Moondogs (22 page)

She laid towels all around the edge of the basin so soapy water wouldn’t get on the floor. She rolled up her blouse sleeves, got on her knees and held her jacket down below the surface as though drowning it. Her fingers grazed the phlegm, now loose and slick. She stood, unbuttoned her blouse and added it to the basin. She added her patent belt, her narrow slacks and seamless camisole. Naked, she returned to the entryway and grabbed the purse she’d brought to work that day. She emptied the contents out on her bed before dropping it into the basin as well. She got in the shower. She left the lights off and curtain open.
She soaped, rinsed and soaped again. When she was done she stood there, dripping dry.

The phone rang again and the animals sang accompaniment. Monique walked into the den, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind. Caller ID said it was
him
, but she would have picked up even if it was Joseph. Or the ambassador with some last-minute tasking. Or a wrong number.

“Hey.” His voice was coarse, soft, and so familiar. “What are you wearing?”

“Now is not the time.”

He normally didn’t pick up on tone, but that night he got the picture. “Are you all right? Would you rather skip tonight?”

“No.” She paced with the cordless, stepping on her own wet prints. “I haven’t seen you in forever. And I got the maid to go home early. I thought when we’re done, we could come back here.”

“That sounds great … but only if you want. We’ll do whatever you want.”

“We’ll come back here, then,” she said. She hung up and changed into a burgundy gown that she hadn’t worn since the Marine Ball and hastily blow-dried her hair—at the beginning of the week she’d actually thought she’d have time and energy enough to get it done at the Peninsula. She fed crickets to the gecko and grapes to the lovebird. She sat in the den and waited.

He was only a little late, a pleasant surprise. She didn’t even answer his buzz at the intercom, she just rushed out to the elevator. Avoiding the lobby with its helpful, perky staff, she turned down the concrete loading ramp to the side exit—the same one she took on weekday mornings to board the armored embassy shuttle. Reynato waited in the gloom outside, one hand on the roof of his beat-up old Honda, another deep in his pants pocket. He wore a summer suit without a tie and had some kind of product combed into his gray-black hair. The air-conditioning in his sedan had been busted for months, and his forehead and cheeks glistened with sweat.

“My love.” He kissed her neck, her jaw line, her ear. “My love.”

She slid her hands under his suit jacket, along the damp fabric of his button-down shirt. He smelled sweet, and good. He felt soft, and good. She could already feel herself relaxing. “You don’t love me.”

“I know,” Reynato toyed with a lock of her still-damp hair. “But I like you plenty. And I feel like I could love you. With time.” He pat-slapped her behind. “I missed the hell out of you.”

“I missed you, too.” She negotiated her way around the sedan, glancing nervously at the tower of lit and unlit windows above. “How’s your friend?”

“My who, now?” He got inside and leaned over to open the front passenger door for her—the outside handle stuck.

“Your friend.” She got in and buckled up. “The one in the hospital in Davao.”

“Oh him! He’s fine. Misdiagnosed. No problem at all.” Reynato smiled and had a brief fistfight with the gearshift. “In fact, there are no problems anywhere right now. It’s rare. Like an eclipse.” He got the sedan into second, pulled out of the parking lot and turned down McKinley Road with a jolt.

They were headed to ballroom night at the Shangri-La. It was sure to be packed with expats and local bureaucrats, likely a few people they each knew, but it was also the only public place they could be seen together without arousing suspicion. After all, they each had their own reasons to go. And it was natural to bump into people at Shangri-La functions. That’s how they’d first met—at a cocktail hour on the mezzanine, hosted jointly by the legal attaché and the director of the National Bureau of Investigation. The first impression hadn’t been great. Reynato watched Monique from across the room, sucking an unlit cigar that waiters kept trying to take from him. It got obvious. Joseph sulked. Jeff offered to go over and say something. She said no and stared right back at the pudgy, graying stranger. Over the course of the night she watched him drain enough tumblers to put a fat man in the hospital, but by last call he could still walk a straight line. He came right up to her and leaned in, showing off clean metal braces that made his mouth—just his mouth—look young. “Describe yourself,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Describe yourself to me. I can’t see so well.”

Monique answered in Tagalog, hoping to catch him off balance. She said she was five foot five. She said her brown hair was dyed blond and cut shorter than usual this year, that she weighed a hundred and forty pounds, that her dress was black and her measurements were so-and-so. She wasn’t a knockout, but she was out of his league. And besides that, she was married. “You want me to describe you, now?” she asked. “It’ll be easy.”

“No point.” He waived a small hand in the air. “You got
you
wrong. That’s not what you look like at all.” Then came some nonsense about her being the tallest woman in the room and not wearing any shoes. Her feet were part of the floor and went all the way down into it, like tree roots into the ground. She had a glow. An aura. A how-do-you-call-it. He was obviously drunker than he looked. Monique left him where he stood and she and Joe returned home. That night, after sex, he asked what she’d said to him. She answered honestly, and he got mad, called her a flirt, and slept in the den, like an infant.

Reynato telephoned the next morning. Monique asked how he got her number and her name. “I really, really wanted to talk to you,” he said. That’s all he said.

THERE WAS NO VALET PARKING
, but that didn’t stop Reynato from leaving his Honda at the security checkpoint and tossing the guards his keys. He braced his foot on the front tire and tugged hard to open Monique’s door. They walked up to the hotel, through the tremendous glass doors and into the Shangri-La. The lobby was packed. People in barongs and business suits mingled by the staircases and lined the mezzanine railing with drinks in hand. Two or three of the Filipinos recognized Reynato and pointed him out to others who pointed him out to more others. He waved as they ascended the stairs, stopping once to sign an autograph and again to be photographed with someone’s wife. They asked him what he thought Charlie Fuentes’s chances were, and he answered that Charlie Fuentes was a great friend and a good man.
Monique started to wonder if coming here wasn’t a bad idea—if it wasn’t begging to be caught. After all, she was with a man who still sent flowers to her apartment and love notes to her office. If he pulled just one cutesy stunt here, that was it.

Thankfully, Reynato seemed as eager to ditch these people as she was, hurrying them both into the ballroom. He strode right to the floor, ignoring Monique’s protest that she’d rather watch first, not even waiting for a new song to begin. She quickly set her arms like she remembered—she and Joe took a three-week course in the lead-up to their wedding—but before she got her feet right Reynato started moving. Using their outstretched arms and clasped hands as a wedge, he cut through the crowd to an open area by the low stage. The steps were familiar enough—Monique stared down, watching her toes trace box corners on the parquet—but everything else felt awkward. She bumped hard into an older woman and got a dirty, mascara-faced glare.

“You’re all right,” Reynato said, leaning in close, awash in his particular fruity smell, more perfume than cologne. “But you’re drifting left.”

She glanced up from her feet and they stopped doing what she wanted. Reynato’s hand went firm on her back as he moved her out of a passing couple’s way. “I was just trying to follow the line of dance.”

“Ah,” he grinned, almost apologetically. “No such thing here. Manila dancing is like Manila driving. If you see space, take it. If there’s no space, make it. Also some of our dances are different. Your hustle is our swing. Your swing is our boogie.”

Monique didn’t know hustle, swing or boogie. The song ended and when a new one began Reynato came around behind her. He took her hands in his and stepped on the shadows of her feet. “Lindy hop,” he whispered, as though lindy hop meant something.

“You’re a cheater. You said you didn’t dance.”

“I said I didn’t dance well. I don’t. You dance terribly.”

“Ha.” She let go his hand and discreetly pinched his outer thigh, hard. She focused on the floor below. When he started moving, she did too.

MONIQUE FELT CONSPICUOUS
after four dances with the same partner, so she mixed it up. She did a few turns with a tuxedoed Korean and
then waltzed with a bespectacled economist from the AmCham who kept saying: “It’s all right,” even though she didn’t exactly know what she was doing wrong. She watched Reynato over the shoulders of her other partners, looking solid and confident and charming. He was still going strong when she called it quits and grabbed a stool at the bar. His latest partner, a skinny-armed girl in a sparkly prom-style dress, seemed very taken with him. Reynato visited Monique between dances to dab his forehead on a cocktail napkin, down one of the two Southern Comforts she’d ordered and announce that the Argentine Tango could kiss his saggy ass. His new partner waited, awkwardly patient in the middle of the floor. She reminded Monique of Leila, which was odd because Leila was younger and not as conventionally beautiful. Still, she imagined Leila in that silly dress, standing alone, just waiting. She pictured Leila with that hopeful, rejected expression. It got so that she couldn’t look at the girl anymore.

The next time Reynato came to the bar she said she wanted to go.

“Your wish, my love.”

“You don’t love me, remember?”

“I do, actually,” he said. “Between then and now, I started.” He stared at her. He clearly wanted to kiss her. She wanted him to. But thank God he didn’t. He just squeezed her hand, and they both made for the exit.

They were almost to the double doors when Charlie Fuentes—she recognized him from billboards splattered above Roxas, from his televised campaign speeches, from the absurd little dance he’d done during the candidate debates—tackled Reynato in an enthused hug. Monique kept walking, her ears and cheeks turning red as a drunk’s. Everybody knew Charlie, or knew of him. He was even on the embassy guest list for the July Fourth barbecue.

She walked a safe distance away and listened. “Son of a whore. Look at you, you son of a whore,” Charlie quit hugging and began shaking Reynato’s hand. “What, you don’t answer my calls? You must have heard the good news. It’s not a victory party without you!”

“It’s not a victory without me.” Reynato’s irritation seemed lost on his tipsy friend, who beamed warmly. “No parties tonight. I’m on my way out.”

“Aww, hell, don’t tell me. You’re probably going to some super-secret-stakeout, am I right? Look at this man,” Charlie paused to lean back and give him an exaggerated eyeballing. “Renny
never
stops working. I guess if I’m a dud as senator then I can at least count on you to generate enough good material for another few Ocampo flicks.” Charlie wouldn’t let go his hand. People at a nearby banquet table noticed the pair and began snapping photos of them.

“I’ll do my best,” Reynato said, his expression pained.

“No, but honestly, for real …” Charlie leaned in. He must have thought he was lowering his voice, but it remained the same volume and just got huskier. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I mean that. One of these days I’ve got to invite you and Lorna over for—”

“We’ll do it. I know. Dinner or something.” Reynato pulled his hand free and made for the doors. Charlie followed, chatting him up, causing a stir. Monique rushed to the mezzanine, down the curved stair and out into the hot, sooty evening. Reynato caught up some minutes later, grinning bitterly.

“You should’ve stayed. I’d have introduced you to the republic’s least promising new senator.”

“This isn’t a joke,” she snapped. “We could have gotten caught.”

Reynato’s wry, oddly cavalier smile slackened. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I joke about lots of things that aren’t jokes.” He came in for a kiss and she pushed him away. “No one can see us here,” he protested.

“Not until we get home,” she said, the sound of her blood still filling her ears.

He’d never been to her place before. He didn’t ask for the tour. They started undressing in the entryway and were naked by the time they got to the master bedroom. Sex was usually a rush deal. They did it in hotel suites, friends’ apartments and once in Reynato’s office. Now the whole night hung over them.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, “and it’s not whiskey-dick.”

“I’m sorry.” Monique covered herself with the blanket and he uncovered her. “Can we not do it here? I mean in this room.”

“Of course.” Reynato hopped out of bed and followed her back into
the den. He walked with his gut stuck out, his hands on his lower back, his long skinny penis pointing the way like a ridiculous divining rod. Uncomfortable as she was, Monique had to laugh a little, which is what she knew he wanted. He swung his hips to point at the open door to Shawn’s room, where the gecko had begun chirping again, demanding more crickets.

“My son. Too creepy.”

He spun again and pointed to Amartina’s quarters.

“That’s the maid’s room.”

“Hot. Do you fit into her outfits?”

“No. But they’re not sexy, anyway.”

“They would be on you.” He negotiated her onto the couch facing the television. Monique was afraid of getting sweat—or something worse—on the leather, but she figured things were already awkward enough and went with it. Reynato had lied about the whiskey-dick, and it took him a while to finish. From where she lay, with her head on the armrest, Monique could see right into Shawn’s room. The gecko pressed up against the glass, all eyeballs and throat. Somehow seeing the animal thrilled her with remorse so strong it approached grief. That was her son’s pet. Never mind he only bought it because he was angry with her—he loved it. And that was his room. And this was the den where he and Leila sat sullenly and argued over television channels. This was the couch that Joseph slept on when he was angry, or desperately tired, or both. And here she was with Reynato, a nice enough guy but also a creep in a lot of ways, humiliating them all in absentia. She was cheating on everybody. And as awful as she felt, she didn’t think she could stop.