She was certainly aggressive, which intrigued Romeo.
“Do they have cheeseburgers?” He grinned, flirting back and endearing himself to her. But who would pay the bill? He asked himself. He barely had enough money to pay for the long jeepney ride back to his apartment, the one he shared with his cousin Tomas. Tomorrow morning he would have to borrow money from the frugal Tomas for an even longer jeepney ride to work. Romeo Rosales was in no hurry to go home. He cast a sidelong glance in the cashier’s direction as they walked down the street. She wasn’t too bad looking, except for too much powder and that flashy gold tooth. She was a little on the thin side, something that would take getting used to; Romeo preferred the voluptuous appeal of Lolita Luna.
“
Dios ko
!” Trinidad squealed, pretending to be exasperated with the young man. “You can have anything you want—cheeseburgers, Coca-Cola, ice cream—” She couldn’t believe it had happened so fast. The man of her dreams was walking next to her, his muscular arm entwined in hers, his sullen profile set off by thick, jet black hair. Perfumed and glossy with pomade, Romeo’s hair was carefully combed and arranged so that his natural curls tumbled carelessly down his forehead. Like Sal Mineo in
Rebel Without a Cause.
Elvis Presley in
Jailhouse Rock-
Or that daredevil Nestor Noralez in
Tormented.
They sat down in the crowded café, next to a booth jammed with giggling schoolgirls in plaid uniforms. Trinidad could feel their curious eyes on Romeo Rosales, and sat proud and erect in her booth.
Look, but don’t touch
—she thought.
“By the way,” she said to Romeo, “I’ll treat.”
Romeo made a feeble show of protest: “No, no, I insist, Trini—”
He had called her
Trini.
Blushing, Trinidad waved her hand in a grand, dismissive gesture. “No, no, Romeo. I’ll treat. You can help me celebrate my birthday,” she lied, surprised by her own boldness.
Romeo gave her a puzzled look, then brightened considerably. This girl might be crazy, he said to himself, but what do I have to lose. He wondered how old she was, guessing she was in her late twenties or early thirties. He wondered if she would lie to him when he felt comfortable enough to ask her. He figured she probably would. He relaxed in his seat, and let her persuade him to try Chinese food. She ordered noodles stir-fried with shrimp and pork.
Not bad
, Romeo admitted to himself, eating with gusto. The noodles tasted just like his mother’s
pancit.
Trinidad giggled. “Of course! Who do you think invented
pancit
? The Chinese!” She informed him, merrily. Romeo wolfed down the food Trinidad served him, while she ate demurely, picking at her food and professing a lack of appetite. Actually Trinidad was quite hungry herself, but she remembered her mother saying that truly feminine women hardly ate at all, at least not in public.
Romeo watched the coy and smiling cashier with a great deal of amusement. When the meal was over he confessed to feeling dizzy with “fascination” for Trinidad—an English word which he confused with “infatuation.” Trinidad didn’t bother to correct him. Without too much effort, he convinced her to go home with him to his one-room apartment. Trinidad Gamboa paid for the expensive taxi ride to Pasay City. She was devirginated at exactly 11:47 P.M. on a Thursday evening, on Romeo’s creaking cot. The anxious, sweating couple was separated from Romeo’s sleeping cousin Tomas by a flimsy curtain draped over a wire strung from both ends of the room. For Romeo, it was a surprising experience. He had never been with a virgin, and he found it rather bewildering. For Trinidad, it was bloody, painful, and a profound relief. She had been waiting for this exact moment all her life.
The thought of Romeo with another woman was enough to drive Trinidad Gamboa insane. She wrote her parents in Cebu, hinting at a possible engagement to her nineteen-year-old lover. Her mother wrote back: “What about your studies? Why haven’t you enrolled at the university? WHO IS ROMEO ROSALES? What town is he from? How old is he? Does he have a job? Make sure your Aunt Teresing writes me…”
Her father, a retired tax collector, was not impressed with his daughter’s romantic illusions. He wrote tersely: “COME HOME. I did not give you permission to go to Manila to live a life of sin. WHO IS ROMEO ROSALES? You have disappointed us greatly by postponing your enrollment at the university. Your mother is sick with worry, and I will not tolerate any of your escapades! Come home soon, or I will cut off your monthly allowance. Romeo Rosales is not worthy of you…” Trinidad Gamboa’s father signed his letter with a forbidding, emphatic flourish.
Trinidad was twenty-eight years old, and the thought of life as a spinster back in her home town terrified her. She would be subject to shame and humiliation, considered a failure in her parents’ unforgiving eyes. It looked as if enrolling at the university in Manila really would be her last chance to make something of her uneventful life, if she didn’t quickly find a husband. She had been grasping at straws when she first arrived in Manila, but now she had Romeo Rosales, a bright star in her hazy constellation.
Weeks went by. She didn’t respond to her father’s letter. If her father cut off her stipend, she would just have to work full-time as a cashier at the Odeon. Or supplement her income by taking a second job as salesgirl at SPORTEX, the department store owned by the prominent Alacran family. It was something Trinidad actually wanted to do. She spent long hours browsing through the chilly, air-conditioned floors, avoiding the scorching heat outside. She fingered the overpriced dresses and tried on patent leather shoes, dreaming of the day she could use a salesgirl’s twenty-percent discount.
Trinidad Gamboa was elated by her plans. She was sure she could always manage. She had never defied her father and had always placed her parents’ concerns above her own. It was time for a change. She felt giddy with her newfound freedom, yet still unsure about her momentary happiness with Romeo. There were days her uncertainty gnawed away at her.
Romeo Rosales was not living up to all her expectations. In unsubtle ways, Trinidad hinted she would like to take him home to Cebu to meet her parents. All expenses paid, of course. Romeo refused, not even attempting to make any excuses. She then reminded him that she was anxious to meet his widowed mother, that she would like to accompany him on his monthly visits to the tiny village in Batangas where she lived with his younger brother. Romeo diverted Trinidad with his boundless capacity for sweet talk, something he’d learned from countless hours of studying Nestor Noralez movies.
“Your eyes are mysterious, deep, dark pools that never fail to hypnotize me,” Romeo would whisper, taking the frail Trinidad in his arms. She would allow herself to be led to the big round bed covered by a red satin sheet, the only piece of furniture in their regular meeting place, the mirrored Room #223 in the seedy and inexpensive Motel Tropicana.
Her face might be plain, and her body much too slender; Romeo had never gotten used to her sharp, bony angles and gold front tooth. But Trinidad Gamboa was receptive and eager in bed, and he would simply close his eyes and imagine the torrid siren Lolita Luna, ecstatic beneath his own pumping body. He could hear Lolita Luna moaning as he murmured in Trinidad’s ear: “My sweet, perfumed flower—my darling madonna—my whore—”
His insatiable lust made Trinidad Gamboa feel like the most desirable woman in the world. She forgave him everything, even his erratic moods and reluctance to meet her family. Every Friday, she went to confession at the old Santa Mesa Church, one block away from her Aunt Teresing’s boarding house. The swarthy priest always said the same things to her: “You are committing mortal sin. You will definitely burn in hell if you don’t put a stop to your impure relationship. For penance, say the rosary seven times.”
Obediently, Trinidad Gamboa would say her rosaries and light votive candles at the foot of a life-size statue of a fair-skinned, fair-haired Virgin Mary. The statue looked down at her with an impassive, blue glass gaze, which Trinidad mistook for divine compassion. Always sure her heart was in the right place and that she would eventually go to heaven, Trinidad Gamboa would leave the church at peace.
She waited patiently for the moment when Romeo Rosales would come to his senses. He would fall on his knees, repentant. He would bury his pretty face in her skirt and weep, begging her forgiveness and thanking her for all she had done for him. He would praise her selflessness and ask her to marry him. Just as Nestor Noralez finally asked the saintly and equally generous Barbara Villanueva, in that memorable Mabuhay Studios musical
Serenade.
(H
OY, BRUJA! KUMUSTA? ANO
ba
—long time no hear! What’s the latest
balita? Sige na
—sit down let’s make
tsismis.
You want Sarsi or TruCola? Diet Coke or San Miguel?
Dios ko ’day,
it’s too hot for coffee…Too much beer,
bruja
—you’re gonna end up fat like your brother if you don’t watch out.)
We blame everything on the heat. It’s been a typical Saturday, not much is accomplished. My mother Dolores spends hours at SPORTEX with Pucha’s mother, my
Tita
Florence. As usual, they will return without any purchases, complaining loudly of crowds, snooty salesgirls, and exhaustion. “
Que ba
, I think those people just mill around the store because it’s air-conditioned!” Tita Florence sniffs in disgust. She is an older, plumper version of Pucha, with the same sharp nose and flaring nostrils.
My cousin Pucha and I get our weekly manicure, pedicure, and complimentary foot massage at Jojo’s New Yorker, right across the street from the Foodarama Supermarket and ten times cheaper than Chiquiting Moreno’s Makati “salon”—
a saloon of a salon
, as my father describes it, strictly for society matrons and high-priced whores. My father thinks women are constantly being duped, especially by
baklas
who run trendy beauty parlors.
“Why can’t we go to Makati just this once?” Pucha whines. “We have the car and driver, it’s not so fair—” Pucha hates it every time we go to Jojo’s. “Because Jojo’s right around the corner,” I sigh, “and I’ve only got one hundred pesos to spend for
both
of us. That won’t even get you a shampoo at Chiquiting’s.” That shuts Pucha up. Pucha never has enough money, and she’s stingy besides. It depresses her to sit in Jojo’s unpretentious beauty parlor with its modest neighborhood clientele, several steps down the social ladder Pucha’s been climbing so fiercely since the day she was born. Jojo waits on most of her customers herself and has no time for idle chatter. She’s an enterprising woman with frosted tips in her short hair and a large mole on her nose. Pucha’s sure Jojo’s a lesbian, and mistakes all of Jojo’s gestures toward her as passionate come-ons.
There is only one other unglamourous patron this early Saturday morning, wearing a faded house dress and rubber slippers; she dozes with her mouth open, slumped under Jojo’s prehistoric hair dryer. “
Que horror
,” Pucha mutters, as we walk past the sleeping woman.
(Hoy,
and how do you think that
alembong
Nestor used to pay his rent?
Aba, sino pa
—who do you think told me? Max himself, that’s who.
Chica
, they went to the same school and no matter what Nestor says, Nestor is definitely the same age as Max! Exactly,
doña…
Max happened to be right there in the lobby of the Manila Hotel and saw the whole thing with his own eyes…)
One of Pucha’s goals in life is to be able to afford going to Chiquiting Moreno’s whenever she wants. Like when she feels too lazy to wash her own hair, for example. The first and only time either one of us ever went to Chiquiting’s was when we all got our hair done for my cousin Ricky’s wedding—Pucha,
Tita
Florence, my mother, and me. My mother paid the exorbitant bill. Pucha still brags about it to this day. I can’t tell what’s more important to her: being invited to debutante parties or having Chiquiting lacquer her hair. She thinks marrying that creepy Boomboom will insure her social standing. She’s probably right. Ahhhh, people will whisper, here comes Mrs. Doña Pucha Alacran with a new hairdo. Plus, money will never be a problem. Pucha imagines countless hours of pleasure decorating and redecorating the fabulous rococo palace of her dreams. When she gets carried away with her high and mighty plans, she describes her fantasy future wedding to Boomboom in gory detail, the gown her mother will order from some Frenchman, and all the guests she’s planning to invite, including the President. “I’ll insist we can’t live in Greenhills,” Pucha says, with authority. “Too many Chinese.” “What do you care,” I respond, bored to death, “so long as they’re
rich
?” Pucha frowns. “But Rio—even the rich ones contaminate the water with hepatitis! Boomboom said so.” “Be careful he doesn’t find out about our family history,” I warn her, trying my best to look solemn. Pucha is mystified by my remark. “
Que ba
—what family history?” I react with a combination of innocence and surprise. “Didn’t your father tell you about our great-great-grandmother Assumpta Gonzaga? Her real name was Assumpta Ching Ming Soong, and she was from the only Christian family in Shanghai.” Pucha Gonzaga gasps in horror, her elaborate wedding plans temporarily ruined.
(Naku!
Doña Booding was sitting there having her
merienda,
you know how she likes her ice cream and sweets…The chamber orchestra was playing
merienda
music—a little Strauss waltz mixed in with the “Jealousy” tango, maybe some
kundiman
mixed in with the cha-cha—
alam mo na,
real
halo-halo
stuff. Doña Booding was waiting for Nestor in the lobby, waiting to spy on him and catch him by surprise…She was sitting partially hidden by some potted palm…From what Max told me, she waited for hours—stuffing her face with
halo-halo
sundaes and chocolate cake…
Bruja,
will you stop laughing?)
When my grandfather Whitman died, everyone expected me to cry, but I didn’t. My
Lola
Narcisa went back to Davao after the funeral, to sell her house and pick up the rest of her things. My mother Dolores picked me up at school the day it happened. I knew something was wrong because she was alone in the car, except for our driver Macario. Where was Lorenza? My mother was wearing black, and her eyes were swollen from crying.
He died in his sleep
, she said, looking out the window and avoiding my gaze.
He never woke up. It was a good thing
—
he didn’t suffer
, she was sure of it. All the American doctors were sure of it. Everything started to change after his death. My mother fell in love with the Brazilian ambassador, Jaime Oliveira. My father got promoted to Vice President In Charge Of Acquisitions for Severo Alacran’s conglomerate, International Coconut Investments. Intercoco, for short. He was jokingly referred to as Severo Alacran’s head
bugaw
or chief pimp by Pucha’s father, my joker of an uncle, Agustin. My father thought it was funny, but no one else in the family did.