Flying Lessons & Other Stories(33)

Before we depart, she stuffs my backpack with a bag of dried mango, two bottles of Pellegrino, and her La Roche-Posay sunscreen—though when I try to slip in a book I bought at the shop yesterday, she sighs so defeatedly that I give up and leave it behind.

This time, she asks Yamila to direct us to a beach more “child-appropriate” and we end up at Nova Icària, an S-shaped curve of hot gold sand sloping down to coral-green water. Nani buys me a vanilla ice cream cone (“Vanilla?” she jabs. “When they have olive, saffron, or mascarpone?”) and watches as I slink out to the sand, before she gives me a last reassuring smile and hustles away.

I forgot to bring a towel, so I wince as I sit down in smoldering sand, a fair distance from the sea and the kids swimming in it. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here over the age of sixteen. A few lanky, deep-tanned boys are on each other’s shoulders, playing chicken, while another group of them try to do handstands in shallow water. Girls hang out in giggly packs, inspecting the boys. Those that aren’t with their friends are in couples, splashing, wrestling, whispering, and kissing. Nobody is alone.

Except me.

It should be easy to make friends. Nani does it. My brothers do it. Everyone does it, as if it’s as normal as eating, sleeping, breathing. I remind myself that it’s natural to be on my own in a foreign country, but even if I were on the beach two miles from my house, I’d be sitting solo in the exact same spot with my melting vanilla. It’s like there’s a chromosome for fun I didn’t get. (“The ball and chain,” my younger brother’s friend once murmured as I left the room.)

It’s almost as if without knowing it, I made some deal with the devil: I can have all the success in the world, but no one will ever like me.

I don’t want that deal anymore.

I want to unmake it.

Dear God, please help me, and I promise I’ll—

A ball hits me in the chest.

It’s red and small and pegs me so hard and fast that tears coat my eyes and I can’t breathe.

I see a boy running toward me.

He’s blurred, so I can’t make out more than his tall frame and a round wooden paddle in his hand, and for a second I think he hit me on purpose and now he’s going to hit me with the paddle—

But then I see his hand over his mouth, his cheeks a shamed pink.

“?Estás bien?” he says, panting. “Lo siento, lo siento….”

I don’t answer because: (a) I’m still winded; (b) I can’t say, “No, no bien—my chest hurts, I’m crying in front of strangers, and I dropped ice cream on my privates” in Spanish, and most of all, (c) I’m still scared of him.

He has wavy black hair, honey-gold skin, jade-green eyes, and looks the way I always imagined Romeo would look when we read Romeo and Juliet in Mrs. Gonzalez’s class. He can’t be more than a couple years older than me.

“?Estás bien?” Romeo repeats, kneeling down and clutching my arm. “Estamos jugando y…”

He points at two other handsome boys and a skinny girl down the shore, watching us, each holding an identical wooden paddle and waiting for their friend to finish apologizing and bring back the ball.

The boy’s eyes fall on my backpack. “Ahhhh, Americano,” he says, touching the Delta luggage tag.

“Americano in pain,” I mumble, rubbing the welt on my chest.

To my surprise he laughs—either because he knows some English or he’s relieved I’m responsive. Then Romeo looks around and sees there’s no one within twenty feet of me. His thick brows furrow and he studies my face so intensely and curiously that I lose my breath again.

“?Quieres jugar?” he asks, and holds out his paddle.

My stomach flips.

Want to play?

Romeo, oh Romeo, just asked me if I want to play.

Do you know the number of times I’ve fantasized about being asked this exact question while watching boys hang out with their friends?

My hand’s sweating.

Take it.

Take it now!

I feel myself reaching for the paddle—

“Tomas! ?Apurate!”

I turn and see his friends beckoning him, their eyes shifted away from me.

Tomas. That’s his real name.

And his friends want him back.

They don’t want me to play.

Tomas doesn’t either, of course. He’s only asked me to be nice and absolve himself of guilt for pelting a lonely tourist.

I look up into his shiny green eyes and gently push the paddle toward him.

“Adiós,” I say, expecting him to look relieved to be rid of me.

But he doesn’t look relieved.

He looks…hurt.

As he lopes back to his friends and resumes his game, I have the sinking feeling that Tomas wasn’t trying to get rid of me at all. He wanted to make a new friend and I just rejected him the way I thought he was rejecting me.

That’s what I do every time. That’s why I’m always alone.

It doesn’t matter, I grouse, fumbling for the dried mango in my bag and trying to forget about Tomas, this beach, this entire trip.

As I gnaw on the orange shreds, I think about how much better my summer reading essay will be than everyone else’s. I think about a science fair project that will make State Finals. I think about how this year I’ll win more trophies than ever before….