Twisting my hair into knots thinking about the 44 drawings I have to do for my drawing class, I feel a presence at my back. I look over my shoulder and saw a small child watching me. Continuing with the improvised “Coconut Still Life” that I am trying to draw in the rapidly setting sun, I wait for him to say something. He shuffles his feet, kneels down, stands back up, buries his toes in the sand, and finally asks what it was. We began to chat, exchanging pleasantries in Spanish. Towards the end of our conversation I ask him if he would like a pen and a piece of paper so he can draw with me. He nods eagerly. I tear a piece of paper from my sketchbook, rummage around in my bag and hand him paper, pen and a copy of SHAPE magazine on which to draw. He sits down next to me, pursing his lips in concentration as he crouches on his shoe-shining toolbox and begins to trace an illustration of a health food store from the magazine.
I’m perched on the beach chaise, the orange of my bikini creating a grating sight against the blue, pink and yellow of my towel. My flip-flops are strewn around my feet, and in my beach tote are an MP3 player, a few books and the requisite sunscreen and chapstick. The empty glass of my pi?a colada lies at this little boy’s feet, which are scarcely covered by his sandy plastic shoes. He’s wearing frayed pink and green muscle pants ? la Hulk Hogan and a filthy and tattered blue oxford shirt, presumably from school. His eyelashes are unbearably long, his hair is fuzzy and short, and his teeth large and oh-so-white. His perfect, Hershey’s colored skin is broken by pink scars, clearly recently inflicted. He squats on his shoe-shining box and the pages of the magazine flap in his face, set aflight by the wind. But he’s not fazed: he bats them away and smiles toothily. We catch eyes and laugh, comrades in the moment.
I can’t bear to leave this child for an instant. His face is six inches away from his paper, which is now wrinkled and quite dirty from the small hands that grip it, protecting it from the wind. He lifts his paper every 30 seconds to check the illustration he’s copying. His friends come by and form a small crescent around us, but he tells them to shut up and go away-he’s drawing now. I sit alongside him and try to hide my smile, feigning Spanish ignorance. He hands me the drawing, and I cock my head and hold it up to admire. ”?Que bonito dibujo!” I say. For me? He grins and nods. Did he make sure to sign it? Of course he did. He’s an artiste.
His name is Nicola. I wonder how long ago Nicola learned how to write his own name, as his letters are adorably crooked. Nicola smiles shyly at me and I hand him another piece of paper. No words necessary, we settle again into our contentment. His friends return and crowd around his shoulders, scrutinizing his work. Is that a heart he’s drawing? They scoff at the prospect, and I scoff at the universality of maleness. Nicola maintains stoic silence. They wander off, discussing the merits of his heart. That’s not even a good one-if I want a heart, they tell me, they’ll give me hearts. The boys abruptly set down their shoe-shining boxes and snatch sticks from the ground. They whistle while they work, showing Nicola and I what real hearts look like as they cover the sand around us with improvised drawings. As they distance from us, they leave in their wake endless hearts drawn in the shallow sand.
I try to swallow my laughter and fail miserably. Nicola reaches out and hands me drawing number two. As I am holding out his masterpiece, a sudden gust of wind tears the sheet from my fingers. We take off on an impromptu 100-meter dash. We’re laughing like giddy banshees as we sprint. For a second I think of what a ridiculous sight we must make-a bikini-clad white girl with a rat’s nest of salty curls and a sunburned back running alongside this beautiful boy, flapping his elbows in the wind as he runs out of sync with his own body.
The sun has just set and the wind is blowing intensely, making all of the trees and abandoned umbrellas tremble and my bare skin erupts in goose bumps. Tiny Lilliputian waves lap at the fluffy Caribbean sand, and the light is pink and damp and smells like salty mango.
We race down the white sand, our feet skating over hearts of all shapes and sizes as we move through the darkness after a piece of now nearly crumpled paper, and cackle louder and louder.
Julia Cooke is a sophomore in the college. She spent her spring break in the prostitution capitol of the Dominican Republic. And no, she’s not comfortable giving out her room number.
