I could feel him watching me behind his glasses. His eyesight was horrible, and he usually wore contacts to keep ‘looking foxy’ when he went out, but wore glasses when he was at home. He was holding a copy of The Goldfinch. His foot shook and tapped against the window frame. He absently ran a hand through his longish black hair. I keep telling him to get it cut and to shave the little beard he was cooking up, but to no avail. I showed Mindy a picture once and she said it only made him look twice as sexy—not that I noticed.
“I don’t know how with shirts like these!” I said, pulling out a cherry red shirt that had ‘Kiss Me, I’m Scottish!’ in faded pink letters. It was cheeky but it also said, ‘fancy a fuck?’ on the back.
“I got that in Scotland from a friend, it’s supposed to be funny!” He said, as Wookie raised his head, looked at the t-shirt and replaced his head on Max’s lap, wiggling his nose.
“See, see, Wookie agrees with me!” I argued, shaking my head before resuming my digging. “It's unfair that you've been to Europe, and all you got was this lame shirt."
"I gained a wealth of experience too, thanks," he chuckled. "Aw, don't worry Martha! You and I are going there one day. We pinky-promised."
I pouted slightly, knowing how much value there was in Max Angeles's pinky promises. But it was something I've always wanted to do, go to Europe. I wanted to sit café side in Paris, to watch West End musicals in London and sample chocolates from Switzerland. I wanted to hear Bach played in a church in Prague, to yell at Italians while making weird hand gestures. The idea popped into my head when I was thirteen, when I realized being a supermodel was out of the question for me.
Since then I’ve been planning the perfect trip, the details of which Max helped me with since he’s been going to Europe since he was a teenager. We had a route that took us from London to Paris, Paris to Switzerland and down to Italy and Spain. That was all I had so far, and already I was too excited for my own good.
But until I had enough money saved up, it was never going to happen. Plus my parents would only let me go if I brought Max with me to keep me safe. As if Max would be any good in a fistfight!
”I’ve seen you look decent before Maxwell, you have to work with me here,” I said, changing the subject entirely so I didn't dwell on a trip that I couldn’t take. Yet. He shuddered at my use of his full name, as always.
“Hey, did you ever talk to that guy again?” He asked, and the long pause before he spoke again was indicative of his apprehension about the topic he was trying to bring up. He had been since I first mentioned it to him. “That theatre guy who wanted to ‘catch up’ with you.” “Oh, Enzo?” I asked breezily, unable to help the little thrill that made my shoulders rise and my breath catch when I talked about him. I was still in love with him, in a horrible, please-stop-taking-my-soul kind of way. I had been content to burn at a distance, trying to move on and forget. But he came back, and my heart ached for him again. I was so used to it that I wore it like a chip on my shoulder.
The reason why I told Max about it (and all he said was ‘high five, man!’ for me losing my virginity) was because I wanted to get it out of me and get it over with. Apparently I was wrong about that.
“Yes, that Enzo,” he said, rolling his eyes like he could see the emotions vibrating off of me.
“What about him?” I asked, tossing a pair of pants to the bed.
“Don’t beat around the bush, buddy,” He said, putting his book down. “Did he ‘catch up with you’?” he asked, making little air quotes with his fingers. I stared at him blankly. “It’s a sex euphemism.”
“I KNOW.”
“Or did he never call you back?”
“We’re texting,” I said, trying to keep calm. “It’s really nice. And we had a cup of coffee once or twice. We never talked about that night. We’re just friends, Max. It’s not like it’s going anywhere.”
From the dubious look on his face, I knew he could tell that I didn’t really think that. Enzo and I have been texting a lot over the last three weeks. He liked texting random things, striking up conversations with me, asking what I was doing or if I’d seen one of the latest musicals Philippine theatre had to offer. It was nice to have someone to geek out with over musicals and about the people we used to know. We never really talked about how he came from theatrical glory to the corporate set-up, but it didn’t really matter to me. I needed him at a distance so I wouldn’t do anything stupid.
I went into the closet to try to find a shirt without giving Max another glance. That was when he pushed himself off of the floor and followed me into his dark and tiny walk-in closet. Wookie too, was pushing his damp nose against my leg.
“What the hell are you doing!” I shrieked, almost falling backwards, but Max caught my hand quickly. He reached behind me and pulled out a shirt. It felt luxurious and expensive in my hands, and in the light of his bedroom, actually looked very nice.
“There, shirt.” He said gruffly.
Something I said put him in a bad mood. I didn’t really have time to process it, though, because my phone started ringing. I dashed off to the living room where I left it, hitting my side against a table end. I yelled out in pain but continued my trek to my phone.
“Hellooooo?” I asked, grabbing my phone just as Wookie came over to check on me. I ended up slightly wheezing on Max’s living room couch with his dog snuggling up against me in the middle of a heat wave. The poor guy was panting too.
“Martha?” The voice asked. “Oh Maaaartha?”
I gasped and my stomach clenched. I knew that voice.
“Regina?”
Deep, throaty laugher drifted in from her end of the phone line. I’ve known that voice since I was a little girl, since it was the same laugh that followed every horrible childhood taunt I received.
There was no mistaking it over the phone. Regina Benitez was calling me.
Regina was Tita Merry’s only daughter, and my favorite (take note, only) cousin. She, Maggie, and I grew up together, swimming in rivers (where she tried to drown me), running in our undies through our grandparents' gardens (where she tripped me) when it rained. We even used to wear matching outfits (she would pull the bow out of my braid).
She moved to London after college for a master’s degree in Art Management, and I hadn’t heard from her since.
“You better believe it! I’m back!” She chanted over the phone. “I can’t wait to bully you again! You remember how I would pinch you and call you Massive Martha?”
I didn’t notice Max walking in to the living room as I rolled my eyes. The number of times I had cried over the word ‘massive’ was all because of an eleven-year old who thought it was funny to call her cousin fat.
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “It was after you first went to London, and your mom was so proud you learned a new word.”
A thought suddenly occurred to me. If Regina was back, then did that mean…
“I’ll see you for that screening tonight,” she said like she was lecturing me. “It’s such a hassle. I heard Mama invited the Aguas clan to the thing.”
I furrowed my brows in confusion. When Regina talked about the clan, she was talking about the whole Aguas Clan, consisting of the three matriarchs of the family, my Lola May, and her sisters April and June, and her children, and their children’s children, which meant there were at least fifty other people coming to the event that I didn’t know about. Tita Merry never added them to the invitations list, and she never mentioned that there was anything happening beyond the screening.
“Uh-huh,” I said, already crossing one arm over my massive chest and frowning. “See you.”
“See you, Massive Martha!”
Then she hung up.
“WHY do you have to be in my liiiiiffe,” I groaned to my phone as I tossed it to the couch. Wookie disappeared from my side to rejoin his owner, and I turned to face Max already dressed in the outfit I had chosen for him.
The event wasn’t formal, but I made sure he dressed up from hi
s usual look. He wore the deep blue gingham button down I approved for him, which showed off the light tan in his skin from his day at the zoo. His dark beard was growing out slightly and full on his chin, which he brushed experimentally with a hand as he showed off the sinews on his arms. His shirt was tucked into the same slim cut pants I’d seen him wearing in church, the day he finished reading This is Where I Leave You, and secured with a tan belt. He was wearing a pair of pale blue socks with cute sheep leaping across them, my present to him from Seoul. I smiled at my friend, and he smiled back.
“God, I keep forgetting that you actually look gorgeous when you clean up,” I said, pulling my charger from the plug as Wookie sniffed around it. I pat his head and sat back on the couch just to look at Max again.
“You looked annoyed,” he said.
“My childhood tormenter is coming to the screening tonight. She seemed…eager to see me,” I said, crinkling my nose. “And my aunt isn’t answering her phone.”
“Do you need help?”
“Nah, I’m good. Letting me dress you is all the help you can give,” I chuckled.
“Let me rephrase then. What can I do for you in way of sustenance, gorgeous?” he asked, reaching out with his and hand to pull me up from the couch in one smooth motion.
“Treat me to coffee, which is the way into my heart,” I joked, pulling myself from his grip to pick up my bag from a precarious pile of books, which spilled when I picked it up.
“My way and no one else’s,” he reminded me, as I nodded vaguely and made my way to his door.
“I have to go,” I explained. “Duty calls.”
“I’ll see you after my date,” He said. “Tinder duty calls.”
I glared at him. He better be kidding. How was I going to introduce him to Regina if he was going to be late? He smiled, and I left his apartment without an idea if he was or he wasn’t.
Four
A couple of hours of utter chaos later, the event was finally starting. I was already dressed in my kooky Mrs. Peacock outfit—a flattering blue dress I had custom made in Kamuning once for only three hundred pesos (the seamstress charged me extra because it was, in her words, ‘as big as a bed sheet’) and my usual pair of comfortable work heels and one of Mags’ favorite cat eye glasses. Sure my massive arms were exposed for all to see, but it was the only dress in my closet that suited the occasion.
“I can’t believe you’re not here,” I said to Mags over the phone. “You ditched me for boys!”
“Calm down ate, it’s not a big deal!” Maggie promised. “And I told you, I don’t like my guy friends that way.”
I could hear her friends laughing and joking around in the background. They were hanging out at the mall not too far from this one, and despite Tita Merry’s summon of the Aguas Clan, Maggie had bailed for the night. “We can watch Clue on YouTube or whatever.”
“Yeah, but I thought you wanted to see Regina again, and see why everyone was invited, and dress up as Miss Scarlett,” I pointed out. I knew I sounded a little petulant, but I couldn’t help the feeling that I needed backup coming in to this thing, especially if I was going to face Regina again.
Meanwhile, I was running around with my head practically cut off trying to sort out the little emergencies that eventually come up during these sorts of events.
“Boo you, abandoner,” I said to Maggie.
“It’s because I have a social life,” she answered back, and I rolled my eyes before she made kissing noises over the phone and hung up on me.
“Is my daughter being impossible?” Dad asked, coming up to me with Mom beside him. Since I’d been herding the event all afternoon, they had arrived with Benjo from the house after dropping Maggie off at the other mall. I sighed and shook my head.
“I think it depends which one we’re talking about,” Mom answered, squeezing my hand.
“Okay, okay, enough with you jokers, go out there and have some fun,” I said, ushering them past the Boddy Mansion entrance. “And PS, you’re late!”
“It’s a Friday night on a payday weekend, sweetie, it is legit carmageddon out there,” Mom said, and her impressive use of millennial lingo was always a little disturbing, so I ignored that and told them to make sure that they saw the kitchen since we constructed a passageway from the pantry to the living room, just like in the movie!
Mom and Dad wandered around the rooms, stopping by the exhibit we displayed of the Metropolitan Theatre in its current state, and the things they still needed to restore it. Apparently it was a great place to hang out in the seventies, so there were a lot of people their age in the crowd exchanging stories and talking about their escapades there.
I was in the registration booth, ushering guests inside and selling tickets. We were doing pretty well, but most of the guests asked me where Tita Merry was, and I honestly still had no idea. I had seen her once or twice in the course of the set-up, but had not really spoken to her once a small fiasco regarding the popcorn machine was settled. I hadn’t eaten much that day, so I was munching on a bag of said popcorn while manning the booth, craving something sweet to go with it too.
I had seen some of the Aguas clan coming in by family to the event. Lola May, June, and April never left the house until one of them declared that they were going (all three of them were in their nineties now, and did everything together), and I wasn’t surprised that they weren’t here today. But I did see some of Lola June’s children—second Titas and Titos already milling around, already saying hello to my parents. My aunts and uncles on Lola April’s side of the family all lived in Alabang, an area of the south that hated making the drive to Manila without making a big fuss about the traffic. But there were a couple of Dad’s cousins there. Some of them recognized me from reunions, others not really.
I hadn’t seen Regina yet, which was the weird part. She promised she would be here with Tita Merry.
“One ticket please.”
“Okay, may I have your…Enzo!” I exclaimed, not caring how wide my grin was when I saw him standing in front of the registration booth. He looked so cool in his Metropolitan Theatre shirt, which he classed up with a blazer. I recognized the logo from the NCCA’s program of volunteer clean-ups for the theatre. He must have gone to one to get that shirt.
“Hey!” He said, equally surprised to see me sitting behind the registration desk. He went around the table as I stood up so he could kiss me cordially on the cheek. “This is a pleasant surprise. I heard there was a brilliant girl setting up this whole thing.”
“It was no big deal,” I shrugged, although I couldn’t hide the blush on my cheeks.
“Oh it is,” Enzo insisted, shaking his head and chuckling. “You have no idea. It’s a relief, seeing you here, Martha.”
We stepped away from the desk for a moment, edging towards a public but slightly more quiet spot on the side. He had his hand in his pocket, and the fingers of his other hand lightly on my elbow. Just that little touch made my body heat up and my throat tighten, like my muscles had memories of what we did together and longed to be used again. I cleared my throat to tamp down the feeling.
“How did you hear about the screening?” I asked him. He certainly wasn’t on the invite list, even if the event was open to the public.
“I heard it from Tita Merry Benitez,” he pointed out. “She…uh, well, she was persistent, to say the least. How do you know her?”
“Oh, she’s my aunt,” I said like it was no big deal. But the way Enzo reacted, I might as well have told him that I was the Queen of England. His eyes widened, and he gripped my elbow just a little tighter, like he needed to hold on to something.
As far as anchors went, I was a pretty good one.
See, I can make fat jokes!
“Er…are you okay?” I asked. He’d gone slightly pale, but recovered quickly by nodding. His hand disappeared just as quickly, and I tried very hard not to notice.
“Yeah,” he said in a high pitched voice, before he coughed and recovered. “Yes. I just had no i
dea. So you’re Regina’s cousin?”
“Yeah!” I said a little too enthusiastically. “How did you—“
“Martha?” One of the event volunteers suddenly appeared next to us, holding a clipboard and wearing a nervous face. That did not bode well for me at all. Enzo and I blinked at her, and it made me wonder what we looked like, slightly tucked away and standing so close together that I could see where he cut himself shaving on his chin.
“They’re just about ready for us to start seating in the theatre,” she said. “But I can’t seem to find the butler…”
We’d hired an actor to play the role of Tim Curry’s Wadsworth to announce that the dinner party was about to begin in the theatre. Another one of Tita Merry’s ideas, which I thought would add a nice touch to the evening. But apparently the actor she hired was a bit of a flake with a British accent.
“I’ll look for him,” I said, waving her off. “If he’s not at his mark by 8:30, open the doors for everyone.”
I threw Enzo an apologetic look and took off to look for out wayward actor. I felt slightly disappointed, leaving him in the middle of our conversation, but duty called. Where was Tita Merry?
“Oooh, ooh, this is my favorite part,” I said to Max, tugging at his sleeve. We stood in the very back of the theatre, watching the full crowd watching the movie. Max walked in halfway through the film and stood next to me at the back where I could make sure everything was going smoothly. He hadn’t seen Clue ever, so he was laughing through all of it with me.
My favorite part was when Missus White talked about her hate for Yvette (look it up, that scene is comedy gold), which I could repeat to Maggie when I described hate for certain people (Regina). I was pulling at Max’s shirtsleeve through the whole thing, and by the end we were laughing so hard that people were glaring at us from their seats.
If the Dress Fits Page 4