I’m sure it’s the exact same thing that happens when we are. I don’t need the details.
Now my appetite was ruined. It was one thing to be accused of only wanting privacy to fool around with somebody, and another thing to have been kissed but not invited to the bachelor sex pad. Only one of those could be true, and yet I was offended in theory both ways regardless.
How annoying. And pathetic.
"I don’t even talk to anybody else here," Ethan was saying. "You have more options."
"Options? How polite. Because I’m friendlier? Because I talk to people and let them talk to me?"
"I don’t feel the need to get to know every single person in this building."
"I’m not going out of my way to find them. You asked me if my cousin was hot!"
"It was a joke. Fine, obviously not a good one."
"You see me at lunch with another person and you think I’m making options. But yes I am aware how it works, Ethan, if I wanted to get laid. It usually doesn’t require this much talking."
A muscle twitched near Ethan’s jaw. "You’re confusing me with somebody who treated you like shit. I’m sorry I brought it up."
"I don’t know. Maybe Rin and I should be having drinks about this, she’ll probably have a different opinion."
Oh god. I knew that it was going to set him off, but I said it anyway. His face and eyes registered what looked to me was his version of exactly what I was feeling, an anger that had to be pushed under the surface and held down.
He motioned for the check. "I’ve told you before, even if it’s none of anyone’s business," he said, tense, as he fumbled for his wallet and picked out hundreds, "That mess was my fault, I admit it, but only because I didn’t have the guts to end it early. She’s great but I never felt that I wanted her. I stayed for as long as I did because I thought that was the best that it was ever going to get. Then this transfer, and yes, it was the perfect time to tell her that she didn’t have to spend the rest of her life with me. If that reminds you of other dicks you’ve met then I guess I am one, but I remained faithful the entire time and all of you can choose to believe it or not, I don’t care."
Despite the hours of conversation and our mouths getting well enough acquainted, I still thought of Ethan as someone I barely knew. Until this, which reminded me of the treatment the people who barely knew him actually got.
"Look," I said, remembering what this dinner was about. "I’m grateful that you’re helping me out here. I do need a job. Can’t we just—can’t we go back to just talking about stupid random things again?"
"Whatever you want," he said, but his tone conveyed the exact opposite. "You know where to find me."
Chapter 14
Was it my face? A sign over my head (apart from the Project Your Crap Upon Me) that advertised services I wasn’t aware of? Why did people think of me when this kind of thing happened?
I woke up early the next day, for once, to prepare myself mentally for my interview. I knew I needed more time to do that because of last night, and I already spent my hours of sleep just running the conversation in my head over and over.
It was my fault. I knew this. I was a friendly person but didn’t delve too deep into the lives of new friends, for precisely the reason that could have prevented last night’s weirdness: People judged. They said one thing but thought another. And unless you were there for years of their lives you’d never understand the context of what they did. But you’d offer your judgment anyway. And they would do the same for you.
So I was reflecting on this over tapsilog and coffee when someone showed up and cast a shadow on my food.
"I don’t know your number but they told me you’re here."
It was Matilda, obviously, but I felt I had to squint at her features because there was something different about her. Her nose was red and there was a smear of blood underneath.
"What happened to you?" I squeaked.
"Do you know if there’s a clinic around?" She looked mildly distraught but not panicky. She grabbed the paper napkin that came with my pancakes right off my tray and pressed it against a nostril, waiting for me to get my shit together.
"Um wait. There’s a clinic over at the Sola tower, I think..."
I was about to say, When did I become NV Park tour guide again? But I did see the clinic before, it was near the kebab place, and now was not the time to be arguing about this.
Three hours before my job interview wasn’t the time to be helping a neighbor with a medical emergency either.
"Can you walk?" I said, offering to assist her as we crossed the street.
"Yes I can walk." But she didn’t refuse the light grip of my hand on her forearm. We were silent throughout the walk, the escalator flight up, when she filled up the paperwork to be seen by a doctor. The clinic was a small one, modern-looking, and probably processed more pre-employment health checks than actual medical emergencies. People were lined up like they were at a bank.
"Which doctor do you want to see?" Matilda was asked.
She put the pen back among the other pens in the cute can. "Any damn doctor who can see me right now," she said, calmly, showing her bloodied tissue.
There was a GP who was in the middle of a consultation, but Matilda was bumped up in the queue and would be next to see her. We were asked to sit and wait.
"So," Matilda said, turning to me. "I saw you having dinner with Ethan last night."
"Are you kidding me?"
"You two looked very close."
"No—I mean, are you kidding me. You’re bleeding and this is what you ask me? What the hell happened to you?"
"I’m fine," Matilda said. "They’ll check my cartilage, give me a painkiller, whatever."
"Does this happen to you often?"
"I’ve hit a door with my face more than once, yes."
She sort of shrugged and turned to look at the TV up in the corner of the room, playing a video about getting the HPV vaccine. It gave me a chance to seethe a little. I was really concerned, but wasn’t sure about our boundaries—was I a friend, someone who actually got to say something? Did she really just need me to point her to the clinic? Should I be taking her to the hospital?
While considering this I got to actually see her, the rest of her. She was in a plain white tee, short shorts, and pink studded flip-flops. It was skimpy but already the most clothed I’d seen her, since we’d only ever really interacted at the pool.
But the other odd thing—she had no bag with her. Just a roll of cash in one hand. That and her banged-up nose.
This was messed up.
I sighed. "What do you need me to do, Matilda?"
She snorted a bit, but more of as a reaction to the woman on the vaccine video, and then turned to me. "You can tell me about Ethan, Moira. What’s he like?"
So I was trusted to help in the emergency, but not enough to know what caused it. Same same.
"Excellent kisser," I said.
"I knew it," replied Matilda.
-///-
My resume was a mess, but the exercise of editing it for this interview, and this moment, made me remember something. I could be really good with people, if I set my mind to it.
There was no way to hide that I kept hopping from one job to another, a year or so each time, but at least I found the thread that held everything in place. I worked well with people. New people, old people, it didn’t matter. I didn’t have issues anymore about fitting in, who would I be having lunch with, who’d invite me to drinks that weekend.
Maybe it helped that Kylene, Ethan’s friend from HR who was interviewing me, reminded me of other people that I got along with. She was a bit like Roxie, in that she was about my age and seemed like she was a veteran at this job. Her smile was professional but not cold, and she even gave me a half-hug when I came in.
"Ethan speaks highly of you," she said, as I sat down. "I guess he told you the problem I have?"
"Problem?" I asked.
"I looked at your resume and it�
�s great, all this experience you have. I kind of regret that I’m interviewing you for this, the events assistant post, because I’m sure I could place you somewhere more fitting."
It was starting to sound like an "it’s not you, it’s me" breakup speech and I wanted to prevent that from happening. "I appreciate Ethan vouching for me for this," I said. "He knows that it’s something I can do. Whether or not it’s a ‘fit’ you can decide later, but I’m perfectly willing to do it."
"Are you? Really?" Kylene had a tablet in front of her and my resume seemed to be on it. "I mean, I love that you’ve actually worked on a conference with a thousand participants. Our thing’s going to be peanuts compared to that."
I focused on the basics—what exactly did she need to hear? And chucked my plan and issues and out the door for now. I could do this, it was going to be easy, I didn’t mind the hours, I didn’t think this was "beneath me." All of it was true, at least the truths that people said during job interviews that would become true (they would make sure of it) once they had the job.
But hmm, Ethan spoke highly of me. He seemed not to have told her though that I was planning to leave the country anytime soon—Kylene didn’t express concern about that or even mention it.
Yeah, that seemed like an Ethan thing to do.
"Fabulous," Kylene said, when all of her questions had been answered. "I guess you just need to expect another call."
"Thank you for your time," I said.
"And here I thought Ethan was referring a replacement to me," she said, relaxing. "I still don’t have one to take his place yet. But San Francisco is totally breathing down my neck now."
I went, "I guess he’s one of a kind," and meant as a joke.
"He’s...a tree," Kylene said, and then laughed at her own analogy. "He’s been around for a long time and everyone relies on him. To the point that you don’t really notice that he’s around anymore. We actually had to fight for him to get his transfer. You know about his transfer, right?"
I nodded, and was glad that I found out earlier and through someone else instead of the HR executive interviewing me.
"Well it was that or several other options, but we lobbied to have him qualified for something. Anything. He never went for the promotions himself. I didn’t want him to just stay in one place forever. We didn’t want him to suddenly go to a competitor, all because he never said anything and we never gave him a chance."
"That’s really nice of you to do," I said, still on my guard. She may have gone off interview mode but I was still on, super on. "Is that the only reason why he’s still here? Because you haven’t hired a replacement yet?"
"No, he’s still here because someone in the development team keeps screwing something up. As soon as that’s over though he’ll be on his way, whether we get a replacement in time or not. And the tree would be gone."
I said a little thank you to the screwup who made this all possible, and smiled back at her. "I’m glad you’re all so supportive here."
"How do you know Ethan?" she asked.
"I’m his neighbor," I said.
Another thing that was true, if you weren’t particular about things.
-///-
"You will surely enjoy this scrumptious plate of seafood delights."
"Yeah, that’s what I said."
I sighed and shook my head. "Not really. You kind of have to say it like you mean it."
"Why would I ever say something like that in real life?"
"My thoughts exactly. Swim break."
I left JM over at his lounge chair and returned to the pool, trying to get a few more laps in. I didn’t want to run into Ethan at the gym so I figured I’d get as much exercise as I could during the daytime. But I also had an amateur host to tutor, and he sort of followed me to the pool area and bugged me to help him in between laps.
While swimming I was thinking of how I could help him. I wasn’t a voice or speaking coach, and he was working with horribly written material, so maybe this was a prank being played on him and there was no way for him to do well. I almost said that, but then I lifted my head from the water and saw him concentrating really hard, muttering the crap lines to himself, that my heart melted a little.
He glanced at me as I stepped out of the pool, but not very inappropriately. He wasn’t even looking as I towel-dried the skin not covered up by the bikini that Matilda gave me as a gift. (Spoiler: A lot of skin.) I may as well have surfaced wearing pajamas. But maybe if you looked like JM and hung out with hot women often, your standards changed.
I sat down on the chair across from him and he ran through the line again.
I shook my head. "You’re pausing between ‘seafood’ and ‘delights.’ You shouldn’t. Just say ‘seafood delights.’"
"Why does it sound different?"
"It just does. It’s awkward."
He performed it as I asked and it was marginally better.
"JM," I said. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
An eye flickered over to me for a second. "No."
"Why not?"
"I just got back here from Australia."
"I know, but..."
"What do you really want to know?"
Yes, what was it? There was a strange feeling in my stomach, an unarticulated ball of blah on the tip of my tongue. I wasn’t sure how to say it, only that I think it was about dating, and sex, and if for some reason I was pre-labeled as one kind of girl but wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted or was accurate at all.
But I had a feeling I couldn’t unload this all on JM yet. "I forgot what it was. Let’s work on ‘scrumptious’ instead."
Chapter 15
I stopped going to the gym. That was Ethan’s space, always had been, and I was going to let him have it.
How dramatic for me to even think that, by the way, as if we were exes who had to divide property and routines. In moody moments I felt a loss like he was indeed a former something. Which I would chase away with Never mind you’re not getting anywhere with him anyway, what’s the point.
Because if we were to be practical about things, we shouldn’t even waste time thinking about guys with leases renewed every two weeks. Bad idea.
In any case, my workouts moved up to daytime swims, where Matilda sat there and watched me. For a few days since the clinic visit she had a small bandage on her nose, but she never mentioned anything about it again.
Soon after his morning smoke, JM would join us, with a new spiel or a revised version of his script, and we would go over it while Matilda watched us from the shade. Or not even watch us, but stare out into the business park in the distance.
I kind of didn’t want to know how she was able to afford all this, anymore. Maybe JM had the better deal, with his army of people working to keep him pretty and fit and full of protein. They weren’t exactly springing for speaking lessons—the point of a hosting job ironically—but that just showed what their priorities were.
But JM was getting better at the speaking. Or he’d do well, if his TV show people didn’t keep changing the script on him, sending him slightly different spiels that replaced words that we had already worked on and that he could already say properly.
"Do these people know what they’re doing?" I kidded once.
He smiled. "They’re making sure I get money for doing just this. Can’t complain."
Sometimes, on idle afternoons after my swim and between checking my email for updates on my applications, Sarah would ask me to watch Liam. The toddler and I would just stay in the Tower 3 lobby and I’d watch as he played with his toy of the day. Sometimes a train set, sometimes a robot, one time a coloring book and a set of washable markers. Thank God they were washable because Liam started coloring the table the book was on top of, and I spent most of my afternoon just washing up after him. The Japanese grandmother who was always sitting on the chair nearest the entrance started speaking to me at this point, no doubt telling me what I should be doing, except I could barely understand her.
All in
all though, he was a well-behaved kid. Sarah did spend all of her time just taking care of him. Not a lifestyle I would have chosen for myself, but she seemed to be really into it.
My mom worked. So did her mom. And my dad’s sisters. I didn’t really have anyone around me who chose to stay at home to take care of the kids, so I didn’t naturally see it as my path. In any case Liam started calling me "Ta Moi" (closest thing to Tita Moira) and that made me feel a tiny bit giddy.
I didn’t see or hear from Ethan all this time.
-///-
Megan,
I have had a heater installed. You will be happy. Can’t wait to see you when you get here.
Moira
Yeah that was a job-interview truth.
-///-
"How’s the connection, Moira?"
"It’s great, Stacy. Thanks for setting this up."
"No problem. Thanks for going through the trouble of applying online. A lot of people give up when they see the forms."
"Forms don’t scare me."
"So, you’re back in Manila? I noticed that your last job was Singapore."
"Yeah, just came home to settle some things, and would like to move on to the next."
"The next country?"
"Something like that, yeah."
Interviewing me through Skype was Stacy of the NGO based in Bangkok that my friend referred me to. Stacy was Filipino too (my friend gave me a backgrounder) and had been working in Thailand for more than five years. That was a relief, because there would be things about this part of the plan that I wouldn’t have to explain.
Like why.
"So why do you want to fly off again, Moira?" Stacy asked.
I remembered to keep the smile on despite the confusion that was setting in. The one thing I thought I wouldn’t have to make a speech for. "Excuse me?"
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