“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I grunted.
“Why’d you buy tickets in advance, anyway? Don’t you just normally go to the station and get on the ordinary ones…no air-con? You hate the smell.”
“Yeah, but then you’d complain the whole time, princess,” I grumbled. “You’re getting a bus ride, luxury edition. Less people, more air-con, and they’ll actually feed you along the way. So you can’t say no,” I repeated, firmly. “They don’t do refunds.”
She was crouching down now with her knees up against her chest, tracing something on the dust with her finger. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t think they’ll let me.”
“They don’t have to let you. Just go.”
“It’ll be trouble. You know my dad and my mom will kill me, and my aunts…I’ll be henpecked to death.”
“Worry about that after.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re used to that.”
I pretended that didn’t hurt. “Don’t tell me you’re waiting for Mark to sweep you off your feet with the most romantic date for Christmas ever?”
She slapped me. “Oh, jeesh,” I said, because her slaps hurt, and I swore at her, and she tried to knee me the way she did with Mark except I knew better and twisted to the left. I grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the end of the road before she could make a bigger scene.
“This is a yes,” I said, watching her father’s car wind down the side of the road while I stuck the ticket into her skirt pocket. “And I don’t care what your relatives think. Let them burn. The bus leaves at nine o’clock in the morning. That’ll give you enough time for a beauty sleep. All right?” I patted her cheek and turned around while her father’s driver called out to her with a door open. I didn’t know why I never gave her the chance to say good-bye. I just knew I wouldn’t have been able to take it if she said no again.
I woke up at six a.m. to the smell of garlic and the sound of crackling. The air was thick and cold. I glanced through the glass shutters of the window and saw thick rivulets of rain streaming down the neighbour’s roof. I sighed. It was the perfect weather for making a nest in my bed and going back to sleep.
“Pablo,” Mom said. “Breakfast.”
I forced myself out and trundled to the kitchen. She’d made fried garlic rice and fried eggs, and had fried a can of corned beef with onions. I felt my heart struggle at the thought of all that oil and dumped my ass into a chair. Mom started serving me while I made myself a cup of hot chocolate.
“So, Rachel Ann, huh,” she started. My heart made a little flutter, like a dying moth. I wondered if she knew she was starting to talk to me normally again.
“I know,” I quickly said. “I don’t know how I’m going to last twelve hours. She’ll talk my ears off.” I couldn’t look her in the face. Please, please, I thought. Just let this one go.
“Right,” she murmured, peeling a banana and dropping it into my plate. “Well, be careful, anyway. And make sure you remind your aunt that bit about our house’s papers.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“And here’s your lunch.” She lifted a plastic basket from the countertop and placed it on the table. “I made sandwiches, some rice. I don’t know if she’ll eat—”
“Mom,” I said. “She eats here all the time.”
“I know, but sometimes…well, you never know, with rich kids…”
“They’re not that rich. They just seem like it.”
“Yeah, but compared to us…are you really sure her father let her go? It seems so unlike the man.”
“He did, but I wouldn’t rub it in his face and call him about it.” I flipped through the morning paper casually. A body found on the street covered in newspaper? Again? No wonder people wanted to leave this damn country at the drop of a hat.
“Still. You be careful around that girl, you hear?” She threatened me with a fork. “You think about any consequences, like her father taking a machine gun to this shack, if you do anything stupid.”
“I’m not stupid, Mom.”
“I mean, if you get her lost or kidnapped or pregnant…”
“You’ve got quite an imagination, Mom.”
“If she so much as breaks a nail—”
“Oh, good. Now we’re back to reality.”
She crossed her arms. “I mean it, Pablo. I don’t want trouble. Her father is a powerful man and I hear her mom has quite the mouth on her.”
“Bah,” I said, working my mouth around a chunk of garlic. “You can take her.”
She shook her head and went back to the stove. She always cooked more than she ever needed to. I flipped the newspaper again, trying to find anything of interest, or at least a paragraph of shoddy grammar I could poke fun at. After a while I closed it and glanced at the clock. It was seven. “I should get ready to head to the terminal,” I said. I paused then, my fingers on the rim of my plate, thinking. “Mom?”
“What?”
“Did Dad call?”
“No.” I wondered, then, if her sharp tone was intended for me or for him. I was never sure.
I shrugged and went back to my room to grab my clothes and take a shower.
I really don’t know if I ever expected her to show up at the terminal, or if maybe I was just that much of an optimist, but I never once stopped to think about what I would do if she didn’t. I bid my mother goodbye (she, teary-eyed, promised to cut my balls off if I did anything to make her ashamed of me), got into a taxi, and before I knew it I was sitting in the bus staring at all the poor bastards outside having to shake their heads at every passing vendor. No, no, he doesn’t need a smoke, or a flower necklace, or a snack. The conductor came down to check my ticket and smiled at me with cracked teeth.
The bus started to get full and an old movie popped onto the TV screen up front. I hadn’t seen this one, but my vague interest waned on account of not having the patience to squint at the tiny screen over the driver’s seat while craning my neck around the fat guy two seats from me. Someone came up to me with a bottle of cold water asking, “Mineral?”, and I glared at him and wondered who the hell allowed the damn vendors in.
“How about a quail egg?” someone else asked.
“Excuse me,” a voice called out. The vendors parted and then left. Rachel Ann appeared, dragging a duffel bag that looked big enough to fit a hacked-up body and knowing her probably did. She poked the conductor’s shoulder and made him carry the bag up to the racking above the seats. While he puffed and sweated over this task, she pulled herself to the seat beside me and dove into it.
“Hi,” she said, breathless. She was wearing round sunglasses and a purple bandanna over her head. “Recognize me?”
“Not in a million years,” I said, dryly.
“I had to sneak out,” she explained. “Good thing Dad left early in the morning and I got the help to distract Mom with some story about Mark.”
“Oh, good.” It must have been too much to ask for her to leave like a proper girl—you know, ask for permission, be allowed with her parents’ blessing, and not let me take that bullet to the brain by the time we had to return? Yes, I know, I did tell her to just go, but she should know by now not to take me that seriously. “I hope your dad doesn’t kill him.”
“I don’t care.” She glanced around. There was an empty space between us, big enough to fit one seat in. It was one of the perks of travelling first class on a bus—you didn’t have to sit in a cramped spot beside a stranger, sweating and hoping he took a shower so he wouldn’t start stinking before you got to Quezon. A part of me did wish I’d forced her to go on the ordinary one, though, just to see what she’d say about having to sit beside a box of chickens and have her butt cheeks fall asleep on her. Princess had probably never travelled that way before.
“So,” she said.
“So,” I replied.
“What do we have to eat?”
“You didn’t have breakfast?”
“I was packing.”
“How about an egg? P
ork rinds? Hamburger?”
She scrunched her nose. I figured she’d do that at some point and gave her one of the sandwiches Mom made. She took one, sniffed it, and then started eating. She wasn’t lying about being hungry—she finished it in three bites, and then asked for more.
The bus started moving. She’d been that late.
“I hated this movie,” she said, glancing to the front. “Totally cheesy. And the guy dies. Can’t they change it? Hey!” She called out to the conductor. “Can you change the movie?” I rolled my eyes. It was going to be a long trip.
Seven years I’d known this girl. Seven years. You’d think I would have gotten used to her by now. I was really only partly kidding about not knowing how to last twelve hours with her—up until I actually got to that part where I had to do it. Shit. I’d had sleepovers with her when we were younger, pulled all-nighters after going to school as early as 5 a.m. that same morning, but I had never been in a situation before where I couldn’t escape. It was that bad. She nagged and talked until even the wisps of moustache on my face were bored, and that’s when she wasn’t nagging and talking and boring the ears off the conductor, who made the mistake of becoming too friendly. When she wasn’t doing any of those things she was sleeping, which was even worse, because she snored.
But we got going. The bus creaked along scenic routes, passing by small towns and forests and fields. The road was so narrow I could’ve opened the window and touched some guy on the forehead while he was sitting on the window of his home. Children played along the side of the road, dangerously close to speeding wheels. There were dogs along the gutters and water buffalo and horses in the fields. There was the sea-side, foaming and dense with seaweed and covered with enough garbage to make one sick to the stomach.
I’d been on this trip hundreds of times before and it felt new all of a sudden. Rachel Ann’s presence made all the difference. She was a city girl at heart, I knew—the few places she’d gone to she’d travelled to by plane, and it was always to resorts and relatives with big houses and marble floors. I longed to show her the little details that made up my world, but I didn’t know where to start. Do I just point out all the mess, the discomfort, the heat, the dust, all of which she might know for less than an hour back in the city because she always came home to the comfort of maids and an air-conditioned apartment?
I glanced at her lounging back against her cushioned seat, her eyes covered with an airplane eye-mask. There was a shiny pillow in her lap. I turned my head back to the window. Always, on the way here and back, I never missed the sights. The road might be rough and uncomfortable, but I have always loved every second of it.
“Daraga!” the conductor was crying out. His voice pulled me out of sleep. I jerked my head up. “Daraga!” the man repeated, glancing at me, as if he just knew. “Your stop here? You should get off.”
“Rachel Ann,” I said, shaking her awake. “Grab your things.” I bent down to pluck my single bag from under my seat. She started stirring, then, and looked at me as if I ought to go and get her things.
I laughed. “No way. Come on, unless you know how to get here from Legazpi.” It was really only one jeepney drive, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
I got off the bus, smelling smoke and the cool night air. Evenings in the province were always quieter than back at the city. I relished the feel of it while I stood there flexing my neck. Rachel Ann came out, grumbling, and the conductor followed her with her enormous bag, grumbling even louder.
She took it from him—well, actually, pretended to take it from him, as she really just made him drop it and then took the handle without lifting it—and smiled. “Thank you for your help,” she said sweetly, in that kind of voice I’ve never had the privilege of hearing directed at me. The man blushed like a schoolboy.
“No, thank you,” he said. “Always glad to help.” He got back up the stairs, waved, and the bus started creaking down the road again. I was pretty amazed. He never even asked for a tip.
She noticed my gaping mouth and winked. “That, Pablo, is something you’ll never learn to do,” she said.
“Hah!” I replied. “Don’t dare me. I just might.”
We found a tricycle—a motorcycle strapped to a welded, wheeled frame—and that took us the rest of the way. My father’s sister met us at the door. “Pablo,” she said, making a big show of kissing me on the cheek. The smell of cheap perfume clung to her like a second layer of clothes. She then glanced at Rachel Ann. Her eyebrow shot up. “Oh, boy,” she added.
“Hello,” Rachel Ann said. “I’m Rachel Ann. Pablo’s mom must have told you on the phone.”
“She didn’t,” Auntie Sabelle said. She glanced back at me. “So where’d you get this one?”
“I got her nowhere, Auntie,” I grunted, pushing at the flimsy metal gate. A young dog met us around the path, barking. The sight of it made Rachel Ann start squealing and wanting to hug it, fur and grease and all. My aunt walked by us, saying nothing, but the look on her face told me she wanted to speak in private. I dropped the bags by the patio and went in after her.
She turned around as soon as we got into the kitchen. “What’s this?” she hissed, her nostrils flaring. “What are you doing, bringing a girl in here for? Are you out of your mind?”
“She’s just a friend, Auntie. Mom said she called you about it.”
Auntie Sabelle glared. “She did. I thought she was kidding. Do you think I was born yesterday? Your father will hear of this, Pablo. He’ll be furious. What did you do to her, anyway? Are you eloping? Is she pregnant?” I was pretty sure if I squinted hard enough I’d see the smoke rising through her ears.
“No, Auntie,” I said. I took the opportunity to sift through the pots and see what she had for dinner. There was cold rice and what looked like pork stew under a layer of stiffened fat.
“She can’t stay here.” Auntie yanked my arm away from the food. “She just can’t. Look at her, Pablo.”
“I’m looking.”
“You’ll be the town’s gossip before the week is up. Do you know what that will do to me?”
I looked at her and imagined exactly what being the centre of the town gossip would do to her. It involved a lot of raised whispers, condescending nods and coffee-parties, with her in the middle of it all. Oh yes, Pablo, my brother’s son, that’s exactly the kind of boy he is. She would love it. And there she was standing in front of me looking like she cared.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I told her. “You’ll manage.” I waved her off and grabbed a couple of worn plastic plates from the sink. Auntie had stopped working since Dad left for Canada and couldn’t be bothered to spend her allowance on things like cutlery. The spoon, for example, bent when I tried to stick it into the rice. I ended up having to scoop it out with my fingers and hoped to God Rachel Ann wouldn’t notice.
My aunt, to her credit, left us alone while we ate on the pretense of bringing our luggage to the room. Likely she’d be rummaging through them by now. I decided not to tell Rachel Ann about it. She was consuming the cold rice and the pork like some sort of starving animal. I started to wonder if she was even the same girl who once sent a plate of spaghetti back because it was the wrong shade of red.
“Susmaryosep,” I said, imitating that raised tone my grandma used to take whenever she found my hand in one of the candy jars in her store. “Leave some for the mutt.”
She stopped long enough to glance down at the dog under her seat. The damned thing had decided she was his new best friend and was acting like he’d known her for ages. He even growled at me when I so much as grazed my hand across her arm when I was taking water from the pitcher.
“I guess you’re right. Here you go, poochie woochie smoochie.” I got distracted from her gibberish because she suddenly reached down and began kissing the dog, who started licking her back and, in the back of my mind, suddenly reminded me of Mark. It was disturbing.
“Hey,” I said, nudging her foot with my toe. The dog looked up and started growling a
gain. I shook a finger at him. “Shut up, Rambo.”
“Rambo?”
“All her dogs are called Rambo. They like to get poisoned or run over, so she stopped bothering to come up with new names.”
“Really. That’s sad. He looks like a Winston. I’ll name him Winston.” She took a lump of meat and held out her hand.
“Probably has rabies,” I said, watching the dog lick her fingers.
“What would you know? You’re a good boy, Winston. Don’t listen to your Uncle Pablo.”
“He’s right. Damn thing eats off the garbage and God knows what else. The room is ready,” my aunt said, glaring straight at her. “I suppose you want the bed. I’m sleeping on the fold-out cot. You, on the other hand, have to stay on the couch.”
“What?” I gasped.
“She’s your guest,” she said. “Make do.” She eyed Rachel Ann one last time before returning to the room to, I suppose, sleep. It was already 11 p.m.
“Your aunt doesn’t like me,” Rachel Ann observed. She seemed nonplussed.
“Don’t feel special. She likes no one but select members of her church group. I think she stays up late at night just to figure out ways not to like people. When she went to Manila and met Joy—” I stopped then. I didn’t want to talk about Joy, least of all to her. I got up and went to the sofa, across the dining table. Rachel Ann followed me.
“It’s been two months since Joy,” she said flatly.
“Quiet, you.”
“Pablo…”
“Have I ever told you that you’re the most annoying person I know? Well, I’m telling you now.” I felt something up my nose and hoped it wasn’t tears threatening to fall. Why did I need to feel like this, all of a sudden? She was right—Joy was months ago. I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t even care for her that much.
The dog’s howling broke my thoughts. It wasn’t a bark-howl. He’d wedged himself under the table and the howl was a deep noise that came from inside his belly. Rachel Ann went to comfort him but she wasn’t even halfway across the living room when someone began to knock at the front door.
Birthplace Page 3
