From the black hour of three a.m. we stepped past the glass doors and into a playground of light: the blinding fluorescent beams nailed high on the ceiling, bathing the slick tiles of the floor in white light, the steady glimmer of the restaurant’s signature colors, red striped on yellow. Too much brightness in the span of a few seconds, but it was ridiculous to troop in with sunglasses perched on our noses. Even the revolving chairs shone a glaring blue. On second thought, it was probably a good idea to have donned those glasses; the girl behind the counter, a navy cap with the shadowed stamp of the famous bee mascot, she had been smiling a wide, toothy grin as we let ourselves out of the van, one, two, three dudes then one girl, just a rowdy group back from a party or probably driving through for the weekend, we seemed. But three feet away from her, we hit her with the truth: the red cracks on the whites of our eyes, the bruised, dark crescents under our respective stares. We stank of booze, and it was Sonny’s fault, thinking that it was cool to pour beer on himself, spray it around the stage, on us, before pitching the bottle to the audience, and it was a miracle he didn’t fry the wires, the amp. The audience howled, loved it. Booze and cigarettes, and the latter we’re all guilty of, and we weren’t so young anymore. On shows such as tonight’s — last night’s — out-of-town blitzes in cramped town halls or in the open-air stage underneath the stars, we torched our lungs blackened, shriveled lungs with no less than two packs. That we felt like wet turds afterward was the agreement, and it showed on our battered faces, lined, pale, eyes bleary, spines slumped. No wonder the smile, and it was a lovely smile, that smile dropped significant watts as we stood before Counter Girl. We looked like thugs to her, thugs who’d driven in the black hour of three a.m. to attack a family restaurant, seize all that was behind the counter.
From behind the cluster of us three guys, a soft thump of heels walked around us. The sudden grunt of the air conditioner on the end blasted a gust of her scent to us: faded shampoo, generic soap, and the rare combination of oil and sweat that combined into a fragrance, a perfume. There was the dark tinge of cigarettes, the beer that had been sprayed on her dress, now a dry smell but still with a cloying hint of moist sweetness. She wasn’t the leader of us, no, but she was a girl, and wore the shy version of a smile: lips together, dimple deepening, cheeks lifting and warmth leaping to her black onyx eyes, cast down then the fluttering up alternately. Her hair was a tumble of brown splashed with rainbows, all colors of the rainbows, and the lateness of the hour, plus the sweat she’d shed from the performance had smudged her eyeliner but it was still on her eyes, hazy black lines. But her lipstick remained a clear stamp of red, matched to her dress, a short bit of fabric with a skirt that swung around her thighs.
“Hello,” she said to Counter Girl,” do you have breakfast?” The screen behind her showed only the regular items, tight shots for the mouth to water at the anticipated crispness of chicken at first bite, the sprinkle of cheese of the glistening red sauce piled on the spaghetti, the sweet juice squeezed out of the hamburger when bitten.
Counter Girl’s smile jumped to two hundred megawatts, and she said yes, they were available but depending on the order, would take between five to seven minutes to prepare. No problem, and we all fished for our wallets. The lone girl in our group, she took all our money, fanning the bills in her hands, fingernails tipped red as her dress. She urged us to sit, go, anywhere, she could handle the order and the wasted among us breathed relief at that. I stayed by her side. I wasn’t that wasted but there was already the looming evil throb of a headache at its early stages.
“I’m starving,” she said, leaning over the gleaming silver counter while our orders were prepared.
“You didn’t have anything,” she had been too tensed to wolf down any of the sandwiches Nina had prepared, wrapped in silver foil and packed in a Tupperware that came with a handle, like a bag. Nina, despite the contract’s decree about providing us food, always made me bring sandwiches along, or maybe pastries. Nothing was good enough when she wasn’t around, and told me she slept better knowing that I had food from the house, made by her own hands. That and because she wanted me to never forget.
We settled into a comfortable silence after that. There was no need to fill the air with words, no need to listen to her voice replying, asking. It was the kind of quiet felt between good friends, or long-time lovers. Gone was this need to express, to assert, to check. You just knew that person was around, at your side, the warmth radiating from her dashed with that nice, clean scent. It was a respite from the floral spice that clouded my apartment: the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, and sometimes, even the car. It made Nina smell like fifty, told her so and she said colognes, eau de toilette, lips curling in a sneer, weren’t right for her age anymore. She was twenty-eight.
“I’m changing my order from juice to coffee. You?” I turned to look at her as she asked the question.
“I need the sugar, but go ahead,” and so she called for Counter Girl, changing her order. Counter Girl nodded with that bright smile, as if it was the best thing she’d ever heard.
I wasn’t that too crazy about her at first, thinking that her colorful hair resembled a parrot’s, and the eye make-up and lipstick were a little extreme at eleven a.m., the hour she had walked into our studio the first time, the heels of her little boots click-clacking across the floor. She was a friend of a friend of Rod’s, who did guitar and backing vocals. A smiled crossed her face as Rod introduced her around before he pulled her aside.
We’ve been in the music scene for a while. Sonny, lead vocalist and guitar, had been a neighbor since ten, and every afternoon after school, we trailed to our respective houses and wore out the turntable with Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Black Sabbath, Gang of Four, to mention a few. Then it became cassettes, the brown tape ending up in snarls from too much play on our car radios, the volume turned up, way up and the windows rolled down. From listening and memorizing lyrics, we navigated to playing the instruments: guitar, bass and drums. I liked the long elegance of the bass, and how it was such an underrated instrument unless played by the right hands. You had to know the instrument, love the slender line of the fingerboard, carved like an elegant neck, the sudden, upturned flare of the strap button, which reminded me of a woman’s hip cocked teasingly. Worship the bass, and it only played the notes, dark, deep with the tinge of smoky sexuality.
We didn’t want to be a duo, so in college, we recruited Rod, who had lightning fingers. That was lucky. With the drummer, we weren’t. Our line-up changed so often that we’ve decided against putting our faces on posters, just the flared rays of the north star penned in black on an expanse of glossy white paper, the symbol of our name.
Over the years, we saw countless drummers, all leaving for reasons that included creative differences to something as ridiculous as being worn out from all the playing. That was what our last drummer explained, and it was fortunate we didn’t lose gigs because I knew how to play the drums too. But John Bonham I wasn’t; my hands belonged to the bass.
Then Rod, through a friend of a friend, mentioned this person, Addie, that was her name. She was “good, real good, you gotta sit down when she starts bangin’ those drums, she knocks you off your feet,” according to him and I longed to return to the bass. “Get anyone, I don’t care,” I said, and so Addie came: rainbows in her hair, red on the lush pout of lips stolen from Liv Tyler, wearing something lacy over a shirt, shorts and boots. Hers were the longest stretch of legs I’ve ever seen. She was long everywhere else: hair, neck, arms, torso. She couldn’t be a drummer, she was nothing else but Rod’s hard-on and Jesus, we’d be losing time practicing just so we could help him stroke it, I hissed to Sonny as we stood on the other end of the studio while Rod and Addie talked, he was giving her instructions. She stood with her hand in her pocket, hip cocked to the side. “Who wears that much make-up at eleven fuckin’ a.m.?” I demanded to Sonny and he just shook his head, listen, let’s see, that’s all. It isn’t like final or anything. And so we helped Addie carry the drums, gleaming red, which was her favorite color, she thought to mention, to me of all the other guys and what was I supposed to say? It was the summer, the sun was on the ground, and we were carrying drums in a studio that only had two fans for air. All this effort for some wannabe rocker-drummer, but we settled into the couch, salvaged battered from a garage sale, and watched. Listened.
We watched the swoop of her arms, drumsticks in hand, movement that echoed a conquering hawk’s flight towards a prey.
We listened to her beat the drums with a force wrenched from the dark pit of her soul, repeated bombardment that I swore dented, even cracked the drums. White spark played in her eyes.
We had a new drummer.
The rapping of her fingers summoned me back to restaurant, where we stood by the silver counter she was now drumming on. On her face was that familiar spark, the quirk of that smile, the flash of her dimple. Counter Girl laid our food on the tray. “I’ll just get your drinks,” she said.
“You don’t stop playing,” I gestured at the counter.
“Why stop when it’s so good?”
Addie unwrapped the small carton of the peach mango pie and nibbled. I watched her, watch pink bloom on her cheeks as she wiped the flakes of her lips with her fingertips. “What?” but there remained the spark, the smile. I shook my head, “Nothing,” and she offered me a bite. “No. Go ahead,” I told her just as Counter Girl started laying the drinks on another tray.
It was a little heavier, the tray piled with local breakfast fare of longganisa with garlic rice, egg topped by dry yellow yolk on the side. But she’d have no trouble making her way to the table, while the tray with the drinks required some balancing act. Rod had ordered both coffee and upsized pineapple juice, Sonny two large Cokes. Addie’s coffee and my juice. The drinks were wobbling pools of brown and yellow, sloshing to the side despite my careful steps forward.
Addie distributed their orders, getting sleepy thanks for the bother before she slid on the bench beside Rod. Rod nearly swam in the pineapple juice, his head pitching forward, fast, before he caught himself, rubbed his eyes. It was three-fifteen, the sun wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours. I sat, folding my legs, bumping Addie’s knees. “It sucks to be tall,” I muttered, getting a packet of sugar, shaking it before pouring the white crystals to the juice. “Sorry.”
Another round of quiet, broken only by more packets ripped open, the whispered rush of sugar, more sugar down our drinks, the plop of cream in the others’ coffee. Addie, who’d subsisted on coffee and cigarettes since the previous afternoon, winced at the bitterness that flooded her mouth at the first sip of her fresh cup. “Jos, may I?” and so I offered her my pineapple juice, which she glugged until it was halfway down the cup. I looked at the red crescent of her lipstick on the cup, and she apologized, quickly rubbing it with a tissue. “We wouldn’t want Nina to think you’re stealing her lipstick,” she said, laughing. It was a silver tingle to the ear.
The heavy throb in my head had finally receded into a dull but manageable beating and so I continued eating, listening the quiet around us. We all had the same order, two pieces of sausage with a cup of garlic rice. Addie forked the meat, then guided it to her mouth for a small bite. She still took sips from my juice, sorry about that, she went, but I let her. Wasn’t into juice too much, had only wanted it for the sugar kick on a system winding down from a hard night of cigarettes, music, sweat and crowds.
Silencing the growl in our stomachs at last, the topic of tomorrow night’s — now tonight’s — gig came up. A concert with other bands. Our call time was four but the show wouldn’t start until seven. “There’s no way we’d be awake earlier than three,” Rod sighed. Ours had been a long week of shows, guest appearances and we’ve yet to be signed by a major label. But the underground buzz, as much as we’ve begun to hate the long drives to out-of-town shows and the early, way early call times, was more than good. Something was being done right, I thought, glancing at Addie, seeing the white light from the fluorescent fall on her rainbow hair. Her black gaze met mine and she let me hold it for a few seconds before she looked away, then a quick flutter of her lashes back at me before directing her attention somewhere else.
Sonny was complaining about the drive back, he wanted to stay a while, catch a few z’s.
“I can drive,” Addie said, adding she’d driven to Baguio and back before in one day, when the sky was a showcase of pink and orange shafts as it flared a final protest before enshrouded by night, and then back, the sky still awashed with stars, and they were her only light aside from the twin beams from the headlights. And we were only less than six hours outside of the Manila, Baguio was farther. Yeah, she could do it, she nodded, as if to confirm with herself. Sonny agreed, yeah, thanks for the offer.
Then her eyes slammed into mine again. But Sonny continued to ramble, “I owe you, thanks so much,” and she had to turn away from me to look at him, “It’s no big deal.”
So we’re back in the van, Addie cupped in the driver’s seat while Rod and Sonny crashed at the back, crammed in the tight gaps between the equipment so I had to go in front with her. Nothing new with her being in the driver’s seat and me as a passenger. It was our habit to drive early into the studio and meet there, the sun a faint disc in the pale horizon of a fresh morning. She had a nicer car, shiny and faster, so that’s what we used when hitting the nearby fast-food joints, with the windows rolled down, music shattering the tranquil morning in the smog-choked city. We sang our own concerts, but I let her sing alone, where she deepened her voice in a somber growl like Kurt Cobain’s, singing “Come As You Are,’ her favorite. Her dark, smoky voice spun a spell that made me forget everything, well almost everything, except the rainbow-haired girl in the wind-whipped t-shirt, singing her lungs out. It wasn’t complete without our cigarettes, and I would hold two sticks in my lips, feeding them with the blue-tinged flame from the lighter before handing one to her. She puffed, releasing a steady stream of smoke, enjoying the cigarette to the last beat of the song before it was time for another one.
I got ready with our cigarettes, reaching into the pocket of my shirt for the crushed pack that held only two sticks. “We’d better save them,” and she agreed, we’ll smoke later then.
She’d just burned another CD, all her favorites, she said, and was now rummaging in the front for her bag but I remembered her tossing it to the back before we left earlier to eat. She sighed loudly, started the engine instead. “It’s here,” I grunted, straining my arm to reach deep and low for the small thing nestled next to Rod’s foot.
“They’re really out, aren’t they?” Addie flicked the light on, eyes on the rearview mirror. As if in reply, Rod and Sonny began a snore duet. We looked at each other and laughed. She took the bag from me, rifled through it and retrieved the flat square case of the CD. “I’m bad, being they’re asleep and all, but I can’t drive without music,” she said, putting the disc on the slot then pushing a button. Then the van urged forward, slowly, gradually picking up speed. Addie thought we should roll the windows down.
“You’ll get cold,” I asked, for sitting down had shifted her dress higher up her thighs.
“Singing will keep us warm. Jos, it’s Siberia in here, come on, roll them down,” she said.
“But your hair. Girls are always fussing with their hair.”
“I don’t care,” Addie shrugged, “Besides I like Broom Hilda.”
Suddenly, a long, familiar drawn-out wail came on. Gordon Gano. Addie’s finger jammed on a button, turning it up. I swore I felt an electric thrill rush through her body, and she seemed to glow a pale amber, the light tracing the line of her. A sudden, golden warmth went through me, sharp and precise, flattening me to the seat with its force and Addie, seeing the song take over me, laughed.
“On count of three,” she said, “one, two, three…”
We shouted about why we couldn’t get just one kiss, that it’s one of the things we wouldn’t miss. Or one screw? Why couldn’t we get just one screw? We knew what to do, but something was stopping us from making love. Addie bobbed her head hard, her lips curled in the rock-star snarl while I air-guitared.
Someone from the back, Rod or Sonny, groaned, “Shut up.”
We answered with hooting laughter, laughter that echoed into the night, the rumble in my chest tinged with her silver tingle. I let the pleasure of the laugh spread in me, spreading in the pathways of my body before converging at the center of my chest. It had been a long time, years, since laughter had seized me like this. And maybe because it was such a long time ago, I never forgot that last time.
It had been in the dark, the faint moonlight hanging out the window, with a woman too. A bedside lamp switched on, illuminating Nina, the tousled tresses of her dark hair framing the small oval of her face, her eyes glittering with play and love, back then I was so sure it was there for us. Away from the somber confines of a gray suit matched with a blouse the shade of jaundiced yellow as decreed by the bank, she was free and young, no worries etched on face.
We laughed the loudest in bed, the mattress dipping from our combined weight and springs squeaking as our bodies rippled. Sheets tangled around our legs and our legs around each other’s, we talked about the ridiculous and the inane, each sending us into hyena howls that we quickly smothered because the walls were thin and next door was a Bible-clutching, Jesus-obsessed woman with a spatter of gray on her helmet bob, always ready with her cataract-flecked glare whenever we walked past each other in the complex because of the sin we lived in, and worse, reveled in. And that just made Nina and I cling to each other with the desperation of lovers whose nightmare was to part.
A game we liked to play was Starfuck, celebrities we could fuck, according to Nina. We had to cite several celebrities we want to sleep with, and the partner got to choose for you.
So given the choice among Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Ethan Hawke, Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron, who will I let her sleep with?
“That’s not the question,” I said, “why the hell’s Zac Efron on the list? I can understand the vampire dude, though too pretty for my taste. Ethan Hawke’s a little weird too.”
“Come on,” she mock-punched me on the chest, “who can I sleep with?”
I’ve always thought she was most beautiful with her dark hair tangled in the snarls after sex or sleep, the remnants of a dream still resting on her eyes, giving me a hooded gaze. She was up with her cheek pillowed by her palm.
“You mean, just sex?”
“Well yeah, but hopefully dirtier,” she deadpanned,” “Like rock-star sex. Loud, you know, screaming, maybe even a bitch-slap..” A far-off, dreamy quality laced her voice towards the end before laughter overwhelmed her, her shoulders shaking, her face red. I enjoyed watching her like this, loved it, but she was insistent, kept on prodding, “Come on. Who’ll you let me sleep with?” I pushed her hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.
“You’re weird,” and to that, she said, “You love it,” then, “So who? Tell me who I can fuck with a clear conscience.”
“Ethan Hawke,” and when she made a sound of protest, I added, “Reality Bites, baby, the movie that embodied the angst and uncertainty of Generation X. And he was in Dead Poets Society, which is about the only guy drama flick I can stand. Doesn’t he have a book?”
“Books,” she corrected, “ Okay, Ethan Hawke it is. And you?”
“Sure, I’d sleep with him. He’s too cute to pass up. If he was good enough for Uma then he’s good enough for me.”
“Not you, you moron. Who’s the celebrity you’d like to bang?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, hit me with it,” She sat up, drawing the sheets and tucking them under her arms. I hated to disappoint her but, “I have no idea.”
“Really? In a world, heck, in the century you live in, the name Angelina Jolie has never crossed your mind? Lara Croft?”
I shrugged. Nina looked as if the world had just been yanked from under her, “Really?”
“Pick someone for me, then.”
“First chick you thought of losing it to,” she was quick to recover from the shock, “First celebrity chick you thought of losing it to. Go.”
The name of my first love fell: “Liv Tyler.”
“Liv Tyler,” Nina tasted the name, enjoying the slow roll of the l’s, the soft purr of the r. She licked her lips, a slight crease between her eyes a signal that she was thinking it, seriously considering it. “Yeah..yeah. Just think what those legs can do twice. And those lips. That mouth,” Nina said, lifting her lips as if for a kiss only to retract from their pursed rosebud shape. “I’d do her. Like I see her in the street, I’d do it in the street with her,” she thumped me on the shoulder because she liked that, doing guy things like punching me on the shoulder because she knew it made me laugh, knew that I thought she was the cutest, simply great, amazing and all those good things that came when you’re floating with that person in the cloud nine of love. She went, “Yeah, good choice,” punching me on the shoulder again before lunging at me, the springs shrieking in protest at the sudden force of our combined weight and so we laughed again, laughter that rose over the strained shouts about hell and damnation from next door.
There wasn’t much laughter after that, but she still stood by me with some of the choices I made, though she wasn’t really approving. She sang the chorus of go, go ahead, make your music, let others know about it, but with our sporadic gigs leading to bills always paid late, Nina began playing a different beat. That was the first shake-up in the relationship.
And then our name started buzzing in people’s lips, a few press releases came out and the crowd, they were wowed, roared in approval at our renditions of their favorites, all angst and rock and the squeal of guitars, the mad pounding of drums but once we played the first note of one of our originals, there was a clamor for the front of the stage, hands intent on grabbing a piece of us, shirt, guitar pick, whatever. Whatever we threw was grabbed, fought over as if it was the last food around and there wasn’t enough, and the audience functioned on the basest instincts, animal. We got more shows, a lot of them out-of-town, and Nina, her face pulled into a pout thrown with the crease of annoyance veeing her eyebrows, she sat at the foot of the bed, watching me throw things into a duffel bag. She complained about those out-of-town shows, she couldn’t come with me, there was the bank the next day and the bank paid the bills so could I at least keep in mind to book gigs in the city? At least she could drop off after work, never mind the frantic run to the bathroom and jamming a toothbrush in her mouth the next day because the sun was up, way up and the bank was a forty-five minute drive without traffic. She couldn’t see us, see me when performing out-of-town. And those shows, they were often on Saturdays and she whined like a child denied of a candy, a doll, all that lacked was the stomp of her foot on the floor, she whined that it was the weekend, we’re supposed to be together, doing it at every corner in the apartment, being a couple and loving being that. But no, it was the band this, the band that. Come on, Jos.
That was the second.
The third one, Nina thought that since I was always out late with the band this and the band that, then hell, she’d be like that too. Drown herself with work or head off to the bar with her co-workers, she still had a life after all, it wasn’t all about me, it wasn’t all about us. I’ve always wanted a band, music, well, she’d always wanted what it’s like to get drunk in the middle of a work week, to practically crawl home on all fours, in her gray and sickly yellow suit, because the drive had drained the use of her legs, she could only crawl out and Jos, since you’re hardly around now, the least you could do is toss coffee down your throat, three cups of black, so black they must be battery acid, keep yourself awake so there’s someone to wake me up when vomit sputters out, there’s someone to clean the sour puddle of food bits and stinking unmistakably of alcohol, Red Horse beer, to be specific, on the floor. Nina thought my being with the band was revenge, about what she never said and I knew it wasn’t anything close to that, it was just all about music, making it and spreading it. But if she’d done those things to keep me chained to her side, then chained to her side I was, but it wasn’t enough, oh no. She wanted a text every hour on the hour about my whereabouts and when I was home at last, she grilled me about the female attendance in the shows. Did anyone flash you? Did she have nice tits? Did you like it? Why do you go so far away when I do it plenty of times, no song and dance required. How nice to have all those nubile women laid out before you, hoping to God for at least an eye-fuck, you bastard. Who are they? Who is she?
It didn’t stop there.
I longed for quiet, away from Nina’s resentment, her shrillness. So I started going to the studio early, and that was when Addie came, walking with an easy, cocky stride on the floor in her little boots, a smile on her red Liv Tyler lips. I didn’t think much of her the first time I saw her, but I did notice those lips: red, full, probably marshmallow-soft when kissed. And I did think about those lips in a kiss with me. But there was Nina, and despite having become a stranger, there was still that old pull of the heart, a heart that bore the years and good moments, but now so rare.
There was the scent of the new morning, a crisp but gentle chill flavored with dew-tipped leaves and flowers, the warmth of the sun hinted with summer. Gordon Cano’s voice had long faded, the music from the CD softened to a whisper, and the Gin Blossoms were vowing not take advice from fools, that everything was cool `til they hear it from you. Our throats were raw and scratchy from all that shout-singing and there was no place to pull over for a drink, but there were the cigarettes I’d saved. Two in my lips, then the lighter, as usual, routine making movements precise and efficient, quick. We’re on a bumpy country road, paved on some areas, earth and rocks on most so Addie couldn’t take her hands off the wheel. “Go ahead,” she told me, turning her head slightly, and so I guided the lit cigarette to her, felt the warmth of her lips on my fingers as they closed to hold on to the tip, puckered as if for a kiss. With the wheel in her hands, she thrust us deeper into a nowhere but only just for a little while, a short while before we burst onto the highway, meeting the first rays of the new day stretching across the horizon.
A heavy weight rested on the lids of my eyes but I kept watch on Addie, who was blinking repeatedly, the red cracks in her eyes clearer but she refused my offers to take over the wheel. “I’ll be fine, I just need coffee, that’s all,” she said in between puffs, smoke trailing after every word, “but we’re so close, I don’t want to stop,” she looked at me, “do you want to stop?”
I watched the sun falling on her hair, the long line of her nape revealed as her hair blew with the wind, it would be all tangled and soft and she didn’t care. Only music, only the drums, playing and never stopping because doing it was good. “No. I don’t want to stop.”
She kept her eyes on the road as she nodded, “Me too,” and as if to make sure I heard, understood, she glanced at me, pulled the cigarette out and said, “Me too, I don’t want to stop,” her voice barely above a whisper, her voice a velvet stroke to the ear.
“Addie,” came from the back, it was Sonny, yawning, “Addie, I’ll owe you big, but would you mind dropping me off at my house? I hate to ask, but I don’t trust myself behind the wheel at the moment.”
“Sure thing,” Addie answered, “So I’m taking the van back to the studio?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll crash at your place, that okay?” Rod was asking Sonny. Sonny must’ve nodded because Rod murmured, “Okay, cool. Thanks.”
Addie took a deep drag of and asked me, “Do you want to go to the studio?”
The high-pitched beep from my cellphone answered for me. Pulling it out of my pocket confirmed it. Nina was making breakfast, banana pancakes, she said, my favorite. She hoped I’d get home soon. Traffic wouldn’t be so bad now, but it was just a few minutes past five. Maybe a flat tire. Something. Anything. But Addie just nodded, staring straight ahead when I cleared my throat and told her, “Nina’s waiting.”
That was all I could say, and there was nothing else left to do but torch my lungs even more. Nina didn’t forbid smoking but she didn’t appreciate its smell in the house. I took deeper drags.
The shortest drive in the world followed. Addie took a left, turning towards the city. The rest of the images were a blur: buildings racing for the sky, cars and buses rolling to and fro, street vendors unpacking their wares, blatantly ignoring the MMDA van parked just a few feet away, where the traffic enforcers were chatting, rubbing their eyes. I rolled up my window when hit with the stink of soured garbage scattered on the street, gas and sweat from pedestrians with skins bearing the darkness of the sun walked by. Nina took another turn, another one, and more, and soon she was guiding the van to Sonny’s street. She couldn’t remember which house so I had her drive to the end, pointed and she pulled over there, woke up Sonny and Rod.
“Is Liz going to yell at me?” Rod asked Sonny.
“Liz is not Nina,” Sonny turned red, “Sorry, Jos, it just slipped out.”
“Just go,” I flushed because what was said hadn’t been too far from the truth, “See you later.”
They trudged out, shuffling to the gate where Sonny rang the bell. Addie waved goodbye and then steered the van out of the street, turned another, then more until we were on the highway leading to my place. Another beep from my cellphone. Nina was getting hungry, she’d be done in a bit. I slipped the phone back in my pocket.
No traffic again. It was all smooth-flowing and easy, just when you least wanted it. Sighing, and because there was nothing I could do, I leaned forward and pressed the button of the CD player, selecting a random track. Gordon Gano’s wail came on.
“I’ll turn here, right?” Addie asked, hesitating as she looked at me. I gave her a nod.
The fading, familiar street signs had always been home, comfort and love. I waited for that old, electric zing of anticipation, that hot burst of energy, to pull me since home was so close, very close and soon it would be all about that, comfort and love, Nina opening her arms, me pressing a tired kiss to her lips and the slow shuffle of our feet towards the door, hips bumping because we had all the time in the world.
But none of that, none of that thrill. None of that even as Addie pulled over in front of the apartment. I blinked at the sight of the building. Nina and I lived in the first, facing the street. I heard the sounds of breakfast, the swoosh of water, the soft thump of china laid on the table and silver rubbing against the other as Nina set the table. I knew I would see her darting back and forth through the window but I kept my eyes on the road before me.
“Here we are,” Addie’s voice broke out.
I turned and there she was, looking at me, her eyes no longer lined with red but black mirrors that shone with a watery sheen. They locked on me, and the truth hit me hard: I couldn’t go. I couldn’t imagine turning away and leaving her, not when there was no thrill that pulled me, only a memory of faint laughter from a long time ago, in a darkness that obscured everything else. That’s what I had all those years, the memory of good times and they were no longer enough. No more.
The sun was gold on Addie’s cheek, made the rainbows of her hair molten, softer. The fragrance of morning, sun and dew-tipped leaves and flowers, that perfume: shampoo, the fading sweetness of generic soap mixed with her. From the stereo, volume still low, Gordon Gano demanded again and again why he couldn’t get just one kiss, just one kiss?
Addie took a final drag before flicking the butt to the street, no longer facing me. And if I didn’t do anything, it was a sight I’d have to get used to: her back, Addie away from me. No.
The cigarette fell from my hand, spilling gray ash on the ground. I had to see if she would, I thought, and that was all, I had to see if she would, and so my hand rose to the rumpled rainbow of her hair. She turned to me with her black mirror eyes, a tremor in her red lips.
When she held my hand to her cheek, I knew her silken touch at last. She whispered my name, one incantation that banished all else that I knew, everything suddenly rendered unfamiliar: the new ringing of the cellphone, the sudden quiet falling from the house and the doorknob clicked to unlock followed by the long, slow wail of a door opening. I knew only of this moment with my hand on her cheek and the faint stirring of a familiar warmth.
LOUELLA E. FORTEZ’s fiction has appeared in Philippine Graphic and in Sawi: Funny Essays, Stories and Poems on All Kinds of Heartbreak while her essays and other non-fiction pieces have been published in national newspapers, magazines and in the anthology In Their Own Voice: The Art of Being and Becoming. She writes about her love for food and travel in www.louellafromanila.worpdress.com. She teaches at the Language Learning Center of Miriam College.
From behind the cluster of us three guys, a soft thump of heels walked around us. The sudden grunt of the air conditioner on the end blasted a gust of her scent to us: faded shampoo, generic soap, and the rare combination of oil and sweat that combined into a fragrance, a perfume. There was the dark tinge of cigarettes, the beer that had been sprayed on her dress, now a dry smell but still with a cloying hint of moist sweetness. She wasn’t the leader of us, no, but she was a girl, and wore the shy version of a smile: lips together, dimple deepening, cheeks lifting and warmth leaping to her black onyx eyes, cast down then the fluttering up alternately. Her hair was a tumble of brown splashed with rainbows, all colors of the rainbows, and the lateness of the hour, plus the sweat she’d shed from the performance had smudged her eyeliner but it was still on her eyes, hazy black lines. But her lipstick remained a clear stamp of red, matched to her dress, a short bit of fabric with a skirt that swung around her thighs.
“Hello,” she said to Counter Girl,” do you have breakfast?” The screen behind her showed only the regular items, tight shots for the mouth to water at the anticipated crispness of chicken at first bite, the sprinkle of cheese of the glistening red sauce piled on the spaghetti, the sweet juice squeezed out of the hamburger when bitten.
Counter Girl’s smile jumped to two hundred megawatts, and she said yes, they were available but depending on the order, would take between five to seven minutes to prepare. No problem, and we all fished for our wallets. The lone girl in our group, she took all our money, fanning the bills in her hands, fingernails tipped red as her dress. She urged us to sit, go, anywhere, she could handle the order and the wasted among us breathed relief at that. I stayed by her side. I wasn’t that wasted but there was already the looming evil throb of a headache at its early stages.
“I’m starving,” she said, leaning over the gleaming silver counter while our orders were prepared.
“You didn’t have anything,” she had been too tensed to wolf down any of the sandwiches Nina had prepared, wrapped in silver foil and packed in a Tupperware that came with a handle, like a bag. Nina, despite the contract’s decree about providing us food, always made me bring sandwiches along, or maybe pastries. Nothing was good enough when she wasn’t around, and told me she slept better knowing that I had food from the house, made by her own hands. That and because she wanted me to never forget.
We settled into a comfortable silence after that. There was no need to fill the air with words, no need to listen to her voice replying, asking. It was the kind of quiet felt between good friends, or long-time lovers. Gone was this need to express, to assert, to check. You just knew that person was around, at your side, the warmth radiating from her dashed with that nice, clean scent. It was a respite from the floral spice that clouded my apartment: the bathroom, the bedroom, the kitchen, and sometimes, even the car. It made Nina smell like fifty, told her so and she said colognes, eau de toilette, lips curling in a sneer, weren’t right for her age anymore. She was twenty-eight.
“I’m changing my order from juice to coffee. You?” I turned to look at her as she asked the question.
“I need the sugar, but go ahead,” and so she called for Counter Girl, changing her order. Counter Girl nodded with that bright smile, as if it was the best thing she’d ever heard.
I wasn’t that too crazy about her at first, thinking that her colorful hair resembled a parrot’s, and the eye make-up and lipstick were a little extreme at eleven a.m., the hour she had walked into our studio the first time, the heels of her little boots click-clacking across the floor. She was a friend of a friend of Rod’s, who did guitar and backing vocals. A smiled crossed her face as Rod introduced her around before he pulled her aside.
We’ve been in the music scene for a while. Sonny, lead vocalist and guitar, had been a neighbor since ten, and every afternoon after school, we trailed to our respective houses and wore out the turntable with Dead Kennedys, The Clash, Black Sabbath, Gang of Four, to mention a few. Then it became cassettes, the brown tape ending up in snarls from too much play on our car radios, the volume turned up, way up and the windows rolled down. From listening and memorizing lyrics, we navigated to playing the instruments: guitar, bass and drums. I liked the long elegance of the bass, and how it was such an underrated instrument unless played by the right hands. You had to know the instrument, love the slender line of the fingerboard, carved like an elegant neck, the sudden, upturned flare of the strap button, which reminded me of a woman’s hip cocked teasingly. Worship the bass, and it only played the notes, dark, deep with the tinge of smoky sexuality.
We didn’t want to be a duo, so in college, we recruited Rod, who had lightning fingers. That was lucky. With the drummer, we weren’t. Our line-up changed so often that we’ve decided against putting our faces on posters, just the flared rays of the north star penned in black on an expanse of glossy white paper, the symbol of our name.
Over the years, we saw countless drummers, all leaving for reasons that included creative differences to something as ridiculous as being worn out from all the playing. That was what our last drummer explained, and it was fortunate we didn’t lose gigs because I knew how to play the drums too. But John Bonham I wasn’t; my hands belonged to the bass.
Then Rod, through a friend of a friend, mentioned this person, Addie, that was her name. She was “good, real good, you gotta sit down when she starts bangin’ those drums, she knocks you off your feet,” according to him and I longed to return to the bass. “Get anyone, I don’t care,” I said, and so Addie came: rainbows in her hair, red on the lush pout of lips stolen from Liv Tyler, wearing something lacy over a shirt, shorts and boots. Hers were the longest stretch of legs I’ve ever seen. She was long everywhere else: hair, neck, arms, torso. She couldn’t be a drummer, she was nothing else but Rod’s hard-on and Jesus, we’d be losing time practicing just so we could help him stroke it, I hissed to Sonny as we stood on the other end of the studio while Rod and Addie talked, he was giving her instructions. She stood with her hand in her pocket, hip cocked to the side. “Who wears that much make-up at eleven fuckin’ a.m.?” I demanded to Sonny and he just shook his head, listen, let’s see, that’s all. It isn’t like final or anything. And so we helped Addie carry the drums, gleaming red, which was her favorite color, she thought to mention, to me of all the other guys and what was I supposed to say? It was the summer, the sun was on the ground, and we were carrying drums in a studio that only had two fans for air. All this effort for some wannabe rocker-drummer, but we settled into the couch, salvaged battered from a garage sale, and watched. Listened.
We watched the swoop of her arms, drumsticks in hand, movement that echoed a conquering hawk’s flight towards a prey.
We listened to her beat the drums with a force wrenched from the dark pit of her soul, repeated bombardment that I swore dented, even cracked the drums. White spark played in her eyes.
We had a new drummer.
The rapping of her fingers summoned me back to restaurant, where we stood by the silver counter she was now drumming on. On her face was that familiar spark, the quirk of that smile, the flash of her dimple. Counter Girl laid our food on the tray. “I’ll just get your drinks,” she said.
“You don’t stop playing,” I gestured at the counter.
“Why stop when it’s so good?”
Addie unwrapped the small carton of the peach mango pie and nibbled. I watched her, watch pink bloom on her cheeks as she wiped the flakes of her lips with her fingertips. “What?” but there remained the spark, the smile. I shook my head, “Nothing,” and she offered me a bite. “No. Go ahead,” I told her just as Counter Girl started laying the drinks on another tray.
It was a little heavier, the tray piled with local breakfast fare of longganisa with garlic rice, egg topped by dry yellow yolk on the side. But she’d have no trouble making her way to the table, while the tray with the drinks required some balancing act. Rod had ordered both coffee and upsized pineapple juice, Sonny two large Cokes. Addie’s coffee and my juice. The drinks were wobbling pools of brown and yellow, sloshing to the side despite my careful steps forward.
Addie distributed their orders, getting sleepy thanks for the bother before she slid on the bench beside Rod. Rod nearly swam in the pineapple juice, his head pitching forward, fast, before he caught himself, rubbed his eyes. It was three-fifteen, the sun wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours. I sat, folding my legs, bumping Addie’s knees. “It sucks to be tall,” I muttered, getting a packet of sugar, shaking it before pouring the white crystals to the juice. “Sorry.”
Another round of quiet, broken only by more packets ripped open, the whispered rush of sugar, more sugar down our drinks, the plop of cream in the others’ coffee. Addie, who’d subsisted on coffee and cigarettes since the previous afternoon, winced at the bitterness that flooded her mouth at the first sip of her fresh cup. “Jos, may I?” and so I offered her my pineapple juice, which she glugged until it was halfway down the cup. I looked at the red crescent of her lipstick on the cup, and she apologized, quickly rubbing it with a tissue. “We wouldn’t want Nina to think you’re stealing her lipstick,” she said, laughing. It was a silver tingle to the ear.
The heavy throb in my head had finally receded into a dull but manageable beating and so I continued eating, listening the quiet around us. We all had the same order, two pieces of sausage with a cup of garlic rice. Addie forked the meat, then guided it to her mouth for a small bite. She still took sips from my juice, sorry about that, she went, but I let her. Wasn’t into juice too much, had only wanted it for the sugar kick on a system winding down from a hard night of cigarettes, music, sweat and crowds.
Silencing the growl in our stomachs at last, the topic of tomorrow night’s — now tonight’s — gig came up. A concert with other bands. Our call time was four but the show wouldn’t start until seven. “There’s no way we’d be awake earlier than three,” Rod sighed. Ours had been a long week of shows, guest appearances and we’ve yet to be signed by a major label. But the underground buzz, as much as we’ve begun to hate the long drives to out-of-town shows and the early, way early call times, was more than good. Something was being done right, I thought, glancing at Addie, seeing the white light from the fluorescent fall on her rainbow hair. Her black gaze met mine and she let me hold it for a few seconds before she looked away, then a quick flutter of her lashes back at me before directing her attention somewhere else.
Sonny was complaining about the drive back, he wanted to stay a while, catch a few z’s.
“I can drive,” Addie said, adding she’d driven to Baguio and back before in one day, when the sky was a showcase of pink and orange shafts as it flared a final protest before enshrouded by night, and then back, the sky still awashed with stars, and they were her only light aside from the twin beams from the headlights. And we were only less than six hours outside of the Manila, Baguio was farther. Yeah, she could do it, she nodded, as if to confirm with herself. Sonny agreed, yeah, thanks for the offer.
Then her eyes slammed into mine again. But Sonny continued to ramble, “I owe you, thanks so much,” and she had to turn away from me to look at him, “It’s no big deal.”
So we’re back in the van, Addie cupped in the driver’s seat while Rod and Sonny crashed at the back, crammed in the tight gaps between the equipment so I had to go in front with her. Nothing new with her being in the driver’s seat and me as a passenger. It was our habit to drive early into the studio and meet there, the sun a faint disc in the pale horizon of a fresh morning. She had a nicer car, shiny and faster, so that’s what we used when hitting the nearby fast-food joints, with the windows rolled down, music shattering the tranquil morning in the smog-choked city. We sang our own concerts, but I let her sing alone, where she deepened her voice in a somber growl like Kurt Cobain’s, singing “Come As You Are,’ her favorite. Her dark, smoky voice spun a spell that made me forget everything, well almost everything, except the rainbow-haired girl in the wind-whipped t-shirt, singing her lungs out. It wasn’t complete without our cigarettes, and I would hold two sticks in my lips, feeding them with the blue-tinged flame from the lighter before handing one to her. She puffed, releasing a steady stream of smoke, enjoying the cigarette to the last beat of the song before it was time for another one.
I got ready with our cigarettes, reaching into the pocket of my shirt for the crushed pack that held only two sticks. “We’d better save them,” and she agreed, we’ll smoke later then.
She’d just burned another CD, all her favorites, she said, and was now rummaging in the front for her bag but I remembered her tossing it to the back before we left earlier to eat. She sighed loudly, started the engine instead. “It’s here,” I grunted, straining my arm to reach deep and low for the small thing nestled next to Rod’s foot.
“They’re really out, aren’t they?” Addie flicked the light on, eyes on the rearview mirror. As if in reply, Rod and Sonny began a snore duet. We looked at each other and laughed. She took the bag from me, rifled through it and retrieved the flat square case of the CD. “I’m bad, being they’re asleep and all, but I can’t drive without music,” she said, putting the disc on the slot then pushing a button. Then the van urged forward, slowly, gradually picking up speed. Addie thought we should roll the windows down.
“You’ll get cold,” I asked, for sitting down had shifted her dress higher up her thighs.
“Singing will keep us warm. Jos, it’s Siberia in here, come on, roll them down,” she said.
“But your hair. Girls are always fussing with their hair.”
“I don’t care,” Addie shrugged, “Besides I like Broom Hilda.”
Suddenly, a long, familiar drawn-out wail came on. Gordon Gano. Addie’s finger jammed on a button, turning it up. I swore I felt an electric thrill rush through her body, and she seemed to glow a pale amber, the light tracing the line of her. A sudden, golden warmth went through me, sharp and precise, flattening me to the seat with its force and Addie, seeing the song take over me, laughed.
“On count of three,” she said, “one, two, three…”
We shouted about why we couldn’t get just one kiss, that it’s one of the things we wouldn’t miss. Or one screw? Why couldn’t we get just one screw? We knew what to do, but something was stopping us from making love. Addie bobbed her head hard, her lips curled in the rock-star snarl while I air-guitared.
Someone from the back, Rod or Sonny, groaned, “Shut up.”
We answered with hooting laughter, laughter that echoed into the night, the rumble in my chest tinged with her silver tingle. I let the pleasure of the laugh spread in me, spreading in the pathways of my body before converging at the center of my chest. It had been a long time, years, since laughter had seized me like this. And maybe because it was such a long time ago, I never forgot that last time.
It had been in the dark, the faint moonlight hanging out the window, with a woman too. A bedside lamp switched on, illuminating Nina, the tousled tresses of her dark hair framing the small oval of her face, her eyes glittering with play and love, back then I was so sure it was there for us. Away from the somber confines of a gray suit matched with a blouse the shade of jaundiced yellow as decreed by the bank, she was free and young, no worries etched on face.
We laughed the loudest in bed, the mattress dipping from our combined weight and springs squeaking as our bodies rippled. Sheets tangled around our legs and our legs around each other’s, we talked about the ridiculous and the inane, each sending us into hyena howls that we quickly smothered because the walls were thin and next door was a Bible-clutching, Jesus-obsessed woman with a spatter of gray on her helmet bob, always ready with her cataract-flecked glare whenever we walked past each other in the complex because of the sin we lived in, and worse, reveled in. And that just made Nina and I cling to each other with the desperation of lovers whose nightmare was to part.
A game we liked to play was Starfuck, celebrities we could fuck, according to Nina. We had to cite several celebrities we want to sleep with, and the partner got to choose for you.
So given the choice among Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Ethan Hawke, Robert Pattinson and Zac Efron, who will I let her sleep with?
“That’s not the question,” I said, “why the hell’s Zac Efron on the list? I can understand the vampire dude, though too pretty for my taste. Ethan Hawke’s a little weird too.”
“Come on,” she mock-punched me on the chest, “who can I sleep with?”
I’ve always thought she was most beautiful with her dark hair tangled in the snarls after sex or sleep, the remnants of a dream still resting on her eyes, giving me a hooded gaze. She was up with her cheek pillowed by her palm.
“You mean, just sex?”
“Well yeah, but hopefully dirtier,” she deadpanned,” “Like rock-star sex. Loud, you know, screaming, maybe even a bitch-slap..” A far-off, dreamy quality laced her voice towards the end before laughter overwhelmed her, her shoulders shaking, her face red. I enjoyed watching her like this, loved it, but she was insistent, kept on prodding, “Come on. Who’ll you let me sleep with?” I pushed her hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.
“You’re weird,” and to that, she said, “You love it,” then, “So who? Tell me who I can fuck with a clear conscience.”
“Ethan Hawke,” and when she made a sound of protest, I added, “Reality Bites, baby, the movie that embodied the angst and uncertainty of Generation X. And he was in Dead Poets Society, which is about the only guy drama flick I can stand. Doesn’t he have a book?”
“Books,” she corrected, “ Okay, Ethan Hawke it is. And you?”
“Sure, I’d sleep with him. He’s too cute to pass up. If he was good enough for Uma then he’s good enough for me.”
“Not you, you moron. Who’s the celebrity you’d like to bang?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, hit me with it,” She sat up, drawing the sheets and tucking them under her arms. I hated to disappoint her but, “I have no idea.”
“Really? In a world, heck, in the century you live in, the name Angelina Jolie has never crossed your mind? Lara Croft?”
I shrugged. Nina looked as if the world had just been yanked from under her, “Really?”
“Pick someone for me, then.”
“First chick you thought of losing it to,” she was quick to recover from the shock, “First celebrity chick you thought of losing it to. Go.”
The name of my first love fell: “Liv Tyler.”
“Liv Tyler,” Nina tasted the name, enjoying the slow roll of the l’s, the soft purr of the r. She licked her lips, a slight crease between her eyes a signal that she was thinking it, seriously considering it. “Yeah..yeah. Just think what those legs can do twice. And those lips. That mouth,” Nina said, lifting her lips as if for a kiss only to retract from their pursed rosebud shape. “I’d do her. Like I see her in the street, I’d do it in the street with her,” she thumped me on the shoulder because she liked that, doing guy things like punching me on the shoulder because she knew it made me laugh, knew that I thought she was the cutest, simply great, amazing and all those good things that came when you’re floating with that person in the cloud nine of love. She went, “Yeah, good choice,” punching me on the shoulder again before lunging at me, the springs shrieking in protest at the sudden force of our combined weight and so we laughed again, laughter that rose over the strained shouts about hell and damnation from next door.
There wasn’t much laughter after that, but she still stood by me with some of the choices I made, though she wasn’t really approving. She sang the chorus of go, go ahead, make your music, let others know about it, but with our sporadic gigs leading to bills always paid late, Nina began playing a different beat. That was the first shake-up in the relationship.
And then our name started buzzing in people’s lips, a few press releases came out and the crowd, they were wowed, roared in approval at our renditions of their favorites, all angst and rock and the squeal of guitars, the mad pounding of drums but once we played the first note of one of our originals, there was a clamor for the front of the stage, hands intent on grabbing a piece of us, shirt, guitar pick, whatever. Whatever we threw was grabbed, fought over as if it was the last food around and there wasn’t enough, and the audience functioned on the basest instincts, animal. We got more shows, a lot of them out-of-town, and Nina, her face pulled into a pout thrown with the crease of annoyance veeing her eyebrows, she sat at the foot of the bed, watching me throw things into a duffel bag. She complained about those out-of-town shows, she couldn’t come with me, there was the bank the next day and the bank paid the bills so could I at least keep in mind to book gigs in the city? At least she could drop off after work, never mind the frantic run to the bathroom and jamming a toothbrush in her mouth the next day because the sun was up, way up and the bank was a forty-five minute drive without traffic. She couldn’t see us, see me when performing out-of-town. And those shows, they were often on Saturdays and she whined like a child denied of a candy, a doll, all that lacked was the stomp of her foot on the floor, she whined that it was the weekend, we’re supposed to be together, doing it at every corner in the apartment, being a couple and loving being that. But no, it was the band this, the band that. Come on, Jos.
That was the second.
The third one, Nina thought that since I was always out late with the band this and the band that, then hell, she’d be like that too. Drown herself with work or head off to the bar with her co-workers, she still had a life after all, it wasn’t all about me, it wasn’t all about us. I’ve always wanted a band, music, well, she’d always wanted what it’s like to get drunk in the middle of a work week, to practically crawl home on all fours, in her gray and sickly yellow suit, because the drive had drained the use of her legs, she could only crawl out and Jos, since you’re hardly around now, the least you could do is toss coffee down your throat, three cups of black, so black they must be battery acid, keep yourself awake so there’s someone to wake me up when vomit sputters out, there’s someone to clean the sour puddle of food bits and stinking unmistakably of alcohol, Red Horse beer, to be specific, on the floor. Nina thought my being with the band was revenge, about what she never said and I knew it wasn’t anything close to that, it was just all about music, making it and spreading it. But if she’d done those things to keep me chained to her side, then chained to her side I was, but it wasn’t enough, oh no. She wanted a text every hour on the hour about my whereabouts and when I was home at last, she grilled me about the female attendance in the shows. Did anyone flash you? Did she have nice tits? Did you like it? Why do you go so far away when I do it plenty of times, no song and dance required. How nice to have all those nubile women laid out before you, hoping to God for at least an eye-fuck, you bastard. Who are they? Who is she?
It didn’t stop there.
I longed for quiet, away from Nina’s resentment, her shrillness. So I started going to the studio early, and that was when Addie came, walking with an easy, cocky stride on the floor in her little boots, a smile on her red Liv Tyler lips. I didn’t think much of her the first time I saw her, but I did notice those lips: red, full, probably marshmallow-soft when kissed. And I did think about those lips in a kiss with me. But there was Nina, and despite having become a stranger, there was still that old pull of the heart, a heart that bore the years and good moments, but now so rare.
There was the scent of the new morning, a crisp but gentle chill flavored with dew-tipped leaves and flowers, the warmth of the sun hinted with summer. Gordon Cano’s voice had long faded, the music from the CD softened to a whisper, and the Gin Blossoms were vowing not take advice from fools, that everything was cool `til they hear it from you. Our throats were raw and scratchy from all that shout-singing and there was no place to pull over for a drink, but there were the cigarettes I’d saved. Two in my lips, then the lighter, as usual, routine making movements precise and efficient, quick. We’re on a bumpy country road, paved on some areas, earth and rocks on most so Addie couldn’t take her hands off the wheel. “Go ahead,” she told me, turning her head slightly, and so I guided the lit cigarette to her, felt the warmth of her lips on my fingers as they closed to hold on to the tip, puckered as if for a kiss. With the wheel in her hands, she thrust us deeper into a nowhere but only just for a little while, a short while before we burst onto the highway, meeting the first rays of the new day stretching across the horizon.
A heavy weight rested on the lids of my eyes but I kept watch on Addie, who was blinking repeatedly, the red cracks in her eyes clearer but she refused my offers to take over the wheel. “I’ll be fine, I just need coffee, that’s all,” she said in between puffs, smoke trailing after every word, “but we’re so close, I don’t want to stop,” she looked at me, “do you want to stop?”
I watched the sun falling on her hair, the long line of her nape revealed as her hair blew with the wind, it would be all tangled and soft and she didn’t care. Only music, only the drums, playing and never stopping because doing it was good. “No. I don’t want to stop.”
She kept her eyes on the road as she nodded, “Me too,” and as if to make sure I heard, understood, she glanced at me, pulled the cigarette out and said, “Me too, I don’t want to stop,” her voice barely above a whisper, her voice a velvet stroke to the ear.
“Addie,” came from the back, it was Sonny, yawning, “Addie, I’ll owe you big, but would you mind dropping me off at my house? I hate to ask, but I don’t trust myself behind the wheel at the moment.”
“Sure thing,” Addie answered, “So I’m taking the van back to the studio?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll crash at your place, that okay?” Rod was asking Sonny. Sonny must’ve nodded because Rod murmured, “Okay, cool. Thanks.”
Addie took a deep drag of and asked me, “Do you want to go to the studio?”
The high-pitched beep from my cellphone answered for me. Pulling it out of my pocket confirmed it. Nina was making breakfast, banana pancakes, she said, my favorite. She hoped I’d get home soon. Traffic wouldn’t be so bad now, but it was just a few minutes past five. Maybe a flat tire. Something. Anything. But Addie just nodded, staring straight ahead when I cleared my throat and told her, “Nina’s waiting.”
That was all I could say, and there was nothing else left to do but torch my lungs even more. Nina didn’t forbid smoking but she didn’t appreciate its smell in the house. I took deeper drags.
The shortest drive in the world followed. Addie took a left, turning towards the city. The rest of the images were a blur: buildings racing for the sky, cars and buses rolling to and fro, street vendors unpacking their wares, blatantly ignoring the MMDA van parked just a few feet away, where the traffic enforcers were chatting, rubbing their eyes. I rolled up my window when hit with the stink of soured garbage scattered on the street, gas and sweat from pedestrians with skins bearing the darkness of the sun walked by. Nina took another turn, another one, and more, and soon she was guiding the van to Sonny’s street. She couldn’t remember which house so I had her drive to the end, pointed and she pulled over there, woke up Sonny and Rod.
“Is Liz going to yell at me?” Rod asked Sonny.
“Liz is not Nina,” Sonny turned red, “Sorry, Jos, it just slipped out.”
“Just go,” I flushed because what was said hadn’t been too far from the truth, “See you later.”
They trudged out, shuffling to the gate where Sonny rang the bell. Addie waved goodbye and then steered the van out of the street, turned another, then more until we were on the highway leading to my place. Another beep from my cellphone. Nina was getting hungry, she’d be done in a bit. I slipped the phone back in my pocket.
No traffic again. It was all smooth-flowing and easy, just when you least wanted it. Sighing, and because there was nothing I could do, I leaned forward and pressed the button of the CD player, selecting a random track. Gordon Gano’s wail came on.
“I’ll turn here, right?” Addie asked, hesitating as she looked at me. I gave her a nod.
The fading, familiar street signs had always been home, comfort and love. I waited for that old, electric zing of anticipation, that hot burst of energy, to pull me since home was so close, very close and soon it would be all about that, comfort and love, Nina opening her arms, me pressing a tired kiss to her lips and the slow shuffle of our feet towards the door, hips bumping because we had all the time in the world.
But none of that, none of that thrill. None of that even as Addie pulled over in front of the apartment. I blinked at the sight of the building. Nina and I lived in the first, facing the street. I heard the sounds of breakfast, the swoosh of water, the soft thump of china laid on the table and silver rubbing against the other as Nina set the table. I knew I would see her darting back and forth through the window but I kept my eyes on the road before me.
“Here we are,” Addie’s voice broke out.
I turned and there she was, looking at me, her eyes no longer lined with red but black mirrors that shone with a watery sheen. They locked on me, and the truth hit me hard: I couldn’t go. I couldn’t imagine turning away and leaving her, not when there was no thrill that pulled me, only a memory of faint laughter from a long time ago, in a darkness that obscured everything else. That’s what I had all those years, the memory of good times and they were no longer enough. No more.
The sun was gold on Addie’s cheek, made the rainbows of her hair molten, softer. The fragrance of morning, sun and dew-tipped leaves and flowers, that perfume: shampoo, the fading sweetness of generic soap mixed with her. From the stereo, volume still low, Gordon Gano demanded again and again why he couldn’t get just one kiss, just one kiss?
Addie took a final drag before flicking the butt to the street, no longer facing me. And if I didn’t do anything, it was a sight I’d have to get used to: her back, Addie away from me. No.
The cigarette fell from my hand, spilling gray ash on the ground. I had to see if she would, I thought, and that was all, I had to see if she would, and so my hand rose to the rumpled rainbow of her hair. She turned to me with her black mirror eyes, a tremor in her red lips.
When she held my hand to her cheek, I knew her silken touch at last. She whispered my name, one incantation that banished all else that I knew, everything suddenly rendered unfamiliar: the new ringing of the cellphone, the sudden quiet falling from the house and the doorknob clicked to unlock followed by the long, slow wail of a door opening. I knew only of this moment with my hand on her cheek and the faint stirring of a familiar warmth.
LOUELLA E. FORTEZ’s fiction has appeared in Philippine Graphic and in Sawi: Funny Essays, Stories and Poems on All Kinds of Heartbreak while her essays and other non-fiction pieces have been published in national newspapers, magazines and in the anthology In Their Own Voice: The Art of Being and Becoming. She writes about her love for food and travel in www.louellafromanila.worpdress.com. She teaches at the Language Learning Center of Miriam College.
