“Luna!” an unfamiliar voice exclaimed, a whirl of flowy fabric swooping in to wrap itself around the little girl. “Thanks for finding our seats, baby.”
“Mama!” The little girl squealed as her mother attacked her with kisses. Luna’s hold on Mara’s hand broke as she hugged her mother back, giggling wildly. The woman pulled the hat off of her child’s head, revealing a slightly sweaty anit. She pulled out a previously unseen hand towel and swiped the sweat off the little girl’s head, quickly replaced it with spray-on sunscreen and put a couple of spritzes on top before she leaned in and took a deep sniff.
“Mmm. Bantot!” She laughed and put away the spray bottle. Then she gave her daughter a portable electric fan in a bid to stave off the heat.
“I was holding hands,” Luna explained, and her mother turned to Mara with an appraising eye. It was a little scary, mostly because Mara knew Luna’s mother was trying to ascertain her intentions. Mara blushed, suddenly feeling like an intruder in what was clearly a very sweet mother-daughter moment.
“I see,” Luna’s mother said, smiling. “Say thank you to your friend, Luns.”
“Thank you po.” Luna’s voice was uncharacteristically small and shy as she leaned against her mother. “Tita.”
Aray naman.Shot through the heart right there. Mara smiled, though, and told Luna that it was her pleasure. All the while, she endured Luna’s mother’s assessing glance, like she was trying to categorize the purpose of a single woman riding a boat to Boracay on a weekday.
“Luns, why aren’t you wearing your life vest?” a new voice asked. Well, not new. But a voice she didn’t think she was going to hear again anytime soon. “Do you need candy? I have some right here.”
Motherfucker.
Just when Mara thought she’d run away far enough, Jay Montinola stood in the middle of a fast craft to Boracay. Mara choked on air, like a spirit had possessed her and tried to deliver her from this moment via a swift death.Not today, Satan.
“Arms out,” Jay said to his niece. Apparently not seeing Mara. She put her sunglasses over her eyes and sank into her seat in a bid to make her 5XL frame feel just a little bit smaller. He looked very much like a harried tito, wearing a rattan fedora, a sleeveless sando (complete with puka shell necklace,why?), Islander flip flops and blue tinted shades.
(But how did he manage to still look so cool—that was Mara’s question. He literally had a little cross body pouch?)
There was a stripe of still wet sunscreen on his chin. He was also inexplicably carrying a deflated duck floatie, a child-sized bright orange life vest and two more bags. Not including the previously clocked little Snoopy pouch, from which he procured a mint candy for Luna.
“Jay, she’s already sweating from your bucket hat!” The woman Mara now assumed was his older sister swatted her hand in his direction, like he was a fly that needed to buzz off. “And she doesn’t need the life vest. Save it for the ocean.”
“Huh! Ate, thisisthe ocean,” Jay pointed out. “What if—”
“Nong, you’re not holding hands!” Luna said it with the same vigor as her mother, like it was of equal importance that her ninong was holding someone’s hand. Luna splayed out her little hand toward Mara as if asking for a screwdriver. “Tita.”
Motherfucccckkker.
“Er, Luna?” Mara quickly straightened herself in her seat and smiled innocently at the girl.
“Mara?” It was comically hilarious how Jay nearly dropped everything he was carrying when he realized who was sitting next to his family. If this was an anime, a large drop of sweat would be right over his head.
“Oh, Mara,” his Ate exclaimed, fully whirling in her seat to face Mara. Her eyes were brimming with perky interest and excitement. Mara was only a little bit scared. “You’re Mara!”
“One of many?” Mara asked hesitantly.
“The one and only,” Jay corrected. He looked like he didn’t know if he was going to jump out the window and swim to Boracay or make his sister move so he could sit next to her. If she were being fully honest with herself, Mara was thinking the same thing. He moved to sit in the empty seat across the aisle.
“Oh no, don’t sitawayfrom her, anuba!” Jay’s Ate said. A quick glance at his older sister told Mara that neither she nor Jay were in control of what was going to happen next, because Ate was already putting the hat back on her daughter’s head and standing up, seemingly unconcerned at the rocking of the boat. “Luna and I can take your seat, Jay. Hi, nice to meet you, Mara. I’m Irene. Go lang. Bond. Reunite. Recreate.”
“Ate—” The engine of the boat roared to life, and Jay stumbled.
“M’amsir, please stay seated,” one of the staff yelled over the sound, and all of a sudden (intentional), Mara was right back where she was three months ago, inside a moving vehicle with Jay. The circumstances were completely different this time around, but still it was him, and her, and all the words they had said to each other.
A couple of bags were passed between Jay and his sister, the deflated duck and the life vest staying firmly on his lap. Mara noticed Jay’s knee was shaking. They exchanged nervous smiles, as if their lips had never touched before. Mara felt a tug in her chest that she was wholly unfamiliar with. A yearning she hadn’t expected to feel around him. She pushed it down into that deep place where she’d placed all the other swirling emotions of the last three months, left there to be unexamined until she needed them.
What was it Jane Austen said about exes? Strangers that would never become acquainted. Sitting there now made her feel it, that ache of sadness about the things that weren’t going to happen between them. That he decided were not going to happen.
Not that Jay was her ex or anything. He wasn’t actuallyanything, really, but still his knee shook, and Mara was… She was mad at him. She knew this because it was the predominant feeling she’d been carrying for Jay Montinola since she met him. But while she was angry, she could be polite. Ten minutes’ worth of polite.
“So,” Mara started, because she was the bigger person, and she didn’t plan on letting him know that she was angry with him, “your Ate and niece?”
Her voice was almost snatched out of the air by the roaring engine and the wind that whipped through the boat.
