“I’m going to see to the bride,” Des said, smiling sheepishly. “You can let any of the staff know if we can get an ETA on the father and mother of the bride.”
Mara nodded wordlessly, but after a moment remembered why she wanted to talk to Des in the first place. “Please make sure Marina and David get dinner. Marina gets mad when she’s hungry, and David has acid issues. Can’t miss a meal.”
“Got it!” Des shouted over her shoulder before she disappeared to wherever Marina and David were. “You really should get some kind of award. Best Maid of Honor.”
“Ate Doing Bare Minimum to Get Everyone Together?” Mara joked to herself. Her mother picked up her call on the third ring, seemingly unconcerned that they were currently MIA.
“Oh, honey, we went to Sonya’s Garden!” her mother exclaimed like it was just another Saturday at the mall, and not a wedding in the middle of January. “Your dad had to meet with Alden, and I remembered how much you liked the Spanish bread.”
“You went to ameetingon Marina’s wedding day?” Mara asked with disbelief, because for all the scenarios she anticipated from her parents, disappearing to the complete opposite end of Tagaytay for a business meeting was not one of them.
“Don’t be mad na, anak. You can have Spanish bread for breakfast tomorrow at the hotel.”
“I’m heading back to Manila tonight, remember?” Mara asked, but maybe her mother didn’t remember, which she really should be used to. Both Martin and Jasmine Barretto had just entered their sixties, holding hands and diving into the deep end of being lovable and unreasonable at the same time.
Mara wondered if age really was the determining factor of this role reversal, where it felt like she was parentingthemwhen she was only just learning to pick up after herself. Or maybe her parents had always been as free-wheeling and “bahala na” as two boomers could be, until she was the one controlling their schedules, appointments, meds, becauseshewas the one who needed stability.
“Cheese hopia, then.”
“Are you guys coming back now?” Mara asked, sighing. “It takes a while to get from there to Luisa’s.”
“Oh, we’re staying here a bit longer. Your dad’s not done with his meeting, and I wanted a bit of merienda before the reception.”
Mara’s dad was a fan of a neatly tied afternoon. If he could stuff ten things to do in one outing, that was his favorite kind of day. Which was totally fine. Days like those were needed sometimes. But anyotherafternoon would have made more sense than this one. Boundaries, people!
“There’s food here,” Mara pointed out, gesturing to the entire veranda designated for serving snacks and drinks until dinner. “Marina specifically requested food for Papa.”
“Yes, but we wanted Spanish bread from Sonya’s.” Mara sighed and rolled the growing tension out of her neck. “Did you really expect all the guests to just wait around at the venue until seven?”
“Yes, which is why Marina and David paid extra for ice cream and beer!”
“Hay nako, I can picture your angry face na.” And Mara could very clearly picture her mother’s pouting face through the phone. She sounded disappointed, which was always shitty to be on the receiving end of. “Like in that picture everyone shares in group chats.”
“Please let’s stop talking about my internet infamy.” This was not the first time Mara had asked her family to stop bringing it up. “Just be here by six, please? The photographers want to do one more session with the family before the reception.”
“Photographers! As if they’re in charge of the wedding!” Her father scoffed in the background. “I didn’t like the way they hovered around the venue. They weren’t even dressed up! It ruined things.”
“They’re just doing their job, Papa. Also, Marina really likes their SDEs.”
“Is that a marketing term?” her mother asked. “Super Duper Endowment thingy?”
“What? Same-day edit. It’s a—well, you’ll see later.” Mara sighed, chuckling at her Mom’s assumed acronym. “Basta. There are things happening here. And a schedule that Marina and David both want. Please, let’s all cooperate na lang.”
“Okay, okay. We will see you later, anak,” her mom cooed, another tactic to try to get her to shout less. It worked most of the time. “Try to have fun! It’sMarina’swedding day, after all.”
Mara pulled the phone away from her ear and mouthed, “Wow.” Okay. It was time to hang up, because Mara was not ready for her mom to tell her to back off. But who else was going to worry about these little things that mattered, if not Mara? Better her than Marina, especially today.
Mara tucked her phone back into her tiny purse. Mentally she ticked off a little box next to “locate parents” in the list of things she needed to deal with. Most days that list was so long that the only way her brain didn’t explode trying to keep track of it was by writing it down. Today, though, the rest of the list was suddenly, oddly, not so important. Maybe sheshouldstart trying to enjoy today.
Worst day for a delay on Luisa’s tacos.
The casita extension of Luisa’s was reminiscent of a rich relative’s living room, if said rich relative had a living room the size of a ballroom in the middle of the Tagaytay mountainside. Luisa’s was one of those upper-middle-class places that radiated chic, classy and elegant Pinoy tastes, usually run by chic, classy and elegant upper-class Pinoy families. The kind of families that were über-rich, but you didn’t actually know why.
The ballroom was furnished with antiques so fancy that Marina only knew them by their Spanish names—estantes, bastonero, mesita. Impractical in a modern home, but oh-so-elegant in a formal setting like this. The swirling patterns on the floor were the work of one family in Ermita that had been making patterned concrete floor tiles since the Spanish colonial period.
All the entry and exit points of the ballroom were built under decorated arches, and the bar tables in matte green glass added a special modern touch, matching the pots of several houseplants growing happily in the empty corners. In the background, the string quartet was playing Stevie Nicks’s “Crystal” as Mara walked by, making everything dreamy and romantic while the wind wafted cold air through the space.
She paused in front of the mesita that greeted all the guests by the entrance, the centerpiece of the smaller ballroom. She had personally made the large arrangement and placed it on the table herself in an antique vase of deep red Murano glass. Marina wanted all red, warmth and fire, and so Mara complied. “Fall vibes, Ate, I want Fall Vibes!” She chose deep orange birds of paradise to cascade down from the top and rich red chrysanthemums and ranunculus with bursts of orange stargazers. She chose dyed foxtails and eucalyptus, selecting wispier leaves that faded in the background of all the reds and oranges. Mara had arranged this particular piece on their dining room table, with Marina exclaiming appreciatively in the background.
