“Yes, I think I’ll make it.” A thirty-minute skating session wasn’t going to kill him. “Why is skating part of the tour?”
“Because we’re good at it.”
“Because we win competitions?”
“I mean it’s been around for a long time, and we’ve been able to train skaters and hockey players to win medals, and still the main point of any article written about them is how cute tropical country with a rink. It undermines what they’re capable of, and what they’re already doing, and it keeps people from investing emotionally in it because it’s seen as a novelty.”
No tour of the metro he even imagined taking would have this as a stop, that was true. Except Naya’s, because she saw a different city. “How often is the rink part of your tour then?”
“This is the first time,” Naya said. “You’re lucky.”
“I keep being lucky in oh so many ways.”
She grinned. “That’s the spirit. Cal works at the rink now and has a special project going on, and we get to see the rehearsal for it. Do you know what happens to figure skaters when they retire?”
Ben did not. Even the term “retirement” seemed odd, because his memory of Calinda Valerio was fairly recent, and she surely wasn’t much older than they were. “They coach?”
“If they want to keep skating, they’ll need to join a company, one that travels the world to do shows most likely. If they can’t do that, or would rather not, they stay and coach. Or...they move on. Become nurses, engineers, moms, whatever they felt they put on hold to skate for the country.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them skate past where they came in, again. Twice around the rink now, and he was gaining confidence.
“Calinda’s trying something new,” Naya said. “Trying to create shows that people will pay to see, and made here. In-house team. Local skaters. All that. You’ll see it later. And look at that, time’s almost up.”
Almost up? Right when he had gotten the hang of navigating on the slippery surface. He hadn’t done a thing to impress her yet—not that he learned or remembered any tricks from before. Better to keep the injury count to zero.
Eventually he did get to meet Naya’s friend and national team for figure skating medalist Calinda Valerio. At thirty years old, she was the new creative director for Six 32 Central’s rink, and their group was getting a special preview of an all-new project. For the next hour or so, they would be watching the technical rehearsal of their new show, an adaptation of Ibong Adarna. On ice.
He had seen a stage production of Ibong Adarna in high school, like most Filipino kids. So he had that memory to pull from as he watched from the third row of benches set up for an audience, with a view of the rink that allowed them to see over the boards.
Original music, original choreography, a shortened version of the story, with Filipino skaters and performers. When the rehearsal started and the ensemble took their places on the ice, he noticed that half of them seemed young, in their teens and pre-teens. A few were a little older, taller, rounder, but when the music started and they began to skate in sync, he sat up and paid attention.
And then he got overwhelmed.
This was too real.
Calinda was calling out beats and directions from the ice, a microphone attached to her cheek. When watched this way he could see that it wasn’t perfect just yet. Someone wobbled, someone skated slightly off beat. But still, this was no casual hobby for any of the dozen or so people on the ice. Each little move was a fraction of what they dedicated years of their life to, hours of training, and all of their focus.
Too real. Before he realized it, before he could stop himself, he had pushed himself up and he was making his way down to the floor, and heading for the mall exit. He made it as far as the park, the same park they’d lingered at before the rink stop, and there he stopped to breathe. It was freaking hot, sometime past three p.m., and no one else was there. Safe enough then to go under the shade and try to collect himself, not knowing how far he’d scattered.
“Hey.”
Naya’s voice was gentle, and a polite distance away.
His glasses had fogged up from the rapid change in the surrounding climate, and he took them off. Wiping them on his shirt helped him not look directly at her, anyway. “Hey,” he said, thankful that his voice didn’t shake. “I’m heading back in. I just...I needed…”
“Needed what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t like Ibong Adarna?”
“On the contrary. It looks like it’ll be amazing. I mean, I can imagine with enough practice they’ll soon catch up to their director’s ambition. It just...overwhelmed me.”
He wanted to explain why, but she wasn’t asking. It was, actually, as if she already knew. “I’m going to hand you a bottle of water, okay? I’ll need to come closer.”
“I’m fine. Come as close as you want.”
She smirked. “At least you’re making jokes now.” The bottle of water was a welcome coolness in his palm. “I’m going to touch your back, as a gesture of comfort, okay.”
That she did—and holy hell it was comforting. He sagged toward her, without meaning to, but she was a stable shoulder and everything else to lean on and she let him lean.
“Water,” she said. “Drink. And just a sec—I’m getting out of this sweater. Fuck, it’s hot.”
He was too close to see anything but a curtain of soft purple sweater swooshing past his face. This was the right time to drink water, like she ordered. He was feeling more composed; his breathing seemed to have gone back to normal.
“Calinda is milking a hobby,” he said.
“What?”
“Calinda Valerio. That’s what she’s doing, isn’t it? She loves what she does, and is unable to find opportunities to continue to do it, so she had to create them.”
“It’s a radical demotion of her commitment to the sport to call it a hobby but yeah—that’s what she’s doing. It’s what she had to do, if she wanted to accomplish things.”
See, he wasn’t ready for that. Ben’s career was from election to election, three-year or six-year intervals of life planning. It was becoming clearer and clearer to him that he was as in control of his today as a newbie on the ice.
“You don’t have to figure it all out today, Ben,” came her voice in his ear. “This is a moment. Don’t pin everything you’ve got on this day. It’s too much pressure.”
“You say it’ll get better?”
“You see anyone else here who has a better quitting story than me? No? Looks like you’ll have to take my word for it.”
9
As the van predictably crawled from Taguig to Pasay, Naya talked a little about the Ibong Adarna show. She was proud of this tour group today—after they watched the rehearsal they were able to get some Q&A time with Calinda and the skaters, and they were asking questions, noting schedules, asking if they could purchase tickets. And as well they should; Calinda was pouring her heart and soul into this, and while it wasn’t going to replace the money and travel opportunities joining a international company would, it was at least a small step in that direction.
But if she wanted to make herself curl up into a ball and cry, all Naya needed to do was remind herself that everything seemed to be a baby step. So many people working so hard to take a freaking baby step. So many things were so difficult, and she wasn’t sure if it was the world changing, or just that she got older and saw it for what it was. The idea that you could do that thing you love and change the world...did that really happen? Because if no one ever found out about it, then what world did it change? Naya thought of all the artists who stopped creating, just among those she knew of. All the well-meaning establishments, all the non-profits, all the tour concepts, travel-more campaigns...coming and going, whimpers in the greater noise of a world generally not caring about any of this.
And this is where you stop because you still need to get these people to the next place.
When small talk
was over, she put her earphones in, huddled low in her van seat, and searched for Ben Cacho on YouTube. This wasn’t out of line for her, even if other people found it strange. Years of her life were on video, online somewhere. Surely other people realized that it was the same for them? Even if the minutes or hours total varied, there was a professional or personal trail online and some of it would be so easy to find.
The top video was a speech he gave at a senior high school almost a year ago. Naya sank lower, making sure no one could see what she was watching, and pressed play. Applause, an empty podium, and then Ben walking up to it, adjusting the microphone. His blazer-shirt-tie combo was almost identical to what he had on that morning when she met him, but the circumstances were different, his demeanor was different. On this video he was owning each step, flashing a boyish charming smile as he fiddled with the equipment.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I’ve gotten much taller since I was last here.”
Cute. Naya would have rolled her eyes if she weren’t so falling-for-it.
“I was asked to come here to talk to you about what I do. My official position at work is speechwriter. But what I do, believe it or not, is learn history, and write history. Don’t yawn, because this is not boring, and maybe you’ll sit up straighter in class when you realize that history is being made every day. Ms. Peregrino, you can thank me later. I’ve been asked to come over to tell all of you how I got my job, and in short, it takes a lot of work to be lucky.
“I got my job because I needed one. I was in law school and for many reasons, I couldn’t rely on my parents for money. But I didn’t want to quit. My classmate was working off and on for then-congressman David Alano, who was going to speak at the opening of a new healthcare center. One day, my friend asked me to cover for him because he didn’t know how to write a speech about a healthcare center.
“At the time, it didn’t seem like my moment had arrived. I stepped up because I needed money, but I also had an idea of how to write this, which was more motivation than my friend had. Still, the idea came from the worst possible place, and that was losing my mother a few years before. I had so many thoughts and feelings about access to medication, women’s health, early detection. I poured all of it into a draft—like I had written my heart and soul, and that got me noticed. That speech got edited to pieces, by the way, and the version David delivered only retained maybe fifteen percent of the original, but it was better, because it wasn’t supposed to be about me. I was lucky, having an idea like that when the opportunity came along—but that’s not what makes a good speechwriter all the time. When I joined their team, I didn’t only draft speeches; I eventually edited the drafts of others. When I learned how to get a message across but not make it about me—“
“Excuse me, Naya?”
Rochelle’s presence behind her might not have been too sudden or too sneaky, but Naya was also rather shamefully stalking someone online so it was automatically too sudden. Her phone slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor, but thankfully screen-side down. “Yes, Rochelle?”
“I wasn’t sure if I could get a few minutes with you, just the two of us,” Rochelle said, “but I’m applying to colleges next year and I wonder if I could ask you for advice?”
“Ask Ben too,” her mother said. “While we’re here. We never get to see him.”
“Mom, we can talk to Kuya Ben another time.”
“Scoot over here, Naya, so we can talk to both of you. There’s room in the back. I’m sure he’ll have advice to share too.”
So that was how Naya and Ben ended up on the back row of the van together, and how she confirmed that comforting soap-skin scent was his, and not from her clothes somehow, how she noticed the vibration of his knee as he tapped his foot while they talked. Was that a nervous habit? Was he nervous?
Based on earlier snippets of conversation, he was related to Mari and Rochelle, but they didn’t have the closeness that family who at least saw each other regularly seemed to have. Rochelle was out here updating him on years of her life, and he definitely was as unaware of it as Naya was.
“…I just know I don’t want law school,” Rochelle was saying.
“It’s breaking her dad’s heart,” Mari added. “Ben, tell her she shouldn’t rule it out completely. Rochelle, Ben was so good in law school.”
Naya saw him cringe, and maybe that was part of the problem. His poker face, also known as ruthless lawyer face, needed work. Or today was really not the day for him to have to do career counseling for an impressionable young person.
Shit, it wasn’t the best day for her to do that either.
“I think it’s about the kind of life you want to secure,” Naya said, wondering if she was saving him properly. “You want to hit all the right notes, you know? Something you’re good at so you can move up and grow, something you’re interested in so you have an instinct for it that bored uninterested colleagues won’t…”
“Something that will carry you through hard times, if life happens,” Ben added.
“It’s just that you seem to be so good at this, Naya,” Rochelle said. “And I’m interested in all of these things. Sometimes I feel I like too many things? It’s so much pressure to choose one career. And right now—I thought I’d be old enough to know by now.”
Ben laughed and not without bitterness. “It always feels that way.”
“If Rochelle wanted to be someone like you, Ben,” Mari said, “what would she need to do?”
“Like me how?”
“A speechwriter,” Naya reminded him.
“She can write,” Mari said of her daughter. “She’s been asked to edit her classmates’ speeches before.”
Rochelle rolled her eyes. “Fixing a presentation for an English report is different, Mom.”
“Still. When else can we ask Kuya Ben how to do it?”
“You learn as much as you can,” Ben said. “You get familiar with research. Fact checking. Giving sources proper credit. Knowing where to find them, even. And then, composing your argument in a compelling way.”
“I don’t like debate,” Rochelle said.
“It’s not debate, not all the time. It’s a position. Something needs to be done, or defended, or upheld.”
“She can learn to do that,” Mari shrugged. “If she puts her mind to it.”
“Then she has to look for opportunities to practice. Intern for people she eventually wants to write for. Get the chance to work for the people who do the writing.”
“You trained under Elmo Laranas. He’s a legend among media practitioners.”
Ben winced, Naya saw it clear as day. “I worked with Elmo when he was heading the campaign, and when he became chief of staff. All the writers were trained by Tana Cortes.”
“Oh, I’m not familiar with that name.”
“She was an outside consultant. She didn’t...she didn’t join the staff when David got elected.”
“So what you’re saying is find someone to apprentice with, like Elmo Laranas?”
“No,” Ben said, trying to keep his voice level. “I guess I’d say try to find someone like Tana Cortes.”
“That’s years of work, right?” Rochelle was not feeling this.
“It’ll always be,” Naya said. “For anything.”
“But it’s years of work for someone you might not like,” Rochelle said. “Someone who might have done shady things. Someone who might be using your words to cover up the shady things.”
Ben laughed and tried to smother it in his wrist. “Tita Mari, your daughter has principles. Don’t send her off to politics.”
“Your boss has principles,” Mari retorted. “I campaigned for David Alano among all my friends.”
“He does have them, though,” he relented.
“I campaigned for him because he’s at least trying to turn certain things around. It’s scary, what we’re allowing the future to become for Rochelle, for our kids. That means we should be helping these people, encouraging them, right? Because a b
roken system just needs those willing to fix it.”
“Maybe,” Rochelle said, “I want to do all of that but not really how Kuya Ben’s done it. I mean look at Naya—she’s taught me so much.”
Wow. Naya pressed her lips together, but then all eyes were on her like they were expecting her to say something. “Career paths are a personal thing,” she said diplomatically, she hoped. “I’m doing this because I can. At some point if people change their minds, to protect themselves or, you know, just so they can live with themselves, that’s fine too.”
“I want to know what Naya studied,” Rochelle sort-of whined.
“Media and film,” Naya told her. “Back then I did it because it seemed fun, to watch movies and be graded on that, but later it made sense to me because I was studying platforms. I was studying how to use an evolving thing.”
“That requires a personality that can adapt,” Ben said.
“I guess I am that, so it worked.”
“But how do you know you can adapt?” he continued. “How do you find out, as someone Rochelle’s age, that you can study a platform because you already have the temperament and skill for it? How does it feel like that, instead of feeling like you’re fucking up most of the time?”
Naya blinked. “Language, Ben.”
Rochelle giggled. “It’s fine, Naya. And it’s a legit question.”
She didn’t know how to answer it. She was also very close to offering to add liquor to their dinner, but she wasn’t going to say that to the seventeen-year-old in front of her mother.
Maybe she would offer it privately to Ben instead.
10
Pasay, 5:50 p.m.
* * *
So now he was wondering where Naya had been, all his life.
They went to different universities. She worked while he was in law school. They were never introduced. Had no common friends. Really? No one, out of everyone in their age bracket, who worked in similar projects? Not a true friend among them all. He almost—maybe for real—wished he had known her longer, because no one else made sense of what had happened to him the same way that she did.
What Kind of Day Page 5