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Of course I knew Sam had no idea where we were the second I noticed that he had slowed down the car just so he could look at the sea view. His expression was one of bewilderment like a little kid’s on an adventure.
I began walking down the road towards the main street along the promenade. “First stop, here.” I pointed to Lou’s Cafeteria, my favourite coffee place of all time. “You owe me one, remember?”
“Oh, right. You won at Monopoly. I’m seriously grateful we didn’t set the stakes high.” He bumped his elbow at me with a glint in his eyes.
“Hey, at least I’m not a sore loser, unlike someone. And yes, I prefer coffee rather than money as a prize. Lavender vanilla latte, to be exact. A sweet treat for the sweetest victory.”
Sam opened the cafeteria door for me. “Alright, champ. Let’s go get you your trophy.”
Neither me nor the heavenly smell of freshly steamed coffee could sway Sam to try out one of Lou’s twenty coffee varieties. Sam had only compromised on getting a small cup of infused tea instead.
With cups in hand, we crossed the street and stopped at the promenade railings to savour the stillness of the sea. Despite it being a Sunday, very few people were around. The chilly and cloudy grey weather must have scared everyone to stay indoors. And oh, the quiet made this spot even more peaceful.
Sam sipped on his drink with a slight grimace. “I hope we didn’t come all this way here just for the coffee.”
“It sure is the best coffee ever and worth the trip, but no. I wanted to come here to reminisce.” I turned my back to the railing and pointed to a house further down the street. “See that house there, the one with the blue windows? That was my home once.”
Even though the white wall paint was a bit weathered, with its blue windows, the house was still strikingly charming amongst the row of Victorian homes. “I miss that bay window. I spent countless hours sitting there, sketching some weird art on my drawing pad or just sipping coffee and watching the waves crawling to the shore.”
“Sketching, seriously? I’ve seen your artwork and I don’t call that sketching. You got a nice steady hand. You draw, not sketch.”
“Haven’t drawn anything in a long while.” That was all the answer I was willing to give him as I turned back around to face the sea view.
“If the view from my bedroom was this, all I’d fantasize about is fucking on the sand.”
“You really have a thing for public sex, don’t you?”
“Mind you, I’ve always had sex behind closed doors. Which the door it was, now that’s another question.” He finished with a smouldering wink.
“Pff, you perv.” My elbow jabbed at his ribs as I contained my giggle at his comment.
“Seriously though. Do you still own the house?”
“A house like that at a place like this sells with a pretty steep price tag. When dad had the stroke, he wanted to sell the house. His treatment was expensive – very expensive – and dad didn’t allow me to quit school until the savings accounts were completely drained. Selling our home was the very last choice. Still, I just couldn’t let him do it. That house was part of our family. So instead, I got a job at sixteen and we kept the house. Then I sold it a few years later to pay for my studies.”
“Sounds like a great father.”
“The best. That house was one of the truest examples of my father’s efforts to fulfil every single one of my dreams. He bought it just for me. Because when I was four years old, for a school project, I wrote that my biggest dream was to live near the beach. When I grew up, I figured it must have been a huge sacrifice for my dad to buy it, mostly financially, but he did it anyway. Just for me. We’ve always dreamed that when I grow up and get married, I’d buy the house with the red windows, a few doors up from ours and we’d live close to each other forever.” Talking about my dad always brought the brightest smile and the heaviest knot in my throat. “I was his carbon copy, you know. Maybe because I was raised by him alone. I prefer to think it’s because I’ve inherited all the right genes from him. My mother abandoned us when I was a baby so I can’t say what I got from her. She ran away from being my mother and dad never talked much about her. I never asked either. Dad was more than enough for me. Even if he was the most terrible cook. But unlike me, he tried. He made the best ravioli sauce. He was much like the workaholic that I am too. Always busy with his small house flipping business. If he hadn’t gotten sick and was forced to close the business, I would have joined him as a painter. I loved painting and colours and anything artistic. Dad used to take me with him to these houses he was renovating. We’d challenge each other who’d think up the best ideas. We even painted the blue windows of our house together. The morning when he died, he made me promise to sell the house. Made me promise to be brave and build a new life for myself. I couldn’t let him down. After all, I did inherit my willpower from him. His own will hadn’t waned till the end. On the seventh of July, the doctors told me it was likely he wouldn’t make it through the night. He died on October First. He fought against his own death for weeks.”
Sam’s hand came up to my cheek and his thumb wiped the one stray tear I hadn’t noticed was there. “October First. That’s today.” Sam realized. “I’m really sorry for your loss.” And he wrapped me in the comfort of his wing.
“Whenever I come here now, I always wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn’t sold the house. I wouldn’t have continued my studies or had a career. I wouldn’t have met you or Joe.”
“I’m sure you would have met two other douchebags at one of the bars you worked at.”
A laugh escaped my lips. “You weren’t supposed to mention the pub thing again. But if you really want to know, I’ve met more than the fair share of douchebags. Some even worse than you two. Some of whom I dated.”
“Sounds like you got an interesting love life history.”
“More like disgraceful. Unfortunate. Humiliating.”
“Now my curiosity has peaked. Do share stories. Tell me the worse ones.”
Way to take my mind off the reminiscing, Sam. But it seemed to work. The tears had stopped so I went along. “Well, Billy was my very first lovebird. My first everything, honestly. Including my first public humiliation. I had shared my dream of moving to the city… and he laughed at me. So loud that we got kicked out of the restaurant for causing disorder.”
“A certified douchebag indeed. Who’s the next one?”
“Mason. We dated for a semester at university. Found out he cheated on me with the university queen when their sex tape went viral. I was five years older than the average student there. You’d expect me to be smart enough to evade a second public disgrace. Then after him, there was Dr Lincoln. A pompous hotshot lawyer who was jealous of my friendship with Joe and who treated me like the opposing counsel with his million questions of why, where and with whom I’ve done anything. Lincoln is his surname, by the way and he never told me his first name. Truth be told, I only dated him because he had a well-stocked wine cellar and I had cracked the password. He owned far too many bottles to realize I used to slip a vintage or two in my tote bag. The password was ‘Lincoln’ if you’re wondering.”
