Wander Girl

by Tweet Sering

  It was an interesting way to spend my first afternoon in Siargao. My first real conversation with Westerners. Unlike the Taglish conversations I engaged in everyday, the gabfest with the Americans was purely in English. I would correct myself incessantly, scouring my brain for the right English words, even for ones like “nga,” as in “Because nga.” I even attempted to slide in an American twang, to make sure there was no misunderstanding. I was trying too hard and I knew it.

  Lulu, on the other hand, had no such problem. She fired away, unfettered, in her standard Bislish—Bisaya-English— and both Tristan and Ben sat there in rapt attention, seeming to understand anyway. They even laughed at all her jokes.

  Outside the window, the waves of the Pacific tumbled towards the shore. The sun was high and a breeze swept in sporadically through the window, swirling inside the bar and tickling the bead curtain. This was just the sort of first trip I had imagined without my parents: a beautiful, tropical paradise... with interesting boys. Now if only I could be as interesting.

  I was so convinced of my failure that when Tristan asked, by the gate of our cottage later on, if we would like to try surfing lessons the next day, I didn’t even bother to answer, thinking he only meant Lulu.

  “Hoy, biga!” Lulu shrieked as soon as we were in our room and the boys had taken the habal-habal back to their cottages. “Ka-gwapa gajud nimo! I’m sorry pero mas winner pa kaw sa winner! Grrrabi sab makatan-aw dimo si Tristan, bagan LAMUNON man kaw. Sus, ka-gwapo raba gajud!”

  Lulu-speak, translated: Tristan couldn’t take his eyes off of me. Was Lulu high? What chance did my brown skin, black hair, dark singkit eyes and that horrible, clumsy attempt at intelligent conversation have beside brown-eyed, fair-skinned, vivacious and charming Lulu? If she were some other hysterical girl, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought. But this was Lulu, and the girl wasn’t built for bullshit.

  Needless to say, that was the start of the most glorious summer ever.

  Years of Oppression

  That summer in Surigao stirred something so deep in me that for the first time I wondered whether my mom had been right all along about the danger of the word “wanderlust.”

  I literally ached for the feel of a new place. Even as the long-distance, penpal-type relationship with Tristan fizzled out into half a bond paper’s worth of large handwriting promising to “write you a long one soon. Miss you!” the memory of the glistening islands, the clear water, the sounds, the smell, the feel of the whole place stayed with me. My romance with Surigao outlasted the one with Tristan, and it was that feeling I had become addicted to. But since I was barely scraping along on my weekly allowance, I knew I had to find some way to earn my travel funds.

  Enter a stint as service crew of a fast food chain. The job wasn’t difficult to land; management of such chains welcomed part-time student workers all the time. For sheer bandwagon effect (because she certainly didn’t need the money), Lulu joined me behind the counter, taking people’s orders and speaking into table microphones. For her, this was a game that she didn’t have to be good at; but for me, it spelled my next summer vacation money.

  I would have made it, too, if not for the time I had to do mascot duty for a children’s party and discovered my latent claustrophobia.

  My costume was this fancy, heavy, feathery tangerine number that took me 15 minutes to get into. About 30 kids were running around, grabbing me, slamming into my costume’s large belly. Oof!, I’d grunt each time a kid hurtled across the room right into my stomach. At first, I patiently waved my large fingers at them—“No no no, kids”—and shake my head. But the brats were uncontrollable.

  If you’ve never been a mascot before, I guarantee you, it’s no picnic being so costumed. At first, I started feeling faint, which I tried to remedy by bending over a bit. This gesture, I suppose, gave the kids the impression that I was inviting them to come jump on me or trounce me or something. Their weight bore down on me and in a few seconds the world closed in on me, choking me.

  Panic-stricken, I tried to remove my costume, but the kids were clinging ever-so-fiercely and the harder I tried to pull the top part of my costume off my head, the stronger the little rascals held.

  I think I did go a bit crazy there. As the other crew members told me later on, I started to fling the kids off me in the manner of Bill Bixby suddenly morphing into Incredible Hulk and rising from the rubble. Then I ran wildly around the store—a feathered creature on crack—bumping customers and their trays of food and crashing into tables. AAAAAMHHHHHHHH!!!!

  The security guard chased after me, mother’s grabbed their children in terror, but I was in my own private hell. I didn’t see, hear, or feel anything. The whole ordeal ended when I finally crashed into the counter and lost consciousness. Management didn’t fire me (bless their souls), but I was too embarrassed to go back when I had come to at the UP infirmary. I thought, Oh well, maybe I should just try my luck after graduation.

  As we neared the end of college, the thought of what we were going to do afterwards recalled conversations with Tristan and Ben. Lulu didn’t want to be “lost, bai. I want to know what I am supposed to do with my life. I want to see everything. I want to go places. I want to serve.”

  It figured, with her coming from a political family. “So you’re entering public service now,” I said.

  “I want to be a flight attendant.”

  “A what?” With Lulu, you had to be prepared for the occasional curve ball.

  “Think about it, bai. We’ll be like Tristan and Ben. We’ll travel while deciding what to do with our lives. We can contemplate the meaning of life in Paris, Rome, London, New York. But no entry-level job will pay us enough to afford it.”

  “You’re an economics major, surely you can land a spot as brand manager in a multinational company. I hear the pay’s not bad.”

  “But the work is,” she shot back. “Logging long hours in an office building to make your beer the market leader? Who fucking cares?”

  OK “Lu, I’m sure your parents can very well afford it.”

  “Hess! No more taxpayer’s money. This one’s on me. Come on, bai! Let’s do this together. What do you have against being an FA? You don’t think it’s real work?”

  Of course I thought it was real work. Helen had been an FA for almost two years then and she would come home so beat that all she did was sleep on her off days. I was just playing devil’s advocate because the truth was, I became dizzy with the sheer brilliance of the idea the moment Lulu brought it up. Shit, why didn’t I think of it myself? To hell with my journalism major! I was going to fly the friendly skies, smilingly inquire, “Care for coffee? Tea?” and push a cart down the aisle and, yes, Lulu, contemplate the meaning of life. In Paris, Rome, London and Nu Yok Cireeeeeeeeh!

  I should have known it would come: The day when the difference between Helen and Lulu on one side and me on the other would manifest itself. How could I even think that just because I hung out with girls such as my sister and my best friend, I was like them? Of course, Helen qualified as an FA. She was bright, graceful, confident, pretty, and tall. Of course, Lulu made it. She was bright, graceful, confident, pretty and a few inches taller than me. Of course, I didn’t make it! I was stupid, clumsy, insecure, ugly, and a friggin’ midget! All our plans, all those great trips we were going to take, the foreign languages we were going to speak... gone. What was I to do with myself now? I was so heartbroken I wanted to slash my wrists with a spoon.

  Gabe, on the other hand, didn’t even try to contain his joy. “Yey! Dito lang ang baby ko! For a while there I thought you were going to qualify. Buti nalang hindi, otherwise, kawawa naman ako, laging maiiwan.”

  So then I wanted to slash his wrists. I was about to thank him for his sensitivity and unwavering support for what was only the best thing that could have happened to me, asshole, but his mouth was already covering mine and his royal hardness was pushing against my thigh. In a moment, I began counting to 50.

  From that first rejecti
on came a thundering waterfall of others, as though the universe had taken a truth serum and was only now letting on about what it really thought of me. Nobody in the whole of Metro Manila, it seemed, could find any practical use for a journalism graduate named Hilda Gallares. Wait, make that stupid, clumsy, insecure, ugly journalism midget named Hilda Gallares.

  I had taken out our thick Yellow Pages, listing down all the airline companies I could find. Then I’d set out, wearing one of only two business attires I owned—a navy blue blazer with matching slacks and a darker navy blue blazer with matching slacks—everyday from our village in Fairview to Makati (hitching a ride with my mom on her way to Malate so I wouldn’t have to spend on transportation), asking bank security guards and people on the street where such and such buildings were.

  The response to my query was standard: The airline company wasn’t hiring at this time, but they would keep me in mind when something opened up. I’d leave one of and ten resumes I brought along with me everyday, smile at the receptionist, and leave the air-conditioned comfort of their office for the harsh sun outside.

  Fast food stores became my pit stop where I would sit and gather strength after being turned away by yet another airline. The stores also served as a pick-up point for me and my mom—I’d wait for her to swing by for me after work at around 6 p.m. and we’d head home together.

  While waiting for mom to arrive, I’d try not to stare at girls who looked about my age but were obviously employed—I mean, they could afford a burger. I, on the other hand, would reach inside my bag for broken Skyflakes.

  It became harder and harder to face my mom at the end of yet another day of fruitless job searching. At first, she’d ask me, as I got in the car, “So how did it go?”

  “It didn’t go,” I’d say. After a while, we both got tired of the same exchange. Getting desperate, I ditched the airlines and went for the classifieds. I clipped any ad that looked remotely promising, a tack that got me, among other things, this close to selling encyclopedias.

  My hopes were fast waning that, I swear, even the smile on the ID pictures I stapled to my resumes was beginning to look forced—pained, even. Hang in there, sport, I’d tell her, as her eyes started to smart with tears, before leaving her there, with my resume, in the hands of another receptionist.

  I didn’t realize I had been going to interviews in basically the same color scheme until another hopeful beside me at some other office reception area smiled and said hi.

  “I’ve seen you twice before in other interviews,” the girl said.

  Really? And I hadn’t even noticed her.

  “You were wearing the same outfit,” she said with a smile.

  Bitch. Apparently, my mom had noticed this, too. She offered to loan me money for new clothes, but I refused, having risen to stratospheric levels of defensiveness that the oxygen was being sucked out of my brain and there was just no logic, no rational thought left anymore.

  On the third month of rabid job-hunting that saw more doors closing at my face than at the Electrolux man, I lay down on my bed, still dressed in my navy blue ensemble (the darker version) and, with a heavy and weak arm, raised the white flag. Fine. I am a loser.

  When my mom asked me to join her at the travel agency for the third time, I said, sure, OK Losers had no choice. Worse, losers had no money. I just realized, losing my student status at home also lost me my precious student’s allowance. All the spending that I needed to do would have to be with my own money, which I had to earn.

  Besides, having no money made me Gabe’s slave. He was working as a graphic artist for a small design company, and was earning just a little over minimum wage, but compared to me he was a magnate. We only watched the movies he liked and ate at his restaurant of choice because he was paying. Not that he insisted. But I didn’t feel I had any say in such decisions because I had nothing to contribute. Losers were not allowed to speak.

  The only high point of my loser existence was when my sisters were home. They always had exciting news to share, and I would keep asking and prodding—anything to get them talking about their lives some more so that when it came around to me, it would be 4 a.m. and everyone would be too exhausted to protest the idea of going to bed.

  Then Helen moved out, saying it was time she learned to fend for herself. I felt abandoned. Now I really had to get used to my own company. For the first time, it was just going to be me in our bedroom. I wished she had asked me to join her—I mean, I wanted to move, too, but however would I afford rent with my salary?

  My mom, naturally, didn’t understand my sister’s move. I mean, what Filipina mom did? Every unmarried daughter’s move to her own place brought out images, in a Filipina mom’s head, of debauchery and godlessness, and “What will people say?” took on the gravity of a life-and-death issue.

  My mom couldn’t stop talking about Helen—about what happened to that daughter of hers, and what did she eat, eh she can’t cook, I’m sure her place is a mess, she doesn’t know how to pick up after herself, and where does she entertain Raffy, I don’t remember seeing couches in the lobby. Duh!

  My mom was in such a pathetic state of denial about her daughter’s sex life (yup, mom, Helen was already enjoying one), I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble with my version of a “Hello! McFly!” I figured, she would find out when she was ready. Besides, my sister wasn’t seeing Raffy anymore; she was now exchanging spit with a pilot named Martin whom I didn’t like at all. I met him once when I slept over at Helen’s apartment.

  Martin was the sort of guy who went only for the pretty girls, as a trophy. He had a thin-lipped smile that looked like it took such an effort to muster, and a salt-and-pepper goatee that suggested he was trying too hard to look younger. Both of them had just come from a flight and Helen, giddy as a teenager, introduced us.

  “What do you think?” she asked me when he had gone.

  “He looks rather... mature,” I said, when what I really wanted to say was “Can somebody say, Golden Acres? Hello, Ate, guranggutan alert!”

  Martin was about our dad’s age, 46, but really, he was a little boy at heart, my sister said. “My little boyee,” she cooed.

  Yuck!

  Martin was married, Helen continued, but... no no no, wait, it’s not what you think. He got the girl pregnant, an accident, really, because they were just about to break up when it happened, so they had to get married, and it was too late when he realized it was a big mistake because the wife’s not his soul mate, you know.

  “And now he’s found you,” I concluded.

  Helen shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so. I don’t know.”

  “How many kids do they have?” I asked.

  “Four.”

  “Wow.” Helen didn’t see through this? “Three more accidents. You’d think they’d learn after the first one.”

  “Well, they’re married. Alangan naman they won’t have sex.”

  What the—? “But his heart belongs to you,” I said, wryly. “Not to mention his dick.”

  Helen looked as though I had reached over and struck her in the face. She turned a deep shade of red. “I know how it looks like to other people, and I don’t expect you to understand, but only the two of us know what’s really going on. We’re still trying to figure out a way for him to...”

  Leave his wife of a gazillion years as well as his four children, file for an annulment which costs P200,000 at the least, split the property, get engaged, which involves another pricey ring, plan another wedding (imagine the damage to his bank account), invite friends and family (of course, some, if not many, of them may not come in sympathy for the ex-wife), and vow for the second time in his lifetime to love, honor, and cherish you. Great, Helen, I thought. Just great. Show me a married man who will go through all that trouble instead of just bedding you for a few years until you get sick to your stomach of being the Other Woman and I will show you the fucking Tooth Fairy.

  My instincts told me to say all these to Helen. Scream them at her unt
il she shook in her FA’s pumps. But she really did seem to be into this Martin clown, so I just offered a weak, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do, Hil.”

  And because she was Helen, I believed her.

  Rise of Anti-Pinoy Sentiment

  The kitchen smelled of ripe mangoes. My mom and I had gone grocery shopping the night before and she had bought bags and bags of them for Hannah, who was coming home that night and was experimenting with a float. She had hired herself as one of dad’s suppliers of desserts at The Bourbon Blues.

  “Good for Hannah,” my mom said, as she picked a mango from one of the grocery bags and sat across me at the breakfast table. “She’s artistic but she also has business sense.”

  Say you’re a woman shopping for ripe mangoes, the sort of woman who likes to buy her fruits in the neighborhood grocery store instead of an outdoor fruit stand. So today you are at a grocery store shopping for ripe mangoes.

  “You want some, Hil?” my mom asked, holding the bottom slice of a mango out to me.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

  Let’s assume you’re a woman of normal/average intelligence; you know what ripe mangoes look like. You pick what looks to you to be the best ones—smooth, firm, yellow—and expect them to be juicy and delicious.

  I watched my mom spoon the fleshy yellow fruit.

  Then you go home and slice one only to find a good part of the insides rotten. But since you are a patient woman, you think, that’s fine, you can just eat the good parts, suffer the bad parts a little and the next day get better ones—at the same store because look, it’s so near where you live. How convenient is that?

  “Are you sure you don’t want?” she asked me, offering her spoon.