By: Marianne Vincent-Fonteijne

Doors and windows in front are closed. The olive green bar on the edge of the island is welcoming though. A few women are drinking beers and laughing under the balcony’s swirling fan at the back. I leave my bicycle against the back wall. It is so hot that I scarcely glance at the people and go straight to the bar inside.

I face things the way shy people do: in a rush not to be noticed.

A very energetic and funny woman is putting invoices in a file while chatting with the bartender. The latter is a young curvy student full of peps and looking up to the unknown accountant whose name is Cathy. This I overheard. Cathy is looking at me with smiling eyes.

* It’s your first time here, love! Where are you from?
* Brussels, Belgium.
* Wow! Brussels, Belgium!

Then she waves at the scattered people around and shouts out:

* Hi! This woman came all over from Belgium by bike!

Almost everyone is laughing. I like the way I have been introduced. Despite the heat, about 98 Fahrenheit, I have crisscrossed the island by bike before reaching this welcoming place. I feel at home here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by unknown faces. Two guys, one much older than the other one, are sitting on the bar stools next to mine.  John is Australian and his young lover a cute Mexican. They kiss shameless of me and of the pandemic swine flu that also caught this tropical isle. Life is to be enjoyed. John used to work in textile for Armani; he was so successful in business that he retired at thirty and made up his mind to discover the world by boat. Felipe was raised in Mexico in a poor family and his dream is to open a similar Blue Moon Bar with John in Mexico. I understand John has another dream: living in a cottage at the Australian seaside, his home country.

Next to him are two women: both divorced. One is very tall and sort of mute while her girlfriend chatters away unveiling her personal life by bits and pieces while sipping a dragon bear, stronger than tequila. Alcohol gives her the nerve to express things. Her tall girl friend silently watches us, releasing an ironical smile now and then, hidden under her long straight hair.

And there comes Gaby. She looks at me a serene and half questioning way. I love it.  Actually I don’t know why yet. She is drinking a Budweiser the way men usually do; she looks friendly, through and through friendly.  I take to her at once and now I still can’t explain exactly why. She is not my type of woman: I have never been with a butch, neither a diva by the way and she has that huge silver cross hanging around her neck that frightens me with all its possible assumptions or ethical judgments. I am also watching her in amazement as a Belgian thrown over on this lost tropical island. She is reading through me. I can feel Gaby Lara’s gaze piercing my skin to my lungs and heart. She is a good woman; I can feel this at once. The strange thing is, we are both rather silent. We don’t talk at first, only eye each other from the tip of our bar stools. A woman, called Frieda, is plopping between us. She is drunk and looking for a one-night-stand. I am not sure she fits the location. Frieda clings to Gaby, seizes her hand as if she were to hold it for a long time. Gaby gently strokes this floppy hand. This gesture makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know why. Gaby wears glasses she is taking off now and then, as if to see better what is going on. I can feel the intensity of her inner world and I become totally relaxed. She is different from all people around. She is a butch, that’s to say a woman who is not very fem: no make up or seduction technique at all. Instead she is radiating kindness and assurance that wrap you up in wellbeing.

All of a sudden Frieda starts sobbing, hiding her face under her American army cap. I invite her to sit between Gaby and me again. Something’s happened. Gaby and I were involved in a conversation and we sincerely haven’t noticed anything. Being quickly thrilled by people who start crying, I urge weeping Frieda to tell us what’s going on, what’s happened? Gaby is almost laughing, more used than I am to such outbursts of despair, and she reminds her she was giggling five minutes earlier. I solemnly add being a foreigner, a Belgian lost on this island, she can tell me anything, I won’t tell anyone and I might vanish on a canoe back home tomorrow. Gaby is shrieking with laughter. If she happens to be a writer, she will make a story out of this, for sure.  Weeping Frieda has fled. She is nowhere to be seen. As I am becoming anxious she fainted somewhere or is on the verge of committing suicide, I turn to Gaby who doesn’t seem to worry at all. She must have faced worse in life. That is for sure. Gaby is coming nearer to me. The music of the seventies and eighties is filling Blue Moon Bar. Women are dancing and singing joyfully and I am happy to be there. A man, at least I thought the person was a man at first, is coming to me for a first dance that I decline. Actually I am not that good at dancing as I am bashful at times and don’t have the sense of rhythm being a Caucasian white.  ‘White Caucasianism’ is incurable as far as dancing is concerned. Gaby is almost shocked and asks me why I refused dancing with this woman. She must feel hurt. He, my dancer, turns out to be a she called Barbara. I probably didn’t have a close and attentive look at her. It is obviously a woman. Afterwards I accept two dances with Barbara to be polite and sympathetic but I do feel tense and uncomfortable from beginning to end.  I flee back next to Gaby.

Back home in Brussels, an international city, I can still hear Gaby’s unanswered question then:

“Would I have made a chance, if I had asked you the first dance?”

End …

By: Marianne

About the Author: Having been a language teacher in adult-learning in Brussels/Belgium for a lifetime, creator and organizer of conversation and cycle clubs, I am a lucky person who met people from all over the world. I love writing,communicating and traveling. Writing is a way of reaching a better understanding and have people break frontiers.

I just finished a novel and am working on a second one. Publishing is the next step. I also plan to write short stories illustrating people I met and took to in Europe, America and the Middle East.

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