“So they’re spending, what, another five hundred thousand—”
“Closer to seven hundred, actually.”
“Sevenhundred?”Jay repeated, flabbergasted. That was aninsaneamount, considering tonight’s festivities would have cost them a million at least. “Oh my god. Weddings are sostupid.”
“Are they?” Mara asked. He could tell that she was trying very hard to hold back her laughter.
“With 1.7 million you could make a down payment on a house!” Jay said, his hands loosening their tight grip on the steering wheel. “Okay, maybe not a house. A nice two-bedroom condo in QC or Pasig, maybe. Pre-selling. Rockwell, or some other A to B class developer.”
“Are you sure you’re not a real estate agent?”
“You could also invest that same amount and earn 5 percent on a time deposit, and that’s if you stayed conservative.” He’d seen people make more. Way more, and sometimes at his advice. He’d made millions on paper in the span of a minute. His work was terrifying that way, but when he managed to do well, the thrill that it sent him was incomparable.
Nowadays Jay’s clients—people with way more money than him—preferred stability. They were either keeping the funds for a rainy day, or transferring the earnings to their children and asking Jay to give them a crash course on money management. It was surprising how much one’s goals changed when you changed clientele, which was probably why Jay wasn’t inclined to go back to Hong Kong anytime soon. Maybe.
“Different people have different priorities,” Mara reminded him. “Marina and David don’t mind, and everyone’s happy.”
“Even you?” he asked, the question out of his lips before he considered the words. “You’re sitting in a car with a stranger, and you were planning to take a Grab from wherever to get ready for a reception that already happened.”
His question was met with silence. Jay didn’t know if it was because he’d said something dumb, or if she was really thinking about it. Either way it took some time before Mara gave him an answer.
“That’s not a fair comparison,” she finally decided, her voice sounding blithe and dismissive. “You can’t ask someone if they’re happy while they’re doing something inconvenient. Of course they will say they aren’t. But happiness is happiness because it happens in between inconvenient things. Hard things.”
Jay said nothing, getting a sense that she wanted to say more. But really, half of his being silent was because, goddamn it, he’d upset her again. How the hell did he keep managing to do this? Was this all part of Scott’s Journey to Love or whatever?
“Take this wedding, for example,” Mara said, pulling Jay’s focus back to the road, and to her. “I’ve been up since 5:00 a.m., wearing a dress that isn’t exactly comfortable. My hair is flammable, my eyelids are itchy, and I’m going home in a car with a guy I met once a year ago, and loathed for just as long.”
“Loathed makes it sound like you wanted to eat me like a piece of bread,” he said, the words spilling out of his mouth before he thought about it. He didn’t need to see Mara glaring at him, because he could feel it on his skin, like goose bumps but worse. “Sorry. Go on.”
“All of that? Inconvenient. Some would even say shitty. But, my sister got married to the man she loves today.” He didn’t miss the way her voice caught at the end of that sentence. But it was a fond voice, a loving one that wrapped around him like a gentle caress. “She will spend her entire life, if she wants, with someone who will always be in her corner. Someone who can reach high shelves and open guava jam jars so she can spread it on kesong puti and crackers.”
“And that’s your happiness? Seeing your sister being roommates with someone else?”
“Is marriage just being someone’s roommate?” There was that dismissive tone again. “Come on, Jay. You can’t bethatcynical.”
“Come on, Mara. You can’t be that idealistic,” Jay argued, because she was Mara Barretto. An eldest Asian daughter practically made of high boundaries and cynicism, because she needed to be on her toes for everyone else. “You have to know. Relationships aren’t just jam jars and high shelves. It’s absorbing all of another person’s bullshit, and hoping to god they can do the same for you. But because it’s life, and life is never fair, it’s never exactly equal, and you spend the rest of your relationship—the rest of yourlifein this country because westillhaven’t passed the divorce bill—a little disappointed, or worse, fucking trapped.”
Jay’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he felt his face heat up. He was pretty sure he’d never said any of this to anyone, but he didn’t want Mara to have any illusions of what life was going to be like for her sister. Was she really going to hitch her horse to that?
“People disappoint each other all the time,” he pointed out. Could give her a long list of people he’d disappointed just by being himself. “And I wish it doesn’t happen to Marina and David, but… I don’t know. I think it’s a waste of time and money.”
“Argh, can you cut the condescending bullshit?” Mara snapped. Jay froze, taken aback at how angry she was. He was trying to be conciliatory here! “You have to know. Tang ina. Of course I don’t know. I’ve never been in a relationship! How very ilusyonada of me, to want my sister’s husband to love her.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jay groaned, running a hand through his hair. He’d seenPride and Prejudiceenough times to know when he was being a Bingley, in his words, an “unmitigated ass,” and he seemed spectacular at doing that with Mara.
She’d never been in a relationship. Marina had told him, and David had worried about it once. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Yet here he was, projecting his insecurities at her. Amazing. “I’m sorry, Mara. I’ve been in a lot of relationships. I feel like I’ve seen it all, you know? I’ve disappointed people in spectacular ways, you included. I just… I don’t want you to regret anything, if you do decide to want the same thing.”
And he could have been better for those other people. Could have fought for those relationships, stood outside their door with a boom box, met them on top of the Empire State Building, run after them through the airport. But it was easier for everyone involved if he just moved on, tried again. Clearly, ten out of ten times, it had been the right thing to do. He was happy with his life, satisfied that he could provide a home for people he loved.
Except those people were moving somewhere else. So was he really happy, when he was in the middle of it all?
“Teach me, then.”
“What?”
“Teach me,” Mara repeated. Her voice lost all vitriol and anger, and all that was left was…hesitation. She was nervous, and he wondered if this was the first time she’d entertained the idea of someone telling her how to do this.
“Teach you what exactly?”
