Page 27 of Tastes Like Summer

“Mmhmm. We moved here because of my dad’s job. And because it really wasn’t very safe for us back home.”

“So that’s where your accent comes from.” I grin.

Diana glares. “I don’t have an accent. I’ve worked really hard not to have one.”

I exhale a laugh. “You do have one. But barely. And what’s wrong with having an accent? It shows you know more than one language, which is super cool. Honestly, it’s⁠—”

Diana licks the cherry and lemonade popsicle from bottom to tip, my entire system short-circuiting. Is she doing this in slow motion? Is this a fever dream? Am I dead and in heaven? Or possibly hell and being tortured? Because in the split second it takes for me to process the fact that she’s going to keep licking the popsicle, I realize it’s going to be next to impossible to continue to formulate any type of rational thought, let alone carry a conversation.

“Michael? Are you okay?” she asks, finally pulling her lips away from the popsicle.

Seriously, what the fuck was I thinking giving her one of those? It’s an obscene food. She’s too hot for it.

I make a mental note not to offer her a hot dog or any other phallic shaped foods in the future. At least not while we’re in public. “Uh. Yeah. Just… lost my train of thought.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “I can see that.” She reaches out to place the back of her hand against my cheek, but I physically recoil. “Have you been drinking any water? You’ve been out in the sun for a while, right? Why don’t we sit under the umbrellas in the shade and get you something cold to drink?”

With shaky legs, Michael follows my instructions. He settles in a chair under the shade—one that’s still far enough removed from the group so that we have our own space to talk. I toss my popsicle in the trash and run to the coolers and find a cold water bottle. When I bring it to Michael, I press it to his face in an effort to lower his body temperature.

He closes his eyes and hums, leaning into it, taking it from my hands to press it to his other cheek. After a moment, he cracks it open and finally takes a long swig. “Jesus, that feels good.”

“Better?” I ask after giving him a moment to cool down.

He nods once, lifting his backwards facing hat and running his hand through his hair before placing it back. “Yeah. Thanks. Must’ve been the sun, like you said.”

“It happens. When I was a kid, my family and I used to go to this archipelago called Los Roques back home. It’s all white sands and clear, turquoise water. The most beautiful place on earth. True perfection. But it’s easy to get dehydrated without really noticing because the sun is so aggressive, and the wind makes it so that you never really feel the heat. So we had to always remember to keep drinking water.”

I try to control my mind from going down memory lane, but I can hear the nostalgia and ache in my voice. Normally, I’m good about controlling it—a habit I had to pick up when we first moved here in order to survive—in order for my sisters to survive, too—but something about having the beach close by these past six weeks has triggered a yearning for home. Except, after all these years, I don’t really even know where that is.

“Do you miss it?” he asks.

I look away, staring out to the ocean in front of us. “Sometimes,” I reply after a minute.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just… I want to know more. About you, I mean.”

I look back at him, at his flushed cheeks, the way he scrunches his nose in embarrassment.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I mean that it would be nice. To get to know you better. Because we see each other all the time, you know.”

My lips twitch, almost upturning into a smile. But this topic weighs heavy on me, filling me with guilt and nostalgia. “It’s been more than fifteen years since I moved to the US, but it’s never truly felt like home. And I know that if I were to go back to Venezuela now, I wouldn’t feel at home, either. Not fully.” I sigh deeply, gently grabbing the bottle of water from his hands and taking my own sip. “It’s gotten better over time. Still, it’s hard knowing what I’ve left behind. Knowing that so much of who I am has changed. My sisters… they were younger than me when we left, so I’m pretty sure it must have been easier for them. I could’ve struggled the most, but I’m the oldest. So I guess I always thought I had to lead by example. Really teach them that we had to assimilate and do so quickly. So I did.”

“In which ways?”

I pause. “My name, for example.” I wince, not sure how I feel about it even over a decade later.

“Your name? What do you mean?”

“I sort of changed it.”

“You mean your real name isn’t Diana?” He raises a brow, sitting up in his seat.

“It is. And isn’t. It’s Diana,” I say, pronouncing it like Dee-ah-na. “Not Diana.” I exaggerate my American accent, which makes us both chuckle.

“Diana,” he says, trying to pronounce it Spanish, letting the word tumble out of his mouth.

My name sounds delicious coming from his lips—foreign and all too familiar at the same time—and I want to taste them. Inhaling sharply, I try to suppress whatever has my cheeks flushing a deep crimson.

Even so, a smile on my face widens when I look at him. I pull my knees up, wrapping my arms around them.