it with the 80’s in our girls’ hang-out so that we would not suffocate. We gossip, agree, disagree and cry-laugh till it hurts.
