Every May the plaza in our barrio filled with lights strung tree to tree, banderitas snapping in the warm night, and a band that only knew four songs and played each one twice. That was where I loved Danny for three summers without telling him.
He sold balut near the basketball court, and I sold sampaguita by the church, and between us stretched thirty meters of dust, dancing couples, and everything I was too proud to cross. We had a system. When the band played the slow one, he'd hold up a balut and raise his eyebrows, our joke, our whole language: Will you have me? And I'd hold up a garland and shake my head, laughing, meaning yes, meaning someday, meaning not yet.
The third summer he had a girl helping him sell. Pretty, from the town proper, with a laugh that carried over the band. I strung my sampaguita tighter and told myself the sting in my eyes was the smoke from the lechon fires.
He found me by the church wall near midnight, the lights beginning to yellow and die. You never crossed, he said. Just that.
Neither did you.
He looked at the thirty meters, empty now, the couples gone home. I was waiting for you to lift a garland and mean it out loud.
The band packed up. The last bulb flickered. Somewhere a rooster confused the fiesta glow for dawn.
The girl? I asked.
My cousin. He smiled, tired. You could have just asked, Lourdes.
Three summers. Ninety meters of night, if you add them all, that I never once walked. He's married now, to someone who crossed. I sell sampaguita still, and when the band plays the slow one, twice, I hold a garland up to no one and finally, finally, I mean it out loud.
The lights are just as bright. It's only me who learned too late that you have to walk toward the person under them.