I uncap it and gulp all of it.
“I had an eerie feeling. And that must’ve spooked her too. It felt as if she was talking about something real. Something that could happen to me. You know.. .as if she had a premonition. It was chilling.”
She lifts her hands in response.
“Nothing can happen to you. Not more than it could happen to me. Men, boys. Real. Unreal. They’re all the same. They’re too distracted with other things. They can’t keep their focus on a woman no matter what. Besides, they’re immature. She must’ve talked about older men.”
She grins from ear to ear.
“Mmm... I would like me some mature men,” she says.
She’s so comical I forget about my forebodings and laugh.
“You’re crazy.”
“Nah-ah. No, I’m not. A friend of mine had a hot uncle. Well, she still has him, but I’m no longer in touch with her. He’s like forty or something... I think. I met him at a barbecue last summer. Mm-mmm. My, oh my. The man has these eyes...”
Her cheeks turn crimson, her eyes going blank as she travels back in time and revisits that memory.
“And when he looked at me...” she mutters. “He looked into my soul. I swear.”
I can’t help but smile.
“I felt his eyes deep in my chest,” she continues. “He sized me up and had that look on his face. You know... He was a troublemaker.”
The memory of him makes her smile.
“He was fit. And he was packing. I mean... really packing.”
Her eyes glimmer with hunger.
“Since when do you want them big?” I tease.
“I don’t. I mean, look at me. Anything would do.”
She moves her hand down, pointing to the length of her body.
“But...” she goes back to her story. “There was something about him. I imagined myself wrapped in his arms, spreading my legs for him.”
I laugh.
“You’re such a big mouth.”
She chuckles, amused, her finger going up promptly.
“You shouldn’t comment. First, try it and then talk.”
“Whatever.”
I toss the bottle into the recycling bin.
“You still don’t want to give them a try?” she mutters.
“You know my history with them.”
“I know mine too, yet I keep trying.”
“Hoping for a different result,” I joke.
“Haha. So funny.”
She rolls her eyes.
“You know what your problem is?” I throw at her on my way to picking up my backpack.
She gives me silence in response. I slide the strap onto my shoulder and turn to her.
“I tried. All right? And I got the same thing over and over again. No conversation. No foreplay. No hope.”
She chuckles.
“Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
I laugh too.
“No. Seriously. I liked a few people,” I say, no longer smiling. “But they didn’t like me back.”
“They did.”
“No, they didn’t. Every single man-boy that I met was chuck full of ‘relationships,’ mainly on his phone. They just couldn’t make up their mind. And I don’t care for that. You know... I’m easy going, understanding. I’m noncommittal as they are. I’m not looking for anything serious. But I hope for a little more. That was awful. It was boring and not sexy.”
“You were too much for them.”
I don’t know if she’s serious about or just pushes my buttons with a hint of irony.
“Well... You made it easy for them, and the result was just the same.”
She sighs.
“Okay. You’ve made your case. It is what it is for now, but I don’t want to give up.”
“Me, neither,” I say, smiling. “But going back to what Olivia said. She was talking about something entirely different. Maybe there are different kinds of men. But even those aren’t that good either, or she wouldn’t need to warn me about them.”
She makes a dismissive gesture at me.
“Got it. I’ve had enough of this. Let’s get going. I want to catch a few hours of sun.”
With that, we look around the house and make sure that everything is in order before we lock the door and step outside.
4
LUNA RAE
We climb into Olivia’s convertible and get settled before I turn on the ignition and steer the car away.
Our ride rolls slowly until we take a turn at the crossroads, and I step on the gas. Frankie can’t help herself and starts cheering as we enter Highway 1.
“We are doing it, girl,” she says, sniffing the air like a dog on their first ride.
“You like it?” I ask from behind the wheel, sliding my sunglasses down to peer above the rim at her and the immense spread of water.
“I love it,” she says as the ocean comes into view.
The scenery is breathtaking, the road snaking along the coastline, rugged waves breaking against the shore.
“Can you smell it?” Frankie mutters, leaning against the window frame.
Dark blue-green water kisses the coast, a few harsh cliffs rising into the hazy air.
The atmosphere is far from suffocating.
The air is warmer in the car as we bask into the summer sun, but you can feel the cold breath of the ocean coming from the water.
I don’t mind it.
It’s like a hot and cold lover. The contrast is fascinating, heart-grabbing, mesmerizing.
“I want to take some pictures,” I say, keeping our speed at about forty miles an hour.
Not many cars are in a lookout area where we pull to a stop.
I park Olivia’s ride to the water before lodging the beauty of the Golden Coast into my camera’s memory.
The wind blows across our faces, smoothening our frowns, and dissipating our anxiety.
“If this doesn’t keep you humble, I don’t know what does,” she says.
I pick up my camera and rise out of my seat before stepping out and stopping at the edge of a cliff.
Frankie takes pictures with her phone as I lift my DSLR camera to my eye level and press the shutter.
“One of these days, I’m going to learn how to surf,” I murmur, watching two silhouettes riding the crests.
I zoom in on them and photograph them.
The beach is almost empty, a few people walking along the shore, a few others sunbathing. The sky tosses a ball of light over the water, a haze lifting in the air like a veil of silk.
“It’s beautiful,” Frankie agrees, lowering her phone, and watching the scenery with a naked eye like me.
I fight the wind for a moment, tying my hair in a bun at the top of my head before spinning around and taking a few snapshots of the highway.
The road makes a turn north of us, occasionally a car showing up.
Sometimes I catch them in my pictures. Other times I wait for them to zoom by before taking a photograph.
I lower my eyes and check the pictures on my camera, deleting a few that don’t look good when a rumbling sound wafts through the air.
“What is that?” Frankie mutters, beaming with curiosity. “Damn, they’re loud.”
“Motorcycles,” I say, checking the pictures on my camera.