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There are no minor characters in this story. All characters are over the age of 18-years-old.
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Looking into the past, Robert finds the future. He finally finds Emma.
Having just met her on the beach, he was tongue-tied by her beauty. Even with her just wearing her blue bikini and a pair of flip flops, she looked like she came from money. In the way she carried herself, he could tell that she was rich. Someone who looked like her had to be rich.
Not wanting her to leave, not ever wanting her to leave, and wanting this day to last forever, he wanted to engage her in small talk to learn more about her. Who was she? What was her name? Where does she live? Does she have a boyfriend?
Only, afraid to approach her, and with her showing so much of her body in that sexy bikini, he didn't want him thinking he was a pervert. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, he wasn't sure what to say to someone who looked like her. He didn't want her to brush him off as just another weirdo on the beach.
'Don't stare at her tits when talking to her,' he said to himself. 'Don't stare at her ass when she bends to pick up a seashell,' he reminded himself. 'Just smile and stare at her face and look in her eyes instead of staring at the impressions her nipples make in her bikini bra and the camel toe her pussy slit and her ass crack makes in her bikini bottom.'
Getting past the first awkward and uncomfortable moments, she seemed friendly enough, more than friendly enough. Actually, she seemed to like him as much as he liked her. When he walked with her, he filled the lulls in conversation and the sudden silences by imagining she was his girlfriend. Reminiscent of the band, as if he was one of the Beatles, he wanted to hold her hand. He wished he could hold her hand to show everyone on the beach that she belonged to him. Yet, someone who looked like her would never belong to someone who looked like him.
When he walked with her, with her obviously out of his league, he wished there was a book, How to Talk to a Beautiful Woman, that he could buy and read. Only, too late now, here he was walking along the beach with her, a beautiful woman. After asking her name and making some small talk about what a beautiful day it was, about the beach, the sky, the water, and her collecting seashells, not knowing how else to keep her talking he asked the obvious question.
"What does your father do?"
With him figuring she was fresh out of high school or a college coed, he didn't think she had a job. He didn't think someone who looked like her would ever be working at Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Burger King, or at the mall. He just hoped she'd think him interesting enough to answer his questions without her thinking that he was prying in her private life too soon. He just hoped she'd find him interesting enough to continue walking with him while talking to him.
If only for a few minutes, he was enjoying the company of walking beside a beautiful woman. If only for a few minutes, he was enjoying the company of her. If only for a few minutes, he imagined she was his woman. If only for a few minutes longer, he needed to drink all of her in so that he could take the memory of her home with him tonight. Knowing her memory would be all that he had left of her, he wanted to make the most of their brief time together.
"He's in real estate development, Marina properties," she said matter of fact and without a shred of pride as if he was a day laborer. "He buys properties, develops properties, and sells properties."
She turned from him to look behind her. Then she pointed to the homes that lined Revere Beach in the distance. In the way she looked and in the way she carried herself, she looked at him as if she was a princess. As beautiful as Snow White, unfortunately for them both, he was no Prince Charming.
"Oh, wow," said Robert showing more interest than she did and now knowing that she was definitely out of his league.
He looked at her as if he was her lackey. Then, she leaned into him as if she was going to tell him a secret. She was so close to him that he could smell her beautiful hair. She was so close to him that he wished he could reach out and touch her, hold her, and kiss her.
"He's been secretly buying up all of that property under several different companies he owns," she said still pointing to the dozens of the homes that filled the background a mile back from the beach. "He'll be leveling all of those houses to make the property into high rise, high income condominiums. The entire beachscape in the background will one day be filled with high rise, high priced condos. If the people selling their homes only knew what his development plans were, they'd hold out for more money."
He turned to look at the houses that lined the beach behind them. They've been there decades. Many of them were there when the beach was filled with amusement rides, hawkers, barkers, and hordes of people having fun on a Saturday night. Now with the amusement rides closed and the rollercoaster in such disrepair that it looked as if it was haunted, even though the beach was beautiful, albeit littered with trash, the backdrop was an eyesore.
Curious enough for him to give her a longer look, when he asked about her father, she shrugged her answer as if she was embarrassed by her father's occupation. Perhaps she wasn't proud of the land that he developed. Perhaps she felt bad about the people he displaced for the sake of making money. Obviously, once developed, the city would never be the same.
As if he was already in protest of land developers, he wondered, in the name of progress and tax base revenues, how many high rise apartments can any city have? How many malls do we need? Why must we continue tearing down houses that are filled with charm, character, history, and life for something new, modern, shiny, cold, and expensive?
With her father personally changing the landscape forever or for the next hundred years, until the next real estate developer makes their mark, the only thing that never changed was the beach, the water, and the sky. Already reading into her answer, she didn't have to tell him that she had a problem with her father, he knew that already. Just by looking at her, he knew there was more to their father and daughter relationship but not wanting to unduly upset her, especially when he just met her, he didn't dare ask.
Just by looking at her, he knew she was from money. He could tell. Yet, money wasn't everything. Even though she was smiling and was seemingly happy, there was a sadness about her. Even though she had beautiful eyes, she had sad eyes.
She looked as if she had survived something horrific or had endured a personal tragedy so bad that it changed her and forced her to prematurely grow from a child to a woman. Reading more into her external beauty, there was something deep within her that she was hiding. He didn't know what that was at the time but, as if she was a bird with a clipped wing, it was enough that he identified that there was something seriously wrong with her. Then, later that day, when her father caught them together making love before fucking, he knew she had been sexually intimate with her father, whether willingly or not.
Nonetheless her suspected incestuous background and the perceived emotional problems that would stem from that, the fact still remained that she's a rich girl and he's a working man. No doubt, her father, Mr. Marina, if that's his name, would never approve of them starting a relationship. No doubt, Mr. Marina would never want a man like him to be intimate with his daughter, especially if he was the man taking his daughter away from him.
Despicable. What kind of father, obviously an educated and wealthy man, has sex with his daughter? Perhaps she reminds him of his wife, her mother. Perhaps in the way that he's trying to build for the future, he'd trying to hold onto the past.
More than that and complicating matters even more, with her just a teenager, Robert was older than her. Quickly he did the math in his head. When he's fifty-something-years-old, she'll be forty-something-years-old. There'd be nothing wrong with their age then but she comes from money and he doesn't. Only, way ahead of himself in the growth of their imagined relationship, why would someone who looked like her go on a date with someone who looked like him?
"I see," said Robert suddenly feeling awkward that, because of the success of her father, she had much more money than he'll ever have.
