America Is Not the Heart

by Elaine Castillo

  She descended the stairs in the outfit, facing Paz and Roni, her arms outstretched to show the look off for them. Paz’s face lit up. Roni jumped to her feet, outraged. You look nice! No fair!

  A few days later, she saw Pol leaving the house on his day off. He was dressed in a tan linen suit and polished tan leather shoes, a cream shirt, a wide bronze and gold tie, Windsor knot thick and tight at his throat, the kind of clothes Hero was used to seeing him wear in the Philippines, and which she had never seen him wear in the States. His security guard uniform consisted of a black polyester blazer, gray polyester slacks, a white oxford shirt, and a navy blue sweater that had the company’s name, Exar, embroidered onto the left side of his chest, just over the heart. To the uniform he usually added one of his many ties, the only item of clothing he regularly wore that Hero recognized from the Philippines. To the tie, he’d add a gold tiepin; to the shirt, he’d add gold cufflinks. Hero knew they’d been heirlooms from his father; in her childhood she’d seen Hamin with similar ones.

  Perhaps he had bought a suit for Roni’s birthday, and was testing it out? Hero thought about it for the three hours it took for Pol to return to the house. When he did, he smiled sunnily at Roni doing her homework at the kitchen table, then at Hero.

  Nag-guapo ka, Hero said in Ilocano.

  Pol didn’t even look down at his clothes in modesty, but his smile broadened. Agyamanak unay.

  What’s the occasion? Hero asked.

  Just taking some pictures, Pol said. He approached Roni and leaned over her shoulder, peering at her homework and pressing his cheek to her cheek. The lapel of his blazer brushed against the back of her neck, and she swatted at it. It’s scratchy, she said, but kept her cheek pressed against Pol’s nevertheless, nuzzling.

  * * *

  Upon entering the community center the afternoon of the party, Hero realized that she had grossly underestimated the labor that had been going on behind the scenes to make the event happen. There were a handful of women Hero didn’t know hanging up streamers across the windows, blowing up balloons and attaching them to the backs of chairs, folding napkins into shapes, arranging fresh pink roses into what looked like glass vases, but turned out to be thick plastic.

  When Paz arrived in the banquet hall, an eruption of Pangasinan began amongst the women. Then, seeing Hero shrink and go quiet, they switched to Tagalog and took on a gossipy tone ostensibly to make Hero feel more comfortable, involved, but which only made her feel more exposed. She didn’t even know who anyone was talking about, at least not enough for idle chatter. At one table, a group of men were sitting, starting in on a cooler of beer; the women’s husbands and boyfriends, Hero supposed. Dodo! Lerma yelled. Hero didn’t understand the rest of the command, but one man stood and started helping Lerma hang streamers from the highest point of the windows, too high for her to reach even standing on a chair.

  Roni idolizes you, confided one of the women, either Gina or Diana, the wife of Paz’s brother, Boyet. Roni had been taken by Paz and Gloria to the bathroom to get changed into her dress.

  I don’t know about that, Hero said, though her face grew warm with pleasure. She helped Gina or Diana unfurl another large white tablecloth over one of the thirty or so tables, skimmed her hand down the fabric to smooth out any wrinkles. Gina or Diana’s gaze passed over Hero’s hand.

  What happened to your hand?

  Nobody had ever looked at Hero’s hands and then immediately asked about them. Even Rosalyn had let weeks pass over in silence before bringing the subject up.

  I—I broke them badly a few years ago, Hero explained, the warmth draining from her face.

  Did you get surgery for that? Did they put a plate in?

  Wrong-footed, Hero explained that yes, but by then it was too late—

  Gina or Diana pressed on. And range of motion? How is it? You can drive?

  Ah—fine, Hero replied, trying not to stutter. It’s not bad. It looks worse than it is. I drive.

  It looks pretty bad, Gina or Diana agreed easily. Have you done PT for it?

  Some, back in the Philippines. Sorry, Hero said, her brow wrinkling. Are you a PT, or—

  Gina or Diana laughed, hands up, backing off.

  Just nosy! I’m an RN now, but I wanted to be a PT. You should ask Pacita to recommend you a good one, she knows people. You might have good range of motion now but if you push it, you’ll put yourself at risk for early arthritis. You’re still so young!

  Hero was still holding an unfolded tablecloth. O-kay. Thank you. I’ll ask.

  Same thing happened to my boyfriend, Gina or Diana added, gesturing for the tablecloth. Boxer. It’s serious, but pretty common. Rolando fracture, ’di ba?

  Hero felt the cloth stretch away from her, and together they spread it over the next table. She was starting to smile; the shrinking feeling of discomfort had ebbed away. She hadn’t appreciated how much she missed being around people who talked medical like it was everyday conversation, as ordinary as talking about the weather. Pol used to be like that, in Vigan, used to name all the bones in the hand, used to walk Hero through the points of transfemoral amputation. There was comfort in talking about injury with people who dealt with injury all the time; the deep, practical reassurance of it. Diana had seen injuries like this before. Serious, but pretty common—those were her words. To Hero, they were tantamount to words of love. Yeah. Rolando, Hero said.

  * * *

  Rosalyn showed up with nearly the entire crew of people who usually populated the restaurant on Thursday and Friday nights: Jaime and JR carrying stacks and stacks of trays, nodding at Hero, Boy, and Adela doing the same, Ruben and Isagani wheeling in their equipment, Rochelle coming up to give Hero a joyous and somewhat unexpected hug. Janelle, Lea, and Maricris followed behind, along with Dante and a couple of other men Hero had only had passing conversations with, whose names she could’t remember.

  There wasn’t all that much serving to be done, Hero knew; all they had to do was put down the trays and set up the portable heaters beneath them to make sure the food stayed warm. Rosalyn met Hero’s eye and stopped for a moment, then lifted her hand in a rigid wave. She seemed apprehensive, for some reason, and started transferring all of that nervous energy onto her brother: nagging him about where he should put the food down, why he’d forgotten the plates, did he remember to turn the stove off, was he finished with his homework for the week.

  Just from listening to their conversation, Hero figured out that her brother was in high school, probably his last year of it, that he was quiet and withdrawn in a way that was different from the way Hero, or even Jaime, could be quiet and withdrawn; that his quiet wasn’t a form of reserve, concealing a self-possessed and observant humor, the quiet of someone who just needed to be teased out by the right person. His was the quiet of fear, ungainly and overgrown. He gave off an air of not being sure what to do with his own body, mottled beard already on his chin, but still kid-soft and fatty in his shoulders and stomach, like he’d grown into something he still couldn’t quite believe was himself, his limbs full of barely restrained power, so that it always seemed like he might drop everything he was carrying, or accidentally crush the barbecue sticks as he tried to arrange them in neater rows from where they’d been jostled by the car ride. He was taller than Boy, taller than Adela, taller than Rosalyn and Hero, taller than most of the men at the party. He’d already developed a hunch. When Hero spoke to him, just to ask him if there was another tray of pancit she should put down next to the one she’d just put in place, he talked in a stuttery mumble, not meeting her eyes, until Adela came in and saved him, bearing the missing tray.

  Rosalyn stopped in front of Hero and didn’t say anything for a moment. Then blurted out:

  You look like the Purple Rose.

  Hero blinked at her. Rosalyn shrugged with one shoulder and went on, You know. From The Glass Mask. At the blank look on Hero’s face, she muttered, Wh
at, you forgot about it already—

  You’re wearing a skirt, Hero said in lieu of admitting that she had.

  Rosalyn kept her gaze level with Hero’s, steady or pretending to be. Yeah.

  It looks nice.

  Rosalyn didn’t break her gaze but let out a breath through her nose, low, so that Hero might have been imagining it, how measured and shaky it sounded. Then Rosalyn turned her head, acting as if someone was calling her, even though Hero hadn’t heard anybody. They still need my help with the serving, Rosalyn demonstrably bullshitted, still not looking at Hero. I’m, uh. gonna go.

  The adults started arguing about when to bring out Roni’s birthday cake so that she could blow out the candles, before or after everybody had already gotten their food from the buffet. Hero backed away from the debate, mostly between Paz and her sisters, and saw Pol doing the same.

  As Hero hung around the back of the hall, leaning against a wall next to the laid-out food and coolers full of ice, she saw Rochelle approaching with a hand raised, smiling. Could you get me a beer?

  Hero picked the first beer out of the cooler, the cold momentarily making her hand lock up so that she almost dropped the bottle; Rochelle jerked forward to grab it by the base, still smiling. Shit, how many have you had already, we’re like twenty minutes in! Hero forced herself to laugh, but found that she didn’t have to force herself.

  Rochelle leaned against the wall next to Hero. So I meant to ask, what happened on New Year’s?

  She said it plainly, smiling, like it wasn’t the first time anyone except Jaime had spoken to Hero about it.

  Hero coughed and played it off like a burp. Uh. Did Jaime say something?

  Not really, Rochelle said, gazing at the stage where Isagani was making exaggerated movements to the opening strains of I Wanna Dance with Somebody. After you left, he just said you were talking with some dude in the house.

  Who bet him that I was gonna get ax-murdered?

  Rochelle started laughing. He told you that? Janelle. Don’t worry about her. She thinks everyone’s gonna get ax-murdered if they look at someone sideways. Her dad used to be a cop. She looked at Hero out of the corner of her eyes. Was it any good?

  Hero shrugged, leaning against the wall, one foot propped against it.

  Rochelle laughed again, turning her body to fully face Hero now, reaching out to drag a chair over from the nearest table so she could sit on it backward, loosely hugging the backrest.

  You’re gonna have to give me more than that—last time I saw a dick that wasn’t Gani’s, it was a sixty-year-old dude and I was giving him a sponge bath.

  Does Gani know you like older men? Hero tried to smile, knew her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t want to talk about New Year’s.

  Rochelle gazed at her, arms still folded across the top of the backrest. Rosalyn said you used to be a doctor, she remarked. Are you gonna try to get a job here in the Bay?

  Hero shook her head.

  Rochelle made a sympathetic sound. Bullshit with the degree? I know tons of nurses who just came over who used to be like pediatricians and radiologists and shit and couldn’t get those jobs here. Had to start all over with a nursing degree or something totally different.

  Something like that, Hero said. I’m fine doing what I’m doing now.

  Okay, Rochelle said, shrugging. Well, if you do ever decide to do nursing, let me know, we’re always understaffed at the retirement home. The folks are okay. I mean, there’s some wild shit sometimes with the old Vietnam vets if you look Asian or whatever, but. The pay’s good. I mean, my rent gets paid on time, let’s put it that way.

  Hero knew that Rochelle, unlike most of the friends in Rosalyn’s gang, didn’t live with her parents, but in her own apartment in Berryessa, near the flea market. Jaime had mentioned once that Gani still officially lived with his family in Milpitas, but spent most of his time at Rochelle’s apartment; they were practically engaged, but there was something in his pride that kept him from making it official. Jaime said he thought it was because Rochelle obviously made more money than Gani, who was still trying to mostly DJ full time, still dreaming about winning the DMC World DJ Championships.

  I don’t think I’d be a very good nurse, Hero said. It always seemed much harder than being a doctor.

  Pretty much, Rochelle boasted toothily. Then she shrugged. I don’t know. Even if you don’t think you’d be good now, you’d probably learn on the job. If I just did stuff I was naturally at, I’d still be a B-girl right now. With hella neck problems and bad carpal tunnel. Look at Gani. Lugging all that equipment around.

  Following your dreams.

  Rochelle snorted. Yeah, right. Nobody tells you that your dreams might be dumb as hell.

  Hero could feel her smile widening. You think having dreams is dumb?

  Nah, it’s not like that, but—I mean, it’s fine, whatever, but—like, I believe in bills paid and people fed. That’s my dream. Rochelle shrugged. Maybe I’m cold. That’s what Gani says.

  Then she cocked her head to the side, eyes half closed, mouth crooked, her gaze not on Hero, not on anyone in the room.

  I was pretty good at suicides, though, Rochelle said. But all those moves are way easier to do when you’re younger.

  * * *

  After the cake, after the singing, after the offering of presents that would only be opened at home, they kept with tradition for the first dance: Roni and Pol took the floor. The live band was made up of four Filipino men, all bakla, all dressed in barong tagalogs. They were jokingly calling themselves the Mabuhok Singers, after the Mabuhay Singers. The song they started playing was one Hero recognized from some of the karaoke nights at the restaurant, Jose Mari Chan’s Beautiful Girl.

  Coooooorrrny, Rosalyn heckled, seated across from Hero at a table near the back, but the smile on her face was real.

  It’d been so long since her seventh birthday; Hero couldn’t remember if she, like Roni, had danced with her father alone on some dance floor, or one of the inner courtyards of the De Vera house, to some terrible love song, popular at the time, forgettable forever if not for having been chosen for this moment. Pol had one hand on Roni’s shoulder, one hand tucking stray hairs behind her ear, even though earlier in the evening Janelle and Rochelle had made a point of shellacking her ponytail with hairspray, Rochelle covering her eyes to shield her from the mist.

  Hero watched Roni throw her arms around her father’s waist, settling her face snug against his belly, blissful, not even bothering to do anything more than hug him and sway. She had a thought, then, sudden as a knife between the ribs: for all she knew, Teresa, Eddie, and Amihan were dead, while she was still alive. Sitting in a community center hall in Milpitas, watching her cousin turn eight years old. That this could be the actual condition of the world—a world in which there was still corny music, lechon kawali, heavy but passing rain, televised sports, yearly holidays, caring families, requited love—seemed to Hero a joke of such surreal proportions the only conclusion she could make of it in the end was that it wasn’t a joke at all; and if it wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t a dream, that meant it was just. Real life. Ordinary life.

  There was a feeling in Hero’s chest she’d felt vaguely before, but had never thought to poke at, knowing instinctively that to let it lie would be better. Now she knew the feeling was—hate. Just a tiny, tiny hate, humble and missable, heavy as lead, nothing in comparison to the true affection she knew she felt for the girl, the everyday devotion she’d been consecrating to her since the moment they met. Just a tiny, tiny hate, circulating through her blood, occasionally reaching the heart, then passing out again. It was that tiny hate that spoke in her when Hero thought to herself what a formidable thing it was, what a terror, really—a girl who was loved from the very beginning.

  Then she heard it back, the sound of her own thought, like someone was replaying it through a loudspeaker, lingering on each wor
d, making the playback count. Disgust surged up within her so fast she felt herself dry-heaving, her hand closed in a limp fist on her lap, and when a voice in her head spoke up to admonish her, the voice wasn’t her own. Jealous of a kid, donya, really?

  The lead singer was crooning, I just knew that I’d love again after a long, long while—

  * * *

  There were things Hero had hoped to cast off forever, and then there were things that wouldn’t dislodge, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how deep in the mountain she went. And then there were things she thought she’d never lose, dailinesses she hadn’t only taken for granted but taken for eternal—things that had vanished in an instant, forever, like the minute she’d left for Ilagan City, her turn to make the usual supply run, not even saying good-bye to Teresa or Eddie, thinking she’d be back in time to assist the midwives with a young cadre who looked ready to go into labor.

  Instead she was pulled over on the highway in broad daylight, just outside of Tuguegarao, dragged out by her hair so she felt a chunk of it near her neck tear off at the root, choked out at first and then when that was taking too long, knocked fully unconscious with the butt of a rifle, someone from behind she couldn’t see, never saw.

  When she woke up she was in what looked like a maid’s room, and probably was; a military safe house, an ordinary domicile from the outside, nothing to draw the eye of a passerby. It took her two weeks to be able to talk at all, but she pretended that they’d done permanent damage to her vocal cords and kept up the silent act for another week. If she couldn’t talk, they reasoned, then we’ll give her a pen. Though they didn’t literally give her a pen; they gave her a Crayola crayon, used. She pretended she couldn’t write, scribbled shapes when they asked her to give up names, which was when they put the first cigarette out on her belly. And how they figured out that she could, in fact, make sounds.