The Pull of Gravity (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Larry left on a Tuesday, and Robbie two days later on Thursday. On that Saturday, a full two weeks since I’d last seen her, Cathy came home.

The night before I’d ended up doing a double shift, covering for Tommy in the afternoon and working my own shift that evening. It turned out to be a busy night, so I hadn’t gone to bed until well after six a.m. on Saturday. I was dead asleep when noise from inside the house woke me.

It took me a moment before I realized someone was running the water in the kitchen. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It wasn’t even eleven yet. My first thought was that it was my part-time maid, Patricia. I was pissed, because I thought I’d made it clear she should never show up before two p.m.

But as I pulled myself out of bed, and donned a pair of shorts, I remembered that Saturday was Patricia’s day off. So what the hell?

I realized it was Cathy before I even got to the kitchen door. There was the hint of vanilla in the air—her personal scent, she’d called it. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d missed it.

So there was no surprise when I looked into the kitchen and saw her standing at the counter, only relief. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a yellow shirt I hadn’t seen before. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail that trailed down her back. On the counter was a pile of fresh vegetables. I had caught her in the act of chopping onions. It was almost like she had never been gone.

“Hi,” I said, my voice still full of sleep.

She jumped, nearly cutting herself, then looked at me. “Why you scare me like that?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“You should be more careful.” She held up the knife. “I could have hurt myself.” She resumed her chopping.

I was still standing in the threshold, too afraid to approach her for fear that she would disappear. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making lunch. What does it look like?” She looked me up and down. “What time you go to bed?”

“I don’t know. Not long ago, I think.”

“Then what are you doing up? Go back to sleep. This won’t be ready for a couple of hours.”

“I heard a noise.”

“Bah. Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you later.”

I allowed myself to take a tentative step into the kitchen. I wanted to ask her where she’d been, and if everything was okay between us. I wanted to make sure she was real. But I didn’t want to break the spell, so I said, “There’s chicken in the refrigerator, and I bought a new bag of rice. It’s in the pantry.”

She turned to me, brandishing the knife. “Go, go, go.”

So I went.

•    •    •

She woke me midafternoon.

“You going to sleep all day?” she asked. “Take a shower and get dressed.” She almost turned away, but she stopped herself and looked at me for a moment. “You look thinner.”

She’d set everything up on the patio table by the pool. There was even a cold Gordon Biersch Märzen waiting for me, which meant she must have had a stash somewhere in the house I didn’t know about. She’d made chicken adobo and pancit, but there was only one place setting.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked.

“Already,” she said.

She sat down across from where she’d put my empty plate, a full glass of red wine in her hand. I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed she wouldn’t be eating with me, but at least she was there. I took my seat, then reached over and put some adobo on my plate. As I took my first bite, I suddenly realized I was starving.

“Good?” she asked.

I nodded and smiled, my mouth full of chicken.

She didn’t force me into further conversation, and though all the same questions were still on my mind, I had no desire at the moment to voice any. We were together again, and I was happy, that’s all that mattered.

It occurred to me somewhere in the middle of the meal that maybe I did love her—I mean,
really
love her. The relief and the happiness I felt had to mean that, didn’t it?  Of course, I was ignoring all those other times with other women when similar feelings had surfaced in me. Each and every one of those relationships proved to be something other than love, and in the clarity of years removed, they’d all been cases of something more akin to misplaced desperation as I tried to hold on to something I never really had.

But for that moment, that wrinkle in time, I loved Cathy.

“You want some Halo-Halo?” she asked as I pushed my plate away.

“As great as that sounds, I’m pretty full right now.”

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

I glanced at my watch. It was getting close to four thirty, almost time for me to leave. I debated telling Cathy about my new stake in The Lounge, but decided I’d let her find out on her own. That way it wouldn’t seem I’d bought in only to please her, at least that’s what I thought. “I need to head in,” I said, still unable to engage in anything other than the most basic of conversations. “You gonna work tonight?”

“If you need me,” she said.

“We always need you,” I told her as I stood up.

Her smile faltered, and I didn’t realize until later that the correct response was, “
I
always need you.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll come in. Around eight, okay?”

“Okay.”

We stayed there for several seconds, me standing next to the table and Cathy sitting holding her untouched glass of wine, looking at each other, both with something to say and neither of us saying it.

Finally I smiled and turned back for the house.

•    •    •

The girls welcomed Cathy back with shouts and cheers and kisses. Unlike me, several asked her where she’d been, but she would only answer, “Away,” or “Out of town.” Afraid that she might divulge more than I wanted to hear, I made my way to the back of the bar and left her to the hordes.

Soon I found myself listening to stories from a group of Americans who’d decided they’d met me on a previous trip, though I was pretty sure it was the first time we’d ever seen each other. They’d been making the rounds in Manila and had only arrived in Angeles that morning. From the way they told it, they’d each had a girl in Manila fall in love with them and beg them to stay
. Fell in love with your money is more like it
, I thought, but didn’t say anything. The working girls in Manila, as a lot, were hardened professionals who seldom entertained the dream of finding the right foreign guy and “getting out.” Finding a rich local guy who’d put them up in an expensive apartment, bought them fancy clothes, took them out to exotic dinners before returning home to his wife and kids—that was the height of their hope pyramid.

Ty, the unofficial group leader, talked like he’d been coming to the Philippines for over a dozen years. But I could tell he was all show. He’d been coming, at most, for the past year or two. It was obvious he didn’t want his friends to know because his experience made him “The Man.” Still, I couldn’t help dropping in a few names of fictitious bars that had “closed down” into the conversation.

“Yeah, I miss that place,” he would say, or, “They had one of the most beautiful dancers I’ve ever seen,” or, “I nearly cried when I heard they went out of business.”

I bounced from them to a couple of Japanese businessmen I knew, to three newbies from Australia, to Josh and Nicky, all the time politely declining the offer of a drink, but always buying a round for them.

Sometime early on, I glanced up and saw that Cathy had taken her familiar place behind the bar. I tried to catch her eye and give her a little wink, but she apparently was too engrossed in filling orders to notice me. About half an hour later, when I looked over again, there was an old guy sitting at the bar talking to her. I knew she was just doing her job, but I couldn’t help feeling a little jealous that this complete stranger seemed to be having a relaxed, pleasant conversation with my girlfriend.

After that, things got crazy as usual and the next thing I knew, it was time to close up. Cathy and Analyn shut down the bar while I released all the girls who were left.

When we were done, Cathy and I found Manny waiting for us outside.  He grinned broadly when he saw her, and immediately called out a greeting in Tagalog. As Cathy and I jammed ourselves into the sidecar of Manny’s trike, I noticed Cathy was a little stiff.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Tired,” she said.

I put a hand on her back at the base of her neck and began to giver her a gentle massage. She smiled, then leaned back into me. I kissed her cheek lightly, realizing as I did that it was the first time I’d kissed her since she’d come back. She turned her head toward me, letting me kiss her on the lips before turning away again and closing her eyes as if she wanted to rest.

Manny dropped us off in front of our house ten minutes later. Before he left, Cathy said something to him in Tagalog, but I was too far away to catch any of it. When she was done, Manny’s ever-present smile was gone. With a single nod, he gunned his engine and left.

After we’d gone inside and turned on the lights, I went into the kitchen like I always did, and got us each a glass of water.

“Are you hungry?” I called out, but she didn’t answer, so I assumed she was already in the bedroom out of earshot.

The way the house was laid out, there was a large living room to the right of the front door as you came in, and the kitchen and dining room to the left. From the kitchen you could either exit into the backyard, or go down the hallway that led back to the bedrooms. I went into the hallway, but when I got to the master bedroom, she wasn’t there. I checked the bathroom and that was empty, too.

I was still carrying the two glasses of water when I reentered the living room and found her sitting on the couch. Beside the couch were two large suitcases. Hers. I wanted to think she just hadn’t unpacked from her trip, but I had seen those two suitcases sitting empty in our closet a couple days earlier. She hadn’t taken them on her trip.

I held out one of the glasses to her. “Thirsty?”

She took it, and said in a voice I could barely hear, “Thank you.”

I sat down on the couch, not too close to her, but not too far away either. The illusion of reconciliation I’d created since her return was all but gone. Even if I didn’t completely know why, I knew what the suitcases meant. I just didn’t want to believe it.

“Another trip?” I asked. I tried sounding lighthearted and unaffected, but it came out snippy and hurt.

“Jay,” she said, her eyes closing in pain.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “Why don’t we get some sleep and talk about this when we’re both more awake?”

She sighed. “Sleep will change nothing.”

“You can have the bedroom. I’ll sleep here on the couch.”

“No,” she said. She stood up. “It’s time for me to leave.”

“Hold on,” I said, jumping up and reaching for her hand. She let me hold it for a moment before pulling away. “Are you going to tell me why?”

“You know why.” She walked over and picked up her suitcases. “I’ve left you plenty of food. And Analyn’s sister will cover for me at the bar until you hire someone else.”

“You’re leaving the bar, too?”

I could see she wanted to say something, but she finally gave up and turned for the front door.

I had already said, “Let me carry those,” before I realized I’d just volunteered to help her move out. As we reached the door, I asked, “Where are you going?”

“Away.”

Outside, Manny was once again parked in front of my house. So now I knew what Cathy had said to him. I set her bags on the ground, unable to actually put them into the trike.

“This can’t be everything,” I said, as we watched Manny set the suitcases in the sidecar.

“It’s everything I want,” she said.

“What if I need to send you something?” I asked, knowing none of the words coming out of my mouth were the words I wanted to say.

“You won’t.”

There was no room in the sidecar, so Cathy climbed onto the motorcycle behind Manny.

“Wait,” I said, finally getting ahold of myself. “Cathy, wait. Please. I don’t understand. You’ve got to at least give me a chance. Cathy, please.”

She turned to me, her eyes full of tears. “I already give you your chance.” To Manny, she said, “Go.”

I suddenly realized I hadn’t told her about my partnership in The Lounge, so I called out, “Wait! Wait!”

But by then, I was standing in front of my house alone.

•    •    •

It was Analyn who gave me the whole story.

“She loved you very much,” Analyn told me.

We were in the back office at The Lounge. It was Monday night. I hadn’t even bothered going in on Sunday, instead I had Tommy pay me back for the double I’d worked for him only a couple days earlier. I spent the day sitting by my pool, thinking about nothing and everything.

“She wanted to marry you, you know?” Analyn said. “If you had asked her, she would have said yes.”

But I never asked. And even as she was sitting on the back of Manny’s motorcycle, I wasn’t ready to say those words. It’s hard for someone who has little faith in himself to ask someone else to have it in him. And when it came to relationships, faith in myself seldom rose above empty. Deep down I knew I didn’t deserve her, so I could never bring myself to ask that most important question.

But it turned out someone else could.

A few days before she disappeared for those two weeks, Manus had come back to town. Manus, the old Swede who Mariella had chased away. He told Cathy when he saw her again that he’d never stopped thinking about her.

He was even older now—sixty-one is what Analyn told me—but still young enough, I guess. When he came back to Angeles, instead of going into The Lounge and surprising Cathy, he had sent her a note, inviting her to lunch the next day. She was to meet him in the lobby of his hotel if she wanted to see him. If she didn’t show up, he wouldn’t bother her again.

Analyn told me Cathy wasn’t sure what to do. She didn’t want to hurt me, but she thought it would be nice to see Manus again. Though she may have never loved the Swede, she had been fond of him. And she was getting tired of the limbo our relationship seemed to be stuck in.