Chasing Mr. Prefect

by Katt Briones

  “Oo na,” he snapped, closing the door.

  “I missed you too!” I teased, and I pinched his cheeks as soon as he got in the driver’s seat. He swore in a number of languages before slapping my hands away and starting his engine.

  “Seatbelt mo,” he scolded.

  I obliged and stayed put until he got us on the main road. I even kept my hands to myself and kept quiet.

  “So I’m going to Korea this summer,” he began and I turned to him excitedly. “Which Era of Maidens album were you missing again?”

  CHAPTER 11

  The trip from Quezon City to Alabang took us three and a half hours, despite the fact that he took the freeway. We had fun talking about a lot of things that we missed (which was crazy because the silent treatment only lasted for two days) but got dead beat by the time we made it past the toll gate.

  “Could you turn there for a bit?” I asked, pointing to a nearby restaurant, unable to help myself.

  “It’s closed,” he replied, shaking his head as he stared at the place longingly. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” I replied. “I could eat a whole pizza right now.”

  “Pizza, then,” he said. He took the main road towards our village but stopped short four blocks away at a familiar pizza place.

  The smell of cheese, garlic, and tomato sauce made our mouths water when we entered the place. I folded my arms over my tummy to stop it from making embarrassingly loud sounds as I surveyed the menu.

  “What flavor?” he asked.

  “Weh, really? Libre mo?” I replied, and he gave me a withering side glare. Not wanting to get back on his bad side too soon, I decided to humor him. “I like the shrimp and garlic one. Those baked potatoes would be awesome, too.”

  I put my hands on my cheeks, excited at the prospect of finally getting to eat, and found Cholo staring at me. He chuckled and sighed, then folded his arms as well.

  “Okay. Now go pick a table.”

  I skipped away towards a vacant table and took a seat. I got a text from Liana, asking where I was and telling me to please take care, and I looked at it for one second longer than necessary before finally deleting it. Cholo came back with a receipt and two Cokes a little later.

  “Nice shirt,” I said, checking him out as he took the seat beside me. We usually had to turn up in corporate apparel when we had case presentations. “Where were you the whole day? I didn’t notice you were missing until after 161.”

  “I had an interview,” he replied, tucking the receipt neatly inside his wallet. I kept staring, and noticed how the bills were sorted by denomination. The attention to detail made my head ache. “That’s why I wasn’t in class all day.”

  “How did you know I got a higher score if you weren’t in Dresden?”

  “I asked Patsy to get my paper from Professor Villafranca and ask what your grade was,” he answered.

  “Wow, okay. So where was this interview? And I didn’t know you had a car.”

  “It’s Kuya Chan’s. He just lets me use it.”

  “You have a Kuya? How come you’re alone at home, then?” I pressed on. “And what’s the interview for?”

  “Ang dami mong tanong,” he complained. “You know, if you want to ask questions, you’ve got to answer some too.”

  “Then ask,” I answered. He pouted, seemingly wondering why I agreed so easily. I unfolded my arms and returned his curious stare, resisting the urge to laugh.

  “Okay,” he said, dramatically pausing as he feigned deep thought. “Why do you hate Liana so much?”

  “Um . . . Pass.”

  “Bastos,” he groaned, and actually punched me on the shoulder.

  “What the heck!” I snarled. “All I said was you can ask questions, but I didn’t promise anything about answering them. And wait, why are you punching me? Close ba tayo?” I snapped, just to cover the fact that I was blushing.

  “Aren’t we? Huh?” he teased, punching me again, and we ended up just a little bit short of beating each other up when the server dude arrived with his orders.

  “Whoa, solid,” said Cholo. He was staring open-mouthed at his pizza.

  “Chicken barbecue!” I exclaimed. The smell of it made my mouth water and my shoulders drooped. “But I’m allergic to chicken . . . ”

  As though on cue, the server guy put another pizza in front of me. My jaw dropped.

  “Sir, can you put that one right here in the middle please?” said Cholo, looking at the baked potatoes still on the tray. I stared at him disbelievingly.

  “You ordered two? Plus the potatoes?” I asked, just as the server obliged and finally left.

  “Yup, you said you could eat a whole one right? Ayoko maubusan. Ow!” he complained, since I did a tiny, evil pinch on his stomach at that remark. “And I’m allergic to shrimp, so—”

  “What a sad life you have,” I said, taking a bite off my pizza.

  “So bakit nga?” he asked, mouth full. I got a tissue and dabbed at the barbecue sauce stain on the side of his mouth. “By the way, this isn’t a bribe. I bought you pizza because I lost the bet and I got in. Thought we should celebrate.”

  “Got in where?” I asked, distracted. He smiled and the way his eyes crinkled at the sides made my heart race.

  That, and the close distance. God help me.

  “Um, how about answering my question first?” he said. “It feels weird hanging out with you all the time and not knowing anything.”

  I put down the tissue on the table and finished the slice I was holding, suddenly conscious that he wasn’t the only one talking with his mouth full.

  “Di pa ba given ‘yun? She has a different mom, do the math,” I told him. He raised an eyebrow and chewed carefully, seemingly thinking of what to say next.

  “Illegitimate kid siya, ganun?” he asked.

  “No, she has a different dad, too,” I explained, feeling uncomfortable. My family’s setup wasn’t exactly normal. “Her mom married my dad about a year after my mom died. Gulo noh?”

  “Oh,” he replied, and I suddenly got aware of the fact that I was eating much faster than him. I decided to go slower. “Okay. What if you were actually blood-related, like you shared the same dad—would you hate her as much?”

  “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “Maybe more?”

  I was the only one who laughed, but maybe what I said wasn’t really funny.

  “You’re scary,” he commented, smiling the way he did when someone made a very contrived joke. I stared at the way he suddenly went cold and stuff.

  “Why?” I asked, starting on a piece of potato. “Wouldn’t you hate her if it was you?”

  “No. My brothers treat me well so I see no reason not to follow their lead once the tables were turned. But maybe that’s just me.” he replied, smiling as he took a sip off his coke. I stared at him with my mouth wide open.

  “I’m . . . sorry?” I said slowly, unsure of what he meant, but I felt like I had just crossed a lot of lines.

  “Anak ako sa labas,” he said calmly, seemingly having no idea that this hit me like a grenade. “My dad had an affair with another woman and I was the by-product. That’s why I live alone and stuff.”

  It explained everything. Why he was so independent, and why he was hell-bent on proving himself.

  “Fuck.” I said, taking clumps of my hair with both hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Vinnie, don’t be stupid,” he said, laughing as he tried to put my hair back in place. “And why are you saying sorry? You hate me now, too?”

  “No!” I said angrily. “I’m sorry. We were talking about Liana, and I went off like that. I spoke so carelessly, and I don’t have an excuse.”

  “There’s no reason to apologize,” he answered, but he still really looked offended. Hurt, even. “I really don’t blame you for wanting to hate her, though. I was just curious if maybe she did something that set you off and that was why I asked.”

  I sighed and stared at my pizza.

  “She didn’t do a
nything,” I said, face burning in shame. “Except take care of me like an older sister would. She sometimes prepares baon for me and I take it back home untouched on purpose, that kind of stuff.”

  He picked up a potato and nibbled on it. I shook my head as everything I did to Liana came crashing down on my head like an anvil.

  “You were right about me being a witch,” I conceded. “But everytime I see her, I just get reminded of how quickly my dad got over my mom dying. I mean, I didn’t expect him to mope forever, but I was what, five or six, and he was suddenly bringing Tita Cris from next door to dinner. Apparently, they had been a thing before my mom came along and they were simply picking up where they left off. It felt like my mom and I were just inconvenient roadblocks that happened to be in the way of his happiness.”

  I opened my Coke and took a rude, generous gulp.

  “Ayun. Next thing I know he and Cris were married and I had to share my toys.”

  “I imagine you didn’t like the sharing part,” he commented, putting his arm on the back of my chair with a laugh. “Yung manika sa kwarto mo. Was that yours?”

  “Yup. Liana and I had a matching set. I had Melba, and she named hers Tindeng.”

  “What is wrong with you two?” he asked, snorting.

  “I don’t know,” I said, laughing even more, leaning closer to him. “We were close, next door neighbors, playmates. Maybe that was another thing why I didn’t have friends growing up, I kept thinking that like Liana, people only made friends with me because their moms wanted to have a go at my dad everytime I had my back turned.”

  “Okay, that being said, maybe you could chill around me already,” he joked, and I slapped his arm as I laughed. “It’s safe to say my mother’s not gonna steal your dad from you.”

  “So you know where your mom is?”

  “No idea,” he answered, shrugging. I could smell his cologne from where I sat and had to resist the urge to sniff his collar. “When I asked dad after I found out, his answer was ‘nawala sa SM’. I learned not to ask any more questions after that.”

  “When did you find out?” I asked. He looked down and sighed.

  “Remember that Sustagen quiz bee in first grade? The one you won?” he asked, avoiding my eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “My mom was still around back then. Why?”

  “I found it out that day,” he told me. “My, um, other mom—she and Dad had a huge fight that morning. He made her skip half a day of work to cheer on me. When we got home she went off about having to watch over a loser who wasn’t even her own kid . . . It wasn’t pretty.”

  I must have looked so shocked that he actually covered my hand with his.

  “Oh, don’t worry, she apologized for that,” he said. “But it was never the same after. I couldn’t look at her properly in the face till now. I felt like an outsider. None of them ever made me feel out of place, except perhaps for that day that she lost her temper, but finding something like that out. It’s not something you could brush off.”

  I wanted to hit myself with a hammer over the head after that. If Cholo (whose family did almost nothing to antagonize him) felt like that already, what could Liana have been feeling after everything I did?

  “Wait, aren’t we supposed to be celebrating?” he suddenly said, taking his arm off the back of my chair. I also became aware of the fact that I was leaning too close, so I inched a bit away from him. “I got the internship I wanted in Makati.”

  “The consumer goods one? Big time!”

  “Nah, they’ll probably make me fix photocopy machines and brew coffee for their managers. But I’m really happy about it.”

  “Then you’ll have more time to play Clash of Clans. That’s fine. Nothing you can’t do,” I teased, but deep down I was genuinely happy for him, too. The atmosphere lightened a bit, and we continued eating in silence.

  He drove me home after that. I removed my seatbelt as he brought the car to a stop, and was about to thank him when he got out of the vehicle and walked over to my side.

  “You really shouldn’t let me get used to this.”

  “Don’t worry, won’t do it again,” he joked.

  “Thanks for dinner, Cholo,” I said, awkwardly tapping his shoulder. “And thank you for telling me.”

  He stared at me right in the eye and smiled, one of the most heartfelt I’d seen from him. I was sure my knees would give out from under me.

  “Thanks for trusting me, too, Vinnie. It means a lot.”

  I had this overwhelming urge to hug him, but he got there first. I couldn’t even describe it. All that registered in my head was the thought that he smelled so good.

  He lingered for I didn’t know how long. I just closed my eyes and hugged him back, enjoying every second. He was so warm, I wouldn’t have minded staying like that forever.

  “You need to go home now. It’s late,” I said, patting his back and letting him go. “And that traffic was crazy. You need some sleep.”

  “Thanks. See you next week?”

  “Next week,” I nodded, smiling again as Cholo went back to his car. I waved goodbye as I opened the gate, and waited until he vanished around the bend before I entered the house.

  “There you are,” said Liana, who was waiting on the sofa, yawning. “Glad you’re home, I was just about to hit the sack.”

  She had just turned her back on me when I found my voice.

  “Wait,” I said. She stared at me, looking puzzled. “Can you stay back for a bit? I need to talk to you,” I said quietly, and she smiled, shaking her head.

  “That’s new,” she said, whistling, and for the first time in what must have been a decade and a half, I started laughing with her.

  “Come on, then,” she said, putting an arm around me. “Think we’re gonna need some beer?”

  I didn’t brush her off. We ended up talking until morning, only stopping when Dad sleepily came downstairs for his cuppa joe. He even made a show of coming back upstairs, saying he must be dreaming because the sight of me talking properly to Liana was so weird.

  I felt the same, for some reason. None of it seemed real, but everything felt much lighter.

  Funny what pizza and a three-hour car trip can do.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was the last day of class before the Christmas break.

  I switched off my phone’s 3G so it was relatively quiet. My Gmail didn’t keep spewing out new org mail notifications, no Twitter updates appeared, and no one was texting or calling me via Viber.

  Quiet was just exactly what I needed right now.

  Today happened to be my mom’s fourteenth death anniversary. I used to pull crazy shit on this exact day of the year when I was younger. One time I ran away, got drunk on another, but the appeal of self-destructing once a year faded eventually.

  I tried to assess if anything had changed. I still missed her, yes, but most of the anger was gone.

  Weeks after that pizza dinner, Liana and I developed an easygoing, jokey banter. Cris also stopped being the 100-word-per-minute nervous wreck that she was around me. I even asked Dad to bring me to mom’s mausoleum today, which he took as a sign that things would be better between us now. (Well, I did need the ride as it was worth two jeepney trips from my village, but whatever.)

  Sitting on the marble seat in front of my mom’s grave hours later, I stared blankly at her picture.

  “You know, Mom, I think I might be starting to look like you. Cris jumped a foot backward when she saw me in the kitchen this morning,” I said tentatively, playing with my fingers. “It was almost like she was scared. Or maybe it was because she was afraid I’d pull some woe-is-me-my-mom-died-today prank again.”

  I looked at the floor, ashamed. Remembering how much Dad cried when I went on a hunger strike and ended up fainting in school (this day eight years ago), I wanted to turn back time and put everything right.

  “I have no idea what I was thinking all that time. It just made sense back then. But then I met my friend Cholo and realized tha
t nothing good was coming out of me blaming good people.”

  Well, no point denying it now. Cholo made me see sense.

  “I mean, Cris makes really decent dinner stuff. She never poisoned my food no matter how sungit I got. And Liana waits for me when I come home late when she could just let me sleep on the sidewalk. They’re honestly good people, and they kept putting up with whatever shit I threw at them.

  I think I’ve punished them enough. You won’t mind, will you, Ma? Maybe it would do us all better if I grew up.”

  I took a deep breath and tucked my hands inside the pockets of my jeans. I got my rosary out and prayed in quiet, then spent the rest of the afternoon talking to her and just taking advantage of the silence, with no academics or org duties to worry about for the meantime.

  I left the memorial park in time for the first evening mass in our village parish for that day. I wasn’t the type to go to church every week but today was an exception. Maybe going here was a much better idea than going to some bar nearby and draining their liquor supply in one go.

  Yuck, ang bait ko na.

  The church had a candle station behind the main shrine, just beside the adoration chapel. I lit a couple more candles after the mass for my mom, gave myself ten more minutes and after that I was going home.

  Suddenly, I felt someone move beside me, and smelled another candle being lit.

  “Sana po may isa dyan na sumagot na ng cellphone niya,” said a loud voice, and I turned to see Cholo standing beside me, carefully placing a candle in one of the panels. “Amen.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, and he looked so pissed when he faced me. “And can’t you keep your voice down?”

  “Liana told me I’d find you inside the church. I honestly thought she was pulling my leg but here you are.”

  “Can you not,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I meant what are you doing so far South? You’re supposed to be in school.”

  “Bakasyon ko na rin bukas, okay lang ba?” he snapped.

  “Gosh, why so cranky?” I countered.

  “Vinnie, if I ignored your calls and texts all day, you wouldn’t just be cranky, you’d kill me.”