Short Words, Big Love

Blue in Curacao

Typical me. After spending months planning and organizing this trip, my friends end up tanning at the beach like exotic mermaids, while I'm here in our rental apartment nursing what could be the worst sunburn in history. I had been looking forward to this vacation for so long. The Dutch weather had been awful, it seemed the sky couldn't make its mind between snow, hail, rain and wind. Sometimes all in a day. All I wanted was to feel the sun on my skin again while staring at the ocean, and sipping a sweet cocktail at a terrace.

When we arrived at the airport in Curacao and stepped outside to find a taxi, the warm air slap on my face felt welcome, getting me immediately out of my winter blues and making me ready for a time of relaxation and fun. We arrived at Papagayo Beach—faster than expected thanks to the maniac driving skills of our taxi driver even during a traffic jam—and my idea of paradise became a reality. The deep blue ocean, creamy sand and palm trees would become the setting of my adventure; maybe a flash romance with a local, an Aneudy or a Yaniel.

We basically threw our luggage in the front-water apartment and changed into our bikinis as fast as we could. The beach boulevard was full of people when we arrived and we managed to score what seemed to be the last chairs available right at the end of the strip of sand. The sun felt amazing on my skin, a sensual lover kissing me on all the right places. And then I fell asleep...

When I woke up an hour later, my friends were gone, and the contents of my open bottle of sunblock laid spilled on the chair, my towel and the sand. The only places in my body that didn't get burned were my back and the hand swimming on the spilled cream. I felt like a half-baked lobster and moving was torture. My friends apologized a million times, saying that I looked so peaceful that they didn't want to wake me up. At least they could have found a cheap umbrella or something to protect me, but they didn't. Since then, I've been living between taking cold showers, applying overpriced aloe vera gel from a tourist pharmacy and staring at the ocean from the apartment balcony. They have paid for their guilty feelings bringing delicious foods from the boulevard restaurants and I have half-forgiven them by now.

Half of the vacation gone seems long enough for a pity party, so today I'm daring to go outside once more. Trying my best to boost my confidence, I put on the only sundress I could find in a sales rack when everything else available in shops in the Netherlands were sweaters and skiing suits. I consider putting on red lipstick, but why bother? It won't improve my already red face. So after a royal layer of sunblock, I lift my tote on my shoulder, wincing in the process and walk out of the apartment.

Once downstairs I walk through every shadowed path until I make it to the Beach Club building in the center. It's lunch time and the place is full of gorgeously tanned people sitting on white chairs. The kind waitress tells me there are free spots to sit at the bar and I follow her directions. Indeed, there's enough room here to accommodate a few more people. Maybe I should message my friends to tell them I'm here if they want to join me for a drink or some snacks; although chances are their phones are buried among towels and magazines and won't even notice the notification.

"Doutzen?"

"Yeah, like the model, yet not famous or wealthy like her," I say while browsing the cocktail menu.

My reply comes well-reahearsed. I share a name with fellow Dutchie and Victoria Secret model Doutzen Kroes, yet I don't have her beauty, her figure or her wallet. I then realize I'm sitting at the bar and not at a speed-dating event, yet instinctively look down at my chest, expecting a name card, but all I find is a breast trying to come free out of my ill-fitting dress. My head snaps up and find a familiar pair of blue-gray eyes in a face I can't place.

"Doutzen, it's been like forever! How long since we broke up? Ten years at least." The man in front of me with a dazzling smile says.

No... This can't be right. Besides the eyes, everything else about him is different. The blond hair is long and way lighter, from the sun, perhaps? The chubby cheeks are gone and exchanged for a chiselled face and his biceps fight the fabric of his shirt as he flexes his arms atop the bar counter.