Memories of San Juan

Chapter 11

The car began to slow down and took one turn up the small hill. Subsequently, Uncle Sam parked the car between a few trees that framed their vibrant garden in the courtyard. Everybody began chatting vociferously along with a lot of hilarity audible in the air, even as they came out of the car and ambled up and about the passageway all the way to the house.

  As I stepped out onto the pavement, the scene of the beach down the hill was astonishing. It was by now nightfall and the setting of the sun, seeing that the yellow was touching the blue, was out of this world altogether. One way or another, everything was ‘in its right place’ since morning when my mind had begun creating scenarios, the wildest ones, and it all had to do with the man I had seen earlier today.

  “Hi, Rosy,” said Madeline, who was standing beside me. “Let’s go inside so I and Rebecca can show you around.”

  Putting my thoughts aside, I followed Madeline from behind into the huge house and spotted Richard waiting for the both of us at the door with his legs crossed and his face seeming so happy.

Well, this is it.

                                                       ***

After work, he went straight to the beach where it was peaceful enough for him to be left alone with his mind and heart.

   When he was standing right in front of the ocean, his eyes followed the waves, the way they would rise up, race above the surface of the water like grand horses running across the fields freely, crash into the other waves and slam against the ground powerfully, run crossways the soft sand like eager beetles all the way to caress his feet and then seep back into the whole water body where the tide pulled them back in. It was like the water wanted to get away and run free but something else always held it back, yet it didn’t protest. Yet, it allowed to be pulled back because it knew that it belonged there and not here. Somehow he had always dreamed what it would be like to be among the waters, but sometime he realized that his place in this little world was here, on land. Eventually, he recognized that there was definitely a voice that spoke out of the oceans; you could hear it whenever the waves approached you on the shore. It was like it knew you all the way from body to soul, every bit of what scares you and what pleases you. And what saves you. It could tell.

  The cry of the sea-gulls awakened him from his day-dreaming, making him notice that it was already sundown. Looking around himself, not seeing anyone, he noted that he was the only one on the beach. Still surprised at how fast the entire day had passed, he went on remembering her face, the way she smiled at him. He’d never seen anyone in his whole life smile at him just like that. Before even becoming conscious that he was smiling so merrily, he was already running up the hill, over the rocks and stones, all the way to the top of the high cliff.

  The minute he was up there, he heard himself commence to laugh at how much each and every thing on all sides of him seemed so beautiful. But not as beautiful as the girl he saw today. Recollecting every single moment in his mind, made him almost to dive and soar at that moment. But Richard, he was with her, kissing her hand. Richard. Why?! The rage began to mount inside of him till the bulge was stuck in his throat; however, he used every part of his strength to hold it back. If she went with, with…Richard, then it means she’s staying with his family at their house. Without delay, he looked up at the hill where Richard’s house was, searching among the other residences situated up at that same hill, he found the mansion. That was the house he used to go to everyday to visit Richard years back when they were the greatest friends in town until they got themselves into that fight, and since then they’ve never even said a word to each other, hating their selves as much as they had cared about each other. He tried many times to contact Richard again, believing that it was time to bury the hatchet and forgive and forget their mistakes, but Richard had always turned his back on him. And now he wouldn’t give away the only girl he’d ever dreamed of. But it wasn’t just that, even though he’d been his finest pal, he knew Richard would never be completely able to love her. He knew him very well, how many girls he’d chased and how many hearts he’d broken, particularly that of Lucy. But not her, this he would never permit to occur.