Lobster Skin
When your body makes it obvious you’re different
“I’m not going to keep driving until you tell me which beach we’re going to.”
Our familial beach expedition needed to be carried out with military precision. It was seven in the morning, and my father-in-law was the only one without crust in his eyes. Since his days in the Air Force, he had risen before the sun rose, preparing for the possibility that the island of Puerto Rico and his existence would collapse during the course of the day.
Yet, there we were, heading to the beach. Six of us squashed like bacalao [salted cod] stuffed into the box of a small car that had left Ponce a half hour earlier.
“Playa Santa.” My brother-in-law Jorge suggested.
A torrent of Spanish flew out of my sister-in-law’s mouth before giving Jorge the Puerto Rican teenager’s equivalent of the evil eye. “I think Sebastian wants to go to Combate.” She turned and smiled at her oldest brother.
Sebastian grinned. “Andrea knows me. That’s my favorite, but it’s a long drive. I’m okay with wherever everyone wants to go.” Always the peacemaker, my husband was ready to acquiesce.
I didn’t understand why Sebastian wasn’t direct with his interests. We were here for a vacation, and the rest of his family, including these half-siblings, lived here. Maybe he didn’t think choosing the destination was that important, or perhaps he figured it was a way to fit in with family members who lived a very different life than we did in New York.
Beyond this, language stood as a curtain between us and them. While both of us spoke some Spanish, neither of us could easily follow the speed of the conversation nor knew the slang and other words in the Puerto Rican dialect, which had come from Taíno, various African languages, and other influences. On the one side, my father-in-law spoke both languages easily, and his other children, who lived on the island, had learned enough English to ensure they could make their way within the United States. We were on the other side trying to decipher what these Boricuas meant by things like vamos a janguear con los corillos. [Note: My understanding is that it means something like ‘let’s hang out with the gang.’] Saying less and acting as if I understood their speech had become easier with each visit to the island. But even as I started to understand more, I wondered if I would ever feel like a family member.
I tried to pick when it was most opportune to speak up, and this was not one of those moments. Whatever. This isn’t my decision; I’m just the gringa.
I pulled the seat belt away from my six-month pregnant belly while my father-in-law responded, “I don’t care, just tell me where you want to go. If you want to go to Combate, I’ll drive there.” His voice was weary and beginning to bristle with the quiet, simmering anger of someone who had spent years repeating the same questions and dealing with the indecision of others. Instead of frustrations with the local government or the power company, it was the bloodline-bureaucracy in the back seat.
Andrea and Jorge argued in Spanish, and then she announced, “Papi, we are going to Combate.”
We all poured out of the car onto white, soft sand an hour later. Turquoise waters lapped against the shore as I noticed we were alone. My twelve-year-old daughter Mariam wasted no time and ran to the water, eager to separate herself from our group and feel the warm Caribbean waters.
“I’m going to sit in the shade. This sun is too hot for me,” yelled my father-in-law as he parked himself in a folding chair away from the beach.
Andrea and I went toward the water and began to peel off our clothes. Her white bikini stood out against her dark olive skin while my kelly green bikini looked like a Mr. Yuk warning sticker on skin the color of ivory soap. I followed Andrea’s lead and laid my body down on the sand, making space for my baby bump.
Sebastian ran up to my side. “Mariam and I are going to look for shells, but do you want me to put some sunscreen on you first?”
“Uh-huh. Can you get my back and legs?”
He squirted something that smelled like coconut and chemicals, rubbed it in, and ran off. The sand caressed my stretched-out belly like talcum powder, and I began to daydream about eating conch fritters. The sun’s heat bore down on my body. I could feel it enveloping me like a plantain-wrapped meat appetizer in a friquitín.
I turned and ran for the water, diving like a mermaid whose legs became a tail. The water was too warm to cool me. Small, clear fish shimmied around my body as I bobbed in the water.
Hours passed as I moved in and out of the water to snack and look for shells.
I watched Andrea and Sebastian play paddleboard, Mariam build sand castles, and Jorge and my father-in-law snack in the shade.
Exhausted from a day in the sun, I was ready to leave paradise when my father-in-law yelled, “Let’s go get dinner.”
Andrea looked at me. “Aye. You’re pink! Didn’t you put on sunscreen?” There was a collective gasp when they looked at me. A white Sebastian-sized handprint showed where the sunscreen had been applied to my leg.
The skin on my face tightened. Five sets of brown eyes looked at my pink skin. My father-in-law looked at Sebastian and then at me. “I told you the sun was too strong.”
I knew he was right. No matter how much I wanted to fit in, I was different. That night, I tried to stave off the obvious, downing piles of seafood before I turned into a cooked lobster.