The Pull of Gravity (11 page)

The mistake Cathy made was confiding everything to Mariella.

Mariella had this way of making the girls feel like she was their best friend, that if they had any problems, they should go to her. But then, if the opportunity presented itself and she was in the mood, she’d sell them out. Usually it was to get something for herself, but not always. If a girl appeared to be getting more than she was, such as a decent guy and relationship that was working—like Cathy had achieved—Mariella wouldn’t wait for an opportunity. She’d make it happen.

Manus hadn’t seen through Mariella. Because he knew Cathy trusted her, he decided he could trust her, too. He told her Cathy had become very special to him, and he had decided to ask her to come live with him in Sweden. Mariella had no doubt sounded supportive, but at some point, whether in that first conversation or soon after, she let it slip that Cathy had told her only a few weeks earlier that she didn’t really love him. He didn’t believe it at first, but I’m sure as the hours passed, doubt began to set in. After all, this was Angeles, and as a seasoned veteran, he knew deep down it was all illusion.

That night he bar fined Cathy and took her to The Pit Stop. While they were eating dinner, he asked her in a calm voice, “Cathy, do you love me?”

“Of course I do,” she said automatically.

The intent of his question didn’t even register with her at first. But when his benign, silent stare was his only response, she realized something was up.

“Why you ask?” she said.

“Because I think maybe you don’t.”

“I said I do, so I do. Okay?”

Again he gave her that half smile, a longing for what had been, or what he had thought had been. “Mariella said you told her you don’t.”

Cathy’s eyes opened wide, and in that moment she realized two things. The first: she’d been betrayed. The second, and more immediately damaging: she had not hidden the look of fear that had flashed across her face. The look told Manus everything he needed to know, that Mariella had been right, and Cathy had not been telling him the truth.

So what had originally been the night Manus would have offered Cathy a new life abroad, instead became the night he gave Cathy back her same old life on Fields. Of course, she didn’t know what he had originally intended to do. That bit of information was delivered later by Mariella, who, practically in the same breath, denied ever telling Manus that Cathy didn’t love him.

It fell to me to pick up the pieces, one of my first counseling jobs in Angeles. It took a while before Cathy trusted me, but when she finally did, she told me everything.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I remember that trip to Boracay as one of the highlights of my time in the Philippines. I hadn’t expected that. In fact, I was almost dreading getting on the plane with the others. A vacation was something I absolutely needed, but, by the time we were leaving Angeles, I had circled back to thinking the only remedy to the tension that had overtaken me was a vacation alone.

We left early in a van Larry hired to take us to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. From there, the flight was an hour south to Kalibo on Panay Island. Larry had been told that the bus from Kalibo to Caticlan was air-conditioned. It wasn’t. Something wrong with the compressor, the driver said, as he handed out cold beers to help take our mind off the heat. From Caticlan, we took a boat across to Boracay Island.

Larry had booked us at the Royal Boracay Beach Resort. He’d been considerate enough to get three rooms, but mischievous enough to make sure Cathy’s room and mine were next to each other.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the pool, drinking margaritas, and, at least in my case, dozing off every now and then. Dinner was also at the hotel, then at Isabel’s suggestion, we went out dancing.

Despite my larger-than-average size, I wasn’t a half-bad dancer. I did resort at times to the white-man overbite, but, for the most part, I comported myself well. Usually, Cathy was my partner, although on a couple of occasions Isabel would cut in. It seemed like after we got going, the only time I would actually leave the dance floor was when a slow song came on. That was more for the girls’ benefit than my own as my shirt was drenched in sweat.

I don’t know exactly what it was, maybe being away from Angeles, maybe not having to worry about any of my girls, but I felt happier than I had in months. 

No, not months. Years.

I’d been wrong. A vacation with friends was exactly what I needed, perhaps what we all needed, because it was impossible to ignore the fact that each of us was feeling exceptionally good.

That night we were free. I wasn’t a papasan, Cathy wasn’t a bartender, Isabel wasn’t a bar dancer. We were just friends on a real vacation from our surreal lives. 

•    •    •

I think we got back to the hotel around two in the morning. We stopped at Isabel and Larry’s room first and had a quick nightcap from their minibar. I was still sober enough not to stick around too long. To give the happy couple some privacy, I told them I was bushed, then put an arm around Cathy and headed out the door.

It was a couple of minutes’ walk to our rooms, but that entire time neither of us said a word. I still had my arm around her waist, but, honestly, was only thinking of lying down and going to sleep. I really
was
exhausted. With the exception of a few hours of sleep the night before, I’d been up and on the go for nearly thirty-six hours.

I can only guess what was going on in Cathy’s mind. She unlocked her door and lingered in the threshold for a few minutes, telling me what fun she’d had, what a great dancer I was, how she was too excited to go to sleep. I guess what she was trying to tell me should have been obvious, but the fatigued, inebriated mind only hears in fits and starts.

I think I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead before saying goodnight. I do know I said goodnight. And when I unlocked my own door and opened it, it didn’t strike me as odd that she was still standing in her doorway, looking at me. I waved, went inside and was asleep five minutes later.

•    •    •

The next morning I woke up before ten, only slightly hung over and with the vague recollection that Cathy had all but tried to drag me into her room the night before. I glanced around to be sure I hadn’t later gone and invited her over, but I was alone.

After a quick shower, I threw on a pair of blue shorts and my brown, vacation-only, Hawaiian-print shirt, slipped on my sandals, then went outside. It was sunny and hot and humid. Back home in Angeles, weather like this was one of those things that had begun to annoy me, but here it felt wonderful and right.

I found Larry drinking a cup of coffee alone on the raised deck that overlooked the beach.

I grunted a good morning as I took the seat across from him, then motioned to the waitress that I’d have a cup of what Larry was having. Service was quick and soon I was properly caffeinated.

“Isabel still asleep?” I asked.

“Don’t think she’s used to getting up before noon,” Larry said.

I chuckled, my head hurting only slightly from the reverberation. “I know the feeling.”

“Cathy asleep, too?” Larry asked.

“I assume so.”

Larry raised an eyebrow. “Assume?”

“I slept by myself if that’s what you’re asking.”

Larry took a sip of his coffee. “She really likes you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I know,” I admitted.

“What about you?”

I shrugged, but said nothing.

“Not that I want to sell out my girlfriend or anything,” Larry said. “But just so you know, it was Isabel’s idea to bring Cathy along.”

“It’s okay,” I said, reaching for my cup. “I don’t mind.” It was beginning to dawn on me that I really didn’t mind. That, in fact, I might be happy she was here.

We sipped our coffee and watched waves for a while. There were already several people lounging on the white, sandy beach, and not far from shore two small boats sailed leisurely by. The water was clear and blue and near the beach you could see all the way to the bottom.

“Some of my friends back home couldn’t understand why I wanted to come here again,” Larry told me. “They said, ‘If you want to go to an island, why don’t you go to Hawaii?’ Hawaii’s nice and all, but…” He trailed off, his eyes never leaving one of the sailboats as it made its way down the coast.

“But Hawaii doesn’t have Isabel,” I said.

He looked at me for a moment, surprised at what I said, then smiled. “Exactly right. Hawaii doesn’t have Isabel.”

•    •    •

This was the trip when Isabel fell in love with Boracay. Larry would take her two more times, but those trips would be just the two of them. And by what Isabel told me after each one, they had been as wonderful as this first time. Larry loved it there, too. Before two days had even passed, he was already talking about buying a place on the island.

“You could use it whenever you want,” he told me.

He talked about that dream house right up until one of the last times I saw him. I could understand why. There was something special about the island. It was one of those places you just didn’t want to leave. A small tropical paradise, where the beach was never more than a few minutes away. Angeles, on the other hand, was stuck in the middle of a much larger island, hours from any beach. It might as well have been located in Kansas.

Isabel would talk about the house, too, but only when we were in Angeles and Larry was back in the States. She would go on about the different ways she would decorate it, about the type of maid she would be sure he hired, about what the view would be like from the bedroom balcony, for there would be a bedroom balcony.

On that second night of our shared vacation, we hooked up with a group of Aussies on one of those package-tour vacations. It was at the bar of another hotel. These weren’t the male-only sex tourists who came to Angeles. Instead they were a group of about a dozen married couples ranging in age from late thirties to early fifties. A hard-drinking, loud-laughing crew from Perth enjoying their last night on Boracay. They were just beginning a barhop of the hotels that lined White Beach, and since we had no set plans of our own, they invited us to join them. After a brief round of introductions, we were off.

Larry had told them Isabel was his fiancée and that Cathy and I were married. Despite the fact that the only ring Cathy wore was on the pinky of her right hand, they all bought it. Or at least pretended they did. As for Isabel and Cathy, they embraced these roles without missing a beat. 

“How long have you been married?” one of the women, Noreen Simons, asked Cathy.

“Three years,” Cathy said, glancing at me to make sure I heard.

“Still the honeymoon stage,” Noreen said.

“Sometimes,” Cathy replied, a wry grin on her face.

“Where did you meet?” a woman, who had told us her name was Sherry, asked Isabel. She was one of the older members of the group, her graying hair cut short, and looked like she could drink most anyone under the table.

“Larry was on business in Manila,” she said as if she’d told the story a million times. “A cousin of mine introduced us.”

“What kind of business are you in?” Sherry’s husband, Curtis, asked Larry.

“International shipping,” Larry told him.

“How ’bout you, Jay?” Curtis said. “What do you do?”

“Not much. I’m kind of retired.”

“Kind of?” another man said. I think his name was Taylor.

“Occasionally, I have to do something to keep myself busy.”

They all laughed, and it was enough to change the subject to something new.

It was an evening of talk, drinking, laughing, dancing, a couple of horrible games of pool, and a final toast of champagne on the beach from several bottles appropriated from the last bar we’d been in.

“I’m going to hate getting on that plane tomorrow,” Curtis said to me. We were standing a few feet away from the others. “Perth’s nice, but it’s home, know what I mean? This place…it gets under your skin. Makes it hard to leave.”

I raised the bottle I was holding and took a drink. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

•    •    •

There was no question of Cathy sleeping in her room that night. We had spent an entire night acting like a recently married couple, so after a while it seemed like we were. Once we were back at the hotel, we didn’t even pause at her door.

In my room, in the darkness just before dawn, I held on to her sleeping form, her soft, brown skin pressed up against me. She’d been asleep for over an hour, but I had yet to close my eyes.

I’d been fighting this. I’d been fighting this for so long I almost forgot how not to. This longing, this need, this yearning for someone. I’d been fighting it since Maureen, keeping all of it always at arms’ length. And I’d been fighting with Cathy, the idea of her. Because in her I knew was an answer. Maybe not
the
answer, but enough of one to drop my guard again. And as I lay there, the scent of her filling me with more contentment than I could have imagined, I was still afraid. I was afraid of tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. Because I knew at some point the inevitable disaster would come to signal the end of our relationship.

There was no way I could know what form it would take, but that didn’t matter. It was out there somewhere, waiting.

•    •    •

There were times, as we explored the island or sat on the beach or ate a meal, when I found myself looking at Cathy while her attention was elsewhere. I wish I could say it was because I was enthralled by her, or was trying to memorize every line of her. But it wasn’t that.

I could see the concern she had for me—the care, I guess you’d call it. I could see the bond of our friendship, which had grown so much stronger, and yet so much more fragile, during our time on the island. I could see thousands of possibilities. But what I was really looking for was unlimited potential. And no matter how much I looked, that was the one thing I was unable to find.

“Do you want some mango?” she would ask. But what I heard was, “This is good for you. You should eat it.”

“Let’s go for a walk on the beach,” she’d say. What I heard was, “You need exercise, not another nap.”

And when she said, “It took you long enough to finally notice me,” my mind translated it as, “You’re mine now. You don’t need anyone else.”

Every day, I would have to stop and remind myself that this was Cathy, the best friend I had at The Lounge, probably in all of Angeles. Whatever twists my mind put into what she was saying were faulty interpretations that had been skewed by emotions I hadn’t expected to feel, and didn’t know how to control.

As each day passed, I got better.

On the last night there, as we lay in bed, her head pressed against my chest, she said, “I wish we could stay here forever.” What I heard was, “I wish we could stay here forever.”

In a voice so low I wasn’t sure she actually heard me, I said, “Me, too.”

•    •    •

Finally it was time for our small, tropical island vacation to end, and for us to return to our large tropical island home. We didn’t have to be in Kalibo until late afternoon, so we spent the morning on the beach.

“Thanks, Larry,” I said. We were sitting on our towels watching Isabel and Cathy wade into the water.

He only smiled at first. “You’re welcome,” he said a moment later.

“This was exactly what I needed.”

“So you’re ready to return to your nine-to-five grind, then?”

I laughed. “Yeah. I think so.”

There was a family playing at the edge of the water. A little boy who couldn’t have been more than five ran in and out of the waves, laughing uncontrollably. His sister, who looked to be around eight, splashed him every time he ran past. The parents were in on the fun, too. Each of them pretending to chase their son, but never being able to catch him. But it was the daughter who caught my attention the most. Even though she was Asian—maybe from Japan or Singapore or even Manila—she reminded me of Lily. It was in the way she took complete joy in her brother’s fun. It was like he was the most important thing in the world to her. And while I was sure there were times when he pissed the hell out of her, right then and there, she was everything a sister should be. She was everything a person should be. Lily didn’t have any siblings, but I had seen that same look in her face countless times.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Larry said.

Reluctantly, I turned my attention from the family back to him. “Sure,” I said. “What do you need?”

“I need you to watch over Isabel.”

My eyes narrowed slightly, as I tried to read his face. “What do you mean? Keep tabs on her and let you know what she’s up to?”