Freedom! Awaits!

My elbows make pockets in the sand beneath the towel I'm lying on. All I can think about is the sunscreen I lathered into my skin in the girl's bathroom back at school before meeting my friends for lunch. Oasis is playing on a radio a few blankets down, and I can't help but wonder about the AP English class I'm missing. I pull out my copy of The Good Earth and try to read a few pages, but the sun is still high in the sky, and the glare from the pages is blinding. I toss the battered paperback back into my bag with a huff and try to chill out. My friends and I ditched school to come to the beach. Senioritis has struck the class of '95 hard, apparently.

Two hours spent under this tropical sun, and I can't help but hope my sunscreen hasn't worn off. I left the bottle in my car, which was currently hidden in Yanley's garage. Her parents were conveniently out of town, which meant it was safe from being seen by my parental units. We lived a block away from each other, and the thought of my mom spying it while driving down the street was not something any of us wanted to deal with.

I examen the freckles on my knees - they were darker, which only accentuated the pink tint my skin was now showing.

I'm going to regret this later, I thought. Gisele's argument about needing a chance to chill before Prom this weekend seemed a good enough reason for skipping our afternoon classes at the time. Now, I wasn't so sure.

I would be a lobster at Prom, and it was all my fault for being too embarrassed to need stupid sunscreen. Ugh!

Why couldn't I tan like my friends? Despite the fact my Dad was Cuban, he was white as toast too. Even my mom, who was from England, tanned better than he and I did; but apparently, red-headed Cubans existed, like unicorns in some alternate universe. Yanley's fingers drew circles in the sand; she was trying to talk herself into "doing it" with her boyfriend, Carlos, on Prom night. Gisele and I were totally against this line of thought, but we let her work it out. We'd jump in, of course, if she somehow managed to convince herself it was a "go" with a list of reasons she hadn't thought of as to why it was a bad idea.

First and foremost, on the list would be the fact that a person shouldn't have to convince oneself to have sex. Right? What did we know anyway? I wondered for like the 1,000th time this topic had come up over the last week, which was a lot.

Gisele's legs were crossed at her knees while one foot languidly bounced. She was listening to her Walkman, and I'd bet my car a 2-Pac cassette tape was blasting into her ears.

"Hey Snow White, you're looking a little too much like Sebastian, Chica," Giselle said as she pulled a pink bottle of Coppertone out of her bag. "Lather it on thick Princess."

The bottle lands in a spray of sand that tickles my nose. I wipe it off, suddenly glad Gisele can't see the flush I could feel blooming across my cheeks. I sputter a "Thank you!" and explain, "I was literally yelling at myself for not bringing my sunscreen!"

"I know. I was totally enjoying your internal struggle as it played across you face, but I couldn't stand to see you suffering any longer."

"No te preocupes. I would never embarcade on you like that." Giselle said, waving away my gratitude.

"For real Jenny, what kind of friends would we be if we let you burn yourself up right before prom?" Yanley chimed in.

"Cmon I'll help you get your back covered." Giselle said as she pulled off her headphones.

After I'm appropriately slathered in sunscreen, Yanley suggests we move closer to the lifeguard's post, where I could lie in the shade. We pick up our bags and towels and head over.

"I"m gonna miss this." I say, "When we're in college and not together anymore."

"Me too amiga." Giselle said.

"Let's go grab something to eat at News Cafe and then hang out until the cops tell us we have to leave." Yanley says in an uncharacteristic moment of spontaneity.

We leave out towels and walk across Ocean Drive to grab a burger. While we eat, we reminisce about that time a lizard fell on my shoulder in the fifth grade, and I got so scared I peed my pants. Or the time in seventh grade when Giselle got her period for the first time, and we all wore our gym clothes so no one would know which of us Aunt Flo was visiting.

When we returned to the beach, we resumed our positions. Giselle and Yanley chased their golden tans, and I took shelter from the ball of fire in the sky.

Safely tucked away in the shade, I stare out at the aquamarine ocean before me, "I'm so happy I exist." I said.

Giselle and Yanley giggled. "We're happy you exisit too, and can we have some of what you're smoking?" They joked.

Far off on the horizon, a cruise ship danced on the edge of the earth, and I watch it disappear while stories about its passengers and destination fill my head. I close my eyes and, for the first time that day, my muscles relax.

"Ahhh I see what you meant about chilling before prom."

"Oh my God. Oh my God!" Yanley stands up suddenly and points out towards the horizon; I was looking out at only moments before.

Similar cries ring out across the beach.

Giselle and I both stand up to get a better look.

"Is it a shark?" I ask.

"No, Jenny! "Mira ver los Balseros!" Giselle cries, and then I see them!

"Rafters! From Cuba!” I'd seen them on the news so much this last year.

"Swim! Swim!" People on the beach called!

"Run!! Get to the shore! You have to touch the dry sand!” A man at the shoreline called out in Spanish.

"Libertad se espera! Corre compadres!" Freedom is waiting for you! Run, we shout in Spanish!

Sirens wale in the distance and a Coast Guard speed boat can be seen cutting across the ocean. All the adults lately were discussing the new "Wet foot/dry foot" law.

"There is no way they're gonna make it," Giselle says. Her hands are locked at her chest in silent prayer; everyone is hoping doesn't come true."

"They'll make it." I say. "They have to. They've come all this way."

I run to the shore, half crying and yelling at the refugees to hurry.

I can see there are four of them now. No, wait. Five, among them, is a small child, no bigger than Giselle's little sister.

The Coast Guard is getting closer when suddenly a large wave rolls in and pushes their makeshift raft of inner tubes, styrofoam, and car parts onto the beach. We help them out and practically carry them to the dry sand.

They made it. They made it!

A man asks, "How many days?" in Spanish.

A woman, perhaps not much older than me, replies, "Seven."

Beachgoers give them money, and staff from nearby hotels offer them food and water. We give them our towels and oversized sweatshirts we planned on wearing home. As we wait for the police and fire rescue to provide them with the help they so desperately need.

"We are free. We are free. We are free. Thank you. Thank you!" They repeated. As they leaned up against the lifeguard post, we'd only recently been lying near. Their skin was blistered, and their lips cracked from lack of water and exposure to the elements.

"I am so happy you exisit." The little child says to the crowd before her. "We are free!"

Suddenly our problems didn't seem quite so big.

Because... We've always been free.