The tiki torches are Papa’s idea even though he hates everything capricious. “Iris has never been to Boracay,” he says by way of explanation, and I barely stop myself from saying, “Neither have we.” The flames make the hot June evening hotter. The hedges around Iris’s small backyard crackle in the sweltering air.
“She looks like Cate Blanchett,” Paulo says.
I glare at my older brother until he realizes how weird he is, gushing about Papa’s new girlfriend. But the night has started out weird anyway. I showed up at Iris’s townhouse, four on the dot, finding Paulo practising card tricks in the living room, our father staking torches in the backyard. Iris was still at work. When she arrived, it seemed like she knew something was up — my father had provided just enough hints to intrigue — but she had not anticipated the presence of his children in her home. Her smile was wide and stiff when Papa introduced us, his voice booming with pride. I excused myself to the kitchen, her kitchen, and busied myself mincing herbs on the marble countertop, picking up any bits that strayed from the chopping board. Paulo bowed and started performing card tricks. Iris relaxed. She laughed throatily, her smooth, wintry face alight when a coin disappeared in Paulo’s hands and he plucked it from behind her ear. “I’m speechless. Can you do it again?”
The bay window overlooking the backyard frames Papa and Iris perfectly. A torch at each end of the table, pearly white tablecloth and serviettes, on which Papa has set Iris’s Noritake’s dining set and crystal wine glasses. I have picked the bottle of rosé sitting in an ice bucket near the tall clear vase of sunflowers. The blooms face the aquamarine bar of Jericho Beach beyond the hedge. They are working on my first course: arugula salad with oranges, pomegranate seeds, and goat cheese.
My father puts down his fork whenever Iris speaks. They met a month ago at a health and wellness convention where Papa was selling an herbal supplement that improves everything from hair follicles to the digestive tract. Since Mama kicked him out two years ago, we have lost count of the odd jobs. It is easier to track the short-term girlfriends. A waitress at a sushi joint. A biker he met at a lakeside retreat. The aspiring singer selling her CDs along Commercial Drive.
I turn to Paulo. “How long do you think she’ll last?”
He doesn’t answer, just looks around the kitchen. At the matching stainless steel refrigerator and stove, upholstered stools along the breakfast bar, a curio cabinet housing three different kinds of porcelain tea sets. Iris is different from all the others.
Papa was waiting for me outside the campus last week. His pressed clothes told me he had a job. The clean nails hinted at a girlfriend. “When will you get a phone?” I told him.
“Is that the hello I get from my little girl?”
He offered to treat me at a nearby café where I ordered the most expensive latte. On the small overhead TV, there was a news story about Muhammad Ali’s funeral. The camera panned a bird’s eye view over the slow procession on the streets of Louisville. People cheered, waved American flags, threw flowers at the hearse.
“Muhammad Ali liked magic,” I told Papa as we waited for our drinks.
“Ha?”
“He had a personal magician who taught him some tricks. Paulo told me.”
“Just like your dim brother to believe stories like that.”
As we sipped our drinks, Papa didn’t tell me he was in love. Or that he wanted my help to impress a new girlfriend. Instead, he told me he was proud of me for pursuing my passion. “Culinary arts. I’ve always known you have my fine taste.” He mentioned a new restaurant by the Seawall where he would take me one day. To be heaped upon with such expression of fatherly pride and adoration was as strange as it was rare, stirring a yearning I didn’t know I have. That was how I ended up in Whole Foods this afternoon, buying ingredients for a romantic three-course dinner for two.
Beside me, Paulo checks his watch. “My shift starts at eight.” He glances at the scene outside, wondering when he could shed his damask vest, dark pants, and button-down shirt for his 7-Eleven uniform. His long sleeves are folded from wrist up to prove he has nothing to hide.
“You’re leaving me here with them?”
He frowns. “You planning to be here all night?”
We don’t talk about Mama, who is probably just starting her overnight shift at the geriatric ward downtown. “I have plenty of men in my life,” she jokes during breakfast of Spam and fried eggs before heading to bed. She talks about octogenarians whom she has to undress and help to their bathroom routines, whose loose skin and aching joints she massages with pain-relief ointments and topical hydrocortisone. I sometimes wish I worked with her, to ease her nightly burden and perhaps harden my own shell against the sight of our proud, able-bodied father turning dingy and thinning. To Mama, he is more helpless than her aging patients.
Our conversation at the café last week annoyed me but also left me feeling vaguely hopeful. Our father has had many girlfriends. He has asked Paulo and me for favours before. But he has never asked a favour about a girlfriend. It was Iris who made him do it, pushed him past a comfort level. Who knows what else is possible? Life has been known to allow miracles. Out there, in the fairy-tale backyard, our father is already behaving like a better man, well-dressed and soft-spoken. When he calls Paulo for another trick, he does so with a snap of fingers, as if summoning a well-trained butler. My brother, grateful for any willing audience, grins and heads outside. He spreads his deck of cards in a fan on the table in front of Iris.
Main course is roasted bass and asparagus. Iris is a healthy eater, according to Papa.
Will he change his ways for her? Or will she lay a path on which to guide him through? Ever since we reunited with Mama from Manila, it has seemed as if Papa doesn’t know what to do with himself. He refuses to work for anyone, but he doesn’t have the networks here that helped his printing business back home. The foul words he called out as a form of affection to friends have become just foul words, the way he squared his shoulders during an argument is now just hollow swagger. The way he is behaving around Iris right now hits me with a strange kind of homesickness, as if we are back home and we are children again, except that he has transported this strange woman with us while Mama is out on some prolonged errand.
Paulo walks in with the empty salad plates. His forehead is beaded with sweat, eyes dancing with excitement. Like a boy who has been playing in the streets. “It’s hot under those torches.” He clears the plates and puts them in the dishwasher like he is in his own kitchen.
“I forgot to get ice cream,” I blurt out, as if he could conjure a missing ingredient on the spot. A panic seizes my chest for ruining the grand plan of closing the evening with peach melba. The peaches have been poached, the raspberry sauce is simmering. I check Iris’s freezer for a substitute but only find a tub of coco yogurt, its contents too runny.
“You sure you need it?”
“Well.”
The oven timer goes ding! The bass fillets are ready. They are golden and crisp, but the flesh will be tender on their tongues. Paulo gapes, impressed, as I carefully lay the fish and seasoned asparagus spears on dinner plates already adorned with grapefruit-flavoured salsa.
The dinner plates are huge — I have to use my elbows as I bring out the main course the way I have seen waitresses at Earls do it. Iris is talking about Muhammad Ali. “I think of him during my cardio kickboxing class. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” My shoulder stiffens, hearing Papa’s voice in my head. “Cardio kickboxing? What kind of a half-assed workout is that?”
But he reaches across for Iris’s hand. “Impressive. But sweetheart, let me tell you something about Muhammad Ali.”
Iris leans forward, smiling.
“He is a true renaissance man. Did you know that he’s into magic too? He has a personal magician teaching him tricks.”
I almost dump the fish on his lap but settles for banging the plate in front of him. “Incredible,” Iris says, but she is admiring my father, not the fish. It is hot under those torches. There is a sheen of perspiration on Iris’s bare shoulders. My father dabs his forehead and nose with her serviette. I linger for a moment, waiting for them to taste the food, but Iris keeps talking about her gym routine. Her favourite is a ninety-minute yoga class followed by a sauna session. I’m starting to melt beneath the torch.
Iris notices me just when I turn to leave. “Stay for a little bit,” she chirps, but I pretend not to hear. Inside, Paulo notices my darkened face, my quick strides. “Where are you off to?”
“I’m getting ice cream.”
Then I am out on the streets, away from the dreamlike house. It is cooler out front, bringing the jarring clarity of a bad idea. Paulo and I have been fooled. Used. My brisk steps turn into a jog. I can go home, leave them wondering. But I don’t do that, promising one thing and doing something else.
I learned to cook the summer Mama left for Canada. I wasn’t trying to be a good daughter. Preparing meals just made the days less long. It divided the day into three parts. Breakfast. Lunch. Supper. Just simple dishes everyone can make. Fried galunggong, crisp from head to tail, the way I liked it best. Ligo sardines cooked with onions and kangkong. Sinangag with leftover rice and a lot of garlic. Corn and malunggay soup. In my culinary program, my classmates talk of family gatherings around elaborate feasts and secret recipes, trips to farmer’s markets or hours in a backyard garden with a grandparent who taught them how to unleash the potency of fresh harvests. I have no such story to tell. My father merely made up our shared fine tastes. He would have starved Paulo and me with his horrible cooking. He was proud of his overfried minced pork and innards, which he served to his drinking friends who brought cases of Red Horse. His adobo was always too sour, never able to grasp the right blend of soy sauce and vinegar. I tried to fix it once, pouring a bit more soy sauce into the simmering pot when he stepped out of the kitchen. Turned out, Paulo had thought of doing the same. We never figured out who snuck into the kitchen first, but the dish had ended up so salty, it was inedible. Our oblivious father had shrugged and said he’ll use more vinegar next time.
I reach a Safeway and meander through the aisles, searching for the right way to feel. Everything is too bright, promising something merry in boxes and packs. Cereals and potato chips. Candies and crackers. Jams and condiments. In the dairy section, I take too long deciding between the store brand ice cream or a pint of something dairy-free with dubious ingredients. After grabbing an eight-dollar tub of Chapman’s Vanilla, I wander over to the produce section where it’s more spacious, chilled air drifting from the refrigerated display of vegetables.
In a lecture, we were shown pictures of fruits and vegetables before the development of agriculture. Purple carrots with gnarly roots. Bananas and watermelons laden with seeds. Primeval gourds with rough peels and meagre flesh. It took thousands of years before our ancestors learned to till land, willing it to offer up sweeter and juicier crops. The ancient tribes, whose days revolved around hunting and gathering, had to use rocks to break through scaly membranes and hard shells, relying on their senses and wits to tell food from poison.
It fascinates me, the life of prehistoric humans, as trusting of the world’s abundance as they were cautious of its elements and beasts. They knew to stick together, their numbers more essential to their safety than any material possessions. I picture them crossing narrow isthmuses and navigating steep ranges, thriving along coasts and within caves. They leave their mark on places, not the other way around. They are strong and happy, free of complicated cares.
A strange figure meets me at Iris’s door. Before I can cry out, I recognize Paulo, who has metamorphosed into a 7-Eleven clerk. He looks worried, as if his showman’s garb has been confiscated by a fairy godmother with a curfew, exposing him to be a mere servant.
“What took you so long?” he hisses.
“Huh?”
“They’re fighting.”
I follow him to the kitchen, dark now. The scene in the backyard looks staged, a picture of carelessly abandoned elegance. The twin flames of the torches are bright against the dusk. There is no one at the table, just shadows playing on the linen and dinner plates. Judging from the remains, they have been so close to a different ending, a different life.
“They’re upstairs,” Paulo says, even though the angry voices through the ceiling have made that obvious.
“How did it start?”
Paulo tells me that things were going well until the topic of Robert Hall came up. Our father declared that his carelessness was to blame for the fate he suffered in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf. Iris was horrified. He couldn’t have known, she insisted. He was a grown man who did his own due diligence, just happy to visit a land of warm, hospitable people. Paulo then mimicked our father’s condescending snort. “Served him right for being so stupid, vacationing in that region.”
“Maybe they’ll get past it.”
Paulo stares at me like I should know better. We both should have known better. “I’m late for work,” he finally sighs. “You know, you don’t have to stay.” Lugging his backpack, bulky with costume and props, he leaves Iris’s home.
As children in Manila, we were adept at finding the places in our small house that were farthest from wherever our parents were fighting. Paulo’s room at the end of the hall was best when the action was in the living room. From there, the faults and flaws our parents flung at one another were strangers’ noises, could easily have been the neighbours’. They yelled about missed tuition fees, our late mealtimes, a bad word Paulo or I was heard using. I often wondered if they had been happier before we were born.
Once they started, I would let myself in as Paulo shuffled cards. We didn’t talk as I watched him play round after round of solitaire. If they fought in their bedroom, Paulo and I snuck out to the backyard, vanishing ourselves between flanks of damp laundry drying on the clotheslines.
I feel around for a light switch. Once it’s bright, I see Paulo has wiped the counters and the glass stovetops clean. The two dessert bowls with seashell-patterned rims gape expectantly. There is a barely perceptible flutter in my chest, leftover thrill from the excitement of building a classy three-course meal. I thought of the recipes and ingredients for days, meticulously planning the interplay between textures and tastes.
Upstairs, my dad raps at a door. Bang! Bang! Bang! The polished copper pots hanging from the ceiling shake a little.
“Go away!”
I can pack up the peaches and pureed raspberries. Take the ice cream home, enjoy it myself. But it doesn’t feel right, leaving out the sweet conclusion, the grand plan fragmented. I hunt around for a ladle.
Iris shrieks. “Get out of my house!”
“Don’t yell at me!”
“You work for some pyramiding company. Verdaviva was debunked by the FDA!”
“What do you know about working, you trust fund princess!”
Everything is finished between them, but they fight like there is a way out.
When Mama left for Canada, our father wrote her lengthy emails. During the long-distance calls, Mama kept reminding us to be kind to him. When Papa wept at night, I slept, pained and comforted by his devotion. Six long years passed before we saw her again. Against the cool interiors of YVR, our mother looked much older. Her sentences had a lilt, syllables softer on her lips. She embraced Paulo and me together, our grown bodies awkward, getting reacquainted with the childlike need. She and Papa hugged for a longer time. Then we pushed our luggage carts out into the cold, giddy with hope.
The desserts are ready, but I still don’t feel like going home. The yelling upstairs has receded, just hateful words I can’t make out now. I start to feel like an intruder in that beautiful kitchen. Maybe they can still patch things up, come downstairs holding hands, smile tearily at the dainty bowls of peach melba. At the thought, my stomach recoils, as if from spoiled food.
The flames outside sway and sway.
Moments later, my father emerges at the top of the stairs. It’s too dark to see his face, there is only the defeated slump of a shadow descending. Our eyes meet when he steps into the light, the silence brimming with unspeakable truths. Wounded, we have both surrendered, but neither releases the other from the trap of our bitter stares.