If the Dress Fits

by Carla de Guzman

  “No, she said she was going to do it when the whole family is together. Did Lydia know anything?”

  “Nah. I’m sure it’s no big deal. Now go to work. Think about what I said, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, blowing my Dad a kiss, which he returned before I walked back to my desk to think about what I wanted.

  What I Want

  EUROPE

  Milk Tea and fried tofu from the Taiwanese place

  Korean food. Because bibimbap.

  Wagyu steak.

  Ugh where is Regina I am hungry.

  "Martha," Jennie, the office receptionist, appeared by the door to pop her head into my office a couple of minutes later. I looked up from my pathetic list and blinked at her curiously. "I have a Mr. Lorenzo Miguel waiting for you at the conference room. He has those papers you were waiting for, and he says you have a lunch date."

  “Wh—"

  "What!" Mindy exclaimed before I could, bolting up from her seat. "You mean the Zac Efron lookalike from Very Efficient Developers? Oh my god! What is he doing here?!"

  Jennie and I gave Mindy odd, confused looks. Apparently she was used to getting them because she still waited for her answers, waving her arms around and demanding explanations Jennie had already given.

  "Er...he says he's here to take Miss Martha out for lunch," Jennie repeated. Mindy whirled at me, her eyes wide with shock. My eyes were pretty wide too, so we must have looked pretty hilarious.

  "NO," she said like she couldn't believe it. "Really Martha? Two guys?!" She smacked the table with her palm. “Damn, your pussy must be on fay-yah!”

  I would have laughed if her face wasn't so serious, but I missed the reference and had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Mindy massaged the side of her temples. I knew this face she was making. This was her 'I literally can't deal right now' face. She paced in front of us and looked at me like I had three heads. She walked right up to me and placed both hands on the arms of my chair and leaned forward, angling her face way too close to mine.

  “Okay girl, listen,” she said to me. “I don’t know how you do it, but by god, you have two crazy sexy men at your door. Plus, you’ve got boobs so big they could feed the universe. You are my goddess, Martha. You may not feel it in here,” she said, waving a hand over my chest. “But you’ve got it in here,” she continued, waving the same hand over as much of my body as she could wave her hand around. I wanted to laugh, but she looked so serious I didn’t dare.

  With a determined look on her face, she reached out and slightly loosened the French braid I’d meticulously done up that morning. She pinched my cheeks (‘you need color!’), made me do a couple of mouth exercises to plump up my lips, and undid the top button of my shirt with a flick of the wrist.

  “Mindy!” I exclaimed, as she pulled me up and ushered me to the door, saying how much of a relief it was that I liked wearing heels and tulip skirts to work. “He’s my cousin’s fiancée!”

  “And when has that ever stopped anyone?” Mindy asked. “Now go out there and make me even more proud of you!”

  Jennie sent me to the conference room where she made Enzo wait. He stood there, calm and cool like he couldn't hear my heart hammering in my chest or the loud clomps my fat feet made on the floor. He was looking out at the view, absentmindedly singing a song low in his throat. His voice rumbled, and I realized that I had missed hearing his singing voice. He was really good at it.

  “…s’wonderful, s’marvellous…”

  “That you should care for me,” I sang, finishing the song and making him jump and turn to me. He smiled, and just like that I was in college again, looking into his eyes and telling him that he was the ‘grooviest’ guy in school for the musical.

  “Hi,” he said, and the dimple appeared on his cheek when he was being adorable and bashful. Wow, his hair looked fantastic in this light, extra floppy too. “Regina had to take Tita Merry to the dentist, so you have me instead. And I brought the files over.” I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Why did he still have this weird power over me? I thought that after having sex with him, after leaving him the horrible way I did all those years ago it would go away, but it didn’t. Not at all.

  I smiled like it was no big deal.

  “Awesomesauce,” I said, and I wanted to bite my tongue immediately. “Nope, I did not just say that. Sorry. Shall we have lunch?”

  “Lead the way, babydoll,” he joked, coming up next to me. This wasn’t healthy for me, I knew, since I just had a perfectly adequate sandwich and coffee with Mindy. But hey, this was all a part of the party planning experience. I might as well get a free meal out of it.

  “Oh come on,” Enzo said, poking his fork at the air in front of me. There were several plates of food in front of us, most of them empty. The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall place in Makati’s Legaspi Village, the kind you didn’t know about until someone told you about it. Tita Merry apparently used to date the owner, and he owed her this one. Mindy was just very aware of secret places like this.

  “I know you want the last of the Salmon Donburi,” he said, pushing the plate towards me. “Come on Martha, we're friends. We can't leave a super-polite last piece of food."

  Even though I was so full I couldn't eat another bite without popping another button on my blouse, I ate the last piece anyway. Like the rest of the food, it was delicious.

  God, I was such a sucker for this. Enzo and I spent the entire lunch talking about the old days, the professors we had in common, the crazy things we did during rehearsals when we had shows and the weird rituals some of our orgmates used to have.

  "...I swear I saw her sniffing his sweaty shirt," Enzo laughed, shaking his head as I grabbed my sides, more concerned over popping buttons than this hilarious story he was telling. "It was this smelly, threadbare thing, but she claimed it was a good luck ritual that he didn't know about.”

  "What! No way, that can't be right," I smiled, taking a sip of the water.

  "It's true! Last I heard they got married and now she can sniff anything of his that she likes," Enzo joked, sipping his beer while I adjusted my skirt for what felt like the umpteenth time. Tulip skirts on my thick thighs were not made for eating long lunches.

  When did sitting with a guy for a meal become so hard? It was never hard when I did it with Max (but that's Max, this is Enzo, my traitorous brain reminded me). But there was some weird tension in the air between us, an invisible rubber band threatening to snap at any second.

  It was going to hurt like a bitch when it snapped.

  "I do miss theatre though," Enzo sighed, taking another sip of his ice cold beer. It was his drink of choice in college, although this time it came with frozen froth that kept the drink cold. Like Enzo himself, he was still the same guy deep down, but with a sophisticated twist. "It's a different kind of rush, being on that stage, being someone else. Especially when you've been cast with someone awesome, say in a musical set in 1960s Baltimore."

  I didn't miss the reference this time, and I wondered what the hell he was trying to say. I knew we needed to talk about what happened at some point. I knew I needed to ask if Regina knew about what happened between us, how he felt, what happened, what he was thinking now, why he was working for a building development company when he seemed so happy in theatre.

  But I was a coward, and couldn't bring myself to burst the happy little bubble that formed around us, so fragile that anything could make it pop. What did Enzo want from me? What did I want from him?

  “Hullo, darlings!" Regina exclaimed, and the bubble around us popped unceremoniously into tiny, useless soap suds on the floor. Her cheeks were slightly flushed from the heat, but she looked happy and totally excited to see us there.

  Enzo, the perfect gentleman, immediately stood up and let Regina take his seat and sip his beer while he sat on my other side. “I wasn’t feeling too well this morning, so I sent this guy," she said, squeezing his arm. "So you didn't feel abandoned, Martita.”

  I did mind, bec
ause Enzo said she was taking her mother to the dentist. But I said nothing, smiled and shook my head immediately.

  "Nah, it's cool," I said. "We were just...catching up and stuff."

  "Because you guys were into musical theatre, right!" She exclaimed, almost thrilled to recall that he and I had that connection. "I keep forgetting you did that whole Lea Salonga thing! I mean, Enzo sings his Broadway songs all the time, in the shower, in the car...but you've got a great singing voice too. I remember when we were kids you would sing 'Part of Your World' on cue because you thought you were Little Mermaid."

  "Dude, I sang 'Part of Your World' on cue because I was Little Mermaid," I joked, trying to find a way to diffuse the weird tension that was now trying to crawl its way up my throat. Or maybe I was just too full from lunch.

  "Believe me, I was aware," Regina joked while Enzo laughed, raising a hand to ask the waitress for a cup of coffee.

  "Really, Little Mermaid?" He teased, elbowing my very large arm. I watched my fat jiggle slightly before shrugging and owning up to my very weird childhood tendencies.

  "Yes, throughout age five I would only answer to the name Princess Ariel."

  "Oh! I almost forgot," Regina exclaimed out of nowhere, clapping her hands together as I hoped to god Enzo was not imagining me in a purple shell bra. "I just got off the phone with the florist. They said they won't be able to do the engagement party arrangements on such short notice."

  "What?" I asked, whipping my head towards Regina.

  “Apparently they already have a wedding to prep for that same week,” she explained. That was a second supplier from my end that didn't deliver for the engagement party. I could almost interpret that as a sign from the universe, but I didn't believe in things like that, so I said nothing.

  "What are we going to do? Everyone's going to expect a pretty centerpiece, and the caterer can't do that for us. And the photo booth! Remember, I wanted to do the wall of white roses, like Kim Kardashian? And what is a champagne and roses theme without actual florals?"

  "Uhh...an engagement party?" Enzo dared to ask, and I immediately shook my head at him. I could see Regina was about to go into panic mode, so I said the first solution I could think of, even if it meant more things to do for me.

  "Maybe we could ask someone to go to Dangwa, find the flowers we want there," I blurted out, already wishing I had bit my tongue. "I have a friend who's a freelance event stylist, maybe he can work something out."

  "What's Dangwa?" Regina asked, blinking and pronouncing the place as 'deng-woh' with a slight British tilt to her tone. Even Enzo looked a little confused. I had to laugh. Then I said the five words I had promised myself I would never say for this engagement party.

  "I'll take care of it," I promised Regina.

  Upon hearing that I had come up with a magical solution to her problem, Regina clapped her hands and threw her arms around me in a hug, squeezing tightly. I saw Enzo look at me affectionately, and his warm smile nearly made me melt to the bottom of the table. The rubber band between us stretched again, raising the tension.

  "Have you ever considered going into event planning, Martha?" Regina asked me once she'd released me from the hug. "I think you'd be amazing at it."

  "Psh, it's just residual skills from being everyone’s favorite front of house manager," I joked, and Enzo nodded solemnly. When I wasn't cast in plays as ensemble, I made sure I still joined in the background, just so I could get to watch the actors in their element, pick up things even if I wasn't part of the show.

  Okay fine, Enzo being there was a factor, but only about half. Three-fourths, tops.

  "I make a much better Little Mermaid than event planner."

  "That's a pretty good Little Mermaid then, because that fundraiser event you arranged for the Metropolitan Museum was pretty amazing," Enzo pointed out. "The team told me you guys raised enough funds to arrange for some major repairs to the theatre."

  "Wouldn't it be great if the theatre was fixed up in time for the wedding?" Regina gushed. "I've always wanted to see it. Mom and Dad used to go on dates there all the time, and it was so sweet. Oh, and speaking of dates," Regina said, smiling wryly at me and poking my arm as the dessert options arrived.

  New York cheesecake, Devil's Food cake, Rose-infused buttercream, and candied violet cupcakes. Oh my god where has this place been all my life? I could eat here forever. Regina was only momentarily distracted, taking pictures of the sweets while I twirled my fork between my fingers, ready to attack. She put her phone down, and my fork was inches from the cake when she finally asked, "Are you bringing your boyfriend Max to the engagement party?"

  Enzo started coughing as I put down my fork.

  "Boyfriend?" he echoed, and Regina nodded enthusiastically.

  "Yup! She confirmed it in the presence of the Aunties," Regina said. "And you can't lie in front of the Aunties. They can smell you lying and squeeze your nose until all the boogers come out."

  "Oh ha-ha," I said to Regina. I had almost forgotten that I was supposed to be dating Max now. I hadn't even gotten around to telling him. I knew he would find this whole nefarious plan hilarious and play along, but I was hoping that because I'd already mentioned the existence of a boyfriend, they would leave me alone.

  Apparently when you jump one hurdle in life, there were twelve others in front of you that you had to jump over too. I should have learned my lesson, really. "But I don't know..."

  "No! Bring him, bring him!" Regina exclaimed, grabbing my wrist and shaking it, making my entire arm jiggle uncomfortably. "I want to meet this serial giggler. Ma's been trying to remember him, but there's only so much she could say beyond what she saw in a passing glance."

  Enzo looked like he wasn't sure if he should be amused, surprised, or upset. I knew the feeling well.

  "Come on now, don't let the family down, Marts," she said, picking up a fork and taking a huge bite off of the rose buttercream cake.

  "Yeah, bring him," Enzo said gently. "It will be...fun."

  Will it guys? Will it really? I scrunched my face up and stabbed my fork against the cake to stuff the dessert in my mouth to hide my frown. What the hell did I just get myself into again?

  Later that evening, while I was catching up on work and finalizing the flower list that I'd coordinated with Tita Merry and the designer, I got a text from Enzo. Seeing as it was already one in the morning, the text surprised me. The only person who usually texted me this late was Mindy when she needed a car and Maggie when she needed Kuya Benjo to sneak out and pick her up without our parents knowing. The fact that I was listening to 'I Can Hear The Bells' from Hairspray was just a coincidence.

  Enzo: So...boyfriend?? Must admit that was a surprise.

  I bit my lip and looked down at Bibi sleeping in the small crevice my legs made when I sat Indian-style on the bed. I think he loved it because my thighs were always snug and warm while my feet were cold. He looked up at me curiously while I frowned at him.

  "Should I reply?" I asked my dog, wise as he was old in dog years. Bibi was a master of nonverbal communication, and simply turned away from me to lay his head on my thigh.

  "I'm taking that as a no," I said, rubbing the top of his head as I put aside my phone. I was not ready for any of this, so I just decided to go to sleep.

  "Hey Max."

  “Thank god you called, I really wanted to put that book down.”

  “You?" I asked in disbelief.

  “Me. I’ve been in a bad book streak since…since the last time we talked.”

  I realized that it had been three weeks since that disastrous lunch at Tito Bob's Shawarma place, and three weeks since I talked to him.

  Suddenly I missed him, which was weird, because I never used to miss him before. His Facebook was nearly silent (not that it was ever a reliable indicator of what was happening to him) except for George Torres' selfies with him (he rarely looked at the camera so she kept tagging #shybae on her posts), and her photos of him walking Wookie or carrying Tinkerbell the Bicho
n.

  Not that I was keeping tabs on him, of course. Max was a grown man with his own life. I was busy with the engagement party, the wedding plans (the whole family was being roped in to that joyous occasion) and work to keep track of him.

  So, anyway. I called him.

  "Haven't heard from you in a while," he said casually, like it was no big deal to him. I swallowed a lump of hurt that had formed in my throat and tried to avoid letting it settle. It was early on a Saturday morning, and I woke up this morning with an urge to just pick up the phone and call him, like I usually did. Bibi's ears perked up and he wagged his little tail while sitting on my bed, like he knew Max was on the other end of the phone. I rubbed his ears.

  "Yeah, well one of us is planning the social event of the year, with very little time for phone calls," I said jokingly, but the message hit home. I heard Max sigh. I could close my eyes and see him running his hand through his hair. Why was I trying to pick a fight with him? It wasn't his fault that I never called him.

  "Martha," he sighed. "I don't want to fight. Now are you going to remind me to go to Mass tomorrow or am I going to pull my hair out trying to break my bad book streak?"

  I swallowed my slight irritation and hurt and just asked him. Really, what did I have to lose?

  "Do you want to drive me to Dangwa?"

  There was a pause on his end of the line, and I wondered if he would say no. Did he even know where Dangwa was?

  "Martha," he said, his voice low and serious. "I solemnly swear to go wherever you would like me to go on this fine Saturday morning. I'll pick you up in a hour."

  "Wear closed shoes!"

  That was how Max and I ended up starting off our Saturday in Dangwa. The drive was fun, we put on Aegis’ greatest hits and sang all the way to the heart of Manila. Our concerto was only interrupted by the GPS on his phone, directing us to the right place.