Long Beach Summer: What Happened Between Us?
Mysterious summer Love
Before I migrated to the US in 2006, I would often spend my summer vacations in Los Angeles. During one of my visits, a friend invited me to Long Beach Pride and a house party afterward. For a young 20-something, this was exciting. I wasn’t out to my family, so I felt free being in a different country, away from my parents, celebrating Pride.
The house was owned by a Filipina model a few years older than me, and her Vietnamese girlfriend. As soon as they opened the door and let us in, my friend beside me looked at me with a wide grin on her face and mumbled BINGO, referring to the cute couple.
Bingo? Are they really?
The whole night, I was guilty of side-glancing at the Vietnamese girlfriend. I wanted to see why my friend acted like we won the lottery just by being invited to this house party. I realized the girlfriend, to me, was indeed pretty.
The party was awesome! I had never seen so many gays and lesbians under one roof in my entire life. Coming from a conservative country, this was THE party. Awesome loud music, a wide variety of chips, boxes of pizza, unlimited sweets or so it seemed, booze, lots of booze and vodka shots!
As the night dwindled down, the Vietnamese girlfriend leaned close to me and asked, “one more shot?”
I was really too buzzed to have another drink, but I couldn’t say no. Actually, that’s not true, I just could not say no to HER. I took the shot, downed it, and as I was slamming down the shot glass, I lost my balance. She pulled the waist of my jeans and saved me from embarrassing myself. “You should be careful,” she said and winked at me. Holy cow! She winked.
Was she flirting? Why did come near me? Why did she wink at me? Do I have a crush on her? I’m sure she saw me looking at her the entire night. I even thought I was such a FOB for thinking that way. In my head I thought, "I’m sure women here in the States act confident that way".
I rode with my friend as she excitedly shared her stories about the night like I wasn’t at the same party. She went on and on about how she had such a blast while I just sat beside her, thinking about you-know-who.
The next day just before noon, I was still half asleep with a bad hangover when my cellphone rang. It’s her! How did she get my phone number? To this day, I’ve never found out. “Hey Momma, it’s me! Oh, you were sleeping? Anyway, do you want to watch a movie?”
A movie? I was going back home in 2 weeks, I had no time for movies!
“YES”, I said. Stupid. I had so many errands to do, plus … what was I thinking? I would never get in the way of a relationship. That is not me and that is never my style! But I found myself rushing to take a quick shower, making sure I used the right hair conditioner to make my hair look extra shiny and pretty, wore my favorite top, took headache pills, and drove to The Grove LA as fast as I can to catch the 2 pm screening.
As I stood there just outside the movie house, I saw her walking towards me … with her girlfriend. Cue suspenseful background music: Dun dun dun duuuuun. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Why am I third-wheeling? Did they feel obligated to take a tourist out? Whatever it was, I went along with it. We went inside the movie house, her girlfriend sitting on her right while I sat to her left. She sat in the middle holding a bucket of popcorn for all of us to share. Weird.
For the next 2 weeks, I hung out with them to the malls, had lunches around Orange County, and pretty much had dinner and drinks at their place every single night.
And every night, she and I would end up alone in their living room, talking. Just talking.
I learned a lot about her in those 2 weeks. I was charmed. Fascinated.
The day that I had to fly home came, I remember calling both of them to say goodbye but they weren’t picking up my calls. I felt a bit hurt knowing that I had spent all my time with them since I met them, skipped a few … er, a LOT of errands and they couldn’t even bid me goodbye. There was no Facebook back then or even iPhone. It wasn’t going to be easy to stay connected. It made me really upset.
At the airport lounge, waiting for my flight to be called. My phone rang and as I saw the name of the person calling, my hand started to shake…“Hey!” I said. “I’ve been trying to reach you guys. I’m leaving in 30 mins. Is everything ok?”
Silence. She was silent for a few seconds that seemed like an excruciating minute.
And then finally, I heard her say softly … “I’m sorry, I will miss you … I will miss you a lot.” And then she hung up.
I tried calling her back but it kept kicking into voicemail. I knew that as soon as I got on that plane, it would be harder to reach her. Long-distance calls weren’t ideal.
The 12-hour plane ride home was torture. I played everything in my head from Day 1. What was that all about? What happened? Why didn’t they pick up my calls? Why did she say she will miss me?
I will miss her too.
Back home, I tried to get in touch with them again, and just like before I left, they never picked up. After a few days of trying, I had let it go.
I moved on to live my life. Whatever uncertainty or questions I may have had about my sexuality, coming home from that trip, I became certain I was really gay.
I met someone shortly after that, and she and I ended up moving to Los Angeles together after 2 years. Once in a while, I would think about the girls from Long Beach and wonder how they were.
My relationship only lasted 4 years. I went on to move to San Francisco. Facebook became a "thing" so I tried searching for her there. Nothing. Nothing came out of my searches with different permutations of her name.
And then there was work and a girl. I built a business and lost it, a breakup, another cross-continent move, then I went back to the corporate world and finally met someone I hope to spend the rest of my life with.
I haven’t thought about THAT girl in over a decade. But there are times like these … like this P&P writing prompt that made me sit, remember and write about her … and it still makes me wonder, what really happened between her and I during that one lovely summer at Long Beach.
