Because he stole it, Rosalyn explained. Jaime held up a hand. I didn’t steal it.
Rosalyn clarified: Someone else stole it and his friend who resells them gave him one for free.
Jaime didn’t say anything to that, busying himself with writing down Hero’s new pager number on a napkin. Then below it, his and Rosalyn’s. Below that, an abbreviated key of pager codes.
People started to recognize Hero; she started to recognize people. The morning customers, usually security guards just off their night shift, ordering coffee and tapsilog, didn’t say much, especially to Hero, and when they did, they spoke to her in English. They came awake when Boy reemerged from the kitchen, switching to Tagalog, usually chatting about baseball, or about paying back money someone owed to someone else. Then there were the lunch customers, nurses, more security guards, a couple of DMV workers. Hero got used to the words, Kumusta ka na, mare? started to look forward to saying back, Mabuti, mabuti, and meaning it.
Though Adela and Boy faithfully cooked a variety of other dishes—the adobo, the menudo, the kaldereta, the afritada, the pinakbet—the best sellers by far were the pork barbecue or the pancit. Once again, Hero thought to herself that the Filipinos in the Bay ate on a daily basis the things Hero remembered eating only during fiestas and special occasions: pancit, lechon kawali, bibingka. In the restaurant she never saw anybody eat any of the things that she’d been used to growing up: the lomo-lomo with intestines, lungs, liver, and heart; the sinanglao with kamias fruit instead of tamarind; the pipian with pasotes, the Vigan longanisa that was smaller and crispier than the fat, sweet Kapampangan-style ones they served in the restaurant. And nobody in the Bay seemed to eat goat. Paz and Pol didn’t even eat goat at home. It was odd.
But the work itself was easy, just as Rosalyn had said. In the afternoon there was a long empty lull in the restaurant, punctuated for Hero by having to pick Roni up from school. When they returned, Jaime would be there, alone, the way he was the first day, eating something with his hands. Rosalyn came into the restaurant every couple of hours, saying she was on her break, stealing a guava juice out of the refrigerator, making fun of the unmoving way Hero sat on the chair behind the register, listening to Boy’s radio.
Don’t you get bored? Rosalyn asked once. You want me to get you some comic books?
Without thinking about it, Hero replied: What about, a schoolgirl and her demon servant who save the world with the power of love?
Rosalyn froze, which made Hero freeze in turn. She used to make fun of people all the time, in her own way—Teresa and Eddie got a kick out of it, how blank-faced she usually was, what a contrast it made to her sometimes macabre, often unwittingly mean retorts, delivered as if she were commenting on the weather.
Rosalyn put her guava juice down. Hero was about to apologize, then Rosalyn said: Ohhh. I get it now. You’re an asshole. See, now I know that about you.
She left. Hero wasn’t sure if they were mad at each other, if she should go after her, until Rosalyn came back less than fifteen minutes later with a stack of comic books—manga, Hero could hear her insisting again—all of them stuffed with weathered sheets of paper. Ruby’s translations.
Okay, smartass, some schoolgirls and demons to keep you busy.
The Glass Mask, Please Save My Earth, Rose of Versailles. Few of the books were finished; Rosalyn only had the first few volumes, so even if there was some storyline that piqued Hero’s interest, even vaguely, she’d end up frustrated when Rosalyn said, Oh yeah, sorry, Ruby doesn’t have the next volume yet—maybe next month.
Hero didn’t pretend to understand all of them, and most of them she stopped reading halfway, until Rosalyn explained that she had to read from right to left, not from left to right. Also, don’t let my grandpa catch you reading this stuff too much, she said. He’s got a thing about—Japanese stuff. You know. He used to work on the American navy base in Cavite.
All in all, Hero didn’t love the comic books, at least not as much as Rosalyn wanted her to, and not as much as Roni was starting to. Maybe Hero was just too old to be moved by stories of pure-hearted maidens, usually blond, aristocrats or girls-next-door, chasing their dreams, fighting to build careers, on the cusp of getting raped but being saved in the nick of time, long resisting and then finally falling into what was always, eventually, requited love. What Hero did like was the way Rosalyn came into the restaurant, checked out what Hero was reading, and asked if she’d reached a certain part in that particular volume yet—and when she found out Hero hadn’t, the way she complained, God, you read so slow, and hurried her along, along, along. Hero liked the pull of Rosalyn’s push, knowing something in her hands was waiting, and if she just kept going, she’d get to it.
* * *
Since both Paz and Pol were working on Christmas Eve, Rosalyn invited Hero and Roni to spend Noche Buena at their house.
We’re making lechon, Rosalyn said. Grandpa is. A bunch of people are coming. You can finally meet my brother. Don’t bring any gifts. I’m broke, so don’t expect any from me, either.
Rosalyn picked them up from the house in the afternoon, pulled up to the driveway in a beat-up-looking four-door Honda Civic. Roni had insisted on waiting in the garage, perched on Pol’s regular seat, with the garage door open.
Nice house, Rosalyn said, the engine still running, as Roni and Hero approached the car.
It looks bigger from the outside, Roni said.
Usually people say thanks, Rosalyn laughed.
The car looked like it had recently been an unsalvageable mess but someone, Rosalyn, had tried to tidy it up in a hurry. It smelled, still, of cigarettes, two crushed Marlboro packs on the floor in the back, Jaime’s, and a trace of food, something garlicky and sweet, like some barbecue sauce had spilled not that long ago. There were cassette tapes scattered across the front passenger footwell, like they’d been hastily swept there from the seat. You can sit in the front, Rosalyn said to Hero.
I wanna sit in the front, Roni protested. Kids ride in the back where it’s safe, Rosalyn said, pointing.
Hero picked up some of the cassette tapes off the floor, not wanting to crush them with her feet. Sorry, Rosalyn said, stretching down to push a few of them to the side, making room.
Hero looked down at the tape cases, many of them cracked from someone sitting or stepping on them. The Cover Girls, Cynthia, Queen Latifah, Jaya. You really take care of your things, she said, toeing an empty one.
Yeah, yeah, Rosalyn said, beckoning with her hand. Gimme those, I’ll put ’em over here. It’s always a mess, don’t worry about it. Hero got in, shut the door, which shuddered at the impact.
Everyone good? Arms, legs, tails, everything in? Rosalyn called out loudly, as if there were more people in the car than just the three of them. Ye-e-es, Roni chirped. Good, Rosalyn said.
She put the car in reverse, then did the thing that Hero had always found oddly sexy whenever she was in the front passenger seat and the driver she was riding with did it: put her hand on the headrest just behind Hero to steady herself, craned her neck around, then backed out with one hand on the steering wheel, a single easy, fluid, slightly too fast motion.
On the stereo, a girl was singing in a voice that had been electronically altered, so it staggered, hiccupped, like a voice shaking its head, rethinking, persuading itself one way, then persuading itself another way.
Hero didn’t know what the expression on her face was, but Rosalyn saw enough there to choke out a derisive laugh and say, Oh, shit, you don’t have to judge the song that hard!
Hero blinked, shaking her head. No, I wasn’t—
Okay, so you don’t like freestyle. Okay. The fuck music do you like, then?
I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I don’t, I don’t know it.
Okay, so what do you know. What do you listen to?
Hero thought about it. I don’t know. New Wave. British bands. Friends Again. Fiction Factory
. China Crisis. Aztec Camera. Talk Talk. Lotus Eaters.
Rosalyn glared at Hero out of the corner of her eyes. Talk Talk, okay. It’s My Life. Fine. Everything else? You’re full of shit, you made up all those names.
I’m not, Hero cried out, not sure if she was angry or if she was about to start laughing, teetering between both. I have a tape full of songs from most of the bands I just mentioned. I recorded them off the radio in Manila.
Where? You have a tape at home?
In my room—
Rosalyn sped up to a stoplight, which was turning yellow, and made an illegal U-turn on Dixon Landing, steering them back toward North Milpitas Boulevard.
You’re getting those tapes, I wanna hear fuckin’—Lotus Eaters, or whatever.
When they got back to the house, Hero rushed out of the car with Rosalyn’s voice calling behind her, Hurry up, I wanna get some China Crisis in before we get to my house, too.
Hero went straight to her bedroom, onto her knees, digging underneath the bed for the things she’d stored there. She took the two tapes, shoved the rest back underneath the bed, clambered back outside. When she approached the car, she caught a reflection of herself in the window, out of breath, low ponytail loosened, flushed, vital with purpose. Rosalyn was making grabby hands, saying, Hand it over.
Hero found she was—nervous, waiting to play the tape. She hadn’t listened to it in a while, not since Soly’s place, though she’d listened to it nearly every day, then. She was afraid Rosalyn wouldn’t like it, which wasn’t fair, she knew, considering she’d made fun of Rosalyn’s music within a second of hearing it. There was always something nerve-wracking about letting someone listen to a piece of music one liked, but it was more than that. Hero was afraid she herself wouldn’t like it anymore, afraid that the music would have flattened with time, afraid that she would listen to the song and have to confront an older part of herself—afraid that she wouldn’t like, or worse, wouldn’t recognize, what she encountered there, who.
The strains of that first song burst into the car, loud, too loud, the volume still at the level Rosalyn had left it at, so even Hero was taken aback, heard Roni in the back going, Whoa, but then Hero sank, sank into it, the succor of recognition, that song, that sound, that first long, echoing shout. Hey! It was still—she was still. She hadn’t lost any of it. It was all still here, waiting for her. Her head on Soly’s kitchen table, the radio blaring, her hands just starting to forget themselves for parts of the day, everything else in her remembering—and the music, opening up a crevice, just small enough, where the remembering could happen safely, where she could close herself up in it without then having to worry about having accidentally sealed off the exit behind her. Knowing she’d have to get up and rewind the tape to feel again whatever it’d helped her to feel. Knowing she’d brought herself into this feeling, and she could bring herself out.
Rosalyn was quiet, long enough for Hero to realize that she herself hadn’t said anything, that she’d closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the headrest, clenched her fists, not enough to hurt, just enough to anchor her in the car. Then, with too much dry warmth in her voice for Hero to not be able to tell that she was covering up one feeling with another—she was starting to be able to predict, just a little bit, the times when Rosalyn might cover up a feeling with another—Rosalyn said,
Okay. But any lyrics sound hella deep when you can’t make out a word they’re saying, you know that, right?
* * *
Rosalyn’s house was full of people, smoking, drinking in the garage, setting up card tables and stacking mah-jongg cases onto them, a boom box blasting something Hero didn’t recognize, kids everywhere, chasing each other, in the kitchen, seated around the table, women placing meat filling into lumpia wrappers and rolling them tightly into short, squat sigarilyos to make lumpiang shanghai, stacking them on a large plate; in the living room, someone setting up the karaoke machine, testing it, One two, one two, and out past the sliding door, the mosquito screen, into the backyard, a group of men plus Adela were standing around a roasting baby pig, turning it on a spit over a bed of charcoal.
Rosalyn led them out into the backyard, said: Grandma. Roni and Hero’re here.
Maligayang Pasko, Adela said, waving her cigarette at them. Get something to eat. There’s some barbecue inside.
Merry Christmas, Hero and Roni greeted, polite.
Roni was glancing over at a group of kids her age, taking turns playing an Atari game set up on a desk in the corner of the living room. Rosalyn beckoned with her hand. Roni, come here, I’m gonna introduce you to my cousins. Roni bounded over to join Rosalyn, who took her to the group of kids, none of whom looked particularly interested in Roni. Still, Hero watched Roni sit down on the floor next to them.
Don’t worry so much, Ate Hero, Rosalyn said, startling her; Hero hadn’t even seen her come back to her side. Let your girl socialize, it’s good for her.
I wasn’t worried, Hero said. You looked hella worried, Rosalyn said. I’m gonna get us some food. You want lumpia? Hero nodded.
Rosalyn’s house was about as big as Paz and Pol’s, though older, built sometime in the seventies, the shag carpet oily to the touch, the musky scent of several generations of people, most of them cooks, buried deep in its fibers. Someone, a distant relation of Rosalyn’s, was wandering around the party with a huge black video recorder propped up on his shoulder, taping people, asking people to say Merry Christmas. There were pictures everywhere, in frames on the wall, in frames on the fireplace mantel, propped up on the altar just at the entrance of the house. On the mantel there was a photo of someone who was probably Rosalyn, maybe three years old, held in the arms of someone who was definitely Adela. It looked like the picture had been taken in the Philippines, judging from the foliage behind them, the concrete block of the house, the iron fence Adela was holding on to.
Hero stepped closer to look at it. Next to it, a more recent photo of Rosalyn and an adolescent boy who looked just like her, whom Hero hadn’t met in person yet, hadn’t even seen at the party, the younger boy dressed in graduation robes. Behind it, a larger framed photo of Rosalyn and someone who was almost certainly Jaime, Rosalyn in what looked like a Communion dress, Jaime in a child-sized tuxedo, chubby-faced. They were holding hands, both looking sullen. In front of it, a smaller photo of Rosalyn and Jaime, twelve or thirteen years old, on what looked like a school gymnasium turned dance floor, arms around each other. Hero couldn’t see Rosalyn’s face, only Jaime’s, the shock of blush across his nose and cheeks.
Don’t creep on people’s baby photos, came a voice behind her.
Hero turned and saw Jaime. He was holding out a plastic cup for Hero, another one in his left hand. Merry Christmas.
Hero took the cup, brushed it against Jaime’s half-empty cup. Merry Christmas. Cheers.
They’re setting up the karaoke, tell Roni to hide, Jaime said.
Hero saw her in the living room, sitting on the floor, playing with two other girls; it looked like Roni was pretending to be some kind of animal, and the girls were feeding her something that looked like crumbled-up puto.
Another young man approached, not Ruben or Isagani, someone Hero didn’t recognize. Pusoy, pare. You in?
Jaime nodded. Okay, the young man said, lemme go find a fourth. Ruben’s out, he wants to set up the decks. It’s just Gani and me and you so far. Arnel says he’s only coming at ten.
Jaime turned to Hero. You play?
Pusoy? Hero asked. She nodded, hesitant.
Fourth, Jaime pronounced. Let’s go.
The young man looked immediately wary. Uh—we could play with three—
Nah, it’s better with four, Jaime said, downing his cup, making his way to the garage.
The young man was still looking at Hero. I’m Dante, what’s up, he said, not sounding like he particularly wanted to tell her, or know.
What’s
up, replied Hero, who didn’t want to know, either.
At the far end of the garage, closer to the washing machine and dryer, Ruben had finished setting up: two turntables, two speakers, a subwoofer, an amplifier. He was pulling vinyl records out of their sleeves, piling them methodically beside the turntables: Incredible Bongo Band, ESG, Africa Bambaataa, Roxanne Shanté, The Four Tops, Exposé, Bill Withers, Los Angeles Negros, Shannon, Coke Escovedo, Lonnie Liston Smith, Soho, Too Short. There was a folding table already set up near the speakers. Isagani was sitting there, shuffling the cards and waiting.
Playing pusoy again for the first time in years, what Hero hadn’t counted on was how hard it really was to hold a set of cards: the fine movements it took, to grip them between her thumb and the other four fingers. By the fourth game, her hands were screaming, but she’d won three times, Jaime was cackling, Dante was silently growing more and more livid, and she had no intention of stopping. Rosalyn had found her during the second game, a plate of food in her hands, but had pulled back at the grim look on Hero’s face, said she’d keep it warm for her, and when Hero gave no indication of wanting or even noticing the food, ended up finishing the plate herself by the sixth game.
By the eighth game or so, Roni entered the garage and bounded over to Hero’s side of the table, eyes glued to the money. Did you win allll that?
Fold them for me, put them in your pocket, Hero said, taking a sip from her cup. We’ll rent videos at Ruby’s place while you’re still on Christmas break.
Look how sweet Hero can be when she’s not full of shit, Rosalyn said, dealing the cards that Dante had left behind in a huff, saying he was going to look for Lea.
Let’s play pusoy dos instead of pusoy, she told Jaime, who nodded.
Ruben started playing a record, and Rosalyn yelled back, without looking at him, Watch out, Ben, Hero hates freestyle—
Hero huffed. I didn’t say—
Wait, what? Jaime said, picking up his cards.
America Is Not the Heart Page 19
