“Yes, I’m guy,” David agreed, stirring noodles into his sauce like he was making his own version of a dry pot. Marina looked slightly horrified at what her husband was doing. “Also just for the record, I’m here in my capacity as a 10 percent owner of Wildflower. I have no biases in who you should go out on a date with, Mara. Even if Perry literally asked you. And offered to get you to try out floral art, which is something you’ve always wanted to do.”
“Very unbiased, hon.” Marina laughed, shaking her head.
“Well, I vote for Jay,” Mabel huffed. She crossed her arms in exasperation. “I think Ate is only considering Perry because he’s there. Jay makes her all blushy and happy.”
“You haven’t even seen me with Perry!”
“Also Jay is literally moving to Hong Kong, Mabel,” Marina added, stirring vegetables into the spicy soup. “Honestly, the man is amazing at getting in his own way. Just like you, Ate.”
Mara sighed and wiped off the steam from her glasses for the third time that evening. The emergency conference with her mother and sisters happened as soon as she arrived at the house. Her father had greeted her at the door, welcomed her home and listened to Mara’s complaints about being hungry and wanting dinner. About a minute later, Marina barged into the house, saw Mara watching reels on the couch and said, “Get in, loser. We’re going to therapy.”
Which was how Mara ended up at a hot pot restaurant, the kind where you couldn’t name the restaurant if you tried and simply knew it as “that place, you know the one.” Everything was unlimited, you mixed your own sauce and didn’t feel like a complete meal without a can of Wo Long Kat. It was comforting and reliable, a literal hot soup to balm her jagged feelings. But it was also perfect, because you needed to eat slow, which gave her time to think about what she wanted to say.
“So?” Mabel was incensed. “He’s still here. He can change his plans, if Ate asked him to!”
“She’s not going to ask him to.” Marina shook her head. “That would kind of be unfair.”
“It would.” Mara sighed, dipping her meat in her sauce. She liked her shabu shabu sauce with a lot of garlic, soy sauce and satay. By the end of her meal she would dump all her sauce in a bowl of noodles and broth, and it would be glorious. “Even if I did want to change our situation in any way—” she didn’t miss the way her sisters glanced at each other, a reaction to a secret conversation they probably had in the car on the way to pick her up “—he’s decided to leave already.”
“Decisions can be changed,” Mabel argued, shrugging like she was talking about the weather. “He’s still here. The parameters can change all the time.”
But the thing was, Mara had never liked it when the parameters changed. Things needed to make sense, which was why she’d thrived in school. What they never tell you about life after was that the world was as senselessly changeable as life itself. She didn’t like the idea of changing Jay’s, just because, what, she felt something for him?
“He told me upfront when we met that he wasn’t interested in a relationship,” Mara pointed out to convince her sisters it was pointless…but really it was more to remind herself that Jay had been explicitly clear with her since the beginning. Just as much as Perry was clear that he wanted to give whatever it was that could be between them a shot. “In fact our entire not-dating arrangement hinged aroundnotbeing in a relationship.”
“So what were you doing the whole time you were in Boracay?” Marina asked. “Hanging out with each other, being each other’s plus-ones, spending time together?”
“Sounds like a relationship to me,” Mabel singsonged, popping a whole cheese ball into her mouth.
“You could always…” Marina began.
“Tell him how I feel?” Mara asked, and her voice squeaked at the notion. She didn’t even know how tobeginto tell him. She didn’t have Perry’s smoothness or his willingness to put himself out there. Telling Jay how she felt—not that she knew what she felt yet, exactly, because she wasn’t in love, probably—seemed like such an imposition on him. It didn’t seem fair to him, for her to use the way she felt as a way to make him stay.
And what if he stayed because of her feelings, and she turned out to be wrong? Or if he stayed because of how she felt and realized he didn’t feel the same? What if they got married because he’d already made the sacrifice of staying anyway, bahala na, and they never talked about this?
She could picture it suddenly. Both of them sixty years old and waking up in bed next to someone they no longer recognized. Could picture them fighting, their anger and all the words they don’t say out loud filling rooms. Could picture herself ranting to her kids, so much that her eldest would literally run away to Boracay just so she didn’t have to play marriage counselor. Anxiety filled Mara like all the noodles and veg and balls in their hot pot, bubbling over.
The wooden chopstick in her hand snapped. Her three dinner companions jumped at the sound and gaped at her.
“Anyway,” Mara said finally, releasing the anxiety in a long, long exhale. She took a deep, fortifying sip of her Wo Long Kat. “I need to talk to Jay. This can’t go on.”
As much as she didn’t want to be ruled by things that weren’t real, she had to admit that there was a reason she was picturing these fantasy scenarios. Much bravery was required, and she didn’t think she’d built enough of those stores yet. Love was a leap, love was being brave, love was taking a chance. But Mara had never been one to do any of those things. Not without some indication that she had some chance of success.
Mara could not read the look that was exchanged between her younger sisters. She didn’t really know if she wanted to.
FOURTEEN
It was a hot summer in Manila. That was usually a statement met with sarcasm, like, weh hindi nga, no fucking shit, it’s hot. But summer in Manila was the kind of hot that stuck to your skin, the kind where the air was still and humid, like wading through a steamy sauna without the steam.
Thankfully, Jay’s building had an air-conditioned lobby. For Mara’s sake, and the staff that worked there, it was a really good thing.
Jay’s condominium unit was nice. It was the tall, new kind of place that had all the stores you needed at the first floor, plus a bank, a pharmacyanda laundry shop (PasigLabandera!), the kind where a short walk could get you to a cute little café that made you feel like you were part of a “community.” It was in a part of Pasig that was only just starting to get crowded because they build condos where public infrastructure was built for small suburbs. A good spot, not too far from good schools, big malls and commercial spaces. Crowded, but not too crowded that walking around on foot was an impossible task.
It was a well-considered place. Jay had chosen well.
Anyway, the important part of the story was that when Jay opened the door to his unit, he was wet and wearing only a towel hanging on for dear life around his waist. Despite the fact that Mara had seen the lobby receptionist call up to the unit and had in fact swiped the elevator key for her.
“What th—Ate!” Jay whined in much the same way a bunso child would as Ate Irene emerged from the back with a box full of happy houseplants and an innocent smile. “You didn’t tell me Mara was coming up!”
