rhea

Rhea is watching her friends in the water. She's sitting on a papag, a bed assembled from bamboo, like the cottages to her left, where Espy and the others are drinking. Yesterday, when the jeepney they sardined into got near the shoreline, the wind picked up a coolness, a sweet scent that meant they were nearing the edge of the island. That was the point, of course, of coming to this place. To see the beach and then maybe decide to wade in it. But then there was the trek to the campsite that Espy's boondog watched over. It felt like ascending a mountain to Rhea, who had been raised to think that the terrains of Bacolod and Manila defined the world. And then there were the makeshift cooking and eating utensils and lavatories (which was anywhere far from human eyes), and it was an hourly struggle to remain antiseptic. Because the bathroom hadn't been invented yet on a hill that high. And she even managed to sleep in a tent with Espy and Rona. How was that possible? Never mind. Coming down from the hill was a different story, and strained almost a new set of muscles, which Rhea didn't expect. Her only exercise in the office was straining with the mouse and pressing her floor on the elevator panel. Of course, her vocal chords were in order. But you can't ask your voice box or your tongue to go downhill for you. Rhea remembered her cramping legs during her slow walk to the beach, when Ayen said she walked like those cheap wind-up little robots, and she was too tired to hit him with her bag. And now that the hill and campsite and boondog were behind her, she stares at the inviting beach below. But it's nice up here, she thought, with the air blowing not too hard and not too hot. But it would take effort to shower, even though the shower room was only six paces to her right. And after she showers, she'll have to walk all the way down to where Pam and Rona are doing synchronized swimming. There, she'll get wet again. This time by semi-salty water. And then she'll have to wash her hair, again. There was an odd logic to all this. You come up a hill to go down. You shower to get wet so you can get wet afterwards, in the sea. Weird. I think I'll just stay up here, she thought. This is the second time she went to Batangas, the second time she stayed away from the sea. Better that my friends think I just didn't feel like sea-dipping again, she thought. She couldn't risk them finding out that, when sea water touches her, she turns into a crab.