The Beautiful Girl

It was a bit past five o’clock, and darkness was already beginning to fall over the Caribbean.  My wife was fiddling with her phone by the hotel’s reception desk, and our friends were at a restaurant watching the football game.  The hour before sunset is my favorite of the day, and I intended to enjoy it.  I picked up my John Grisham novel and a bottle of cold Mexican beer, and made the 100 foot walk from my cabana to a beach lounger.  There I sat - alone, but completely happy.

The occasional tourists would walk by, usually an olive-skinned couple speaking in a European dialect.  The men would have plenty of tattoos and facial hair, and the ladies would have skinny legs and sunglasses.

Eventually, a lone traveler began to walk down the beach toward me, and when she drew near, she began to approach me.  Figuring that she wanted me to take a picture of her or provide her with directions to the local cantina, I glanced up over my book.

“Could you watch my bag for a few minutes?” she asked.  The accent told me that she was French – no, Italian.  Definitely Italian.  She was probably in her late 20’s.  Not planning to leave my spot until the last ray of sunlight had disappeared, I agreed.

After setting down her bag, she slipped off her shoes, then her shorts, and then her shirt.  What was left was nothing but a black bikini covering a small portion of her slender body.  I guess she is going for a swim, I thought to myself.  With her back to me, she then untied her bikini top, let it drop behind her, and walked out into the ocean.

She bobbed about for ten minutes, and although I kept trying to focus on my book, I found myself reading the same paragraph over and over again.

About this time, I began to get nervous, because I knew what was coming.  She would eventually come back out of the water.

I turned to our cabana and looked for my wife, but she was nowhere in sight.  I then thought about what my pastor recommends to do in these situations – run!  But, I had agreed to watch her belongings.  So, I just sat there and waited for it to happen.  Eventually, she came out of the water and pushed her long brown hair back as she walked toward me.

I sensed that my anxiety would be more obvious if I pretended to ignore her, so I decided to quickly engage her in polite conversation.  Within a few seconds, her top was back on and she picked up her belongings. She smiled as she said “thank you” and turned to continue walking down the beach.

And then she walked out of sight, before my wife or friends came to find me.  So, there is no proof that it ever happened.    But it did.

Five minutes later, my wife sat down on the lounger next to me and asked how I was doing, likely expecting me to reply with a grunt.  I told her my tale, and she simply laughed in amusement.  And I watched her face light up as she laughed, and felt pleased to have the company of the most beautiful girl on the beach.