Finally, she forced herself to go into Mariella’s bedroom. Again, her clothes were not to be found. But in the corner of the closet, under several full shoeboxes, she found her wooden box. When she opened it, what she saw caused her to momentarily stop breathing.
The pictures had all been ripped into pieces.
As Isabel reached out and touched them, tears began to run down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped them away. No matter what Mariella had done, she hadn’t taken Isabel’s memories.
Isabel tucked the box under her arm and left.
When she got back to the trike, Larry asked, “Everything all right?”
She smiled weakly, then told the driver to take them back to her apartment.
Larry looked dubiously at the box under her arm. “Is that it?”
For an entire block, she didn’t answer him. Then, without taking her eyes off the road ahead, she simply said, “Yes.”
They spent most of the remainder of Larry’s visit in the new apartment. “Our” apartment, they began referring to it. For Isabel, it was the closest she’d ever come to feeling married. In the mornings, she’d get up and make him breakfast. They’d spend the day walking around the neighborhood or hanging pictures on the walls or shopping for little things he thought she could use.
He bought her clothes, which she said she didn’t need, but couldn’t wait to wear. And in the end, he bought her a TV. “So you won’t be bored,” he said.
Not once did they see Mariella.
The day before his plane was to leave, they went to Manila and spent their time in their hotel room holding each other and talking and making love. It was always hard for her when he left, but this time it was more difficult than usual. When it came time to go to the airport, she couldn’t stop herself from crying.
Larry held her close. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “I promise I’ll be back soon.”
“When?” she asked.
“Two or three months. We’ve lasted that long before.”
She wanted to tell him that was before, not now. Now, she wanted to be with him all the time. But she said, “Okay.”
At the airport, they said their goodbyes on the sidewalk.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” he told her.
“I know.”
He kissed her.
“Let me know if there are any problems with the apartment,” he said.
“I will.”
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you, too,” she said.
During the entire two-and-a-half-hour trip home, she stared out the window of the hired car and tried to keep from thinking about anything. At some point she fell asleep, waking only as they exited the highway at Angeles and stopped to pay their toll.
Two or three months, he had said. She knew logically it wasn’t that long, but it seemed like forever. For Larry, though, she could do it. He was her world and whatever he wanted, she wanted. They would talk on the phone, and she would work, and before she knew it, he would be back again. That’s what she told herself anyway.
In reality, she was on edge, her emotions shifting wildly. And while talking on the phone might have allowed Larry to tell her how much he loved her, she really needed him there beside her. Holding her, being with her, loving her. There was nothing like personal contact.
And in that area, Mariella had the edge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
As for me, when Larry left The Lounge that night after our disagreement, I got drunk for the first time in months. It wasn’t a typical papasan drunkenness that had been almost a perpetual state for me since I started working on Fields, the kind that made me feel really good but still able to keep my business head about me. That’s when I drank because it was expected, an unwritten part of the job description.
No, it wasn’t like that this time. I didn’t care about the party anymore. I just wanted to silence the thoughts and voices and images that were besieging me. My subconsciousness was starting to wake up again, but all I wanted to do was stay numb. So I drank until I all but collapsed on the bar.
Analyn had a couple of the other girls help her close up. When they were done, she waited until Manny arrived to take me home. Between the two of them, they maneuvered me into the sidecar. I’m sure it wasn’t easy; I was still pretty big then. I barely remember any of it. What I do recall was that Manny had to stop at least twice on the way to my place so I could lean out into the night and vomit on the road.
I woke around noon, head pounding and throat feeling like every ounce of moisture had been sucked out of it. I was lying on top of my bed, still wearing the clothes I’d gone to work in the previous night. I didn’t want to move, and yet I had to. My bladder was screaming at me, and I needed aspirin. And water, about an ocean’s worth.
As I climbed out of the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom, I had to reach out several times to steady myself on whatever was nearby. I was still a little drunk, and that pissed me off. There were few things worse than having a raging hangover and still being drunk.
I managed to miss the toilet only once as I relieved myself. Pretty good, I thought, considering. I stripped off everything, then turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it. Before I stepped in, I grabbed the bottle of aspirin and poured five tablets into my hand. I shoved them in my mouth two at a time and dry swallowed them.
After that, I stood in the shower, the hot water massaging the nape of my neck, trying not to think about why I was in this state but not doing a very good job at it. At first, I blamed my condition on Larry. If he hadn’t been such an asshole, it would have been just another of my increasingly sober nights.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was the asshole.
I turned to face the water, closing my eyes and letting it run over my head. I could feel the alcohol finally receding from my body. My headache, while still very much there, had also lost some of its strength.
I remember when I was young, we had these next-door neighbors who used to fight all the time. Actually it was the wife who did most of the yelling. The husband-their last name was Russell, I think-was always this really nice guy. He talked to me when he saw me, and seemed to have a smile on his face whenever he walked down the street. His wife was the best-looking woman on the block, who barely noticed any of us kids as we stopped what we were doing and stared every time we saw her. Anyway, I guess she wanted more out of life than Mr. Russell could give her, so one day she left. I remember asking my dad why Mr. Russell didn’t try to find her, and ask her to come back. Dad took a long time before he answered, and when he did, there was a kind of resignation to it. “He didn’t have the energy anymore.”
I knew everything Larry said to me the night before had been right. What I didn’t know was if I had the energy to do anything about it anymore.
One of the things I knew I had to do was apologize to Larry, but when I called his room at the Las Palmas, no one answered. I called back and left a message with the receptionist, then headed off for The Lounge.
At first the girls seemed surprised that I had come in, but soon they were laughing and teasing me about my little binge the previous night. When Analyn set a San Miguel on the bar for me, I shook my head and told her to give me a water instead.
As the night went on, it was almost like I was seeing the place for the first time. There was a general lack of discipline I hadn’t noticed before. Girls were carrying their cell phones tucked in the back of their bikini bottoms. More than once, I saw one of the dancers on stage stop in the middle of a song, pull out her phone, and read a message she’d just received. Even those sitting with customers were sending and receiving texts. And that wasn’t all. Dancers were blowing off their turns on the stage, fighting over customers in ways I’d never allowed before, and generally acting like prima donnas.