Echo and the Bunnymen

Reminiscing about Lola’s kisses, Richard turned up the car radio, the second he heard the first chords of Echo and the Bunnymen’s, “Lips Like Sugar Kisses.” He loved the song, but he couldn’t remember; how long ago had it been since Lola had kissed him so deeply, so desperately, that he had imagined himself to have been submerged beneath the weight of the sea, its blue water flooding over him, carrying him to the center of the earth?

Richard now smiled a doleful smile, and hummed along with the lines as they squalled from the car’s speakers, “Just when you think you’ve caught her, she glides across the water…”

What a coincidence that he was now--20 years later-- driving that same stretch of PCH, a few miles north of Zuma Beach, near where Lola had later drowned, just a year after they had broken up for good.

He loved the song, but he remembered that it had played in the background when, on their final day together, Lola screamed that she didn’t like his clothes, his car, his occupation and least of all, his taste in music.

“My God, Richard, she had shouted, “How can anyone possibly like music by a group called Echo and the Bunnyman?”