by Maida Malby
It would also allow her and Blake to keep their relationship private. They could be colleagues at work and lovers at home. No one at the office needed to know and harass them about their personal involvement. Win-win.
“That’s okay,” Maddie was saying as she sat back down. “I’ll return it to the showroom; cancel my purchase.”
“Why ever for?” Blake asked while holding out his hand to Krista. “Won’t you lose a lot of money if you do that?”
Krista allowed herself to be pulled down to his lap. At this point, there was no use pretending they weren’t intimately involved. A quick glance around reassured her that only a few of the hotel’s guests remained in the restaurant, most of them foreigners.
“So that Krista can have parking space for her Toyota,” Maddie replied. “The owner of the dealership is my client. It’ll be fine. I only wanted the car because I like showing off my wealth, but I don’t need it. Especially when I’ll be gone anyway. How would people know it’s mine if I’m not around to drive it?” She tossed her head in defiance.
“Mads, you’re awfully hard on yourself.”
“I’m just being honest—”
The blare of her phone’s standard ringtone cut off her words. Some of Maddie’s clients were internationally based, so she always kept her phone on for them. She held up a finger to excuse herself from the group and brought the phone to her ear.
“Madeleine Duvall speaking.” Her eyes widened in surprise at the caller. She inclined her head to get Krista over to her side of the table.
“Farrah, hi! Yeah, I’m with your sister. You’re right, she must have left her phone in our cottage. Sure, ring me back and I’ll have her answer the vid call.”
She clicked the off button and handed the phone to Krista, wagging her finger and grinning at her friend’s chagrin. She moved to sit on the chair Aidan had vacated.
“Happy birthday, Ate!” A wave of affection swept over Krista as she was greeted by her spunky half-sister with a fond smile.
When seen side by side, their familial connection was undeniable, despite the differing skin tone and physical build. It showed in their shiny black hair, slanted brown eyes, the plump fullness of their lips, and the slope of their cheekbones.
“Thanks, Far. Sorry ha, I kept my phone off all day. Maddie arrived this morning,” Krista threw a teasing glance at her friend, “and just talked, and talked, and talked. You know how she is.” She placed the phone on its side, bracing it against a glass of water.
“It’s okay. I figured you’d be out in the water or something. Hey, how do you like Boracay? I’m so inggit. Maybe once I’m off the nightshift I’ll take some of my unused vacation leave and go there. Would you recommend that resort where you’re staying?”
Krista eyed Blake who was unashamedly listening in to her conversation with her sister. “Perlas? It’s … uhm … nice.” Her tepid compliment had Blake clutching at his chest and wiping imaginary tears from his eyes as if brokenhearted. That’ll teach you to eavesdrop.
“By nice, I mean here at Perlas you will be indulging in true relaxation of body and spirit, enjoying sumptuous feasts that tempt your taste buds at all hours of the day, beholding natural beauty so unbelievably stunning that you’d think it’s not real, and receiving service so warm and gracious that you wouldn’t want to leave.”
She heard Maddie’s slow clap to her right, but she kept her gaze on Blake as she continued her praise. “If you look up images of paradise online, you’ll find pictures of Perlas on the top of your search results.”
He rose from the chair and walked towards her, his eyes ablaze with blue flames. Krista had forgotten she was talking to her sister. All her attention was focused on the man bent before her. He reached down and trailed his fingers over her hair, down her cheek, and across her lips. “You, my love, are a big tease,” he whispered, then brought his mouth close to hers.
“Ate, Nanay and Tatay want to greet you. Ay, lagot! Caught in the act.”
“Anak, happy—huh?” Her father’s voice, loving then confused.
“Maria Krista Lopez! Ano’ng ibig sabihin nito? Who is this man, and what is he doing kissing you?” Her mother’s shriek was sharp and accusatory.
“Shit de la merde!” Maddie cursed, succinctly expressing how Krista felt.
Stricken with guilt, Krista pushed Blake away and faced her parents. The tiny screen showed Blake’s surprise, her dad’s concern, her mom’s anger, and her own red-faced shame. This was not how she wanted to make the introductions. It wasn’t as if she and Blake were engaging in something illicit, something forbidden.
Krista knew it was the wrong thing to do, but as if of its own volition, her finger pressed the red button on the phone, abruptly ending the video call. Disrespectful and cowardly—that’s what she was.
She kept her head down and felt the brush of air when Blake left her side. Without looking at him, she recognized his hurt.
“What’s going on here?” Aidan broke the uncomfortable silence. He had returned only to see Krista’s face buried in her hands, Maddie by her side, and his brother with his back to the two women, standing rigidly outside the gazebo, his jaw and fists clenched.
“That’s what I want to know, too. It looked to me like my girlfriend doesn’t want me to meet her family,” Blake bit out.
The best friends gasped at the wrongful accusation. Krista got to her feet and placed her hand on her boyfriend’s arm when she reached him. “No, Blake. It’s not like that.”
Just then, the phone rang again. It was either her father or her sister. She looked at Blake, at the phone, then back to Blake again. “Can we talk later so I can explain? Please?” She had to make amends to her parents first.
He nodded, but remained stiff and unyielding beneath her palm. Nevertheless, she gave him an apologetic squeeze. “I’m sorry.” She ran back to the table to answer the phone.
Krista took a deep breath and pressed the answer button. As she guessed, her father was on the other end of the line. “Tatay, sorry po for turning the phone off. It was rude and discourteous. I was rude and discourteous.”
“Anak, I understand. It was an awkward situation all around. Both you and your mother reacted poorly.”
Krista teared up at her dad’s calm reaction and stalwart personality. Blood or not, Arsenio Lopez would always be her first love. “Thank you, ‘Tay. What about Nanay? Is she … is she angry with me? Does she not want to talk to me?”
“Iha, your mother loves you, never doubt that. You know how she feels about foreign men, especially Americans. The young man with you—he is American, would that be correct?” At her nod, he continued. “Marissa is afraid you will be left behind like she was. She never wants to see you get hurt.”
“I do know that. But, it’s an entirely different situation with me and Blake. We’re different people from Nanay and John.” She couldn’t bring herself to call the other man her father, when the man on the phone was the one who had raised her and loved her, all her life.
“We’ve known each other for months now, not just one night. I know his last name, where his family lives. I’ve even met his brother,” she said, defensive.
“I see. Is there any particular reason why you never told us about him? Your mother, she feels shocked—betrayed, when she saw you with a man we have not heard of. As if you are hiding him from us, keeping him a secret.”
Krista pressed her fingertips to her forehead to rub away the beginnings of a headache. This was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid—explaining to other people how she and Blake came to be together.
They didn’t have a traditional Filipino courtship. Their relationship was too modern, too Western in the eyes of her conservative parents. “Uhm, I wasn’t really hiding him. We didn’t actually become boyfriend and girlfriend until yesterday.”
“Aaah, I see.”
Clearly, he didn’t, but she wasn’t going to elaborate and invite more censure. The near-kiss they saw was the tamest of the intimacies she’d
already shared with Blake. “Tatay, may I talk to Nanay?” She wanted to apologize. To explain her side.
“Anak, it might be for the best to allow her to cool down first. Alam mo naman yun. Let her get over her tampo. I am going to talk with her, relate what you told me.”
He paused as if weighing his words. “How about you wait for me to call you when she is ready to listen to what you have to say?”
Krista understood. Yes, she knew Marissa Lopez well. Her mother was going to sulk. Her eldest daughter had disappointed her, disobeyed her. It didn’t matter that she was already thirty years old and the eldest of her three children. Krista would always be a child in her mother’s eyes.
There was nothing she could do but wait until her mom was willing to listen. “Okay po. I’ll wait for your call. ‘Night, ‘Tay.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kasaysayan [ka-sai-sa-yan] n. – history.
Blake turned the porch lights on at the back of Krista’s cottage and sat on the padded wooden glider. He had gone ahead to wait for her here after leaving orders for the staff to close the restaurant.
Aidan went back to the Maharlika Kubo, while Maddie waited for her best friend to finish her phone call with her father. He had also arranged a golf cart and driver to bring them back here when they were ready.
He now recognized his overreaction when he accused Krista of not wanting to introduce him to her family. She had beckoned to him with that tease about Perlas, knowing full well that he’d be visible to her sister when he came over. The tension only manifested when her mother had a violently negative reaction to their near-kiss.
In his conceit, it never occurred to him that her parents wouldn’t approve of their relationship, wouldn’t want him for their daughter. His experience was the exact opposite. Hopeful mamas had been introducing their daughters to him ever since he came to the country. His lips twisted in a cynical smile.
If he was to guess, his nationality was the cause of dismay. He would find out soon enough. He heard the women’s voices through the open back door.
Blake got up and stood by the door to reveal his location to his girlfriend. Maddie saw him first. She gave him a warning glance and mouthed, “Be gentle,” before giving her friend a hug and walking away to give them privacy.
Krista turned to face him, shoulders still hunched. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and her lips trembled. He rushed to her side and wrapped her in his arms. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“I’m sorry, too. That wasn’t the way I wanted you to meet my family, and my mom’s reaction made me panic.” She looked up at him, the tears she’d been holding back now flowing freely down her face.
“All my life, I’ve always done my best to make my parents proud of me. I never wanted to disappoint them, especially my mom. She gave me life when she could have easily just gotten rid of me … kept me when she could have … just given me away.”
Voice breaking, she clutched at his shirt. “Blake, she wouldn’t even talk to me … wouldn’t let me explain …” Sobs wracked her frame, her knees buckled in her sorrow, her whole body sagged into his embrace.
Blake lifted her carefully and carried her to the sofa. He let her cry it out, offering his comfort by sitting quietly, rubbing her back. He knew the storm had passed when she lifted her head from his chest and attempted to pat down his damp shirt.
He cupped her cheek in his palm and with a gentle caress, wiped away the teardrops from her face. “You don’t have to tell me anything now. I just hate seeing you so sad, knowing that I was partly responsible for it.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, Blake. It’s not your fault. It’s a long story, but you have a right to know. Especially if you really want a relationship with me beyond this week.” She reached for a handful of tissues and delicately blew her nose.
It was Blake’s turn to shake his head as she started to move off his lap. He kept his arm around her and brushed a soft kiss on her lips. “I’m here. I’ll listen.”
Krista gave him a grateful smile then took a deep breath. “As you might have already guessed, the man who raised me is not my biological father. Arsenio Lopez married my mother when she found herself pregnant after a one-night stand with an American airman.
Tatay had been in love with her since they met, you see. He still is. But, she was … she always preferred foreigners, which was why she went to work near the former Clark US Air Force Base in Pampanga, so far away from her own province in Quezon.” She sniffed and continued. “My mother was nearly raped and my … John, the American … he saved her. He was her hero.
She fell in love with him, or at least she believed herself to be at the time. But, the next day he left … and never came back.” She paused and gestured that she wanted to get a drink. Blake assisted her to her feet and watched as she walked to the kitchen to get water.
The damsel in distress and the knight in shining armor. It didn’t only happen in books. He frowned in concentration and recalled what he learned during his briefing, before he came to the country.
The mid-to-late eighties was a chaotic time in the Philippines. The People Power Revolution toppled the strongman Ferdinand Marcos, then several attempted coup d’états failed to overthrow the administration of the country’s first female president, and there was a constitutional change, among many momentous events.
John might have been called to the capital for a mission. It was also possible that he was deployed elsewhere. The Philippines wasn’t the only country with a turbulent history during that time.
Krista returned and arranged herself back on Blake’s lap. “So, this John—he never knew about you?”
“No. My mom said she waited until she was showing already, but she never saw him again at Clark. They didn’t exchange numbers. She didn’t even know his last name.”
“I take it he wouldn’t have suspected he got her pregnant because he used a condom.” The blush on Krista’s face amused him. He didn’t want to think about his parents having sex, either.
“I assumed so. I didn’t ask. I mean, that’s not really something you—”
Blake gave her a squeeze. “I’m teasing, baby.”
She smiled for the first time since the night’s drama started and gave him a weak push on the shoulder. He took her hand and gave it a kiss. “So, your parents married because of you.”
Krista nodded. “My dad said she had a tough time during the first trimester, looking for John and not finding him—neither of them had access to the base—then not being able to do her job as a cook well, because she couldn’t take the smell and taste of food. She was throwing up all the time.
He was persistent in courting her, even though she told him she was bearing another man’s child. After four months of futile waiting, she finally accepted his proposal and they moved to another town where nobody knew them.”
Even if John had been re-assigned to the Philippines before the base closed, he wouldn’t have found Krista’s mom again. “Were things difficult when you were younger?” Being born from a mixed union was more accepted now, but three decades ago there might still have been a lot of stigma.
“In the beginning, no. When I was little, I looked enough like my mother—it didn’t matter that I was lighter-skinned than my siblings. Nanay has Spanish blood, and she always kept me indoors and dressed me in long-sleeved clothes. But, I grew and grew, taller than my classmates and taller than my parents. When we’d go out as a family I’d stand out, and not in a good way.”
It became obvious that she wasn’t her Filipino father’s child. Blake’s heart went out to the young Krista, whose only fault was to be born. He enfolded her in a tight hug. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry for your hurt.”
She returned his embrace and they were silent for a while.
“I was subjected to names like ‘changeling,’ ‘albino,’ ‘child out of wedlock,’ and ‘mongrel.’ Scholastically, I was at the top of the class, and I was physically bigger than anybody else, so the taunts just rolled
off my back. Sticks and stones and all that.
My adoptive father’s position also helped. He taught math at the same school the three of us attended. All students had to go through his class so they could graduate. He declared on the first day of class that insults against me were insults against him.” Love and pride in the man who raised her rang clearly in her words.
“Your dad sounds like a good man,” he observed.
“The very best.” She nodded emphatically. “But my mom, it was she who suffered the brunt of the censure.” Her tone turned serious, her voice started to break again. “There was a whole period of time when she was estranged from her parents, when the rumormongers were actively maligning her reputation. Lies were being spread about her—she was a prostitute in Angeles City, she cheated on my father with an American GI, etcetera.
She couldn’t keep a job, she became reclusive—wouldn’t even go to church.” Tears started to fall again from her eyes. She immediately brushed them away. “There were times that she looked at me as if she regretted keeping me; that she hated me for causing all her troubles.
Then, she’d smother me with attention. She was overprotective in my teens; wouldn’t let me do anything or go anywhere not connected with school.” Krista grimaced at the memory.
“And she fed me. God, how she fed me. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we never starved because my mother knew how to grow herbs and vegetables, how to raise chickens and pigs in the little space we had. You know how Filipinos are known to eat six times a day?”
It was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “Yes. Breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and midnight snack,” he rattled off. He always marveled at how his employees could pack away so much, yet stay so slim.
“Exactly. All I did throughout high school was study and eat. Without exercise, except for PE in school, I ballooned to over 200 pounds.” She wiggled on his lap. “Had we met then, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. You wouldn’t have been able to take my weight. I’d have flattened you,” she stated matter-of-factly.