Chasing Waves

by Bianca Mori

  He raises an eyebrow. “I just pay attention to the weather apps installed in every smartphone produced over the last two years, Mags.”

  I perch at the edge of the seat, trying not to get the upholstery wetter than it already is. “My God, it looks terrible out there. And I’m turning your car into a swamp.”

  “No big deal.” He tries to sound casual but he squints as the view outside the windshield starts looking like an Impressionist painting.

  I call Auntie Tilde as we inch into the traffic. “Auntie..? Yes. Yes I know. I’m stuck here too. How is Buchoy? Wait--hello, baby!” My voice goes high and I dart a glance at Luke, who watches me from the corner of his eye. “Yes sweetie. Mommy got stuck in the rain! I’ll just wait for it to get better, alright? I’ll be home soon. Let me talk to Auntie.” I leave instructions for Magnus’s dinner, vitamins and antihistamine dosage--he’s got another bout with allergic rhinitis this week--and end the call right as Luke crosses the intersection and enters his condo’s basement parking.

  “Listen, I think it’d be better if you wait it out here.” He’s all casual as he pulls into his parking slot. “Traffic out there isn’t moving and it’s still raining like crazy. Plus you’re all wet.”

  I shut my eyes, erecting a big red mental barrier to stop my brain from going to its favorite dirty places at Luke’s innocuous, totally reasonable remark.

  “I mean,” he switches off the ignition, “you can borrow one of my shirts and get your things to the laundromat downstairs? By the time your clothes are dry, hopefully the rain has stopped and I can get you home easily.”

  And break every single one of Cass’s rules in the process. But he’s being gracious, so I say: “Wow! That’s really nice of you.”

  “Is your son going to be okay?” Luke steps out and helps me with my things.

  “Yeah.” We walk and enter the elevators. “He’s got the sniffles this week, poor baby.”

  “Aw.” He’s quiet for a few moments as the elevator ascends. And then: “So what did you think of today’s class?”

  “You’re right, Luke. The material needs refreshing.”

  He nods slowly. “What exactly do you think it needs?”

  My reflection freezes on the elevator’s shiny doors. “Um. Let me regroup on that? I’m still trying to process...things.”

  “All right, no biggie.” We get off the 10th floor and I follow his incredibly distracting perfect nape and V-shaped back down the hall to his unit, the last one on the left. He unlocks the door and flips a switch--illuminating the barest studio I’ve ever seen.

  Just seeing how empty it is is enough to douse the flames of my lusting heart. His laptop bag comes to rest on top of a metal table with two matching stools in the kitchenette. Against the window in the far end of the room is a futon covered with a dark gray duvet. At its foot is a low plastic dresser and on top of that is a flashlight and a few books.

  That’s it.

  I let out a low whistle, and he responds with embarrassed laughter. Before I can say anything else, he raises his hands.

  “I know, I know. I live like a refugee.” His eyes disappear into crinkly crescents as he grabs a shirt and some sweats from the dresser and tosses them to me. “Bathroom’s that-a-way. Leave the wet stuff by the door and I’ll take it downstairs.”

  I enter the door across the kitchen. The bathroom is as neat and bare as the rest of his pad. Just as I sneakily try to open his medicine cabinet, a loud knock sounds against the door, making me jump up and bang my knee against the sink.

  “Mags? Are you snooping in my medicine cabinet?”

  I’m biting my lip from the pain in my knee. “Kinda. Yeah.”

  “Ha! Well, there’s some two-in-one shampoo there, facial wash, deodorant and moisturizer. Feel free to use them all. Even my Speed Stick.”

  “Ew!”

  I press my ear against the door to listen for his footsteps walking away.

  “Mags.”

  I jump up again. “What?”

  “Your clothes?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “There’s a fresh towel in the cupboard. On top of the hamper”

  I know he’s listening to me scurry through his belongings like a refugee mouse, and the thought burns my cheeks bright red. Cass would really kill me right now.

  “Do you have it?” he asks, once I stop blundering inside.

  “Uh-huh.” I crouch behind the door, open it a fraction and shove my sopping-wet jeans and t-shirt out. I leave my underwear in the sink. I figure I can hang them in the shower rod, get them dry enough to go home in. I can’t deal with the thought of my panties in Luke’s hands.

  I hear him exit the front door, which is the go signal to take the world’s fastest shower. There’s no soap on the dish, just body wash in the shower caddy--some gel that smells minty and pine-y as I work it into a lather.

  Then I’m in the t-shirt and sweatpants, drawstring cinched and hems rolled up so I can see my feet. I take a deep breath and inhale, settling on a kitchen stool. Luke’s scent is on my skin and in my clothes, like he’s embracing me.

  Woah, cowgirl. I pinch my elbow to stop the train of thought from going anywhere else. Me in his condo, without any underwear on? Not a good time to be thinking of his embrace. I consider calling Cass and getting a quick pep talk but I know her shift’s just started. The thought of her inevitable dismay if I get myself in that situation again gives me the extra push to be good. To remember my principles.

  The door opens with a fumble and Luke enters carrying two covered styrofoam bowls.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks briskly, setting them down on the table. He pulls out utensils and glasses from a drawer and reaches into his fridge for two beers and a pitcher of water.

  I uncover my bowl and take a deep breath of gingery goodness. “Yum! Mami?”

  He looks pleased. “I wanted to call for delivery but it might take too long. The rain’s really bad out there.”

  I glance out of his uncovered window at the torrential downpour. “Man, I hope that clears up soon. I really want to get home to Magnus.”

  He gives me a thoughtful look at that, and then starts eating. I follow suit. The soup warms and fills me up, temporarily putting weather worries away.

  “Thank you, again, Luke. This is really so nice of you. You didn’t have to.”

  “And leave you shivering and soaked to the skin in a traffic jam?” He clasps his hands to his chest. “What am I, a monster?”

  I look around the room. “A monster? No. A serial killer, maybe?”

  “What!”

  “I mean, you have to admit,” I slurp noodles nonchalantly, “The barely-lived-in look is kind of creepy.”

  Something shifts in his eyes, but he covers the moment with a quip. “Come on, Mags. Don’t you watch the movies? Serial killers are supposed to have a very DIY aesthetic. Newspaper clippings, pictures of people with their eyes crossed out, souvenirs for their collections…”

  “I haven’t checked your fridge for pickled eyeballs yet.”

  He laughs again and toasts his beer to me. “You can check, you know. If you’re really creeped out.”

  “Of course not. I was only kidding.” I take a swig from my bottle “Besides, if you wanted to kill me, the perfect time would’ve been while I was in the shower.”

  “Eeek-eek-eek!” He sings the theme to the famous shower scene from Psycho. “Touché, Mags, touché.” He eats a few bites in silence. “Okay. Truth time. Do you want to know why I live like this?”

  I shrug, although I really really want to know.

  He tilts his head, squints his eyes shut and, with the air of someone who wants to get the worst over with, says: “The truth is that I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean all of this. Manila. Star Contact. It wasn’t in the Grand Plan.”

  “Huh.” I sip my beer, genuinely intrigued. “Go on.”

  “This is so cliché,” he winces. “But I
had a girlfriend. You know that I studied in the States, right? That’s where we met. We dated all throughout college. Then while I was taking my master’s, she went to Paris to pursue her career in fashion merchandising.”

  There’s a slight twinge in my chest at hearing about the no doubt cosmopolitan Parisian ex, but I make an encouraging face at him to continue.

  “It was good, for a while. We promised each other we would make it work. I genuinely wanted her to build her career there, and as soon as I got my degree, I would follow. And I kept my promise.”

  I think I can tell where this particular story is heading. “She...did not?”

  He grins, the smile a bitter slash across the handsome face.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Luke.”

  “Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been better if I knew immediately what was up. If she’d broken up with me over the phone. Yanked the splinter in one go. But I guess she didn’t know how to tell me. Or maybe she really did want to make it work, too, at first, and then changed her mind later on. Either way, she still waited three weeks after I moved to Paris to break the news to me.”

  “Yikes.” I watch his face, rueful and sad and a little embarrassed all at the same time, and I feel my principles crumbling. I want to walk over and hug him. It takes a superhuman effort to stay in my seat.

  “Oh yeah. Three weeks of me wondering why she seemed so cold and evasive, or why she couldn’t seem to find the time to introduce me to all the people she’d met over there.”

  There’s a weird light bulb moment in my head and I blurt out “You’re a Carrie!” I excitedly flutter my hands despite his confused expression. “The last season of the original Sex and the City? When Carrie moves to Paris but that Russian dude didn’t seem to want to fit her into his life?”

  “Believe it or not, I actually saw that on cable,” he mumbles into his bottle. “It totally resonated.”

  “Riiight?”

  “As much as I’m more a Charlotte than a Carrie, yes.” He stretches his arms up and twists his neck. The sigh that comes out of him is weary, way older than his twenty-seven years.

  “So to recap: I moved there, she acted weird, one day I asked her what the problem was. She broke down and told me it was all a mistake. She was loving her life in Paris. Her single life in Paris. And she was terrified of everything changing, now that I was there.”

  “Oof.”

  “I was so shocked it didn’t even occur to me to point to the giant suitcases lying in her kitchen. Like, ‘This would’ve been great to hear maybe a week before I decided to move my entire life here?’” He emptied the rest of his beer. “So what was I supposed to do? She rejected me. I’d basically sold everything I had to move to Paris. The only option I could think of was to move to Manila and start from scratch.”

  “Your parents weren’t an option?”

  He winces. “I mean, I love my folks and all, but I hadn’t lived with them since going to college. Plus they were living the cliché retiree life in Florida. There’s just no space in their lives for me anymore.”

  Lord, the urge to hug him is overpowering.

  “Anyway,” he continues. “I had some friends here, a few relatives I could crash with, and I figured I could make whatever that was left of my money stretch longer in case it took a while to get a job. Thankfully Star Contact was hiring.” He made a seesaw motion with his hands. “And here we are. In my serial killer apartment.”

  I can’t stop myself from briefly clasping his hand and attempting a small joke. “Now I understand how you became a Parisian baguette expert.”

  “Definitely.” His face is mock-serious. “It’s the best place to heal your feelings with carbs, France.” The playfulness deserts his expression and he takes another weary breath. “To think I thought she was it, you know? I wanted to have kids with her and everything. Raise little artsy trilinguals together.”

  “Well, you’re still young, Luke.” Oof. I bite my tongue. Way to remind him of our age gap!

  He smiles politely at that, then clears the table and brings out two more bottles of beer.

  “Can I ask you something, Mags?”

  “Hmm?” I take a long pull from my bottle.

  “Just tell me at any time if it’s off limits. But...you and Clarence. Your former lead?”

  I go still, the bottle poised halfway from my lips to the table.

  Luke looks apologetic but soldiers on. “It’s just that you looked so bothered when I saw you two talking in the pantry earlier. Really bothered. You can tell me to butt out anytime, but if he’s said or done something inappropriate, I mean, I’m here to help. If you want me to.”

  I put the bottle down. He has his concerned ‘tell your trainer what the problem is’ face, and I want to tell him everything. I feel a sudden weird loyalty to him, as my training manager. As my sort-of-friend. As someone who’d opened up so generously about Paris.

  I sigh. “Can I tell you something personal?”

  “Seems fair, now that you know what I have in common with Carrie Bradshaw,” he winks.

  It takes me a while to gather my thoughts, like a raincloud gathering condensation, and when my mind has soaked in all I need to say, it suddenly bursts through like the deluge outside his windows.

  “It was Project Clausen’s anniversary two months ago. Since we’d had great metrics all throughout the fiscal year, the clients gave the team a cash bonus. The leads decided to spend it on an overnight beach outing for the entire team.”

  “Okay.”

  “Naturally, people brought drinks, and that night it got a little crazy. I was the tanggera, you know, the person doling out the shots? I was going around the different rooms and cabanas. Jeric--you’ll remember him from the training session earlier today, the lead for the quality team--was following me around, carrying the bottles of whatever it was that we were trying to empty.” He nodded as I caught my breath. “So anyway...I get to the cabana where Clarence was. This was like my third circuit; the first two times I’d handed him his shot, he had been sitting with other TLs and supes. This time, though, he was alone.”

  “...And then?” His voice is unnervingly quiet.

  “When I got close enough to hand him the shot, he grabbed me by the waist and started petting me.” I hear Luke hiss, and suddenly I can’t look at him anymore. “Like…seriously touching me, in a way that was not okay with me, at all. His hands went everywhere, and I yelped and pushed him away and told him to get his fucking hands off me. My buzz disappeared, let me tell you. I ran back to my room and told all the girls there what happened.”

  My voice goes soft, and Luke leans in closer as I struggle to describe what happened next.

  “Cass was hopping mad. She was ready to commute home that very night and go straight to HR. But the other girls, well…”

  “No,” Luke’s voice drops to a whisper.

  “I mean. It’s sort of my fault, too. I guess I should’ve mentioned that before the outing, Clarence and I had been flirting at work. But it was just that, you know--teasing, lighthearted banter. He had never asked me out and I certainly wasn’t thinking of him as a potential boyfriend. It was just workplace goofing around. But the girls all kind of assumed that we were going out. Or that I had at least ‘sent the wrong messages,’ and that--coupled with all of us drinking and me being one of the instigators--was why, they said, Clarence felt he could do that to me.”

  His jaw hardens and he shakes his head, real anger in his eyes.

  “One of the girls there at least wanted to be fair. She asked us to call in Jeric to get his side of the story. But he washed his hands of the whole thing. He said he didn’t see anything. He said was far away from the cabana, or that it was too dark or some bullshit. Basically, he didn’t back me up.”

  I drink more of the now-warm beer and I make a face as I swallow. “Back at the office, well. You know how everyone looks at you like they’re friendly and concerned, but there’s something hard about their
eyes, and you just know they’re mocking you? That’s how everyone looked at me. Once or twice I overheard some girls in the bathroom saying something to the effect that I had a child out of wedlock, that I’d resigned from my last job pregnant and in disgrace—which was true, by the way, to be fair—so what did they expect from me? That was when I decided that I needed to transfer projects.”

  “The next time I see either Clarence or Jeric, I’m going to--”

  “Don’t worry about it. Besides, the girls weren’t all wrong. It really was kind of my fault.”

  He frowns at me then, his expression incredulous.

  “I-I mean,” I stammer, heat staining my cheeks. “They had a point. If I hadn’t been doling out the alcohol that night--if I wasn’t so flirty--if I protected myself more--”

  “Tell me you’re not victim-blaming yourself, Mags.” He looks disappointed, and his expression makes me feel embarrassed.

  “Well--”

  “The way I see it, your only ‘fault’ was having a good time at a company outing. That’s not a crime. What is a crime is putting hands on someone without their consent.” He shakes his head again, picks up his beer and, finding it empty, takes mine and empties it in one gulp. “We should tell HR.”

  “No!” I don’t have to fake the fear on my face. “Let’s not get into it, Luke, please? I’ve moved on, and I’m happy with the training team now. I just don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay?”

  “Fine,” he sighs, but his back is still ramrod straight, as though this topic isn’t done yet--just dropped for the night. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mags. No one deserves that.”

  I shrug past the sudden lump in my throat. He just sounds so earnest, like he really means what he’s just said. It’s such an alien feeling that I hear myself becoming my own prosecutor.

  “You don’t know me, Luke. You don’t know my history.”

  He just looks at me, and I read so much in that look--acceptance, maybe, or just the heady feeling of someone looking with the intention of only finding the best in me. It’s suddenly a bit too much.

  “The rain has let up,” I gesture to the windows. My voice is high, a fraction too loud, like a gunshot in a gallery.