Gabriella's Story

She came here often, sometimes cutting class, just so she could see him. She’d look for his bright orange Punch Buggy that he’d park in the same spot every time, to see if he was there. And if he was, she’d park her red and white Triumph convertible next to his and run barefoot across the highway on the hot pavement to the Tropicana Beach Hotel. Walking past the hotel to the beach area, she’d stand searching for him in the ocean water. The ocean was turquoise, just like the color of his eyes. A plane passed low over the water, advertising a new place to eat on Collins Avenue. A few seagulls stood at the shoreline, keeping vigil as the ocean waves rolled back and forth onto shore, singing their own song, as they crashed, floated, and sailed in smoothly. The sky overhead was filled with white puffy clouds of all shapes and sizes gracing a bright blue sky all the way to the eastern horizon. She smiled, her heart beating fast, as she spotted him sitting on his board, his head turned eastward, as he waited for that next big wave to come in, which in Miami usually meant a three-footer. Watching him for a bit, she stood, biting her thumbnail, her long dark hair blowing in the wind, sometimes whipping around her face. She’d still, holding her breath as she watched him lay flat on his board, paddling hard as the wave caught up to him and then catching it, he’d stand, his body tan and his hair bleached blond from the sun, riding the wave all the way to shore. He’d picked up his board and before heading back in to swim out again, he’d turn and wave to her. And she’d smile, her heart alight with fire. She’d find her place in the sand, sitting alone but never lonely. She’d run her hand through the sand, picking up a seashell holding it in her palm, turning it over and over as if it were a meditation stone, keeping her eyes on her surfer. She waited for that moment, as the sun was slowly making its descent into the western sky, when he’d come to shore on that last wave, pick up his board and start walking towards her. Standing she’d run to him, and wrapping his free arm around her, he would look into her eyes, and then kiss her, oblivious to anything but one another as the pelicans flew overhead. The year was 1969, the summer of her first love.