Chapter One
David
Portugal, August, twelve years ago.
All I could see from my current position, lying on my back on the beach towel with my eyes closed, was bright orange. I moved my eyes around under my eyelids, but it was the same all around, then there was a darker orange and brown for a moment until it was all bright orange again.
The sun was warm on my face, and I could feel the skin on my arms and legs tingling from the heat. Maybe we should go for a swim to cool down. While my tanned skin was used to the sun, I still didn’t want to burn.
My best friend Joel and I had spent most of the last six weeks on the beach. This particular spot was our favorite since it was the furthest away we could get from home on our own. Over the last two summers, our moms had allowed us to take the small train that carried people along the thirty kilometers of continuous beach. Those beaches were always a favorite with locals and tourists alike since it was just south of Lisbon on the other side of the river Tagus.
We always chose the last stop, thinking it was unlikely we’d run into anyone we knew. Not that we did anything other than sunbathe and swim, but there was something about the freedom of pretending we were old enough to be here on our own.
Joel lived in America, so at the beginning of his holidays here, we always met up with friends from school and others who lived near us, but after a while, we just ended up doing stuff on our own. By the end of his visits, we were virtually inseparable. It was as though we wanted to make as many memories to last the year until he would come back again. This was the cycle that we repeated summer after summer.
I opened my eyes only a little bit, the bright sunlight making my eyes water until I focused on the light blue color of the sky. There were no clouds, just blue, and all I could hear around us were the seagulls squawking in the distance and a soft giggle right next to me.
A face appeared in my line of sight, slightly blurry at first until my eyesight adjusted and zoned in on the sapphire deep blue eyes hovering over me. The same face, the same eyes that, beginning tomorrow, I would no longer see every day, at least for another year.
“Don’t move!” Joel cried, putting a hand on my shoulder to hold me in place. His blond hair flopped into his eyes, sun-bleached and stuck together from the saltwater.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’m building a seashell made of seashells on you,” he said as though it was an entirely natural thing to do. I must have been asleep earlier because I didn’t remember feeling him place anything on me, and we both knew there wasn’t a chance of me staying still long enough for that to happen.
I lifted my head slightly to see the shape of a seashell all over my flat stomach. The individual shell rings consisted of different color shells to make them distinct from each other. I was impressed.
“Joel, I need to move. I’m burning,” I said, trying to keep still so the shells didn’t fall off.
“But I haven’t finished yet.” Joel pouted like he used to do when we were little. His shiny blue eyes looked first at the shells and then at me, and a small, devilish smile appeared on his lips.
I knew what he was thinking, and he would have to catch me first. In a split second, the shells were falling off me as I got up to escape the tickling attack I knew he was planning. Joel jumped up after me and chased me in circles on the sand, trying to catch me.
“Let’s go in the water,” I said, out of breath.
“Okay,” Joel agreed. “How long do we have until we have to get back?” he asked, looking in the direction of the bag where we kept our phones.
“I think there’s enough time for a swim. We can walk for a bit while our shorts dry out and take the train back home at the next stop.”
* * *
Joel
New York, Present Day
The summer afternoon sun was shining brightly through my kitchen window, bringing out the colors of the drawings I had stuck on the fridge door. I found myself standing there remembering the class earlier this week when I told my students about where I came from, that small country in the southwest of Europe that everybody likes to confuse with Spain called Portugal.
"Mr. Peterson, what color is the sand in Portugal?"
"Have they got palm trees?"
"What about ice cream? Do they eat ice cream? Ice cream is my favorite. My mommy takes me to Dairy Queen and gets me a chocolate-dipped cone when I do all my homework."
I’d asked my young students to draw a picture of something they liked about Portugal based on the photos I had shown them in class. What I got was an array of weird and wonderful drawings that only the imagination of six-year-olds could conjure. Sandy beaches, castles, palm trees, sharks, and even pirates.
I loved teaching. It was a passion I knew I’d inherited from my dad, and looking at the work of my students made my heart swell with pride.
The intercom buzzed, bringing me back to the present.
