Mango Seasons

by Michelle Cruz Skinner

  “He stopped calling.”

  “He wouldn’t tell you who he was?” Ric said. He had dark, dark eyes and his right eye squinted more than his left.

  “No,” said Emil. “He wouldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t tell any of us.”

  “I didn’t want to talk to him,” I explained. “But Mama said I had to learn to handle those things so she made me talk to him.”

  “She made you talk to a stranger?”

  “I mean, just to find out who he was. She said if he wouldn’t tell me I should tell him not to call again and hang up. And I did, but he called a few more times anyway.”

  “Did you ever find out who he was?” Marisa asked.

  “No.”

  “What was the point?” said Ric. “If he wouldn’t tell you who he was, why did he even bother calling?”

  “To talk to me, I guess.”

  Ric looked at me, his right eye squinting, then he nodded. Naty brought out plates of fried rice and longannisa.

  “I made enough for you,” she told Marisa. But Marisa never eats much breakfast. Sometimes she doesn’t eat breakfast at all.

  “O, Marisa, what about your boyfriend?” Emil asked.

  “I’m not telling you,” she said and smiled sweetly.

  * * *

  “I’m worried about Marisa,” Emil said.

  He and Ric were sitting on the steps of the porch because Mama won’t let Emil smoke inside. She says it gives her a headache. Ric had his knees drawn up against his body and he was leaning on the porch railing with his arms wrapped around his legs. His hair seemed to be tickling the back of his neck. They both looked at me as I opened the screen door and they stopped talking. Emil flicked his ashes into the planter where the gardenia was dying.

  “How was your birthday?” he asked.

  “OK,” I said.

  “Just OK?”

  “Oo.”

  “Did you do anything?”

  “We had a small party.”

  “Who was here?”

  “Oh, some friends, Lydia, you know.”

  “Sorry we missed it,” Emil said.

  “That’s OK. You had school.”

  “We should take you out, since we missed your birthday.”

  “Out where?”

  “To a restaurant. Ano, Ric?”

  “Oo,” said Ric. “We’ll take you out to a movie, too.” He reached behind him for the paper they’d left lying on the porch. “What do you want to see?”

  “Anything,” I said. “I haven’t seen a movie in a long time.”

  Marisa helped me get dressed and french-braided my hair. She told me to wear the red blouse she’d bought me for my birthday. Except I didn’t have any shoes that matched so I borrowed her red ones. I can wear her shoes because she’s got small feet.

  “I don’t think I can walk in these,” I said. The heels were kind of high.

  “You won’t have to walk far,” she told me. That made me feel better because I wanted to wear the shoes. They were pretty and wearing them I felt taller than fourteen. I reached my hand to my neck to make sure the necklace was still there.

  Ric and Emil looked up from the television as we walked into the living room. “Wow,” said Ric and I had to look down so he wouldn’t see me smiling.

  “Let’s go.” Emil was standing by the door jingling the car keys in his hand.

  “You’re wearing jeans?” Mama said. She hates it when we wear jeans to go to restaurants or parties or any place nice.

  “These kind are in fashion,” Marisa said.

  Mama looked at us skeptically. I held my purse close and walked to the door slowly, because I didn’t want to trip.

  “Are you wearing makeup?” Mama said to me. She looked at Papa. “Is she wearing makeup?”

  “Just a little,” Marisa said as the door closed behind us.

  We went to the Japanese restaurant on Magsaysay because I’d never been there before and I liked the way Emil and Marisa described it. I wanted to see the low tables with the grills on them, sit on the soft pillows. Eating at the restaurant was like sitting and eating off of the coffee table at home, but nicer, of course. Marisa’s drink was icy pink and came with a little umbrella that she gave me. I stuck the umbrella in my glass, but halfway through our dinner it fell into my 7-Up.

  Ric ordered sushi and I was going to order the same, but Marisa said I might not like it. “Why not?” I asked.

  “I’ll let you have some of mine,” Ric said.

  “Try the fried rice with tempura,” Marisa told me. “It’s really good.”

  Emil closed his menu. “You’ll never find me eating raw fish.”

  The sushi was pretty like a painting when the waiter brought it out to us. Ric let me try one of the shrimp ones and another one with some kind of yellow fish. The yellow fish wasn’t as good, kind of mushy. My plate was piled full of rice and tempura, but I wasn’t hungry.

  Emil looked at my plate and frowned. “I’m not very hungry,” I said.

  We were there a long time and I was getting kind of sleepy when we finally left. Outside, rain fell lightly so we all stood under the awning. Ric held the newspaper close to the light at the restaurant door and tried to read the movie schedule. “We missed the movie,” he said. We all stood quietly, not sure what to do.

  I stood with my hands in my pockets, waiting for something. The shoes pinched my toes, but I liked the tall feeling. Two sailors walking by stared at me and I looked at them sideways, so they wouldn’t think I was staring back. The blond one, who had sweet eyes, smiled.

  Emil grabbed my arm. “Let’s get in the car,” he said. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t mind them looking at me, but he wouldn’t understand. So we all got in the car.

  “We could go dancing,” said Marisa.

  Emil looked at her in the rearview mirror. He was frowning.

  Marisa sighed. “It’s nine o’clock, naman,” she said. “Who’s out at nine o’clock? And besides she’s with us. We’ll only go for an hour.”

  “Who wants to go dancing, her or you?”

  “I want to go dancing,” I said.

  “You’re so annoying, naman,” Marisa said to Emil, drowning me out.

  “I want to go dancing,” I said again.

  “See,” said Marisa. “See?”

  So we all got out of the car and started walking up the street, ignoring the rain that was light as mosquitoes on our skin. The club we went to was up a narrow stairway and dark. Only a few people were inside, mostly hostesses. They were all dressed up with red, red lipstick, but there were no men around them.

  The waiter was dressed in black and white; in fact the whole place was black and white with some red, like the red rose in the middle of our table. I squeezed a petal to see if it was real. It was fake. The waiter brought us drinks and we sat and watched the dance floor. Only two people were dancing and they were both women and both worked there.

  “Let’s dance,” said Marisa. “Come on, Ric.”

  I hated Marisa for dancing with Ric and leaving me to watch him smile and nod his head to the music. A few times he reached out and touched Marisa’s shoulder and leaned forward to talk to her. They danced to four long, long songs. I twisted my necklace around my finger so tightly it left thin indentations in my skin. I pressed the G into the back of my hand to see if it would leave an indentation. Emil frowned at me as if he couldn’t understand what I was doing. He frowns too much.

  More people came in the door and when Ric and Marisa finally finished, the club was half full. On the way back to our table, a man in a yellow shirt asked Marisa to dance so Ric came back to the table alone.

  “Do you want to dance?” Ric asked me and I nodded yes, of course, yes.

  Ric was a good dancer, not like Emil who moves the same way over and over again and can’t hear the rhythm of the music. Ric heard the music and he smiled and laughed and talked while he was dancing. The music was so loud, every time he wanted to say something he had to lean close and place a han
d on my shoulder. He didn’t talk to me the way Emil does.

  The dance floor was crowded with people and we had to dance close together so we didn’t bump into the people around us. I could feel the necklace and the “G” bouncing against my collarbone, and sometimes Ric’s hand on my shoulder, his legs brushing against mine, which made my hands tingle. He leaned forward and took my elbow, cupped his other hand to my ear. “Let’s rest,” he said. He held my hand on the way back to the table. I knew it was because he didn’t want the other men to bother me, but I liked it anyway. His hands were sweaty.

  “We should go,” said Emil.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Almost ten-thirty.”

  “Oh.” I knew we had to go because Mama and Papa would get mad. Besides, my feet hurt.

  “Yeah,” said Marisa, nodding. “We should go.”

  So we did. And Ric held my hand on the way out too, which was good because I was having a hard time walking in the red shoes although I tried not to show it. When we got down the stairs he let go and just walked beside me, his arm sometimes brushing mine, on the way back to the car. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still wet.

  “I’ll drive,” said Marisa.

  “Sige,” said Emil and tossed her the keys.

  I got to sit in the back seat with Ric, except I fell asleep.

  * * *

  Marisa was dating one of her teachers. That’s what I heard Ric and Emil say. “He’s married,” Emil said. They were outside my bedroom window talking and they didn’t know I was inside. Emil was worried about her. But, I wanted to tell him, this is one of those unexpecteds that you know may be wrong. And even then, sometimes you can’t stop yourself. Emil should know this.

  Ric said Marisa would work things out. But Emil, who worries about everything, said how. How? How? How? And when he gets like that there are no answers.

  Ric didn’t say anything and I loved him for that, for knowing not to say anything. I imagined him leaning, in his green t-shirt, against the wall of my bedroom, and waiting. Waiting until Emil grew tired and quiet and they both came back inside for a drink.

  I remember a Spanish teacher at my school. He was a priest and handsome and all the girls liked him. I said I didn’t but really I did. I just thought I shouldn’t say a priest was handsome and I liked him. His nails were always clean and trimmed. His face was smooth like water. He left after a year, but I still remember him although I can’t precisely remember his face.

  * * *

  Ric’s face I can’t remember either. I know he had one eye that squinted more than the other, long dark hair, but I can’t put it all together. I used to look at pictures of him, but that’s not really remembering. So I close my eyes and think of times, his visits here, the birthday we danced. The last time he visited was just before my fifteenth birthday when the whole neighborhood joined together for the volleyball game.

  When I think about the game, I can’t remember who started it. The afternoon was clear for August, no rain, and we sat outside on the porch drinking sago in tall glasses with spoons so we could get at the gelatin. “It’s best with a little squeeze of kalamansi,” I told Emil and Ric and Marisa. I sounded like Mama, who believed the same thing and taught me to drink sago with kalamansi. She taught me to drink hot chocolate with a little bit of vanilla.

  Sometimes when I think of that afternoon, and it wasn’t very long ago, I get it mixed up with another afternoon, another season. Summer and San Juan when we used to sprinkle and throw buckets of water on people we knew and didn’t know. Then we stopped doing it and every year the day passed without me knowing because I never remember days like that unless Mama or Mila tell me. I used to think I had just dreamed San Juan until I asked Mama one day and she said yes, it was true. We stopped because sprinkling water became forbidden by law, just like the video game machines that I saw every day, then one day they were all gone. After that, San Juan faded, and later got mixed up with the not-so-long-ago afternoon I drank sago on the porch with Ric and tried to fish the slippery gelatin out of my glass with a tall spoon.

  Sometimes, they seem like dreams, or memories so old they’ve become different. I know San Juan and the game weren’t the same day. I know Ric wasn’t very tall, but I remember him tall and I remember the feel of his hand. I know a lot happened in between sitting on the porch and playing the game. But, I remember one, then the other.

  We didn’t have a volleyball net, so they used our gate as a net. Emil moved Papa’s car out to the street so the driveway could be used as one side of the court. The street was the other side. Whenever a jeepney or a car passed, the game stopped so all the people in the street could move out of the way.

  Mostly the men played, but some women played too. Emil and Marisa and Ric were on the team on our side of the gate. Lito and Manny Bautista, from across the street, were there, and I think their tatay played for a while. Their nanay sat on their porch watching with some other ladies. Imelda, who’s masungit and thinks she’s pretty, sat with me on the porch steps where all the boys could see her. Her hair was neat in her headband, the way mine never is.

  Whenever Ric rotated out of the court, he would sit on the porch and rest. He asked me about school. “I haven’t asked you about that since I got here,” he said. Imelda asked him about UP and nodded as she listened. Ric asked where she went to school and what year she was in.

  “Are you from Olongapo?” asked Imelda.

  “No,” said Ric and smiled back at her as he walked onto the court.

  I couldn’t think of anything to tell him.

  Later he said, “You’re wearing the necklace I gave you.”

  I nodded and looked down.

  “I’m glad you like it.” He watched the others play, the ball arcing down slowly, then bouncing up quickly as someone hit it. “Why don’t you play?” he asked.

  “I’m no good at this game.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  I shook my head no, and he got up to take his place on the court. I watched him shake his hair out of his eyes as he crouched near the gate. Papa used to say Ric’s hair was too long, but I didn’t think so. When the ball came in Ric’s direction, he flicked his wrist and sent it back over the gate. He pushed his hair away from his eyes and smiled. I smiled at him.

  In the kitchen, Mama and Mila and Naty were frying lumpia. Mama got in the way of the game when she made the players stop for a moment so Mila could open the gate and go on her errand. Lito Bautista held the ball while they all waited. It was his volleyball. When Mila came back, she was followed by three children who were helping her carry the cases of beer and soft drinks. After carrying the cases inside, the three children sat on the bottom step of the porch, crowding Imelda. She pulled her skirt around her and away from them, but they were watching the game and didn’t notice.

  Then I saw Marisa and Emil standing under the guava tree. Marisa had her arms crossed over her stomach like it hurt. Emil’s head and his arms hung down. He looked toward the court and as his sad face swept over me my stomach felt light.

  When I walked over they were still quiet. Then Ric was behind me, his arm on my shoulder. I didn’t know if he wanted me to stay or to go back with him to the porch.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked them and wished I hadn’t.

  “Gemma,” Ric whispered, his hand pulling me back toward the crowd of people.

  Emil and Marisa both went back to the game without saying anything. They left Ric and me with Ric’s heavy hand on my shoulder. We watched for a moment then Ric said, “Let’s go help your mother.” He spoke quietly in his voice that always made me feel a different kind of sickness in my stomach. The palm of my hand felt light as he held it and pulled me toward the house.

  We carried out the trays of lumpia. Mama and Naty had made four small trays full, and Ric and I stole a lumpia from each tray. They were crunchy and warm and left grease on our hands and lips. We held our hands in front of us, looked around for napkins. I hes
itated, then we both wiped our lips off on the back of our hands, laughed as we wiped our hands on our jeans.

  We carried out the cooler of soft drinks. Mila and Naty carried out the cooler of beer. Later, Mama and Mila and Naty set napkins and cups beside the trays and everything sat there waiting.

  The game never stopped. At least I don’t remember it stopping. I watched the men and women play, over the spiked tips of the gate below their wrists. The late day slipped into night and, while waiting their turn in the rotation, people rested on the porch, drank the beers and soft drinks, ate the lumpia. Imelda and Lito sat close, holding hands.

  * * *

  I remember Ric many months later, when we were driving home in his car. I’d met his girlfriend for the first time. “You don’t like her, do you?” I didn’t answer. They had taken me out to a movie because Marisa and Emil, whom I was visiting, were busy that evening. I didn’t have any reason not to like his girlfriend except that Ric liked her. “We’ve only been seeing each other a month,” he said. I remained silent all the way back to Marisa and Emil’s apartment. Ric lived there too, but whenever I visited he stayed with his parents so I could have the extra bed.

  When we got there Ric parked the car and turned off the engine, but for some reason we didn’t get out. I felt I was supposed to do or say something, but I didn’t know what. I finally turned to say goodbye and he kissed me. He never touched me, only kissed me then drew back and laid his head on the steering wheel. I thought he was going to cry and in that dark car, with the far-off laughter from the beerhouse, everything was too heavy. I got out alone and walked up to the empty apartment. I turned on the light so he would know I had made it upstairs all right. But I didn’t wave from the window as I usually did. Standing inside next to the door, I could hear everything: the engine, the crunch of pebbles in the driveway. The laughter and clink of bottles from the beerhouse.

  I cried that evening on the floor of his bedroom. I’ve been crying since then, but that evening was the beginning. Wrapped in his bedspread, I cried on the floor because I couldn’t bear to stay in his bed. When Emil and Marisa got home they lifted me on to the mattress thinking I had fallen off in my sleep. Marisa’s fingers grazed my face, checking for scrapes and bruises. “She’s OK,” Marisa whispered to Emil.