Cigarettes and Sweat
It didn’t matter how cool of a shower I took every morning. I had been sweating the entire trip since I got off the plane at the Brisbane airport in Australia on the last day of February. The summer heat shocked my winter-softened skin and beads dripping down my back trickled to my pants. After lugging our suitcases in one hand and surfboard bags in the other, I raced to the bathroom as my friend Emma called Liam, a boy she met the last time she was here three years ago, to direct him to our pick up location.
Brisbane is a city on the northeastern coast of the continent of Australia, otherwise known as the state of Queensland. Noosa, is a town two and a half hours north of Brisbane. About a fifteen hour flight from Brisbane to LAX, a two hour drive from Oceanside to LAX and a masterpiece by the gods for a boy and a girl from opposite sides of the world to meet and find the world in each other.
“I’m so nervous,” Emma admitted.
“Why? This is so sick, you finally get to see him after so long,” I poorly reassured her.
“Yeah, but we only knew each other for 10 days. We promised we would see each other three years later no matter if we were dating other people or whatever the circumstances and now we’re actually fucking here. How does shit like that happen?”
“I don’t know. Love is weird. I’ll never understand it.”
I had one thing on my mind - getting out of the sweltering heat.
“All I know is he’s giving us a free place to stay and ride out of this damn airport so I like him already,” I blurt out of pure apathy.
A rusted, off-white Toyota van pulled up and a skinny, tall, blonde boy hopped out of it.
“Isa, this is Liam!”
“Hi, how you going?”
It was as if his wirey curls hanging like branches over his bright blue eyes asked me. And that was about the only thing they said for the next few hours. We piled our things on the bed he built in the back of his van, beside the installed mini fridge and underneath the rack on the ceiling with boards tucked in like infants in a cradle. The front of his van had three seats, a dusty dashboard holding a seashell functioning as an ashtray, op-shop pastel pink children’s glasses and a Johnny Cash CD.
It might have been one of the most awkward drives of my life. Emma, crammed between Liam and I, attempted to catch up on lost time with the soulmate her 16-year-old self created. We chain-smoked cigarettes Emma nervously rolled every fifteen minutes like a tick to keep busy. I tried to pry words out of Liam, desperate to rob us of the painful silence.
“I keep thinking we’re gonna crash when you make a turn. Can you turn left on red lights? We do that in California. But right.” Oh god…
“So, Liam, tell me about yourself.” Emma’s supposed to be hitting on him, not you, idiot.
“I’m so tired, holy shit.” Just close your eyes and shut up.
I pretended to sleep while the humid outside air slapped my face along the highway with my window wide open.
And I continued to sweat. Mostly because the van had no air conditioning and cigarette smoke melted onto my skin. Partly because it hit I was actually in Australia being driven in a van on the left side of the road by a stranger in 85-degree weather in February. I finally breathed a sigh of relief, made a temporary mold in the left seat of Liam’s van and listened to Your Love by The Outfield play on the stereo. The sunlight flickered in and out of the trees’ shadows making dark orange shapes onto my eyelids.
Mornings began with a layer of heavy air that fell asleep with me the night before and woke me up at around sunrise. I either heard the sizzling of eggs outside my room or Emma knocking on my door to meet Liam’s friends at the nearest bakery for sausage rolls and iced coffee. Their ratted hair, sun-weathered skin, faded jeans, and familiar accents brought Liam out of his mute spell and invited a warm feeling I had never felt before when meeting new people. They asked lots of questions about California, fraternity parties, and how we liked Australia so far. The turquoise-tinted ocean glistened brighter at every beach they took us to and the sun left red kisses all over our chests and shoulders from surfing too long.
Afternoons were spent in the backyard drinking unknown beer brands, smoking cigarettes and listening to Liam and his friends telling stories and cracking jokes as if they practiced them in the mirror. Their accents made everything twice as funny and Liam proved himself to be the wittiest human on earth.
Each night, dinner would turn into card games and card games would turn into cheersing another beer and another beer would turn into a walk to the local pub and the local pub would turn into another laugh from someone recognizing my American accent. There was never time to be strangers - they wouldn’t allow it.
“You have to come back… Next time you’re in Australia, I WILL be upset if I don’t hear from you….What’s your Instagram?....When I’m in the States I’d love to see you…”
The first goodbye wasn’t supposed to hurt.
It only got hotter. And I only sweat more when we relocated closer to the equator.
Guys with mullets ran down the white-sand beach in their Birdwell boardies, tourists bought their savings in cocktails at the rooftop bar, girls rotated like rotisserie chickens in neon bikinis, a total of nearly a hundred sat out in the lineup, vendors lined the boardwalk selling anything from surfboards to acai bowls and mothers led their posse of kids down the boardwalk.
Emma knew everyone, and I knew no one.
“You’re Emma’s friend, right?”
I didn’t think anyone would notice me - the random girl standing next to Emma as she talked to practically a queue of people waiting to reunite with her.
Noosa. Sydney. New Zealand. Bali. France. Hawaii. The U.K. Spain. Encinitas. San Clemente. Florida.
Surfers from around the world came up to talk to me and get to know me. I never got this much acknowledgment at my hometown high school parties.
We stayed at one of Emma’s friends, Eli’s house.
“ISAAAA”. 7:30 a.m.
“Mmmm.”
“LET’S GO SHORTBOARDINGGG”.
A routine Eli and I quickly got in the habit of every morning while staying at his house. We then proceeded to make vegemite avocado toast, watch our favorite surf edits, and make to-go coffees for the drive.
I followed Eli down the long case of wooden steps jungled with Pandanus and Palm trees towering above. Eli looked back, “This is a beach only locals know so just follow me, I grew up surfing here” and ran straight into the ocean. The waves looked like crystals as the sun pierced through the perfect left handers breaking in the vastest array of blues I’ve ever seen. The sunlight reflected off the swirling sand beneath and Eli already got barreled before I even paddled out. Nervous sweats emerged feeling unworthy to surf these waves, a sacred space gifted only to those who got the chance to witness it. And somehow I got chosen.
Days at the beach and surfing until my skin burnt to a crisp were mandatory. I proudly showed off my rich brown tone before red scales surfaced and peeled the tan away with it.
“Should’ve put sunscreen on, I told ya the Aussie sun doesn’t play around”, Eli would remark, sounding more like my brother back at home.
Each night ended in Eli’s thrift-shop-find decorated garage. I made myself a home in the orange and brown striped chair amongst the musical chairs of friends who would join throughout the nights. No matter who attended, it was guaranteed belly laughing for hours over Liam and Eli’s banter, learning Australian lingo, and missing exact moments while I lived them. An anticipated nostalgia of a sort.
“I’ll be in Oceanside this summer, let’s surf…I am going to miss you too…It’s going to suck here without you, I reckon….I’ll be in Europe in the fall too! You can stay with me whenever you’d like…Message me whenever you’re back in Aus…”
Sweaty hugs.
As I left the people who felt close to family after three weeks, I recalled what I ignorantly said about Emma’s connection with Liam the first day: ‘“I don’t know. Love is weird. I don’t understand it.”’
Twenty days later and I still don’t. After experiencing many different forms of love throughout the trip. How can one hold a connection with another so far away and for such a long time? I don’t think I’ll ever know, but I’m thankful to have a grasp on it.
I hope I never figure it out. I’d like to keep coming back to the curiosity left there.
My body froze instantly as I flew into LAX. I was welcomed back to rainy streets and winter skies when I was picked me up at six in the morning. I dozed off to the scent of cigarettes and sweat embedded in my clothes as we drove, wondering what they all were doing and when I’d be back to the second home I found.