Planet Panic

by Pam Pastor

  Then I brought out my stamp set and used it to stamp creepy messages onto the crate’s cover. Run Coco. Hide Coco. Help. Save yourself. And I added fake blood.

  Then I wrapped the whole thing with the netting that came with the Christmas gift basket someone gave me last week.

  When I woke up the next day, the first thing I did was go to another mall and find a jar that could hold the mother’s brain, a beautiful brain-shaped head of cauliflower that I bought at Shopwise the day before.

  When I got back, Jill and Giff were already cooking. I joined them in the kitchen and made deviled quail eggs, baked mussels and open-faced tacos.

  As the guests arrived, I snuck off to wrap my other present and to get ready for dinner.

  My original plan was to submerge the gift in bloody water and put the brain on top of it. But I should have paid more attention in science class because Archimedes’ principle screwed me over. I settled for putting the brain at the bottom and my gift on top. It wasn’t ideal but it would do. I also added spurts of Elmer’s glue to make it look like the brain was starting to decay and disintegrate.

  After dinner, the craziness started.

  Jill is such an overachiever that even if she’s not a contestant this year (she’s the judge), she still followed the zombie theme, hand-dyeing gauze with fake blood and using it as the ribbon for her many, many gifts for Nel.

  Nel’s gift for Jill had a story too—humans were trying to find a cure for the zombie virus but before they got it, the zombies attacked them.

  Giff opted out of the contest—and I couldn’t believe it because he is the king of gift-wrapping.

  Le used hand-dyed fabric; Jason drew Plants vs. Zombies-inspired art on his gift; Jolo used purple fabric, a bloody axe with a skull and mistletoes; and Gia gave Giff a scary mask.

  Tatin’s wrapping was both freaky and funny. She made a brain using a balloon and paper and set it on top of a pail that had been wrapped with Christmas lights. We couldn’t stop laughing, especially when Jason took it apart and said, “Ang pangit! Pero ang galing!”

  Then we realized that only Coco and I had not presented our gifts. Which means he picked me and I picked him.

  He gave me a freaky papier-maché zombie foot. I was creeped out by the realistic toes. Inside the freaky foot was a pair of flats that I’ve wanted for months and months.

  When it was Coco’s turn to open his gifts, I tossed gloves his way and he gamely put them on.

  We started with the brain. My cauliflower didn’t fail—it looked freaky. I asked Coco to read the last line on the jar label.

  “Found with deceased infant.”

  Then I produced the crate. Coco uncovered it and read the letter.

  When he realized he had to dig inside the baby for his gift, his reaction was priceless. “Shit! Seryoso?”

  We made him take the pacifier out so the doll was crying and talking while he was digging. My friends had different reactions to my wrapping: shocked laughter, disgust and yes, some of them looked like they wanted to be elsewhere.

  I won the contest. And the theme I picked for the following year? Circus.

  March 21, 2013

  Mirror monster

  “Did you leave your handprint on the bathroom mirror?” Jill asked me, her brow furrowed.

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  I was indignant. Did she think I had nothing better to do than leave prints all over people’s bathrooms?

  But she was relentless.

  “Seriously, was that your hand?”

  “No way. Why would you even think it was me?”

  “The print is so big,” she said.

  “There’s your answer. It wasn’t me. My hands are small,” I said, feeling triumphant, like a detective who had just solved an incredibly complex case.

  But Jill ignored my CSI moment. She didn’t seem impressed—she just look scared. She whipped out her iPhone, flipped through her photos and handed the phone to me.

  Suddenly, I was scared too. The print was big. And so defined. I could see all the fingers. So creepy. Creepy times two hundred. It was like a horrible monster had decided to leave a mark on the bathroom to let us know he had been there. I felt a chill run down my spine.

  We stared at each other, our eyes wide with fear.

  But then I thought, wait a minute, I may be afraid but I’m also still indignant. A handprint on the mirror and automatically it’s my fault? I needed scientific proof that it really wasn’t mine. I zoomed in on the handprint and held up my left hand to compare.

  “It’s the right hand,” Jill said.

  I rolled my eyes and switched hands.

  I looked closely at the lines on the handprint and the lines on my hand. Did they match? I wasn’t sure. I needed a closer look. I got up and headed to the bathroom as Jill called after me, “Wala na, nilinis na ni Manang!”

  As I took those three steps, it hit me. In slow motion. A scene from the previous night.

  I was brushing my teeth in front of that very mirror. Suddenly, a mosquito started flying around my face. Annoyed, I swatted at it. It disappeared for a few seconds before reappearing. It flew around and then landed on the mirror. “Aha!” I thought. “You’re dead now!” I smacked the mirror with my open palm. Then I continued brushing my teeth.

  Crap. It was me.

  The flashback ended and, like that damn mosquito, my indignation had disappeared. I turned towards Jill, my shoulders slumped in defeat, and said, “Yeah, it was me.”

  I’m the handprint-leaving monster.

  And the worst part? I’m not even sure I really killed that mosquito.

  March 21, 2013

  Fake money

  “This money is fake,” the cashier whispered, sending a jolt of panic through me. She held up the twenty-dollar bill I had just handed to her.

  “What?” I said. “No way! That’s crazy!”

  “See, the color is different,” she said, her heavily kohled eyes staring at me.

  I tried to remember where my wad of twenties had come from and I could only come up with one answer: Urban Outfitters.

  I kept shaking my head while she nodded knowingly. The finder of fake bills versus the confused fool.

  I handed her a different twenty-dollar bill and she gave me back the “fake” one. “Don’t give this to anyone,” she warned me. Then she said some other things that I didn’t understand—blame it on my confusion, blame it on her accent, blame it on her strange urge to keep whispering, as if we were spies trapped in an episode of Homeland.

  At one point, I thought I heard her say “I’ll buy it for fifteen,” but I could have just imagined that.

  Janna and I grabbed our Coke and chips and took the other route to the apartment we were renting in Astoria—the one with a playground and a well-stocked 7-Eleven.

  “This money is fake,” we kept repeating and then laughing our asses off, walking fast because it was cold and because we wanted to get back to the apartment so we could watch Mean Girls for the nth time.

  I didn’t really think the twenty was fake. It was an old bill, one that had been crumpled and folded and used and reused to pay for all sorts of things. I stuffed it back in my wallet, mixing it with the rest of my cash, not wanting to worry about it.

  The next day, it was gone.

  April 25, 2014

  Wrong number, part one

  The calls started four days after I got my US phone number. I was inside the Museum of Natural History when the first one came in.

  “Hi, Keana?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Oh.”

  The guy hung up and called again a minute later.

  “Hello, Keana please?”

  “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”

  “Sorry.”

  He called again the next day.

  “Poor guy,” I told Jill. “Maybe the girl fake-numbered him.”

  I began to concoct tales about Keana and the Mystery Caller. Maybe they met in a club. Maybe
they used to date. Maybe they were high school friends and they lost touch. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  He kept calling. And I kept telling him he had the wrong number.

  A couple of days ago, I missed a call from a different number. I called back, thinking it was about work.

  A woman answered. “Hi, Keana?”

  I said, “This isn’t Keana. She must have changed her number because I just got this number last week.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  I kept wondering about Keana—who she was and where she was and why these people couldn’t reach her.

  Then yesterday, while waiting for our steak subs at White House in Atlantic City, I finally decided to pay attention to the annoying red dot on my phone. I set up my voicemail and realized that I had a message from Mr. Mystery Caller.

  “Hi Keana, this is Dr. L. Feser from the Palliative Care Team. I was calling as we had planned to see if you were able to get in touch with family members and talk about a time later this week to have a family meeting. If you’re able to call me back, the best way to reach me is to call our office and have me paged. Our office number is 718-xxxxxxx. Again, 718-xxxxxxx and this is to arrange a time for a family meeting, okay? Thanks so much. Bye-bye.”

  Shit.

  He wasn’t a guy she met in a club, an ex or an old friend. He is her doctor. And Keana is sick.

  I knew I had to call Dr. L. Feser to tell him that his message has not reached Keana and that he needs to find another way to contact her.

  I dialed the office number he provided.

  “You have reached the Palliative Care Service. We are unable to answer your call at this time. Please leave your name, number and a brief message and someone will surely return your call. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. Thank you for calling, have a great day.”

  Shit.

  I called again an hour later and heard the same recorded message.

  I decided to call his other number, the one that kept calling me.

  After a few rings, he picked up.

  “Dr. L. Feser?” I asked.

  “No, this is P. Torres.”

  The Mystery Caller and I have switched roles. And the mystery continues.

  April 27, 2014

  Wrong number, part two

  I called Palliative Care Service early Monday morning. A woman answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, Dr. L. Feser please.”

  “He’s in a meeting right now. Can you call back in ten minutes?”

  “Sure.”

  I had breakfast and then called again.

  “Hi, Dr. L. Feser please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Pam.”

  “Pam from?”

  “Well, he’s been calling my number about a patient.”

  “Hold on.”

  Silence. And then the sound of someone picking up the phone.

  “Hi, is this Dr L. Feser?”

  “Yes.”

  “You called my number and left a voice message for Keana …”

  “Right. Because I spoke to Keana last week.”

  “And she was using this number?”

  “No. Uh, I made a mistake. I think I transposed two numbers when I got her number.”

  “Oh! Okay, I just wanted to make sure that you were able to reach her.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Okay, great, thanks.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bye.”

  Mystery solved.

  Keana never owned my number. Dr. L. Feser did have the wrong number but not because Keana fake-numbered him. He was just confused—almost as confused as I was.

  I hope Keana gets the treatment she needs.

  April 28, 2014

  Gone (terrarium) girl

  I fucking lost Eleanor.

  At 7:43 a.m. I texted Tatin: “Holy shit I don’t know where I put Eleanor.”

  The text confused her, she told me later. “Who is Eleanor? A new hedgehog?” she wondered. But Eleanor is not a hedgehog, she’s a terrarium. Or, if we were to be really specific, she’s a girl inside a terrarium.

  Two years ago, on a trip to New York, Jill decided she would start making terrariums. I don’t know what pushed her over the edge—maybe it was the visit to Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Or all those Tumblr posts. Or the fact that Peter’s roommate had gone to a terrarium workshop and left her masterpiece—a tiny fairy running down mossy hills trapped in a glass jar—in the kitchen where we could stare at it.

  We spent an afternoon on a long trek deeper into Brooklyn, to a tiny studio that sold terrarium kits.

  We tried to convince the terrarium masters to sell us more little people and they agreed but at exorbitant prices. We should have said, “Fuck you, that’s extortion!” But we didn’t. Jill bought and brought home a few, including a punk rocker with a mohawk.

  Eleanor didn’t come from that trip, she came much later, a sassy girl in red pekpek shorts.

  Back in Manila, Jill started making terrariums. I wanted one, I knew, but I had serious doubts about my ability to keep plants alive.

  The last thing I planted successfully were mung beans on wet cotton balls in grade school but that doesn’t count. Anyone with a mung bean–sized brain can do that.

  But Jill said the terrarium would be low-maintenance and that I only needed to water it once a week. I could do that.

  I warmed up to the idea of terrarium ownership, picking out the tall glass container that would become Eleanor’s home. Then Jill worked her magic, creating a little jungle on top of a base of white rocks, a sexy tropical paradise for a girl in pekpek shorts.

  I named her Eleanor because I had just finished reading Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park and that book had me sobbing like a teenage girl who got dumped at prom.

  I took Eleanor to the office (forty-one weeks ago, according to Instagram) and she became the queen of my messy desk, watcher of the Smurfs, the Duck and the Chick and safekeeper of my future mooncakes in case anyone tried to steal them again.

  But I was right to have serious doubts about my ability to keep plants alive. Because I started forgetting to water Eleanor even though I only had to do it once a week. And on weeks that I remembered, I drowned her.

  Still, Eleanor thrived, thanks to Tatin’s vigilance and Jill’s prayers.

  But last Friday, I lost her.

  Yes, I have achieved a new level of idiocy—I’ve actually managed to lose a plant.

  When I realized what I had done, I called Jill.

  “I have a confession.”

  “What?”

  “I lost Eleanor.”

  She sighed. “How?”

  How? It’s a question friends have repeated again and again.

  “How do you lose a terrarium?” they asked, incredulous.

  This is how.

  Last week, I realized that Eleanor needed a complete makeover. Despite Tatin and Jill’s efforts and my mung bean-raising skills, I had managed to destroy her little jungle. Ugly murky liquid was sloshing around what had been the pretty base of white rocks, the lush green had turned puke green and there was a smattering of mold on some of the leaves.

  And so when I left the office, I picked her up to take her home, planning to run to Jill for terrarium CPR.

  That is my last clear memory of Eleanor.

  Hours later, early in the morning, when I finally remembered to look for her, I couldn’t find her.

  “Did I take her with me?” I asked Tatin.

  “Yes, you did,” she said.

  I tried to remember what I did after picking her up.

  I know I went down, left my stuff on one of the chairs at the office lobby (I have a vague memory of propping Eleanor against one of my bags but I don’t know if I’m just imagining this), I got cash from the ATM, picked up my stuff, got into the car and sat in traffic. By the time I got home, Eleanor was gone.

  I texted the driver asking if Eleanor was in the car. She wasn’t.

  I called the office, askin
g the guards if they had seen her. They had not. The janitors had no clue where she was either.

  Eleanor has magically disappeared.

  In my defense, it had been an insanely long week (my brain had practically shut down by then from exhaustion), and I was carrying a lot of stuff. But that’s no excuse at all. You don’t lose your little friend, her pekpek shorts and her mini universe just because you were tired.

  I am still hoping for a miracle. That maybe I didn’t actually take her with me and that she’s still standing on my office desk in her murky, moldy world.

  I tried looking for Eleanor’s picture on Jill’s Instagram feed. I found two and when she posted the second one thirty-eight weeks ago, she had written: “Lost terrarium pt. 2”

  It wasn’t just a caption, it was an omen.

  September 8, 2014

  World’s Most Delinquent Bridesmaid (and Oldest Flower Girl)

  “You are the most delinquent bridesmaid in the history of weddings,” a friend texted.

  I wasn’t offended. She was right. I never made it to any of my fittings, I didn’t do any of the bridesmaidy things I was supposed to do. (Although I did go to the bridal shower where I spent the night laughing at the stripper who thought dancing to Boyzone was a sexy thing to do.)

  Days later, I cemented my title as the World’s Most Delinquent Bridesmaid on her wedding day by arriving late, so late that I missed the wedding march. And, let’s be honest, that’s all bridesmaids have to do. We don’t get to hold the train or light candles or touch the veil. Walking down the aisle was my only role, and I didn’t even do it. I had a very good excuse—the car I was riding broke down on my way to the church.

  When I finally arrived and saw the other bridesmaids, I realized that I had my halter top on backwards. I wasn’t just a crappy, late bridesmaid, I was a crappy, late bridesmaid who didn’t know how to put on her dress because she didn’t go to any of the fittings.