Fairy Tale Fail

by Mina V. Esguerra

  Rather than bear with the burger place in our building, though, Lucas insisted on real food. He said there was a small cafeteria-style place he went to a few blocks away. Really good bulalo. I looked out at the rain, and the wind, and my shoes, and my nice purple top, and shrugged.

  Bulalo did sound good. The weather put me in the mood for meat and marrow. (It's not as disgusting as I made it sound.)

  I pulled my jacket around me tighter and followed him out. I had an umbrella, but it was the kind of storm that would blow an umbrella inside out, so the only way to stay mobile was just to run for it. Thankfully the restaurant was open when we got there, and they didn't mind too when little puddles formed around us when we sat down. I was soaked, by the way, even through my jacket.

  Lucas looked great though. He ran a hand through his wet hair and the calculated mess pointed in a different direction.

  "So, you don't usually stay late at work, right?" Lucas said, after ordering.

  "No," I answered, drying my hands on some table napkins. "I'm usually out of there after my eight hours."

  "Because you live far?"

  I thought about it, and shook my head. "No, I just don't want to be at work all night. What were you doing there anyway? We were all sent home at the same time."

  "I think I'm in the mood for a beer. Do you want a beer?"

  Interesting. "Did you just avoid answering me?"

  He smiled sheepishly and called the waiter, asking for two bottles of San Mig Light.

  I patted my forehead with another table napkin and shrugged. "You do realize that you invited me to dinner during a storm, which means you're stuck with me asking this question all night. Might as well answer it."

  I didn't think I would ever be able to tease Rock Star that way, but what the hey. I couldn't go home, I was hungry, what else did he expect me to do?

  "I'm not talking on an empty stomach," Lucas said.

  ***

  What did I know about Lucas, anyway? All of it had been rumors, passed around the office, usually picked up and shared by Charisse who had more friends on other floors.

  It was quite possible that even after all of that, I knew nothing about him at all.

  "So what's your 'thing', Sandwich Girl?" he said, just when I was about to start pestering him again.

  "My what?"

  "Your thing. What is it you do that makes you want to get out of work right away."

  See, that was a great way of putting it. Don had the impression that people who left the office as soon as they were allowed were lazy. I thought they led exciting lives and couldn't wait to get back to them.

  "Thank you," I couldn't help saying to Lucas. "Some people have criticized me for not staying at the office late enough."

  He shrugged. "Yeah, well, if people want to give their heart and soul to their job, then good for them. My work doesn't define me."

  "That's exactly what I've been trying to tell some people."

  I had a lot to look forward to when I clocked out. I started counting them with my fingers. "Movies. TV shows. Dylan, my new little nephew. Finding out what's for dinner. Speaking of, I need to text my mom that I'm having dinner out. And, my research."

  "Your what?"

  "It's strange," I warned him. "I mean, I don't think everyone does this. I plan hypothetical trips to places."

  It was a hobby that I did spend a lot of time on, like hours and hours on the Internet every night. Well not every night, but one thing usually led to another. Like, planning for a trip to Europe, wow. I could spend weeks on that, just doing one scenario after another.

  "Like how?" Lucas said. "Like, for example, a trip to France. What would be your scenario for that?"

  "How much money do I have?"

  Lucas blinked. "Um… not a lot."

  "How much time off do I get from work?"

  "Two weeks?"

  "Just France, or do I do other countries? Because once I get a visa for France, I would think, might as well go to other countries within the EU with that, right?"

  "France and Italy then."

  "Which cities? Do I take a tour, like Contiki, or do I plot the touring myself?"

  Lucas leaned back against his chair and shook his head. "You're right, planning this could take forever."

  "But in a fun way."

  "Of course. But don't think this is so strange, I'm kind of on a travel kick too. Locally, though."

  He told me about what inspired him – going diving for the first time in Malaysia, and realizing that he hadn't even tried it back home.

  "So I said I would," he concluded, "and then it escalated to just visiting the next place because I hadn't seen it. And the next place, and the next. Any local spots part of your hypothetical trips?"

  "No," I admitted. "Well, maybe not in the near future. I really did start this to get away and be in an unfamiliar place."

  "So what are you running away from?" he asked, casually but pointedly, motioning to the waiter to take his empty beer bottle. Apparently Rock Star was a sharp one.

  I told him. About the boyfriend who thought I was without ambition, without passion, and more attractive to him when I was just his friend.

  ***

  "Shit. That is harsh." Lucas said, summing up my breakup in a neat sentence-and-swear-word combo.

  "It's not that bad," I said, defending Don instinctively. "I mean, there's no proper place for a breakup anyway."

  "I haven't been to church in ten years but I know I wouldn't do that to anyone." He brought the little bowl of bulalo broth to his lips and slurped thoughtfully. "Well, when I first saw him I did think he was an ass."

  Oh crap. I hadn't seen Don in so long, I had forgotten that we all still technically worked together. In the same office.

  "Do you know him, like, are you friends?" I squeaked.

  No, they weren't friends. But Lucas met him briefly during an ill-advised stint with the office badminton team. It wasn't a pleasant memory.

  "Maybe I unfairly tainted your perception of him already," I said. "Because normally people think he's a nice guy."

  He looked at me with disbelief. "Wow. You were that into him, huh?"

  "I said I loved him, didn't I?"

  This was hour three into our dinner. The rain was still falling heavily, although thankfully the wind had stopped its assault. Also, our big bowl of food was pretty much just a peppered puddle by now, but I sure wasn't in a hurry to leave.

  He wasn't checking his watch either.

  "Ellie," he said, one of the first times I heard him say my name, "Tell me if I got this right. You think this guy loves you, and yet he takes you to the place he knows you adore, tells you that you're lazy, and stupid, and much more interesting from a distance."

  I started laughing. It was like I was being tickled from inside my gut. For a good minute there I couldn't stop.

  This was not the first time that I had been told that. Charisse did, so many times, in so many ways. All of my friends and family did, at least when they weren't sick of this story yet. But seriously, none of those things sank in. They became sound bites that I vaguely remembered, things I learned to start saying to people just so they would think I was okay and stop looking at me like I was going crazy.

  "I am going to be honest with you," I said. "Because you're paying for my beers."

  He raised an eyebrow at me. "I am?"

  "You are now. Do you want to hear it?"

  "Go ahead."

  I leaned toward him, toward the middle of the table, and exaggerated a whisper. "I got so used to thinking he was The One for me that I would probably still take him back. Like, if he called me tomorrow and said he wanted a second chance."

  "Even after what he did to you?"

  "Yes," I said. "I think I would."

  "But you seem fine to me."

  "I'm busy with work, but it's like I'm on autopilot. I feel like I'm not entirely here. I really got attached to the future I thought I would have with him. It sucks that I'm not living tha
t dream right now."

  I wasn't being dramatic, by the way. I wasn't crying, or hurt. I was just stating a fact, maybe for the first time ever. It helped that Lucas didn't know me back then, and didn't spend the past year or so hearing about my pain. At least he was hearing this after I had already processed it.

  "Do you still love him?" he asked.

  "I don't know if I do," I said. "But I know that I would go back to him again if he asked. It's just easier. I can't even imagine my fairy tale with another guy. I've tried, but I can't."

  There I said it – my shameful secret. Ellie was not so free after all.

  Lucas ran a hand through his hair – dry now – and just looked me in the eye. I noticed that he had stubble again, and I liked how it gave definition to his jaw. He looked at me, probably expecting me to say I was kidding. I couldn't possibly still be in love with a guy who didn't appreciate me.

  But I wasn't kidding.

  "Well, now I know that you are really messed up," Lucas said, finally. "I'm paying for the whole dinner.

  Chapter 9

  My mom told me to stay on dry land while traffic was bad. I asked Charisse if I could stay overnight in her apartment, just a short walk from the office, but she said that five other people were already crammed in her studio with her. I knew I should have called earlier, but I was having a great time. With Rock Star.

  After we left the restaurant, we retreated under a shed when the rain started up again, and made our respective phone calls. The shed wasn't providing much shelter against the rain, because I was still getting wet from when drops ricocheted back up at me from the street.

  Lucas had his back to me, still on his phone call. He had his head down, and I couldn't really hear what he was saying, but the tone of it seemed tense. At least for him, who was never tense. Sandra liked to call him her "low-maintenance friend."

  "So," he said when his call ended. "Your friend taking you in tonight?"

  "No, I didn't book her early enough. She's got too many people there now."

  "You don't know anyone else?"

  "Everyone I know is probably already staying over at Charisse's." I said. "It's okay. I think I can wait this out a little longer. How about you?"

  "Oh, don't worry about me. I have a relative nearby."

  "Good for you," I said.

  He shrugged, and then smiled at me. "Good for us."

  ***

  I used to like playing in flooded streets until it occurred to me what was on a regular Makati street when it was dry. Cigarette butts. Dog poo. And all sorts of other crap that shouldn't be on the ground. Didn't matter how it looked or where it was – one piece of crap was all it took for flood water to freak me out.

  "Fuck fuck fuck," I said, when my foot went down an unseen pothole again.

  Lucas held out a hand so he could help me jump over another puddle. "Nice," he said sarcastically. "I can see why good guys are attracted to you."

  "Shut up," I retorted. "I don't like walking in a pool of dog poop. And rat pee."

  "But see, you just agreed to go somewhere with a shower. It all works out."

  The rain hadn't stopped, but we were on the move because Lucas had convinced me to stay at his aunt's house in Bel-Air with him instead. I found the whole thing a bit weird, but Lucas asked me to reconsider for his sake. He had decided that he was going to stay with me that night until I got a decent ride home (it was the proper thing to do), but rather than make him wait in a mall could we at least wait at his tita's house where he could at least be comfortable?

  ***

  Lucas' aunt, it turned out, was ready for us. A fabulous-looking woman of over fifty, and the cousin of Lucas' dad, she was retired, a widow, and lived alone in the house. Her children had all moved out to start their own families.

  When we got there at thirty past midnight, his Tita Claire pushed me right into the downstairs bathroom. I could barely remember how I got there, as we traveled through a maze of rooms: foyer, then living room, then hallway, a study, then some kind of family room, and then bathroom. Inside, a neatly-folded pile was waiting: drawstring jogging pants (too large for me, but that's where the drawstring part came in), a Boracay souvenir shirt that looked like it had never been used, disposable underwear (in the right size), a fluffy pink towel, and white bedroom slippers that had a hotel's name on them.

  The shower had hot water too. It felt great. I stood under it for so long, just scrubbing floodwater bacteria off my feet. I felt like Cinderella being made over by the Fairy Godmother.

  I stepped out of the bathroom to discover myself indeed in some kind of family room, but only because Lucas was already there sitting on the floor, back against the couch, watching TV. He looked fresh out of the shower too, and was wearing the same kind of Boracay shirt.

  I thought of being self-conscious for a second. I was in ill-fitting clothes, underwear made of paper, and I hadn't even brushed my hair yet and here I was in front of Rock Star.

  "The shirt looks better on you," he said, effectively breaking the ice. Sandra was right; I didn't feel like I had to be high-maintenance if he wasn't.

  "Where's your tita? I have to thank her."

  "She's asleep by now but she left chocolate." True enough, there was a box of truffles waiting.

  "Wow," I said, jumping onto the couch behind him. "I think this is my best typhoon night ever."

  ***

  Another thing I discovered about Lucas: He drank three bottles of beer at dinner and managed to keep mum the whole time, but after maybe five non-alcoholic truffles he started to loosen up. Past midnight and we were both sitting on the carpeted floor. Each one gallantly offering the couch, neither accepting it.

  "Are you a secret rock star?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "What? No. Where'd that come from?"

  "Nowhere," I said innocently. "You know that people talk about you, right? I mean, at work."

  The TV was tuned to the BBC but I had long since stopped paying attention to it. And so did he, because at this he turned to lean against a throw pillow and face me directly.

  "What do people say about me?" he asked.

  "You can't not know. How long have you been at the office?"

  "I don't hang out with a lot of people there. What do they say?"

  "Well, it's more of… observational. People notice what you do. Who you're with."

  "Why would they do that? I'm boring."

  It figured that he wouldn't understand. But rather than explain to him, he launched into an explanation of how "regular" he was. He had started to explain to me just what exactly he did for work (I mean, "wealth management"? Really?) but somewhere in the middle he just started laughing.

  "Please forget everything I just told you. It doesn't matter," he said. "Seriously. The answer is, I do stuff my boss tells me so I get paid twice a month. That is all it is."

  "But you're like, assistant manager, right? And you've been promoted before?"

  "Not of my own doing. I guess I'm a good foot soldier." Lucas grabbed another truffle and bit half of it off, chewing slowly. "But what really makes it worth it is working with this one client. Huge corporation. They started this foundation and somehow roped me into it. They set up libraries in small towns."

  He seemed really into it too, telling me about the online book donation drive and the corporate partnerships, and I couldn't help but laugh. Somehow I had imagined Lucas having some sort of altruistic hobby, only because all the gossip about him gave him a Clooney kind of mystique, but I didn't think that it could be true.

  "Are you making fun of me?" he demanded. "Because people don't usually laugh when I tell them about the kids who can't afford books."

  "I'm not laughing at the kids," I said, "I'm sorry, please continue. It's great what you're doing, really. I think it'll help a lot of people."

  "Oh no, I have no illusions about that. The foundation does a nice thing for people, but they don't even know if enough people will go to the libraries."

  "But you
do it anyway. Does it make you feel all warm inside?" I teased.

  "Yes," Lucas admitted. "They're not the easiest clients, but I'd rather deal with them than other people. Makes the job bearable. But it's just a job, right? Fulfillment's different for everyone."

  "Can you hang around with certain people I know and just say that?"

  "Don is an ass. You don't need to change his mind about anything."

  "Now see, good guys don't call other guys names."

  Lucas laughed. "I'm not a good guy."

  I remembered what I told Charisse – all the reasons why I couldn't be with a guy like him. He smoked (or used to), he drank, he had tattoos, and I had no idea how he was with responsibility. I didn't know him for very long, didn't even know his parents or what they did. I would have to explain so much to my mom if they were to meet. I couldn't imagine how he'd take care of me, what kind of life we would have together…

  What? I wasn't crazy. Shouldn't everyone do a background check on romantic prospects first? He was just too far off from my normal. Although being with him, right there, was fun.

  "What's the big deal about tonight?" I asked, serious for once. "Or are you just the type who hangs out all night with girls you barely know?"

  "You're not a stranger," Lucas said. "We work together."

  "You know what I mean." I half expected him to say some smartass remark, or deflect it by changing the subject, or say something about Don to get me talking.

  Maybe he was tired, or the chocolate got to him, but he stopped fighting it. "My ex was waiting for me at my parents' house. She's been trying to talk to me again, but I've been avoiding her. She found out somehow that I was staying there this week. Today I got a call that she just showed up and said she would wait until I got back."

  "Oh." I didn't know what to say, but didn't want him to stop talking. "I'm sorry, I don't know who she is."