Denim Jackets and Good Intentions

Chapter Seven

"My mom is Pacific Islander, well, partly. She said her mom was from one of the Hawaii islands, or something. And then my dad is like, half white, half Japanese," Lisa rambled.

She had her feet on the dashboard, freshly painted toenails glistening in the sun. She had picked out her favorite bikini, the blue and white striped one with the ruffles on the bottoms. She wore a pair of worn out denim shorts over it until they got to the beach where she could shed them off, they were baggy around her thighs and fraying at the ends.

"I don't know what I am...just white I think," Eric muttered and turned onto the street that would lead them directly to the beach if they kept straight.

"Yeah, she's all about her roots, but my dad changed his name cause...you know," he said, a twinge of something edgy in her voice.

Yeah, they knew. As if a tape had been pushed into the back of his head and played, images of the word 'commie' sprayed across his high school locker flashed through Douglas' mind. His mother was of Russian and Polish descent, brought to Maine by her parents after they were scared out of Poland by threat of war. His mother was seventeen when they immigrated to the U.S., changing their names to Wright to blend in. By thirty, she was pregnant with Vincent, and then later Douglas, by a man with olive skin, dark hair, and a hooked nose. That's all she cared to remember the man by after he left.

"What about you?"

Douglas blinked, almost like he was coming out of a trance. He looked over at Lisa, who was watching him expectantly with her almond shaped, dark brown eyes.

"Oh, well...my mother is from Poland originally. Tarnów."

Lisa smiled widely.

"Can you teach me to say that?"

"Tar - roll the r- no. Tar-no. Tarnów."

It was amusing to see how interested Lisa was in the pronunciation, she repeated it like a mantra. The wind blew through the open windows as Eric drove, listening to their conversation and pronouncing the town name silently to himself.

"Do you know any other words in Polish?" Lisa asked, resting her chin on the back of the front seat to watch Douglas.

He thought for a moment, chewing his lip. His mother still recalled some of her native tongue from her childhood, but after living in America for a couple of decades, she'd assimilated and what remained was a thin accent.

"My mother taught me some when I was younger, but she mostly speaks English now. I think..."

One phrase that his mother drilled into him relentlessly stayed in his mind, he'd always hold it dear to his heart. It was the one thing he'd remembered syllable for syllable.

"Jesteś piękna."

"Ye...yestes..."

Eric chuckled at the feeble attempt Lisa made, earning him a smack to his arm by the girl. Douglas chuckled.

"Yis-tes pyink-na. Jesteś piękna," he said slowly, Lisa's eyes intense on him, watching him.

"And what does that mean?" Eric asked, swirling the wheel around to turn down a thin stretch of road, sand grains becoming more and more common on the asphalt.

Douglas looked at the other boy in the rear view mirror, watching his eyes dart left and right before turning right. The light enveloped the car from where they escaped the buildings that the narrow road had led through. Green eyes flickered back briefly to meet brown in anticipation for an answer.

"You're beautiful."

Lisa hummed teasingly at Eric, nudging him with her elbow. A pink tint slowly spread across the high schooler's peach cheeks.