A lonely boy living in the city meets a boy when he visits his grandmother in the province. The two boys develop a close friendship during the summer and discover what it's like to trust someone with your secrets, dreams, and even fears.
I didn't know how sweet summer can be. It was the dark-gold caramel swirling in our taho every Sunday before the reds of tocino, tomatoes, and hot dogs. We sat on the porch; you, lola, and I, pressing our mugs to our lips, warmed by the morning's first rays.
It was ube and keso ice cream, dripping on our thighs under a humid midday walk. Our bottom lips blue and shining, coated with milk and sugar.
When the sun was low enough to pull shadows, young lovers ran to the almost-secret places hidden throughout the plaza. They kissed, quickly, like shy young birds clumsy in mid-flight. We caught each other's gaze, made a face, and you puckered your lips as if to kiss me. I shoved your shoulder, laughing, scaring the couple away.
We turned from each other, suddenly shy.
We waited for the lamps to flicker to life as the breeze cooled the sweat off our backs. We didn't talk, just stared at the small world in front of us, lighting itself through the night. You kicked off your old, tattered sandals. I tucked my white shoes under my legs.
You were a comfortable presence I could trust in the quiet, bathed in artificial electric yellow and white starlight. There was no need for words.
The sweetness of this summer was a liter of coke poured in three plastic cups on the dot at 4 o'clock when the afternoons flooded the room in golden amber, sipped between bites of round, smooth, steaming bread with goat cheese, listening to "Take on Me" on the radio.
It was teaspoons of coffee thickened with condensed milk to stay awake when watching an episode of Wansapanataym. It was a bottle of sweetened iced tea shared between two friends.
I tried not to smile. A friend! You were my friend. I didn't know that I wanted one, after all. When I looked at all the boys and girls who nudged each other, who held hands and braided each other's hair, who wrestled each other on the ground, and those who huddled together at the park, did I wish I had space there for me? I never knew how good it felt to share my comics with someone else, to hold wooden spoons as mics when we sang off-tune in lola's living room.
I never knew I was lonely until you listened to me talk about elves and giants. I didn't know that I could laugh for so long, that laughing was good, and that laughing could push tears from my eyes as I tried to breathe. Lola would stand at my door, smiling. She let us be children. I think she was waiting to welcome these sounds again; the high-pitched childish chimes that rolled merrily down the stairs, bouncing happily against her sunlit windowpanes.
You were more likely to be found in my room than in the hut you shared with your cruel aunt and little cousins. You lay in the middle of the floorboards and stretched your arms and legs towards the walls like a cat and purred, smiling at me with all that space. Lola was thrilled to have you over. Sometimes I think she sits at the bottom of the stairs as she drinks her coffee just to hear us talk through the twilight.
When you were away, I was scared that you were going to get bored of me, because your life was much more interesting than mine. And your other friends weren't afraid to join you in the waves. If only I was strong and brave enough to join you. I'd go to your world in a heartbeat like you entered mine.
She loved you, just the same as she loved me. Sometimes, I caught her looking at us, eyes glinting. She smiled at me and there was something on the curve of her lips that I wished I could decipher. She was on her husband's rocking chair, reading a book, glasses perched on her nose.
I wondered if she wished for more grandkids. That would be nice for her: to have someone reliable who could stay with her for more than a summer. She deserved that.
At night, when we couldn't sleep, we talked. It didn't matter what. Our voices were low, afraid to disturb our grandmother--yes, our grandmother. We crept towards the glass windowpanes and opened them, letting the night wind in. The moon ever rarely hid behind the clouds here. Your eyes twinkled, catching starlight in the purple sky. Your dreams were as many as the stars I could see in this corner of the world. There was one great dream you mentioned that connected with a star.
"You must feel so free, to be who you are in the city," you said.
I thought of my father, who wore the same uniform, six days a week. And us schoolchildren and our uniform. And the teachers and custodians and the people behind cashiers at convenience stores. For some unknown reason, I felt sad.
When we grow older, are we supposed to wear the same thing every day until we are too old and tired to work? Unchanging. Stuck doing the same thing every day?
"I hope I get to do the same things for a long while yet," Lola said.
You looked at the stars. I looked at the loneliness of the moon. There was suddenly a strike in my chest, like a feeling that this wouldn't last.
I thought that we only had limited time to be free.
Buy me a coffee!
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