Sweet on You

by Carla de Guzman

  His siblings would love it here. They used to go to places like this, rent a big house that they didn’t fit in and hang out like the internet didn’t exist. Lily and Daisy would organize some kind of game, and Gabriel would lose his head trying to make sure nobody got injured. Ivy and Rose would complain the most, but would play along anyway. Angelo would scrape his knee, because he always scraped his knee. Mikael’s face would go all red whenever Mindy started getting competitive (which was all the time), Iris would try to make peace, but would never be heard.

  Nothing like being alone to remind him how used to chaos he was. He’d grown up around it, and in the midst of all his wandering, he always knew that coming home would mean at least three people ready to welcome him, that there would always be somebody begging him to bake them something.

  But he’d pushed that anchor aside when he left, and he missed it very much. So when he felt his saddest, or his loneliest, he turned up the volume of his music and pretended that he didn’t feel that way. With the first batch of lengua de gato done cooling, and the second already in the oven, Gabriel’s finger hovered over the volume control on his phone, ready to turn it up, but he hesitated. Normally he would love to blast Sugarfree while pity baking, but today he hesitated because Sari Tomas had shown up at his fire escape.

  He grinned at the memory, because it really was a little bit funny how mad at him she was. He’d clearly missed something, but the way she’d barged in only to summarily reject his attempts at kindness was different, and funny, and the kind of hijinks he didn’t expect he would run in to in Lipa. It wasn’t every day that he had a beautiful woman fuming at him in his fire escape, rejecting his muffins.

  It still made him smile whenever he thought about her.

  No, not her. It. The muffin incident in the fire escape. He wasn’t thinking of Sari Tomas. Thinking of Sari Tomas when she clearly didn’t like him was a foolish thing to do.

  Be serious, Gabriel, his father always told him. Be serious. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by women in his fire escape, certainly not a woman with bright blazing eyes.

  But Gabriel liked the Laneways, liked the city. It continued to surprise him, how like Manila and unlike Manila Lipa could be. Yes, it was getting more and more crowded by the day, and he was a prime example of that, but it still managed to keep the things that made it unique, an obstinate stubbornness to the old traditions that he was quickly finding out was uniquely Batangueño.

  “Hijo, ka tag-al naman niyan,” Ate Nessie said as she walked up to his kitchen, a frown on her face and her arms crossed over her chest. She was carrying a now familiar paper bag, and the heady scent of fried bread filled the room. Gabriel grinned. Bonete time. “Dali. We have to talk about those common area dues you asked me about.”

  “Almost done po,” he told her, just as the timer on the second batch of lengua de gato ran out. He quickly left the new batch on the cooling rack and headed downstairs, stopping momentarily to pick up two paper cups of coffee. He found Ate Nessie sitting on the bench outside Sunday Bakery, where she was already waiting with the bag of bonete to split between them. When he first met Ate Nessie, she’d scrutinized him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and said he was going to do well in Lipa.

  As long as, he was promptly told, he didn’t attempt to make bonete, he would be fine.

  “I would never dare, Ate Nessie,” Gab had declared, taking a bite off the little bonnet-shaped roll, so small he could cradle it in his palm. He loved the way the bread smelled savory but left a hint of sweetness on the tongue. The roll was crumbly, filling and was delicious at any time of the day.

  Ate Nessie had a way of baking the bread to create a sort of crust at the bottom, his favorite part. It would always remind him of the day he and Santi had come to the Laneways to check out the space for the first time, and Ate Nessie showed up on his doorstep—calling herself the steward of the Laneways, faithful employee to the Luz family—and offered him bonete.

  Gab had fallen head over heels in love right then and there.

  With the bonete, not Ate Nessie.

  Now it was a week after his soft opening, here he was, settling in to a new routine of morning bonete with Ate Nessie as they talked rent details, finishing up his construction, last minute turnovers and the like. Then, as a way to introduce him to the neighborhood, she segued into gossip—who sold what, who their suppliers were, who they were married or related to. Ate Nessie knew everything that went on in the Laneways, and whether Gab liked it or not, he was going to get to know his new little neighborhood, every morning on the bench in front of his shop. She brought the bonete, he supplied the 3-in-1 coffee.

  “You make the best bonete in Lipa,” he announced again, reaching into the bag for another piece. He could finish a whole bag by himself, and right now, he had zero competition from his siblings, one of the perks of living away from the family home.

  “And you are full of shit,” Nessie said, squeezing his cheek and leaving a little oily stain on it. “Pretty eyes, but full of shit.”

  Then she flicked crumbs off her lap, standing up to her full four-eleven height. “Do you attend Simbang Gabi?”

  “No...?” And instantly he knew it was the wrong answer. “Isn’t that still two weeks away?”

  “Oh, hijo. No. It starts in seven days. But really, you’re not planning to?” Ate Nessie looked surprised. “You, who just started a business, just moved to a new city and have no girlfriend? You have nothing to ask the Lord for?”

  “Am I...supposed to?”

  He didn’t particularly want to. He usually woke up at the ungodly hour of four in the morning to prep for the day’s bakes anyway, and if he attended the dawn masses before Christmas, he would end up behind on his schedule. And while his family was Catholic, Simbang Gabi was low on the Caprases’ list of traditions and priorities during the Christmas season.

  But then again, Simbang Gabi meant freshly baked, fluffy bibingka with burnt sugar and cheese on top, warm and sweet puto bumbong, or maybe even sapin-sapin. If he was lucky (and he usually was), there would be sweet suman rice cakes topped with coconutty latik, or maybe even chocolate.

  “I would if I were you.” Ate Nessie shrugged. “Anyway, I’m off. I’m going to the Cathedral to light a candle for Kira. That girl relies so much on horoscopes and other witch voodoo, it’s sure to send her straight to hell.”

  Gab bit into his bonete to refrain from saying anything. Kira ran Gemini Chocolates, one of the most popular chocolatiers south of Manila, and the biggest draw of the Laneways. People had told him on more than one occasion that Kira had the ability to choose flavors for their customers without having to ask what they wanted. She also had a penchant for matchmaking and astrology. And while Gabriel wasn’t quite convinced of her matchmaking skills, he loved her chocolate, and had zero doubt that magic was involved somehow.

  “Well, she did say that Geminis have two personalities.”

  “Like I said, witchcraft.” Ate Nessie said like it was a done deal. “Are you sure you’re not planning on going to Simbang Gabi? You get a wish if you attend all nine masses, you know. Some people wish for more money, good business, a love life, that kind of thing.”

  That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Gab could almost hear his sister Rose say. Had his eight other siblings been part of this conversation, he could imagine how very easily they would spiral into a discussion on theology and belief systems, and then eventually go back to astrology, because Mindy’s favorite response was always, “you’re only saying that because you’re a Virgo!”

  He squirmed in his seat. Manila was eighty kilometers away from Lipa, but it may as well be thousands for how much he missed his family. But he was the oldest son trying to make a point, and he owed it to his younger siblings to prove that point and have his father shove it.

  Said like a real kuya. He could just see Lily rolling her eyes at him.
Whatever. Gabriel was here, he was motivated and he was going to prove to his father that he could do this, and do this well.

  “I think you need the wish,” Ate Nessie announced with all the authority of a wise woman who made excellent bonete. That was all it took to interrupt his thoughts.

  “For my love life?”

  “For your business!” Nessie sighed in exasperation and downed the last of her coffee, and frowned down at the now empty cup, like she did every morning. “Ano ga ire?”

  “3-in-1...?”

  “Why do we have this crap when Sari serves perfect coffee next door?”

  “Sari next door doesn’t like me,” Gab pointed out, standing up and folding the now empty paper bag into a neat rectangle. He hadn’t told Ate Nessie about what had happened in the fire escape a week ago, but he’d seen Sari occasionally through their shared window, through the shared frontage.

  “How do you know that, aber?”

  “She told me, aber,” he said with the same sarcasm that would have gotten his ear pulled if he was in touchable distance of his mother. “Okay, fine, she didn’t exactly tell me, but the glares she gives me every time she sees me are more than enough.”

  Sari Tomas. His neighbor, master coffee maker was an enigma wrapped in a mystery with brown eyes that haunted his dreams and thighs that made his fingers twitch. He caught himself wondering about her lips more times than he had any right to. And if he wasn’t busy smoothing out the kinks that had popped up since their soft opening, or prepping for his grand opening after Christmas, he would have flirted a little harder, or made more of an effort to make her not like him a little less.

  But then again, it had been a week, and he was marginally less busy now than he was a week before. Should he do something to be a little more nice? Drop by her café maybe, extend the proverbial olive branch? He could probably to that.

  “Mmmmm. And I heard that she banned your pastries from her café.” Ate Nessie apparently decided to stir the teapot, because why not? “Other food, she’s fine with, but as soon as she sees your logo on those white boxes, she apparently flies into a rage and asks the people to leave.”

  “That does not sound like good business practice,” Gab said, half amused and half wary of the café owner next door. Like he said. An enigma wrapped in a mystery, wrapped up in a pretty package.

  No, wait. Not pretty. It would be a lie to look into her gorgeous face and not think beautiful, at least. He could easily imagine himself kissing her lush lips, tracing his hands down her curves, gripping thighs so thick she could snap him in half in a good way. She seemed to be ten leagues of cool above him, every tiny detail of her seemed perfect, and genetically engineered to make Gabriel swoon.

  But that didn’t change the fact that she hated him.

  Well, Gabriel was no stranger to mind tricks and psych-outs. He’d been to culinary school, after all. And he didn’t care. Really, he didn’t. He didn’t care that he’d been nothing but nice and neighborly, and she’d said no to his muffins. No. To. His. Muffins. Nobody could resist free food. Especially not in the country where sharing food was required for every two-person conversation.

  “I should change my boxes, make them logo-less to throw her off the scent.”

  “I doubt that will work. She has these heightened senses from all her barista training and certification. She’ll know if you try anything sneaky,” Ate Nessie pointed out, tapping the side of her nose just to make extra sure Gab got the point. “And I wouldn’t mess with Sari Tomas if I were you. Batangueño blood runs through that girl’s veins. She’s tough as nails and bitter as barako. Did you know she and her sisters kicked their parents out of the family business? It was a huge scandal when Doña Rosario died, her son tried to take the business, but Sari and her sisters muscled him out after he lost their biggest client.”

  “Your point?”

  “Don’t mess with Batangueños, Manila boy.”

  “I’ve never backed down from a challenge, Ate Nessie, and I do not intend to start now.”

  Ate Nessie gave him an assessing look, and he wondered what she saw. A guy in an apron playing bakery? A serious man, trying to make his business work in a new place? It was hard to tell. But whatever she saw, he had a feeling it wasn’t good.

  Must stop trying to project your father’s opinions on other adults, he reminded himself.

  “Hmm,” she said finally. “You should reconsider Simbang Gabi, hijo.”

  “For my business?”

  “No, to pray to God that you survive the wrath of Sari Tomas.” Ate Nessie shook her head and brushed the bonete crumbs off her lap. “Have a good day.”

  “Thank you for the concern, but I’ll be fine.” Gab gave her a saucy little wink. “Happy candle-lighting.”

  Nessie rolled her eyes one last time for good effect, and then proceeded to make her way to the end of the Laneways. From there, it was easy for Ate Nessie to hail a tricycle and go to Lipa’s famous San Sebastian Cathedral in the heart of the city.

  He once heard that if you threw a rock at any point in Lipa, chances were you would hit a church or a chapel. Some of the older folks called Lipa Little Rome for that reason, and that was just the kind of place Lipa was. Steeped in tradition and history, but knew well enough when to make room for new things.

  They must really do Simbang Gabi big here. Maybe he should do something too, like Jollibee did every time they released their tuna pie, or McDo with their fish fillet meal. Like offer grilled ensaymada with queso de bola? Was that appropriate Simbang Gabi fare? He really didn’t know enough about these things to make a decision, and he didn’t like that.

  He walked back into his shop and took a quick look around the place. The kinks they ran into during their soft opening were hopefully as smooth as he could make them, and with the Christmas season coming in, there was a special nip in the air that gave him a spring in his step.

  Armed with steely determination, a hand for hand-lettering and a lot of 3-in-1 coffee sachets, Gabriel spent the rest of the morning crafting a sign on the specials board he had outside his bakery, right next to Sari’s window.

  FREE 3-IN-1 COFFEE WITH ANY PASTRY PURCHASE!

  To be fair, he was just thinking of a Simbang Gabi special, but he realized that this little plan had the extra side bonus of making Sari really, really mad. And he kind of wanted to see that.

  Chapter Four

  December 10

  Gabriel was a good kuya. The best kuya, really. He was always volunteering to drive his siblings around when they needed him. He was the one the older girls called when they were too drunk to get home by themselves, the one the little kids confided in when they weren’t sure how to tell their parents something. Gabriel was his siblings’ champion when it came to their parents. So much so that when it was his turn to go to war, he knew there was no way he could involve his siblings in it.

  Anyway. Gab was a great kuya. The best kuya. Except he was also the naughtiest. The number one pranker in the Capras family. Who could forget the time he changed his mother’s keyboard to spell ‘gaga’ instead of ‘Gabriel,’ which meant she could only text him change this right now, gaga! Or the time he switched all the clothes in his sisters’ closets? Everyone still talked about that one summer he gave everyone water guns with instructions to blast Mindy when she came home, which was only fair because she’d been the one to initiate the prank war by pretending it was his birthday at their usual Sunday restaurant.

  Here, now, in Lipa, he knew he’d started a war. He had a feeling Sari wasn’t going to take his free coffee lying down. But he didn’t expect it would be this much...fun.

  Gabriel was practically skipping into his kitchen the next day, while his staff downstairs was busy dispensing vats of 3-in-1 with every pastry purchase in his shop. He actually had a line. A line, on soft opening! It was brilliant, so brilliant in fact, that they needed him upstairs and baki
ng more ensaymada because they were running out. Having recognized that traditional Filipino bakes were not his lane (he had a ready list of recommendations every time someone asked), he tried to make his ensaymada with the tangzhong method, the same method they used to make pillowy, fluffy Hokkaido milk bread when he worked in Hong Kong. Topped with queso de bola buttercream, Gabriel was happy to sell his “not quite ensaymada” to the crowds.

  “I got it!”

  That was when he heard the shout that had definitely come from Sari’s side of their shared space. Edging close to the window, just enough that he could peek and not be noticed, he saw Sari from behind in a pair of jeans that really...accentuated certain assets he had never noticed before. He swallowed thickly and forced himself to listen in on the conversation.

  “They were a little more expensive than you expected, they really couldn’t give us the wholesale price since it was already in-store, but I think there’s enough for the whole day,” the person said, handing Sari a bright blue box that was patterned to look like a woven basket. Gabriel may not have been a Lipa resident for very long, but he knew exactly where the box was from. South Mart, the grocery on J.P. Laurel Highway, had a bakery attached that sold cheap bakes. In fairness to them, he really enjoyed their sugar cookies and sponge cake rolls with yema inside.

  But why was Sari suddenly buying up the whole lot? On retail prices?

  Gabriel was just backing away from the window when the person Sari was talking to spotted him, and Sari herself whirled around and fixed her laser beam gaze on him. Oh shit.

  “Hi,” he said, wiggling his fingers at her.

  Sari jerked her thumb in the direction of their shared fire escape, and he knew there was no way out of it. He stood up and opened the door, where she leaned against the railing, glaring at him and holding a cup of coffee. She’d put something on her lips to make them look all shiny and a little thicker, and Gabriel found himself needing to clear his throat as he shoved those thoughts aside. He should have brought something, like a cookie or a cupcake. The Art of War probably said something about not going to negotiations empty-handed.