The Pull of Gravity

by Brett Battles

  Larry wasn’t listening to Mariella anymore. He returned to the bed and crouched down on the floor next to where Isabel sat.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely surprised. “I thought you got it. Everything I’ve done—how I’ve treated you, how I’m never happier than when I’m with you.” He paused. Maybe that’s when he realized it—Angeles was different. Angeles was the playground, the illusion. Probably more than anyplace else he had ever been, it was actions that counted here. Words meant next to nothing.

  He looked at Isabel, his eyes wide. “I wanted to prove myself to you,” he said. “I wanted to show you I wasn’t like the other guys here, before I asked you to move away from your home. Isabel, there’s nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Isabel started to say something, but this time her voice deserted her. A tear ran down one of her cheeks as she reached out and touched Larry’s face. “Really?” she whispered.

  Larry nodded, smiling. He placed his hand on her knee, his eyes locked on hers. “Marry me,” he said. “Tonight if we can. Or tomorrow if we have to. Will you?”

  Tears were now pouring down. As she said yes, she leaned forward, burying her face in his shoulder, truly and completely happy for the first in her life.

  When she sat up again, her eyes strayed toward the doorway.

  Mariella was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  A slight glow of deep blue began encroaching on the black night sky. We were still sitting on the ground near the pool, but our legs were no longer in the water.

  All of this was news to me. I had never known exactly how far Mariella had involved herself in Isabel’s life. And while I was aware of Larry’s dislike for her, I never realized all the reasons why. I’d always thought he was like the rest of us who were able to easily see through Mariella’s games. I just assumed he was worried that Mariella’s selfish, superficial ways might rub off on Isabel. Now I realized it was so much more than that.

  And until that night—that morning, really—as I sat with a girl who had once been my friend, listening to her remember things she’d kept locked up for so long, I’d never known Larry had proposed to her.

  I had come back to the Philippines because there were things I needed to know, questions I had never been able to answer. Now those questions were disappearing one by one.

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  Isabel made no response. I knew she had heard me, but I was content to wait until she was ready to continue.

  • • •

  “We can’t get married tonight,” she said. “It’s too late.”

  “Tomorrow, then,” Larry told her.

  They were standing in the living room, Isabel’s head against Larry’s chest, his arms wrapped around her, protecting her.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Completely,” he said.

  She smiled, but then thought of something else. “What about my visa? I can’t go back with you yet.”

  “I know. Tomorrow, after we get married, we’ll go to Manila and get the paperwork started.”

  “I’ve heard other girls say it may take a long time.”

  “But we’ll still be married.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Yes,” she said, losing herself in the idea of it. “It will be different, won’t it?”

  He chuckled, then said, “I’ll still have to go back home, though. We’ll be apart for a while.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “However long it takes, it will be fine.”

  He placed a finger under her chin and tilted her face up so he could kiss her. As they embraced, Larry’s stomach rumbled.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Isabel began to laugh, and he soon joined her.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “A little, I guess.” As he smiled, his stomach groaned again. “OK, more than a little.”

  “Let me fix you something. Sit.”

  She pushed him toward the couch, but he followed her into the kitchen and watched her reheat some chicken from the day before. There was still one of his beers in the refrigerator, so she pulled it out and opened it for him.

  “Thanks,” he told her.

  He ate where he stood, leaning again the wall, his eyes seldom leaving Isabel.

  “Tell me about California,” she said. “I want to know it all.”

  “And you will,” he said. He told her about the Golden Gate Bridge, about Nob Hill, Chinatown, the Presidio. He described his house to her, saying he wanted her to help him redecorate it. He said if she wanted, they could get a dog.

  She wanted to ask him about children, but she thought it could wait. He would be such a good father, she knew, so of course he would want kids.

  “You must be tired,” she finally said. “Shall we go to bed?”

  “My suitcase,” he said. “I left it with the receptionist at the Las Palmas.”

  “You took a hotel room?” she asked.

  “No, I was waiting until I talked to you first, but I didn’t want to carry the damn thing all over the place.”

  “You want to go get it now?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I told them I’d be back tonight.”

  • • •

  They went together, walking down Isabel’s dark street to a place where it would be easier to get a trike. The ride to the Las Palmas only took them a few minutes. Once they got there, Larry and Isabel went inside and retrieved his suitcase.

  “How about a drink?” Larry suggested as they neared the bar on their way to the front door.

  “Whatever you’d like,” she said.

  He ordered a San Mig, but Isabel only got a Coke.

  “I can’t believe you came back,” she said.

  “I can’t believe you tried to break up with me.”

  She blushed and lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s the problem? I talked you out of it, didn’t I?”

  She nodded.

  Back outside, they signaled to the group of trike drivers gathered in front of The Pussycat Bar. The one on the end started his engine and drove over to them.

  It was a little more crowded in the enclosed sidecar now that they had Larry’s suitcase. Luckily it was only carry-on size, as he had opted to leave his larger one at home.

  “Are you okay?” Isabel asked.

  Larry was supporting most of the suitcase in his lap. “It only hurts a little,” he said, smiling.

  They rode in silence, the sound of the trike driver’s motorcycle loud enough to make conversation difficult.

  They were about half a mile from Isabel’s apartment when it happened.

  Streetlights were hit or miss in Angeles, and they happened to be on one of the darker streets when a car raced by, then suddenly stopped in front of them too quickly for the trike driver to avoid it.

  Motorcycle and sidecar smashed into the back of the beat-up sedan, sending the driver flying over the car’s trunk into the back window. The only thing that kept Isabel and Larry from the same fate was the canopy and front windshield of the sidecar. They lurched forward but remained inside the sidecar.

  Isabel ended up under both Larry and the suitcase. Larry quickly sat back, pulling the suitcase with him and then throwing it onto the street, out of the way. Isabel’s arm was broken and her right foot was twisted in a way it was never meant to go. Larry leaned down to get a better look.

  “You’re bleeding,” Isabel said, her voice weak. “Your head.”

  He touched his forehead, and when he moved his hand back in front of his face, it was covered with blood.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said.

  They heard footsteps approaching. Larry turned back toward the street. “I could use some help,” he called out.

  The footsteps stopped a few feet away. Larry must have seen someone there because he smiled, relieved.

  “Thank God,” Larry said. “My girlfriend’s hurt. Maybe you can help me get—”

>   Suddenly, several hands reached into the vehicle and pulled Larry out.

  “Wait!” Larry yelled. “She needs help!”

  But whoever he was talking to didn’t seem to be listening.

  There was a thud and a slap, then Isabel heard a dragging sound as the feet moved away again. The accident made her confused. She didn’t recognize the sounds for what they were. She waited for someone to pull her out, too, but nearly two minutes passed and no one came.

  “Larry?” she called out.

  Nothing.

  “Someone, please. I need help.”

  Still no reply.

  “Larry!”

  Something was wrong. She knew it. She had to get out. She had to find Larry.

  She tried to pull herself back into what was left of the chair. Pain screamed from both her arm and her ankle. There was also pain in her side and her hip, though neither as intense as the first two.

  Once she was upright again, she leaned through the door and looked out. It took her a second to realize the sidecar had somehow swung around so that it was now perpendicular to the street. She couldn’t see the motorcycle portion from where she was, or the car they had hit. What she did see was an empty street.

  “Larry!” she called.

  As she pushed herself out of the sidecar with her good arm, an older woman appeared around the front end.

  “Naku!” the woman said. Then she shouted, “There’s a girl over here who needs help!”

  Soon two people, the old woman and a girl not much older than Isabel, helped Isabel to the side of the road.

  “My boyfriend. I don’t know what happened to him,” Isabel said.

  “The driver?” the young woman asked.

  “No,” Isabel said. “An American. My fiancé.”

  “There are only the two of you,” the woman said.

  “He’s here,” Isabel insisted. “Someone pulled him out.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” Isabel yelled, nearly hysterical.

  The young woman shook her head. “There’s only the two of you,” she repeated.

  • • •

  They found Larry’s body a few blocks away in an empty lot. It was a couple of kids who made the discovery. They were up early looking for anything valuable they might be able to sell for a few pesos.

  Larry had been stabbed three times, any one of which would have been fatal.

  The police came to my house at ten in the morning and woke me up. With Isabel in the hospital, they needed me to identify the body. How they knew my connection with Larry, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter anyway.

  His face seemed paler, and his skin looked almost like plastic, but it was Larry. No question about it. When I asked what had happened, they said it was a robbery gone bad. They then asked me if I wanted to see the wounds. I told them no.

  At the time I had no reason to question their conclusion. Larry’s wallet was missing, and if he had anything else of value on him at the time of the incident, it was also gone.

  After I had identified Larry and told the cops I would make the arrangements to send him home, I went to the hospital to see Isabel. She was in a large room with five other patients. Her arm was wrapped and immobilized, but not yet in a cast. I couldn’t see her foot, but the doctor told me the ankle was broken.

  There were bruises on her face, and I was sure the damage continued underneath the blanket in areas I couldn’t see. She was in a drug-induced sleep. I asked the doctor when I should come back, and he told me he doubted she’d wake up before the next morning.

  • • •

  That evening I decided to give the girls the night off, and closed The Lounge. I knew if we had opened, it would have been a pretty somber place. All the girls liked Isabel, and most knew Larry, too. It was no time for a party.

  I don’t know what everyone else did, but I stayed home, wandering the rooms of my home, taking stock of the possessions I had accumulated. Pictures and furniture and satellite TV and even the house itself, with its three bedrooms and its pool out back. They all represented who I had become in some way, an ex-pat who rented girls for the night, and whose closest friends were drunks and lechers. That’s what I was left with once Larry was gone.

  I remember staring out my front window at a palm tree that grew in a neighbor’s yard, the lights from their house illuminating it like a piece of art in a museum. It was tall and thin and swayed slightly in the wind. It was so simple, and so beautiful. I remember thinking, wasn’t that what I had wanted in the beginning? Something simple? An early retirement and plenty of time to do nothing.

  But I had damned myself the moment I decided to move to the Philippines.

  When I finally turned away from the window, I looked at my house with new eyes. I would sell it as is, furnished and decorated. I would take only the things I really needed.

  For me, the never-ending party stopped that night. Rowdy could run the bar himself once he got there.

  I was done.

  • • •

  When I arrived at the hospital the next morning, the doctor told me Isabel was awake. He also told me something else.

  “She’s been asking for the man,” he said. “Larry?”

  “She doesn’t know?” I asked.

  The doctor paused before answering. “We thought it best if it came from one of her friends.”

  Which meant me.

  I entered her room, my head swirling with anxiety and sadness and a deep desire to turn around and leave so that someone else could do what I was about to.

  She didn’t see me at first. Her eyes were half shut, pain creasing her brow. I noticed her arm was now in a cast, and the bruises on her face had grown.

  I stood at the side of her bed. “Isabel?”

  She opened her eyes slowly, and they brightened some when she realized who I was. “Hi, Papa,” she said.

  “You look like you’re in pain. Do you need something?” I asked.

  “The nurse just gave me a pill,” she said. “I’ll feel better in a moment.”

  “The doctor tells me that your arm will heal and your ankle, too. It’ll just take a little time.”

  She tried to smile, but that only caused more pain.

  “Is Larry here?” she asked. “I thought he would come visit me, but I haven’t seen him.”

  I didn’t know how to begin, so I took what I hoped was the easy way out. “What’s important right now is you get some rest and get better,” I said.

  “Where is he?” she asked, not letting it go. “Is he hurt?” She tried to push herself up, but didn’t get far before pain forced her back down. “I need to see him.”

  “Isabel,” I said. “Larry’s not here. And he’s not coming.”

  She looked at me, confused. Before she could ask another question, I said, “He died after the accident.”

  I watched as panic overtook her, deforming her face and causing the hand of her unbroken arm to shake. She opened her mouth several times to speak, and when she finally did, her words piled on top of each other in a stuttered gasp. “But he was okay. He wasn’t hurt. Not like me.”

  I noticed the doctor and one of the nurses hovering nearby. They had obviously anticipated Isabel’s reaction to the news they had fated me to deliver.

  “Isabel, there’s nothing you can do. You just need to get better.”

  I knew my words were inadequate. What do you tell someone when the man she’d loved for two years was dead? Whatever it was, I didn’t know it.

  “I need to see him,” she said, her voice suddenly strong. “I need to see him now.”

  Again she pushed herself up, this time succeeding in reaching a sitting position. Apparently that was the cue for the doctor and nurse to move in.

  “No!” Isabel screamed as they pushed her back down on the bed.

  She tried to pull away, but she was too weak. When the nurse stuck the needle in her arm, she could barely even shrug. Soon Isabel’s eyes closed and she was once again asleep.r />
  She never did see Larry again. His body was flown back to America and buried a week before she got out of the hospital. Her last sight of him had been as someone pulled him out of the sidecar while he protested that his girlfriend needed help.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A few of the early-bird guests had wandered down from their hotel rooms to the poolside restaurant for breakfast. The sky had turned a beautiful azure blue, with the only clouds in sight distant, dotting the horizon.

  I asked Isabel if she wanted something to eat, but she said she wasn’t hungry. So we walked to the edge of the hotel property and looked out over the beach at the ocean.

  “I don’t get to see this too often,” she said. “Mornings, I mean. Everything seems so much richer, and calmer. Does that make sense?”

  “Sure,” I told her, knowing exactly what she meant.

  “Larry always wanted me to get up with him in the morning, but I always wanted to sleep.” She let out a short, derisive laugh. “That was time we missed spending with each other, I guess.”

  Behind us somewhere came the laughter of children. On the air there was the aroma of eggs and meat. Boracay was slowly waking.

  “It was Mariella, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  Isabel looked at me, then returned her gaze to the ocean. “I think it was eight or nine months after the accident—you were gone by then. Even though I’d moved back home, I still heard from the girls sometimes, keeping me caught up on life in Angeles.” She paused and closed her eyes, either searching for a memory or trying to forget it. “The police caught a man who’d been robbing houses. When they were questioning him, he mentioned the accident. He claimed he wasn’t involved, but he had heard that a woman paid three men ten thousand pesos to kill an American. He said the woman was a bar girl.

  “Two months later, Mariella came back to the province for a visit. I hadn’t seen her since just after the accident. She visited me in the hospital once. It was a quick visit. She’d been cold and uncaring, and I had been tired and depressed. And once I left the hospital, I only stayed in Angeles long enough to gather my things and get Larry’s money from you.