After the Hurricane(31)
Her body hits something, a rock? But it is warm, and the rocks are cold. She opens her eyes and screams. She is not alone, at all. She straightens, disoriented, and finds that she has floated toward the shore, the water is a foot here, maybe less; when she sits a person, a male person, towers over her. She stands, her body crying out for the weightless feeling of water; it is all back now, all that she feels, all that she hates about herself, and stronger for having been banished.
“Estás bien?” he says. He is taller than she is, but not by much, and his skin is warm and tan and olive toned. He is not wearing a shirt, and she can see he has a tattoo of a tree on the left side of his breast, above his heart, a beautiful palm, it is precise and clear, like a botanical illustration. His stomach is soft but not fat, and his swim trunks hang on his hips. Looking in his face, she sees he wears glasses, and has brown eyes with wrinkles around the corners, not many, he is not much older than she is, perhaps. She realizes, with a jolt, that he is attractive, not that she desires him, but just that he is, in fact, a decently handsome person, and she has floated into him, and there is something about that that embarrasses her, even though she knows it should not matter.
“Sí. Yes. I’m fine. Sorry about that. Lo siento,” Elena says, flustered.
“No problem,” he says, his English accented but only slightly, around the vowel sounds. Elena has met people on the island, even in her own family, who do not speak English, but rarely in San Juan, and rarely anyone her own age. She is torn between relief that her faulty Spanish will not betray her, and disappointment; it is nice to practice, nice to try. She is not good with languages, yet Spanish tastes good in her mouth, like chewing meat, it tests her jaw muscles, and she feels that she has gotten stronger when she does it.
“You’re all right?” he asks again, in English, and Elena wonders what in her face makes it clear she is not.
“Of course. Just floating.”
“You looked dead,” he says, bluntly.
“Well. I’m not,” she replies, clearly. He looks at her, and she fights the urge to cover her body, to protect herself. He has light brown eyes and they feel like X-rays on her skin. “I’m Elena,” she says, holding out her hand, to break his gaze, to break the tension that should not be there and somehow is.
“Fernando Rivera,” he says, taking her hand lightly, like it might break, and then giving it back to her. “How long are you visiting? First time?”
“No, I—my father lives here,” Elena says. Fernando’s expression changes, from tour guide mode, host mode, to normal person.
“He’s from here?” Fernando asks. Elena nods. “You live where?”
“New York,” Elena admits.
“My cousin lives there. I’ve been there,” Fernando says, without enthusiasm or censure, entirely neutral about what many call the greatest city on earth, although Elena doesn’t think it is. She never has. She wonders if her father liked living there, he never said one way or another. He never said a lot of things, she thinks, rage flaring again. Who the fuck is Diego?
“Do you live in San Juan?” Elena asks, because Fernando now knows where she lives, she wants it to be even. He nods.
“You come here a lot?” he asks, still holding her gaze. She nods.
“But it’s been a while.”
“Before the storm?” Fernando says.
“Years before.”
“This island has two periods now. Before Maria and after Maria,” Fernando informs her.
“B.M. and A.M.,” Elena says.
“Yes,” Fernando responds, gravely. Elena does not know what to say. She decides to ask a question, one she could ask the internet, but he is here, in front of her, a person, what a novelty, to ask a human for information. Besides, so many of the sites about San Juan, about the island, hadn’t been updated for months, years. Google is no match for islanders.
“Do you happen to know if the ferry to Bayamon is operational?” There are two ways to get to Bayamon: by car, the long way around, or straight across the bay, the quicker way. Ferry trips, however, at least the ones of her childhood, would often come with an extra hour or two of waiting for Santiago’s family to pick them up on the Bayamon side, hours her parents would spend fighting and Elena would spend reading or playing with the sweet sad stray dogs that curl up near the ferry terminal, hoping to be fed by passengers.
“Why do you want to go to Bayamon?” Fernando asks, and Elena considers not responding. She does not have to tell him, after all. He is a complete stranger.
“I have to visit some family,” she says, offering no other details. He looks at her with a new look, again, each thing he learns about her changing his opinion of her, she can see, but not why, or what it is.
“I think it is. If not, we have Uber now. You can take a car. They could use the money.” Elena stiffens. In other visits, long ago, islanders often made comments like this to her, assuming that as a nonresident she makes, and has, more money, even though the last times she was on the island she was in high school, college, and made no money at all. They are not wrong, perhaps, but she does not like it.
“Thank you. Okay, well, nice to meet you, then. Sorry, again,” she says crisply, turning away from him, walking back to her bag, her clothing. She is done with her dip, she knows. She cannot sink back into the ocean with this man here, watching her, assessing her.