The Pull of Gravity (15 page)

“Let me speak to him alone for a few minutes,” Isabel said to her cousin. Her voice was steady, and except for the distant look in her eyes, she seemed normal. Mariella hesitated, so Isabel added, “It’s okay.”

Mariella forced a smile, then went back into the living room.

“Close the door, please,” Isabel said to me.

I did as she asked. Once we were alone, the control she had been exerting over her body cracked, and she could no longer hold back her tears. I sat on the bed next to her, and started to put my arm around her shoulder.

“Don’t,” she said, stopping me. “I know you just want to help, but I…” She trailed off as her face twisted in pain, the memory of what Rudy had done still so very fresh in her mind.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to explain.”

Now that I was there with her, I wasn’t sure what to do. Unconsciously, she pulled her hair back behind her ear in a gesture she’d done a million times. Only this time, instead of revealing her soft, brown cheek, she uncovered a dark, ugly bruise on her jaw, nearly a twin to the one Manfred had received. She realized what I was looking at and started to cover the bruise again, but stopped herself in mid-movement, obviously thinking she couldn’t make me not see it.

“He hit me,” she said.

“Do you need a doctor?”

She touched her jaw. “It will be okay.”

“I don’t mean just for that.”

Her eyes moistened as she tried not to cry. “No,” she said. “No doctor.”

I sat next to her, not touching her, not saying anything. I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through. Anger? Fear? Guilt? All I really knew was that those were the emotions racing through me.

“You know what happened,” she said. A statement, not a question. “You know what I did with him.”

“You didn’t do
anything
with him,” I told her. “What happened—that was all his doing.”

“It’s the same thing.”

She stared at the carpet, her breathing uneven. I kept expecting her to start sobbing, but it never happened.

I shouldn’t have come
, I thought. I should have left as soon as I knew she was with Mariella. There was nothing I could do for her that her cousin couldn’t handle and probably do better.

But no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t make myself get up. We sat there like that for what could have been twenty minutes or twenty hours. There was no time under the canopy of Mariella’s bed, there was only Isabel and me.

And I still didn’t know what to do.

•    •    •

I got very little sleep that day. At some point Cathy came and got me from Mariella’s, a minor miracle in itself, but that day, the past meant nothing. The police turned out to be more helpful than I expected. It wasn’t the first time a girl had been raped in Angeles, and I had heard stories of varying degrees of official assistance. Maybe it was because Manfred, a foreigner, had also been hurt.

The cops posted two officers at the MacArthur Inn in hopes that Rudy would return. But what they didn’t know at the time and only figured out later was that he had grabbed all his important stuff, including his passport and airplane ticket, right after he’d smashed his fist into Manfred’s face and hightailed it directly to Aquino International Airport in Manila. By the time the police finally sorted it out, Rudy was already back in the States. Which meant it was the end of it, because none of the Philippine authorities were motivated enough to make an international case over the rape of a bar girl.

As far as I know, Rudy never came back to Angeles. A good thing, too, since there were several girls who would have let him bar fine them, then cut off his balls once they were alone in his hotel room. If I had ever seen him again, I wouldn’t have bothered with his balls. I would have simply killed him.

But the sad truth was, there would come a day when most of the people who knew who he was and what he had done would be gone from Fields, and, if he wanted to, he could probably return then to abuse again.

Isabel stayed away from The Lounge for four days. When she returned, I took her in back and asked her if she was sure she wanted to start working again so soon.

“I’m fine, Papa,” she said. “Please don’t worry about me.”

I knew she wasn’t fine, and I also knew I was sitting on a stack of cash that Larry had sent which would allow her to stop working as long as she wanted. I even suggested she do just that, but she would have none of it.

“Have you told him what happened?” she asked. Her eyes were full of fear. This was apparently something she hadn’t considered before.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t even talked to him.”

“You are telling me the truth?”

I nodded and said yes.

“You must promise me something,” she said.

“What?”

“You must promise me you will never tell Larry about…” She paused. “About
him.
” It was as if she had spoken the most disgusting word that existed.

“Don’t you think he’d want to know?”

“I don’t want him to know. That should be enough.”

I looked into her eyes and saw that this meant everything to her. “Okay,” I said. “I won’t tell him anything.”

•    •    •

About a week later, Larry called and said that Isabel didn’t sound the same. He wondered if there was something bothering her. I wanted to tell him. He deserved to know. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would have blamed her. In fact, he would have probably hopped on the next plane to come and comfort her.

But I had promised Isabel I would say nothing, so I told him she was probably just missing him.

I wasn’t sure if it was the biggest lie I’d ever told, but it felt like the worst.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There were things about my time in Angeles that I would have rather not remembered. Rudy was one, but what I remembered wasn’t in my control. I had come back to the Philippines to face all of this, and couldn’t just choose what was important and what should stay forgotten. But Isabel didn’t need to be reminded of him, so I kept that memory to myself.

Instead we talked about the parties and the girls and the insanity, until it became harder and harder to avoid the difficult subjects.

“Do you remember Bibianna?” she asked.

“She was a friend of your cousin’s, wasn’t she?”

She took another bite of her fish, and chewed it thoroughly before answering. “For a while.”

“Remember the time they both came into The Lounge and wanted to bar fine you?” I smiled as I asked the question.

“Sure,” Isabel said, also beginning to smile. “You let me go, without even making them pay.”

“Just wanted you to have a night out.”

“Thanks,” she said, losing herself for a moment in the memory. “We had a good time. Someone tell me that Bibianna marry guy from Italy, move to Rome.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “It’s what I hear.”

“Did Mariella tell you that?”

She said nothing for several seconds, then, “No. Not Mariella.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. We have to talk about her sometime.”

“No we don’t,” I said, meaning it.

“Of course we do.”

She paused for only a moment, then started talking about her cousin, and I knew eventually she would talk of Larry, too. Of the end.

•    •    •

After the incident with Rudy, Isabel moved out of her shared room and into the spare bedroom at Mariella’s place. At the time she said it was her idea, but what really happened was Mariella insisted. This was the same Mariella who was proud that she didn’t need to have roommates, and that she could afford to live in a beautiful place. By American standards, it would have been called a townhouse, everything in twos: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two stories. Bought and paid for by her British boyfriend, as he had promised her on his last visit to the Angeles City.

Isabel’s room was upstairs, so Mariella was able to easily keep tabs on her. At first Isabel didn’t realize what was happening. Whenever she came downstairs, Mariella would always put on her beauty-queen smile and ask, “Going out?” or say something like, “You’re running late tonight,” or even, “You look nice, you expecting someone special?”

Mariella’s schedule had her working only when she wanted. It began to look like anytime Isabel was home, so was Mariella. It was nice at first to have a friend to come home to, someone Isabel looked up to and with whom she could share all her thoughts. Someone who knew about Rudy.

But in those early weeks and months, it was Larry they talked about. Isabel told her cousin all about him. She told her about the trips out of Angeles, sparing no details, intimate or otherwise. When he called, and he called her almost every day by then, she’d tell Mariella everything he said.

Isabel was in love, and in many ways Mariella became Isabel’s surrogate for Larry. Not in any physical way, but when Isabel felt the urge to tell Larry she loved him, she would tell Mariella, “I love him so much.” And when she felt the urge to hold him, she’d say, “I wish he was here right now.” And at those times she thought about how long it would be until his next visit, she’d say, “I miss him,” and cry into Mariella’s shoulder.

The whole time Mariella offered hugs that were just a moment too short, or knowing smiles that were just a bit too knowing, or words of encouragement which, without Isabel even realizing it, weren’t really encouraging at all.

Mariella was patient, I have to give her that. Every day Isabel fell more and more under Mariella’s influence. She began to crave Mariella’s approval, asking for her cousin’s opinion before she made any important decisions. And all the while Mariella lay in wait, not yet ready to exert the control she knew she had. Even when Isabel told her about the money Larry sent, and how she had not touched any of it, Mariella said, “That’s good, that’s good. Pretty soon you’ll be a rich woman.”

I can only imagine what was really going through her mind.

•    •    •

At the same time, the great Angeles cycle had turned on me, too. For so long things had been good; life had been rolling along. Even my bouts of Angeles overload had been more manageable.

But the incident with Rudy seemed to signal a change not only for Isabel and Mariella, but for me, too. And Cathy. And Manfred. And Robbie Bainbridge, though we didn’t know it at the time. It was a demarcation point when the cycle turned the corner and began moving in the opposite direction.

As our relationship progressed, Cathy and I fell into a pattern. A comfortable pattern, at least for me, because it had been a long time since I’d felt so content. Manny would give us a ride home in his trike every night after work. Sometimes we would make love before we went to sleep, sometimes after we woke the next afternoon. Sometimes both, and often it was neither. We’d lounge around the house for several hours, watching the satellite TV or going for a swim, then we’d head for Fields, stopping for dinner first, more times than not at The Pit Stop, before arriving at The Lounge just before six p.m. On our days off, we’d just stay home and do nothing. We were both just too wiped out.

I’m not quite sure exactly when Cathy started acting differently, only that it wasn’t long after the encounter with Rudy. She began to get annoyed over stupid things, and she would become quieter than usual, over long periods of time, days even. And while we’d always argued, there had once been a playfulness to our banter. There was no playfulness now. She almost sounded bitter on occasion, and sometimes resentful.

It had a familiar feel to me. I feared things were falling apart like they had with Maureen, and with every relationship I’d ever been in. I wanted to ask her what was wrong. I wanted to fix whatever it was and return to that state of contentment. I wanted us to be us again, not caring about anything and just enjoying the ride.

But while I was good at helping others, I sucked at helping myself. I was afraid if I said anything, she would tell me there was no way to make things right. I was afraid that by trying to fix our relationship, I might inadvertently end it. So I said nothing and hoped for the best, because, more than anything, I was afraid that if she asked me, “Do you love me? Really love me?” I would have to tell her the truth.

It was Manfred, though, who had the most immediate, profound change. It was a Sunday, and I’d invited him out to my place for an early barbecue. Cathy had decided she had something she needed to do that afternoon, so it was just the two of us, a pair of sirloin steaks and enough ice-cold San Miguels to keep us happy. We were out by the pool, each of us having taken a preliminary dip, but planning on more. I put the food on a couple of plastic plates and we sat around stuffing the tender meat into our mouths and washing it down with the beer.

“I think it’s time,” Manfred said when he was halfway done with his steak.

“For what?” I asked, thinking he meant another swim and knowing I wasn’t even close to ready for that yet.

He set his fork down, and took a long pull from his bottle before answering. “I told you my mother isn’t doing too well, right?”

“I think you mentioned it,” I said. “Did something happen?”

“No. She’s the same. But I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking I should spend some time with her,” he said.

“You gonna go back for a visit, then?” I asked.

He was silent for several moments, so I looked up from my steak. He had a wistful smile on his face. “No,” he said. “Not a visit. I’m going back to stay.”

I set my own fork down. “You mean, move home?”

He nodded. “It’s time.”

“Was it that thing with Rudy?” The incident was over two months in our past, but not yet a distant memory.

“Partly,” he said. “But it’s everything, really. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this. All this isn’t real. I guess I was going to have to face it at some point.”

I stared at him. It wasn’t that I thought he should stay, it was just I hadn’t expected any of my friends to leave. I don’t mean I was selfish or anything, only that it hadn’t dawned on me that it might happen.

“You know what this place is,” he said. “I think you, more than anyone, keep a pretty good grip on reality. But I don’t have your strength.” He paused for a moment, breathing in deeply. “If I don’t leave now, this place will kill me.”

As soon as he spoke the words, I knew he was telling the truth. If he didn’t leave, he’d be a destroyed man, maybe not dead, but near enough that it wouldn’t matter. He would become a drunk and a serial womanizer. And more than anything, he’d get to the point where he could never break his addiction to the scene.

“You’re right,” I said. “I think you should leave.”

I think he was expecting more of a fight. But I couldn’t argue with the truth.

•    •    •

Two weeks later I threw Manfred a going-away party at The Lounge. All the regulars were there: Dieter, Nicky, Tommy, Dandy Doug, Josh. Even Tom Hill and Carter stopped by for a drink. Most of the girls knew Manfred, and those who didn’t knew he was a good friend of mine, so everyone was in a party mood.

It wasn’t planned, but at some point someone found the fluorescent body paints in the back office and brought them out. Immediately the guys began picking models, and the girls began pulling off their tops, because you couldn’t have a cloth-covered canvas. I saw Cathy flip on the switch to the four tubular black lights that hung strategically from the ceiling. We hadn’t turned them on in a long time, so for a second I wasn’t even sure they would work. But they all came on and soon the girls were glowing in their new fluorescent finery.

One guy painted an Australian flag draped over Rina’s shoulders and flowing down to her waist. Another guy—Nicky, I think—worked only in red and white and created two side-by-side targets with Tessa’s nipples as the bull’s-eyes. Some of the girls turned out great, while others looked like bad imitations of modern art.

Rochelle was the best. She’d been lucky enough to have been picked by Dieter. He was probably the best artist we had in the district. He turned her into a provocatively dressed cop, complete with a side-holstered pistol and handcuffs.

Even Isabel, who’d been moody at best lately, seemed to be having a good time. She was laughing and passing out drinks and talking to everyone. She even got up on stage during “Love Shack” and showed everyone she still knew the moves.

We’d been taking turns all night toasting Manfred. When my turn finally came, the room settled down to allow me to get in a few words.

I raised my glass. “I was going to say something profound like, ‘Tonight we say goodbye to a friend with the hope that one day our paths will cross again. We each have our own roads to travel, and Manfred, we’re glad your road ran alongside ours for a while.’ But none of you would believe that bullshit anyway.” Everyone laughed. “So I’ve decided to limit myself to one word that I think sums him up.” I looked at Manfred, a wide grin on my face as I raised my glass even higher. “Asshole.”

More laughter as they all raised glasses, then, almost as one, said “Asshole!”

And before I knew it, the music was blaring again and people were laughing and girls were dancing and everyone seemed—for that moment, anyway—happy to be where they were. Even Manfred, who in less than forty-eight hours would be boarding a plane to Europe, probably never to return.

Isabel told me the thing she remembered most about that night was that Mariella said she was going to show up, but never did. Isabel had been disappointed, but not enough to let it ruin her evening. Mariella, after all, seldom lived up to the promises she made to her cousin. If Isabel had known that Mariella and Manfred had had a brief affair that had not ended well, she probably would have had a horrible evening, wondering if her cousin would really show up. But Isabel never knew, and later, I didn’t feel it was necessary to tell her.

We didn’t get the bar closed until almost sunup that night. In the end, it was just Cathy and Manfred and me standing on the sidewalk facing each other. I gave him a big bear hug and told him he was always welcome back. Cathy kissed him tenderly on the cheek and said she would miss him.

After he climbed into the trike that was waiting for him at the curb, he leaned out, waved and said one last goodbye. I knew it was the last time I would hear from him, because of what he said when we were sitting around the pool—that Angeles wasn’t the real world. And now that he was leaving and returning to that real world, he had to forget us to get us out of his system.

Cold turkey. No step down. No hair of the dog.

•    •    •

The city was beginning to come alive as Manny drove Cathy and me home that morning. The sky had started to turn blue, the black night fleeing to the west. I wasn’t as drunk as I could have been, and to say I was just tired and sad at the loss of my friend would have been only a partial truth. Manfred’s departure had stirred up questions I didn’t want to deal with, questions that had been buried deep in my mind but were suddenly inching closer and closer to the surface.

I was fighting hard to suppress them again when Cathy said, “What road are you taking?”

At first I thought she was talking to Manny, so I glanced up, but we seemed to be traveling on our normal route. When I realized she’d been talking to me, I said, “What do you mean?”

“When you made the toast for Manfred,” she said. “You said we all have our own roads to travel. I want to know what road you are on.”

“I’m not sure what kind of answer you’re looking for.”

She looked out at the buildings that lined the side of the street, then said, “How long will our roads run together?”

“Cathy—”

“Will you suddenly go off in your own direction someday, like Manfred?” she asked, cutting me off.

“No. That’s not part of my plan,” I said, realizing a split-second later it was the wrong thing to say.