Warm summer nights often makes me nostalgic. It often takes me back to my childhood days, back to the days when credit card bills, mortgage payments, car payments, utility bills, and a thing called a 9 to 5 job were nonexistent. One of the memories that stands out from the video archives of the left hemisphere of my brain is that lazy summer afternoon of 1992.
Me and the boys were out in the public pool trying to cool down from the summer heat at the same time hawking on cute city girls as the play in the water. Then out of nowhere a figure… a silhoutte of a young womans body. Blinded by the sun’s glare we can only see the curvy figure walk towards the other end of the pool. Like a school of hungry sharks smelling a drop of blood in the vast ocean we thrashed our way towards the direction where the figure was standing. There we saw a celestial being. Our jaws dropped and our eyes transfixed at her as she slowly runs her finger down her silky long hair. Her dainty little hands moved elegantly as she removed her sunglasses off her eyes. Then she walked towards the pool with all femininity. She dipped her little toes on the cool water to check the temperature. Then after checking the pool temperature she sat by the poolside with both her feet immersed in the water. We, on the other hand are still in awe, staring at her with our mouths agape, and still in disbelief that such an angelic being could come to our side of town.
After pinching and slapping ourselves silly a few times we’ve come to a conclusion that this is no longer any of our prepubescent fantasies. This is actually real. She is actually sitting right in front of us, and yes, that’s a leopard print swimsuit she’s wearing for pete’s sake! Like all hormone-driven little boys we started pushing each other towards her direction, but being the shy provincial boys that we are, no one was man enough to strike up a conversation with her. Not until I eventually got pushed hard enough towards her direction and inadvertently hit her leg. That’s when it all started.
She was two years my senior. She was a college freshman and I was mere highschool student. But this was summer and school is out, so year level should not apply.
She was staying with her cousin, who happens to be a friend of mine, whose phone number I happen to memorize. But I never gave her a call. Up until one afternoon when my phone rang. A phonecall from her asking me if I wanted to go swimming with her. Who would want to say no to that invitation? I’d be a fool if I turn that invitation down.
A summer romance is slowly building up. This is evident with the nightly phone conversations, the frequent hangout by the pool side, the daily tennis matches, and the weekend stroll around downtown. But out in the tropical islands summer does not usually last very long. June signals the end of summer and the start of the monsoon rains. Just as quickly as summer left so did she. Now, all that’s left of her is a photograph with words scrawled in the back as a promise, a promise to remain friends forever. Childish cliches that yearn to immortalize friendship.
