Jacob sat on the floor with the boxes around him and started his search. He had put the boxes without yearbooks and papers aside. Since he was going through them, he decided the papers needed sorting.
His high school yearbook was a bust as he knew it would be. There weren’t any black students at his school. Then he went to his college yearbook. For those, he had four. One by one he went through them, page by page. Even though there were black students, none looked like the woman on the beach. There was one yearbook left, it was from his graduate school.
Still, she didn’t show up. Deep inside Jacob knew he knew her, but from where he couldn’t place it. Somehow it continued to feel like it had been at a school.
Slowly he shifted to the papers in the other boxes. Why have I not done this years ago? That was the question of the day. The pile to shred grew as he got through the box.
First Jacob thought he had accomplished nothing, then he looked at the two stacks of papers. One stack for recycling and one to be shredded. Plenty had gotten done. Maybe not what he started out to do, but Jacob felt good about the work.
He cleared a path on the floor and went to bed. Sleep was difficult in coming. Jacob got up and sat on the patio. He watched the waves come in and out. The movement was what he needed to calm the nervous energy circulating around him.
His last conversation with Paul was troubling. Was there more to their friendship he had overlooked? Paul was the lady killer. Actually, he was a man whore. Now Jacob wondered if it was all a sham to hide who and what he really was. Nothing in the past two days made any sense.
Jacob rose from the chair and went inside. He got a glass, the bottle of gin, some ice and a mixer. Might as well have a drink as sleep is not in the cards at the moment.
Back on the patio, Jacob sat sipping his drink, thinking back over his life with Paul. All the adventures they had had together since elementary school. He always knew that no matter what he got into, Paul would have his back. He was always there for Paul. But was there more to their relationship he had overlooked?
He remembered the first time he met Shawn. Paul didn’t like her on sight. He could never figure out what the dislike was about. The reasons Paul gave never made sense. Their divorce spurred a big party that Paul planned. Now ten years later, that feels a little off.
Shawn once said she was competing for his attention with Paul and he always laughed at her. Maybe she was onto something, and he hadn’t wanted to see it.
Now the black woman on the beach has brought all of it full circle. Why was she on the beach? Why not, it’s a free beach? Where did that come from? Now he was questioning someone who only looked familiar because his friend had put that there.
Jacob drank the last drop of his drink. The stars were having a dance in the sky and seem to say time to move your body.
With that, he got up and headed back to bed. I know I know the black woman was the last thought as sleep finally arrived.
© 2019, Ivy Jade