Any Day with You

by Mae Respicio

  “I’m making some open house flyers, so I’ll be in there,” Uncle says, nodding to a coffee shop. He gives us the corniest wink. “Text me when you’re done or if you need anything, okay?”

  Abby motors ahead, parks her stuff on a bench, and sets up the camera.

  Today is reshoots, then camp this afternoon. Dad helped me call the city about permits and they said we didn’t need one for a school or camp project, that sometimes they have overzealous beach security. Whew. We’re all set.

  Abby draws an X in the sand. “Trey, start here and I’ll film you as you walk to that palm tree. You’re looking around…you’re excited about your first day of baking school. And more than anything you’re ready to make your mark in this world. Got it?”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Trey says.

  “Good. Fingers crossed no interruptions this time,” she says.

  “Or bird turds,” I say, and Trey pretends to gag.

  I spot every little thing that could go wrong: kids chasing each other on the sand, a group of teenagers blasting music, and seagulls that might use Trey as their target. But today will be perfect because Tatang said we’ll have two cakes at his party—one for his going away, and the other to celebrate our movie. He knows we’re going to win.

  Suddenly my hands feel clammy. I glance down at my sneakers on the sand.

  We take our positions.

  “Scene one, take one!” I shout, snapping the slate board.

  “Aaaaand…action!” Abby says.

  Trey walks from one point to the other.

  What’s going through Trey’s head as he pretends? Most of the time I like who I am, but it’s fun to imagine Opposite Me: a sports person, a popular girl on Pep Squad, a straight-A student.

  I watch Trey’s subtle expressions—he’s acing this.

  Abby peeps her head out from behind the camera and shouts, “Cut!”

  People stop to watch. One young couple even claps.

  “How was that?” Trey asks, and we look to our director.

  “Don’t forget us when you’re famous,” Abby says with a big smile.

  “What are you guys filming?” ask the clappers.

  “A story we made up,” I say.

  “About what?”

  “About finding out what makes you special,” Abby replies.

  We finish and pack up.

  “That was fun,” Trey says.

  “For how much we’ve bombed, we’re doing pretty fabulous,” I say.

  “Agreed,” Abby says, pulling out her calendar. “We’re ahead of schedule, too.”

  I raise my palm for a high five. “Red carpet, here we come!”

  * * *

  Once we get to camp, we dash into class and grab bean bags.

  Chatter and murmurs fill the classroom as Eliza yanks down a large projection screen.

  Today we get a sneak peek of everyone’s movies. Trey, Abby, and I chose clips from our very best footage. At first Abby didn’t want to show anything at all—she wanted to keep ours a surprise—but Trey said, “Let’s make them all sweat.”

  The lights dim. One by one each group shows a tiny bit. They’re all okay, but honestly, none really stand out yet. Ours still has the most elaborate makeup and an exciting story that’s never been done before.

  “All right. Next up, Group Bakunawa.” Abby gives me a thumbs-up. Eliza hits play on her computer.

  As soon as Bakunawa appears on the screen, I scan the other kids’ reactions.

  “Whoa,” I hear a voice say.

  Someone else says, “Nice!”

  Campers nod—they seem impressed.

  I elbow Abby and she covers her grin with both hands, like she’s about to squeal.

  After the screenings it’s break, and as we all herd out one kids says, “That bakunawa one was sooooo good.”

  The girl with the steely eyes taps me on the shoulder. I brace for something snarky but she says, “You’re getting into Beach Season for sure.”

  Now I know we have something special.

  Look up. What do you see?

  Mom and I walk through campus and I can hear Tatang’s voice in my head as I get a glimpse of the sky above. Sometimes seeing a vast blue sky overhead gives me that same feeling as when I dip into the cool ocean, or when I can see the sprawling city on a clear day after we’ve hiked to the top of a canyon. Moments that make me feel like I can do anything.

  We enter the lecture hall and I sit in a back row again. This’ll be Lainey soon. Tatang always says how in America people have options with or without college degrees, but for him, growing up in the Philippines, the only way out of poverty was through education. His elementary school had one classroom with all the grades together, plus a monkey outside who climbed coconut trees and distracted him and his classmates.

  Tatang became a teacher because he wanted to help kids reach their goals like he did. I guess that’s why he loves it so much when Lainey shows off her report cards.

  People trickle in and take their seats, open up their laptops or notebooks, and don’t notice me. The guy in front of me—the same student who slept through half of Tatang’s lecture—wears headphones and I can hear muffled music. I should probably warn him that Mom hates that (she always complains about how it’s so rude when she’s teaching), but she gives him a steady stare and that’s enough for him to look embarrassed and put them away.

  “Any questions on U.S. colonial and neocolonial history in the Philippines?” Mom asks, and hands go in the air.

  Once the hour ends, students shut their books and pack up. I run down to the crowd in front of the room. A few students approach Mom to chat.

  “I’ll only be a few minutes, Kaia,” she says.

  That was my plan all along.

  “I’ll wait outside,” I say as I file into the hallway with the rest of the students. I look for the friendliest faces. One girl reminds me a little bit of Lainey, with long, shiny black hair past her shoulders.

  I tap her shoulder quietly.

  She seems surprised, but then smiles. “Oh, you’re Dr. Santos’s daughter. It’s Kaia, right? My name’s Avery. She’s talked about you in class.”

  “She has?”

  “Yeah, she talks about you guys all the time. Especially your sister, Lainey.”

  Right. Oh well, at least the girl knows my name.

  “Yeah, sooo…um…I was wondering if you can help me with something,” I say, glancing through the open door. Mom’s still chatting. “But I don’t want my mom to know about it…yet. I’m trying to surprise my family.”

  “Ooh, this is gonna be good!” says the sleeping earphones guy, but the girl nudges him.

  “Are you okay?” Avery asks.

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. Can I tell you about it?”

  “Definitely,” she says, and we step outside to bright skies.

  I share my idea and Avery seems eager to help. What I want to do for Tatang is something Mom may already be planning—she’s so on top of these things—but I don’t know for sure. I’m hoping Avery can help me find out.

  “There’s an application too, but it’s really confusing.”

  “Let’s look at the website,” Avery says, and we read through it on her phone. She takes out some paper and we write a list of answers I need to get from Tatang for the application. The tricky part will be asking him questions without giving away my plan.

  “I’ll find out first if your mom knows anything about it. Then we’ll both do some research, and I’ll help you with the form. Does that work?” she asks.

  “That would be so amazing, thank you!”

  “Here’s my number.” She writes it down on the sheet and hands it to me.

  “Please don’t tell anyone yet,” I say.

  “My lips are sealed.” She preten
ds to zip hers as Mom walks out. Good timing.

  “You’ve got one cool kid here, Dr. Santos,” Avery says.

  “I do,” Mom says as we walk away. “Kaia, what was that about?”

  “You know…college talk.”

  Tatang’s not the only one with surprises.

  * * *

  After we get home I run upstairs. A couple of big boxes sit outside Tatang’s door, one marked Give and the other labeled Ship.

  “Tatang? You in there?” I shout into his room, but there’s no answer. The door’s open but I don’t see him inside.

  I peek into the Give box and pull out a handful of his prized shirts. There’s one with lobsters in cooking pots and another with Santa Clauses wearing sunglasses and hula skirts. Why’s he donating them? He loves these.

  “Whatcha doing?” Tatang says. I drop the clothes and spin around. He rests his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, anak, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Are you giving your collection away?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t want to take so many things home with me. Best to start simple.”

  “But these are your favorites.”

  “Like I always say, they’re just things.”

  I close the lid and follow him into his bedroom. What else is he getting rid of?

  Then I see: the empty bookshelves, the bare walls where his framed photos hung.

  “Care to help me finish packing?” he asks.

  “What’s left to pack?” He flashes a smile and I try to return it, but it feels too forced. “Tatang, how come you’ve never told me any war stories?”

  He sits in his reading chair. “I can share some now. Did I spark some questions after your mom’s lecture?”

  I nod. “A few.”

  “Fantastic. What are they?”

  “Do you…do you remember your military service number?”

  He looks at me in surprise, then gives a great big belly laugh. “How about an easier question to start with? Like the day I enlisted for the war?”

  “Sure.” I sit on the bed.

  “I presented myself at Fort McKinley with a brave face, even though inside I felt the opposite, but I wanted to serve my country….”

  We go back and forth with more questions and answers: how scared he felt, how he did it because he wanted to defend his homeland from fascism, how those hard times changed him. “They made me stronger.”

  I thought that leaving his home here might be difficult for Tatang, but I see now that his life has been full of changes that he had to figure out—and he always did. Maybe that’s why he makes moving seem like it’s no big deal, because with everything else he’s lived through, it’s not.

  As Tatang goes on, I glance over his shoulder to the naked wall. We’re so close to the finish line on our movie. Soon I’ll be able to help him put everything back where it belongs.

  Editing time. Almost there.

  Abby and I take over one of the edit bays at camp, a dark little room with monitors and equipment.

  I plug the camera into a computer, download our shots, and pull everything up on screen. It pauses on a still of Trey as Bakunawa walking along the shore, the sunlight framing his handsome face.

  We fast forward and freeze on the cafeteria scene where Bakunawa’s getting chased away by the other creatures. Trey’s mouth is open in fright and Dave, Jalissa, and Jackson wave their arms, pots and spoons raised.

  Abby presses play. The scene moves on…only there’s no sound.

  “Wait a second,” Abby says, scrolling the scene back. She clicks more buttons and plays it again but still there’s no audio, like it’s on mute. We can see Dave screaming his one line but can’t hear anything.

  I press rewind and turn the volume all the way up. “Why isn’t it working?”

  Abby clicks on the mouse frantically. Her brow moves into a deep V.

  “Oh no. No, no, no…”

  “We’re probably forgetting something really basic,” I say. I walk to the door, peek my head out, and spot Eliza. I wave her over and explain.

  “Let’s take a look.” Eliza picks up the camera. “Oh, dear.”

  “What? What is it?” Abby asks.

  Eliza points to a label: Camera 2.

  “This one has a dead microphone. Another group turned in a technical report but they must have forgotten to take the camera out of the equipment room or put up a sign so no one else could use it. I’m so sorry, girls. You’re not hearing audio because you didn’t record any.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Abby drops her head.

  “Could we…could we add the sound in post?” I suggest, but Abby groans. She turns to me with her saddest face.

  “This is all my fault—I didn’t test the camera before we started shooting that day. That’s the biggest rookie mistake. What kind of director does that?”

  “Hey, it happens,” Eliza says.

  I remember something Tatang told me. I repeat it slowly, trying to get the words right: “Maysa a bullalayaw isu masansan, imaetangan iti langit kaano iti init aglawag kalpasan dayta no adda iti tudo.”

  I don’t know a lot of Ilocano, but I think I got this one right.

  “That sounds lovely, Kaia. What does it mean?” Eliza asks.

  “A rainbow is often seen when the sun shines just after it has rained.”

  “And this has to do with my dumb mistake how?” Abby says.

  “It’s something Tatang says—when things get hard they always get better. We’ll try again. Don’t worry, Abbs, you’re doing amazing. You’re the reason we’ve gotten this far.” I pat her shoulder.

  Eventually Abby gives us a half smile. “It’s tough being a perfectionist.”

  “Sounds like you girls know exactly what next steps to take,” Eliza says.

  Eliza leaves, and Abby scrolls through our soundless footage again. I’m trying to stay positive, but she says what I’m really thinking.

  “We’re never going to finish on time now.”

  * * *

  Abby and Trey come home with me after camp so we can figure out what to do next. One week left. We still have to cut everything together, and I have no idea how we’ll shoot a new cafeteria scene by then.

  We sit at the pool’s edge, dangling our legs into the water.

  Dad comes out of his office and sits with us. “How did editing go?”

  Abby sighs. “It didn’t.”

  “I thought making our film would be more fun than this,” Trey says.

  “How so?” Dad asks.

  “We were so close, but now we have to film the whole cafeteria scene all over—we had no audio. It seems impossible now,” Abby says, shaking her head. Dad listens carefully. One thing I love about my dad is he never makes me think anything I say is unimportant. Lainey’s like him that way.

  “We should just forget about the contest.” Abby said this? My eyes go wide.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Trey says. “It takes so long to get the makeup on and we’ll need Dave and Jalissa and Jackson and everyone back to help, but they’re too busy finishing their own movies.”

  I glare at them. “You want to give up?”

  “I feel for you kids. And I wonder…” Dad says. “You want to come to the studio on Saturday? Whenever I’m stuck I get inspired by seeing other peoples’ art. It’s a weekend, so you wouldn’t be able to work at camp anyway. Spend your day cooking up solutions.”

  We glance at each other. Dad’s taken us to work before and we’ve always had a blast, but I’m not sure we can spare any time away from our movie.

  Abby perks up. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Trey says, “I’m in.”

  “Only one person left to hear from,” Dad says.

  Maybe he’s right. A new brain spark would do us good.

 
“Are you buying us lunch at the commissary?” I ask.

  He crosses his heart. “Deal.”

  “I would have come even without that,” I say.

  “Perfecto! Abby and Trey, I’ll call your parents to see if that’d be okay. And tell you grommets what: Our families haven’t gotten together in a while, so when we’re back from the studio we can do my favorite thing.” Dad gets up and ties on the apron he bought for himself that Lainey and I begged him not to get because we knew he’d never take it off: May the Forks Be With You. “I love a good Filipino barbecue!”

  Going to Dad’s office always feels like an adventure.

  A wide black metal gate greets us, and Dad rolls his car window down to scan a card. The gates swing open and Abby, Trey, and I wave to the security guard, who waves back.

  We park and take an elevator that brings us into Dad’s building. A studio has hundreds of people at work, from security guards to animators like Dad to the pastry chef at the commissary who makes the most delicious pies. Dad always sneaks extra slices to take home.

  As we walk in I see my future: I’m head of a makeup effects department for big blockbuster movies. Mom and Dad and Toby will visit during lunchtime, and on the weekends I’ll travel with my crew to places like Paris and the Sahara Desert. Abby will direct and Trey will star. Then one day we’ll visit Camp Art Attack as grown-ups, carry around our Oscars, and remember where it all started. Abby calls this our “origin story.”

  We follow Dad to a floor of cubicles and offices with glass walls.

  It’s quiet and somewhat dark; they keep it this way for the animators. A few people are in the office today, working. As we walk I peek into different cubbies and catch glimpses of what’s on peoples’ screens: a fiery storm, a monster eating a troll, a log bridge that collapses into a river because of the monster eating the troll.

  “Awesome,” Abby whispers to me.

  This feels like a place where we need to whisper because everyone’s focusing, although some people notice us and wave. One says, “Hey, Kaia and crew!”