I took the stick. It was heavy and smooth, perfect for whacking people with. “Thank you,” I said, preferring not to listen to his insult.
“No, I didn’t give that to you to walk with. I might need you to scare the birds off the trees. Or hit wild animals if they attack us from behind.”
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. I mean, even when I was totally sure that he was yanking my chain—like a few minutes later when he smacked my shoulder and ordered me not to look to my right, because there was a monster in the banyan tree that didn’t like us looking at him—he spoke in such a calm and straightforward manner that my first instinct was to believe. You couldn’t really blame me. The guy just didn’t seem like the type to joke around or tell stories for the hell of it. Heck, I’d never even heard him laugh the past day I’d known him.
The surprising thing was that here, away from Rachel Ann’s fawning, I actually didn’t mind him as much. I couldn’t say the same thing for the other guys Rachel Ann had been involved with over the years. Mark, for example. I’d hung out with him a couple of times, mostly us glaring at each other across an empty sundae cup while waiting for Rachel Ann to come back from powdering her nose, and I couldn’t stand him. He thought a guy was supposed to humour a girl, to treat them like defenseless creatures in need of his knight-in-shining-armour protection, and so when he wasn’t around her, he was completely different. He boasted and complained, and had nothing of value to say but believed he did.
Enrique, on the other hand, never once jabbed me in the rib with his elbow in order to waggle his eyebrows and tell me how sizzling hot Rachel Ann was. Nor did he treat me like a moron just so he could show off. After he gave me the stick he continued walking ahead of me, matter-of-factly, and talking in short bursts. He even pointed out a tree he said he once climbed and fell out of—even showed me a scar across his belly where a tree root nearly gutted him. “Reminded me from then on not to be so stupid,” he said, with a rueful look. “Some people aren’t made for flying out of trees.”
“That’s a neat scar,” I told him. I meant it, too. “But it’s not as epic as mine.” I pulled up my shirt to show him.
He gave me a pained look. “What happened there? Knife fight?”
I beamed at him. “Appendicitis.”
He actually got my humour and broke into a full-out grin.
We found the birds a little bit downhill, having crossed another stream. I didn’t have to flush them out of the bush after all. They were just sitting on the branch of that guava tree, in clear view. Enrique fired several shots and hit two out of the five or six we saw, which I thought was pretty good. Then we crouched under the tree and waited for them to come back. He got another that way.
On the way back, I glanced at the little brown corpses where he’d hung them from his belt, all bedraggled and pitiful-looking. “How are you planning to cook them? Please don’t say stew.”
“You didn’t like my stew?” He gestured at the birds. “Probably roast them, then.”
“There’s not enough meat.”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me to buy something? I mean, when we get back to civilization.”
He flushed. “If you want.” I guess my offer embarrassed him, even though I really didn’t mean for it to. I mean, I’d only just realized that maybe we were imposing more than we should, staying with people who obviously couldn’t afford much more than what they put in their mouths. I didn’t have time to correct him, though. He started walking faster. I had to struggle to keep up.
Less than ten minutes later we came through a clearing and found ourselves on the dirt road. The trail we took must’ve been a shortcut, though I couldn’t see how Enrique could’ve possibly told that part of the woods apart from the other. Wordlessly, he took me to the same eatery Rachel Ann and I were at last night. The woman smiled at me in recognition, while flashing a less-than-pleased glance at Enrique behind me.
I sniffed her stall. “Anything good today, ate?”
“Jackfruit,” she said, cracking open a pot to reveal a pinkish stew of coconut milk, shrimp paste, and of course, jackfruit. I bought a bag. She stared at us while she ladled the stew in.
“You guys cousins or something?” she finally asked.
That never occurred to me. I turned to Enrique, who was pretending to stare at something more interesting across the field. Ciskong was my father’s uncle, and I supposed if he took Enrique in when no one else would that he was a distant relative of some sort. I supposed that did make us cousins. I mean, he was taller than me, but we had the same cocoa-tinged skin and the same faint stubble that ran halfway through our cheeks. Also, our noses sorta had the same shape. I tried to turn this over in my head. I didn’t really have cousins on my father’s side of the family. Aunt Sabelle never married and there was no one else I knew.
I suppose I found this significant enough because while I resembled some of my cousins, I had never been in a situation where I could compare masculine traits—traits I now know I must have gotten from my father. Like the stubble thing. I found myself thinking, for a brief moment, whether Enrique could actually grow a full beard, the way I always wished I could.
I turned back to the woman and gave my warmest smile. “I’m surprised you would say that,” I said. “Of course not.”
She pressed her lips together and kept whatever snarky remark she had to herself. I paid for the food and a pack of smokes. I offered one to Enrique. He looked at me with disdain.
“Well, if you’re gonna be that way…” I lit the cigarette and drew a deep breath. “Just don’t tell Rachel Ann.”
I expected a joke in return—which I shouldn’t have, I know, since this was Enrique we’re talking about. “Are you scared of her?” he asked instead, his voice earnest.
I scoffed at his choice of words. “Yeah, sure. Am I scared of her nagging me to death, you mean. She can get pretty bad about that—I’m just warning you now.”
He stood there and looked like he actually considered my words. That nagging Rachel Ann voice in my head told me I might have overstepped my bounds a bit, limitless as they might seem. Should I really have been talking such trash about her? I mean, it was true and all, but maybe I should have added to it—like how kind and honest and caring she really was, if she wanted to be. How I often thought that she was possibly the only person in the world who hadn’t given up on me yet. That it frightened me to think that someday, she might after all.
“You really care for her, huh?” His words slid through me like someone had just dropped an ice cube into my shirt.
I realized I was nervously chewing on the cigarette, trying to find an excuse not to answer that.
His dark, brooding eyes turned towards me. “If I was you, I would take her away from here now. As far away as I possibly could.”
I thought I caught a glimpse of myself in his pupils, reflected upside-down. Something nagged in the back of my mind, but I snorted to myself and turned away, and tried not to think too much about it.
We got back to Ciskong’s little house and Rachel Ann began railing at us for taking so long, especially since we needed to catch a tricycle to get back to Daraga. Oops. She neglected to note that the whole affair was Enrique’s idea, after he was driven to it after he had eaten her cooking, but I suppose that sort of thing was neither here nor there, considering how vehemently she ignored my reasoning. To add salt to the wounds, she went ahead and decided not to get mad at him for very long, a courtesy she did not extend to me. My newfound friendship with Enrique dissipated into thin air. As long as he was around Rachel Ann and she continued to act the way she did, I wanted nothing to do with him.
But yeah, he did roast the birds like he said he would, and then we had a late lunch. The birds tasted a bit like overdone chicken. The jackfruit was considerably better, which was great because Enrique didn’t touch it at all. Ciskong didn’t show up the whole time—Enrique mumbled something about how busy the old man got out in the fields, an
d how he probably packed a lunch along, or else spent some time visiting his friends. I didn’t question his logic.
Afterwards, we headed down the road to get a ride back to town.
We found the tricycle easy enough. Distracting Rachel Ann so I could talk to the driver alone was harder. I wasn’t very fluent in the local dialect—I could understand it, but couldn’t speak more than a few words without reverting back to Tagalog. But the guy understood. I secretly gave him a fifty and promised another if he did exactly what I asked him to do.
Rachel Ann told him “Camalig” and he nodded, stepped on the pedal, and took us down the road. Only instead of curving left on the main intersection he went right. Rachel Ann didn’t notice—she seemed too engrossed by the scenery. I didn’t have the same luxury. I sat there making a mental note of every turn we took. Fifteen minutes later the driver stopped, I gave him the fifty with a smile, and he sped down the road.
“There’s supposed to be a jeepney here,” I said. Rachel Ann nodded and slumped down on one of the rocks by the gutter.
Meantime I pretended I was going to take a leak around the corner. Actually, I texted Mike, asking him if the situation had improved at all. He came back with a negative. Smugly, I strode back to Rachel Ann, making a big pretence of zipping up my fly.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re a pig, Pablo.”
See, this was why I didn’t feel bad about tricking her into an eventual trek back to Sakul. I smiled at her.
She suddenly looked away, tucking her hair over her ears, and murmured, “I wonder how Riko is doing.”
I frowned. I wanted very much to remind her about Mark, but didn’t think that would help the situation any.
We waited an hour or so for a jeepney, but of course, as I was well aware, they didn’t pass through that stretch of road. Rachel Ann got up and swore, and I suggested we walk all the way back and see if we could find anything else.
Call me stupid, but I really thought she’d be okay with this. Yeah, she’d been wanting to go home since yesterday, but I honestly figured if she had the excuse to be with Enrique any longer, she’d take it. I knew she’d only started talking to the guy for a few hours, but trust me, that’s how Rachel Ann’s mind worked. Last night when I told her it was probably better to stay over, she looked disappointed, but not crushed.
So imagine my surprise when she whirled around and screamed so loud I thought my eardrums would shatter. “Go back?” Her voice was shrill. “Go back to that stinking hole and their crappy food? I haven’t taken a bath, Pablo, not the whole damn day, I’m soaked in my own sweat and I’m hungry and I just want a nice, clean bed! What the hell is this?” Her cheeks were burning red. When I reached over to touch her shoulder, she hid her face in her hands and wept.
I felt like a jerk for about ten seconds. And then she turned to me. “This is why you can’t hold onto a girlfriend, Pablo.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Why was this suddenly about me?
“You don’t think! It’s always about what you can stand or what you’d like to do. You never stop and think about how you’re hurting other people, just as long as you get your way.”
“What? This isn’t my fault!” Granted, it was, but she didn’t know that yet. I tried to reason with her. “Look, we’ll just walk back. It wasn’t that far—I think I know how to. Come on, Rachel Ann. Don’t be such a brat.”
She looked at me. I felt panic stir in the pit of my stomach, but I struggled to keep it down. She couldn’t possibly hate me. She was just angry that she was tired and sweaty—she'd get over it. “All right,” she mumbled. “Let’s go.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said cheerfully.
But the mood that followed was anything but cheerful. She was silent all the way back.
Chapter Seven
* * *
* * *
You know, I don’t really remember how I first met Rachel Ann. I’ve known of her longer than the seven years I’ve spent with her. We never really talked then—I was the class clown while she always took first honours, and for a couple of years we were in completely different classes. Back in those days I remember she belonged to this posse of other girls. She was kind of their group leader—always giving them ideas about what activity to do next, cheering them up when they were down, and taking responsibility if they ever got into trouble, which happened quite often. For example, one time one of her “girls” got caught stealing—it made for quite a scene in the playground.
There is this memory that I have though, one that I’ve never told anyone, not even Rachel Ann. Probably because it’s so hazy that I would stumble over the details. I mean, some days I’m not even totally sure it happened at all, or if Rachel Ann was actually the girl involved. It was a rainy afternoon—a day before a heavy typhoon hit that part of the city, in fact—and I was hiding in a culvert right by where they were doing some construction outside of our school. I don’t remember why. I was probably upset about something stupid. Anyway, I’d stolen some blue chalk from the classroom and was furiously doodling all over the concrete when I heard footsteps. I froze where I crouched, hoping whoever it was would just keep on going, but then I saw the bottom of a plaid skirt and a pair of waxed, black leather girl-shoes.
“Here,” I heard her say, although I never got to see her face. She bent down a little so she could give a wet plastic bag to me. Or maybe she dropped it—but anyway, there were sandwiches inside.
I must have been quite hungry then, because I took them. She started to walk away, and I called out, “Wait.” I fished around my pocket and got out this metal ring I’d picked up from the ground earlier that day. “You can have this instead.”
I don’t remember what she said in response, but she laughed and took the ring. And then she said, before she got up and walked away, “Don’t eat it all at once.”
I saw her nearly a week later, when school resumed, and I heard her fake-laugh her way through the school, and I was sure it was her. I mean, like I said, I didn’t see her face, but who else could it have been? The problem was I was too shy to ask her, and by then I was somewhat embarrassed by what I’d done. Offering a ring in exchange for sandwiches. I felt like such an idiot.
I do know that after that I kept an eye out for her—so that like, if she ever got in the way or became the target of one of my pranks, she’d know it wasn’t personal. And that a big part of me longed to be her friend, even if that meant getting hit by a bag or a book once in a while, as she tended to do. Because I never imagined I would get that sort of kindness from anyone, not with what I did and who I was, not in my life.
And I shouldn’t have been, but I was probably the happiest boy on earth when that posse disbanded a few years down the road.
That long walk back to Sakul returned to me those long-forgotten feelings—of watching Rachel Ann from afar, and wanting her to talk to me, but knowing there was no way in hell a girl like that would ever stoop so low. Of that hopeful rush I would get if she so much as inclined her head towards me, because it might mean she would smile at me, and I wouldn’t have to be alone ever again. If I was a grovelling worm like Mark I wouldn’t have lasted so long without opening my mouth and telling her I thought I was stupid, too. But my pride got in the way, as it always had. I waited until we got back to Lolo Ciskong’s house to tell her.
Or actually, to give you an idea on how much I regretted not saying anything sooner—I waited until after Enrique saved the day. He saw us from down the street, fought the bewilderment from his face, bade us to wait for him, and returned with snacks and soap and shampoo and fresh, clean clothes for Rachel Ann. The grateful look she shot him made me all the more aware of how much of an asshole I must have seemed to both of them. She didn’t even look at the food—she just grabbed the toiletries and started for the bathroom.
“What were you both traipsing around in the mud for?” Enrique asked me, as soon as Rachel Ann disappeared. “I told you to take her home.”
“Didn’t happen,” I said
.
If he wasn’t so damned serious all the time, I think I would’ve hit him by now. But he locked his jaw and kept what he could’ve said to himself. I nodded at him and walked out of the hut towards the bathroom, which was its own separate building.
“Rachel Ann, listen.”
The splashing stopped for a moment, so I assumed she could hear me. I leaned against the wall with my mouth towards the door so that my voice wasn’t muffled. “I want to take you home, I really do. But Mike told me your dad’s waiting for us. I think he wants to shoot me. Anyway, I wanted to wait until he stopped being so mad to get back home. So I paid that driver to get us lost so we can stay here again. I didn’t think it would piss you off so much. You like Enrique, don’t you?”
There was a brief silence. “You’re an idiot, Pablo,” she said at last.
I had to smile at that. “Of course I am. But I’m an idiot trying to save his own skin. You can’t possibly fault me for that, can you? Jesus, Rachel Ann, your dad has a gun! I think he thinks we’re hiding something. That you’re pregnant, probably.”
“Now why would he think that?”
“I don’t know. You know how your dad is.” I actually thought it was a genuine question. I was so happy to have her talking back, after nearly two hours of stony silence, that I pretty much babbled away. “I mean, he’ll get that idea no matter which guy you’re with. You know how he was around Mark. And Paul Michael. I mean, considering how many boyfriends you’ve had, I think he pretty much just assumes the worst of whoever it is you’re with, even if he’s just a good friend...”
The door swung open and she stepped out, her hair dripping. She was wearing a very loose and rather old-fashioned cotton dress, which was a sort of faded cream colour with a lavender floral print. “So I’m a slut now, is that it?” she asked me.
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