People With Life

11.

I awoke the next morning with Mike's face just inches from mine, smiling like an anxious child, his cheeks and the tips of his ears were boyishly blushed red. I could tell that he had been up for a long time, running around the beach in the sun. His shirtless body gave off shimmering warmth in the cool, shaded room. His skin radiated the heat of outside, as if he had been drenched in it and I could feel it against the soft sheets and my cool skin.

It reminded me of times at my uncle's house on vacation running inside from out of the hot sun and the bright light and the rough ground into the cool, dark room with soft, slept in sheets and crumpled, silken, worn pyjamas and novels on bedside tables and suitcases flung open. There was something so appealing about cool pyjamas and bedroom sheets and a dimly lit room after being out in the striking sun. It was that beautiful contrast of peaking day and life, and slow life just calmly beginning. Like midday catching morning.

"What is it Mikey?"

"It's a beautiful day down here in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. The sun is bright, the weather is hot, the water's warm and the people are alive!" Then as he backed away and out of the room, "So get up!"

"What time is it?"

He shouted back to me, "Eight o'clock. Feels nice to see the morning light doesn't it, Ani?"

I rolled over reluctantly, then pulled myself out of bed. Him waking me up might have made me upset, except that I liked all different kinds of people – even the happy, peppy, morning ones.

Walking down the hall to the kitchen and living room I could smell breakfast being made already. Coffee, bacon, pancakes, ackee and saltfish, dumplings and fresh fruit covered the small island in the middle of the kitchen. Miss Patt had been cooking. Katie sat on the couch with a magazine in her hand, Marley was also just getting out of bed, John was standing out on the deck looking at the ocean and Mike was god knows where by now.

"Morning everyone," I said.

Katie smiled and Marley looked up in awe.

"He actually got you up this early?"

"Mike is a puppy that doesn't stop crying until he gets what he wants."

Marley, still stirring, plopped down on the couch next to Katie. I walked outside and hugged John from behind. He turned slightly, smiled sweetly, and put his arm around me.

"Hi," he said, and I smiled up at him.

Mike came running in then with Connie and what seemed like the whole kennel of dogs. "Let's eat!"

We sat on the patio outside and ate and discussed our plans for the day, Muffin's nose to the ground, looking for scraps. The weather was perfect and the water calm enough so we decided that it would be a beach day and that we would try to go canoeing.

The beach on this side of the sea was a massive expanse. The sand bank came right up to the house and stretched far back to where it met with the sea. Not only was it wide, but also long, stretching up and down for what seemed like miles, lined with several other beach houses, villas and cottages as well as tourist resorts.

Boats bobbed in the clear turquoise beside dark purple reefs and against a background of green mountains. The sun shimmered off the ocean and white sand. Sea gulls dived in the water and flew against the wind overhead and the waves crashed in the distance.

Already, the beach teemed with life. Jet skis moving blindingly fast skipped the water like pebbles, an alternating rhythm of buzzing and pounding as they skimmed and beat the waters. Fishermen lazed across the horizons in the far distance. Men worked in tedium, clearing the beach of seaweed washed ashore, slowly sweeping it into small mounds, the tide creating an unending task. Boats shuttled parties of people out into the seas or pulled tubers and para-sailors alike and winds whipped gliders into the air. A way down the beach, tourists at resorts stomped around the sands, stirring up clouds of white in their bright swimsuits and red skin. Mike's many kid cousins ran up and down the beach property with the dogs barking at their heels singing, shouting, chanting: