Chasing Waves Read online

  Peter is good at this -- much better than me and my tentative muttering. He gets laughs, establishes rapport with the room; his ‘One thing you’d be surprised’ tidbit is that he is often mistaken for comedian Wally Bayola -- whom he does resemble, and that draws another round of laughs.

  I smile and clap along.

  In my head I’m seething. Why did I think I could do this? Can I even be any good at training people? God, why did I say surfing? I haven’t even been near open water for nearly five years!

  The thought stays with me all throughout the morning breakout session. Coupled with a lack of sleep and the now-kicking in hangover from beer breakfast, I feel just about ready to call it quits when Luke calls for a break.

  Everyone shuffles out, forming tentative friendship bonds with their new classmates. I hang back until they’re all out the room and I’m sure I won’t meet anyone in the elevators.

  Break hour is halfway done when I get to the cafeteria. As I settle with a sandwich from one of the concessionaires, a tray slides across my table and Luke takes his seat.

  “I’m hungry,” he says, so casually, like this is normal, like we do lunch every day and I know exactly how he likes to mix the noodles on his plate.

  So I comment, smooth as chrome: “Pad Thai, eh?”

  He shrugs at my tray. “Banh mi?”

  I shrug back.

  “Is it good?”

  “Yeah,” I chew thoughtfully. “The bread takes getting used to, though -- it’s very French.”

  A line appears between his eyes for a brief moment. “How’s that?”

  “Crunchy and hard to chew. I feel my jaw getting a workout from this.”

  “That does not sound like a pleasant lunch.”

  “I was drawn in by Cinematic Bread.”

  He tilts his head. “I’m sorry, what?”

  My cheeks start to burn, but I’ve blurted it out so I have no choice but to go on.

  “You know. Cinematic Bread. Nearly every Hollywood movie has to have a giant baguette on scene when the characters come from the supermarket or chill in the kitchen. It’s almost like a subliminal message. Eat this bread. And so you want to eat the bread. You can’t stop yourself, you have to have it when you see it. And it’s always disappointing.”

  “What? No! French bread is awesome!”

  “Is not.” I flex my aching jaw after getting a bit of bread down. “When I was in New York, me and my batchmates would try every baguette we came across, but it was always tough and chewy and a pain to finish. But we couldn’t stop ourselves. We were deep into Cinematic Bread. The subliminal messaging was too firmly planted in our brains for us to stop ourselves from buying another loaf.” I point at my half-eaten sandwich. “And so here we are. My jaw aches too much to finish this.”

  He mulls it over, thoughtfully plowing through his noodles. “The Cinematic Bread Theory: when the constant appearance of an object in performative pieces implants a false desire in the observer.”

  “The observer is unable to stop surrendering to the desire, despite firsthand evidence that said desire for said object does not pay off.”

  He nods slowly. “That would seem like a sound theory, except a.) Pavlov got there first and b.) in Paris, baguettes are light and airy and delicious. You could probably finish one.”

  “Dammit. There goes my hipster social behavior theory.”

  “You should know that baguettes are never right outside Paris. I hear it’s something to do with the water.” He wags a finger at me, affecting a stern expression. “Lesson one: never have Cinematic Bread outside Paris.”

  “I quite agree,” I say solemnly. “Such a shame I was not aware of that lesson while I was in New York. I would have spared myself the trouble. All those carbs. My poor hips.”

  He pretends to check said poor hips under the table, and a small thrill travels down my spine. “They look pretty good to me.”

  I cram another too-tough bite into my mouth.

  “What were you doing in New York?”

  “Oh.” I start playing with a strand of hair tickling my ear. “I was part of a pioneer team taking over the finance operations of a large insurance company. They flew us there to learn the process...from the very team they were retrenching to move the department offshore.”

  “That’s…”

  “Screwed up, I know.”

  Suddenly I can see it again. New York at the tail end of summer. The tops of the trees starting to turn a little red, the wind picking up a bit in the afternoons, the slight bite of cold when the sun finally set. Shake Shack burgers. Tuna melt sandwiches at the Classic Coffee Shop. Down the street from that shop was the dorm-apartment where we, the pioneer team, had stayed. It had a creaking hallway and walls so paper-thin you could hear people sigh heavily from inside their rooms. I remember sneaking stealthily down that hall, careful to be quiet, oh so quiet, as everyone slept soundly, my heart thumping in anticipation of the guy who stood waiting outside...

  “Hey.” Luke touches the back of his hand against mine, soft and tentative. There’s concern in his eyes, and warmth suddenly expands across my chest. I immediately stomp out that comfy feeling.

  “Yeah?” I yank my hand under the table.

  “What happened there?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You kind of--” he waves his hand around my face “--clammed up. You were doing so well with Cinematic Bread, and then you...” His shoulder hunches up, his face drops into his chest, folding into himself.

  “I did?”

  “In the classroom too, when you had to share.”

  I laugh, and it rings hollow in my ears. “What can I say? I guess I’ve got performance anxiety.”

  He tilts his head and focuses those friendly eyes on me. Only now they aren’t so friendly. Now they were kind of laser-like in their intensity.

  “No. I don’t think it’s that, Mags.”

  My heart starts skipping. No one’s ever called me out so directly on my evasive bullshit before. But just as I start hatching my escape plan, Luke eases the x-ray glare and an affable smile creeps back on his face.

  “Let’s get back?” He gets up and gestures for me to lead the way. As we get off the elevators to our floor, I watch him clap Peter the Wally Bayola lookalike on the shoulder, thanking him for making the room laugh. He compliments the girl who’d mumbled about goldfish in her icebreaker answer. He gives another a tip for storing her baon after he overhears her complaining about the spilled adobo oil in her lunch bag.

  He seems to know just what to say to everyone.

  No, I don’t think it’s that, Mags.

  He turns and smiles back at me, and the smile is like a punch to the gut. That smile, despite all evidence to the contrary, seems only meant for me.

  All I can think of is that I’m too old for this, and I should know better.

  Chapter 3

  Ma pauses over her pork bun and frowns, tattooed blue-gray eyebrows puckering over her foldable spectacles.

  “Again, Margarita?” her voice lowers in disapproval. “I thought this was different.”

  “It is different, Ma.” My chopsticks play in the dish of jellyfish. Magnus tugs on my sleeve and I drop the sticks to feed him a spoonful of fried rice and soft-boiled egg. He chews steadily, eyes focused on the tablet in front of him, on the cartoon blobs onscreen explaining why it was so important to always brush his teeth.

  Ma is looking at me steadily, disappointment and incredulity sparking in the depths of those dark eyes. “Did you--” she glances at Magnus “--again?”

  “No! No, Ma, no!”

  “Then why did you have to move?”

  “I didn’t have to move. I wanted to.”

  She sniffs sharply, mouth pursed over the question she wants to ask but is too -- pick the word: tired? heartsick? exasperated? -- to complete.

  I answer it anyway. “I’m staying in Star Contact, I’m just moving projects. To the learning and training team.”

  This time she does
n’t stop the scoff that escapes her mouth. “Learning and training? Since when did you want to learn and train?”

  “I’m going to be training others, Ma--”

  “My God, that’s even worse. What are they going to learn from you?”

  I shove the chopsticks away. “Ma.”

  “Oh, Margarita, come on. You’ve never applied yourself in school, you switch jobs almost as frequently as other people change underwear, and now you want me to believe that you have a sudden calling to train others?”

  “Then don’t believe it,” I seethe. “I’ve already moved. I’m already in the program, so.”

  She scoffs again. One of the pork buns has disintegrated into a shredded mess on one side of her plate. “I still think you have another motive.”

  “You always do,” I roll my eyes.

  “Tell the truth, Margarita.”

  “Lola, stop!” Magnus pipes up, voice high and clear over our hushed conversation. Eyes glued on the tablet, he opens his mouth expectantly, like a baby bird, and I give him another spoonful of rice.

  “Of course, darling.” Ma drops the remnants of the pork bun on her plate, surprised at the mess she finds.

  Magnus smiles back at her. My little angel, upturned nose scrunching as he briefly shows her his tiny baby teeth and the little bits of rice stuck between them. Then he turns back to the screen, the bluish light dancing on his light caramel skin. His skin is nearly the same color as his golden-brown curls. Startlingly clear brown eyes follow the action on the tablet.

  I glance back at my mother. She smiles dotingly upon him, yet something about the way her eyes roam over his features makes me feel uneasy. It seems as if she is always tabulating everything about him that makes him different from us sallow Abarquezes with our midnight-dark hair and eyes.

  Because as much as Magnus radiates charm like a happy little firefly, his face marks my failure. His golden-brown curls are all the evidence my mother needs of my baseness and utter lack of self-control; his birth the great signal that all her hopes for me, all her silent wishes that I wasn’t as bad as I seemed, were dashed and crushed. Magnus is where all her deepest fears about me were confirmed.

  “I just hope this takes, Margarita.”

  “It will, Ma.”

  “No more distractions.” Her eyes dart back to Magnus.

  Something about that furtive movement kicks something loose in me.

  “Magnus is my top priority now, Ma. He has been, for the past four years. Ever since I got that positive test result. Why is it so hard to believe?”

  Her eyes soften for a moment as she looks back at me, but her mouth is still flattened into a firm line. My heart lurches, but I can’t blame my mother. She is who she is, and my younger self did put her through a wringer.

  I just wish we could be over that hump by now: the part where I stop having to prove that I’m an adult who’s not going to abandon her responsibilities on a whim and she stops viewing everything I do with active suspicion.

  She takes a bite of hakaw and a sip of black tea, gearing herself up for a subject change.

  “So. Has Matilde spoken with Jameson yet?”

  I latch onto the topic, telling my mother about Auntie and her Milan-based engineer son, whom my mother feels spends too much money on himself when he could be having a grand house built for Auntie Tilde (never mind that Auntie Tilde would never want to leave her perfectly manageable bungalow).

  In such a manner, we finish our lunch. My phone rings as Ma walks over to the cashier to pay.

  “So, how was it?” asks Auntie Tilde.

  “Success. Relatively speaking.”

  She exhales loudly. “Did you distract her with stories of Jameson?”

  “That came later.”

  “How’d she take your news?”

  “Neither of us cried or walked out.”

  “That’s good,” and I find myself smiling at the relief in her voice. “What did I tell you, eh? The lunch-out idea works.”

  “Thank you for suggesting it. Now Ma can spend time with her grandson and neither of us ends up wanting to kill each other.”

  “Consider me an expert at dealing with Marina. She’s best in small doses.”

  “Shhh, she’s coming back now.”

  “You’re still at lunch?”

  “Just done.”

  “Well, hang in there. Don’t forget to get me that bread I like.”

  I hang up just as Ma slides into the bench. “Who’s that?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously.

  “Auntie Tilde,” I sigh. “Reminding me to pick up her bread.”

  ***

  Ma leaves for her church group meeting right after lunch. I take Magnus to the play place and then to the toy store, and now he nods sleepily as I linger at the bakery that Auntie Tilde likes.

  I settle on one of the long benches at the back of the store with a cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant, Auntie Tilde’s pasalubong safely deposited by my side and Magnus’s napping head curled on my lap, when I notice someone very familiar browsing through the baskets of bread.

  I can I.D. that distinctive nape (And back. Especially that flimsy T-shirt) anywhere. The nape’s owner turns and Luke’s eyes crinkle into a smile.

  “Hey there!” he approaches.

  “Hey yourself.”

  He glances down on my table. “More Cinematic Bread?”

  “Oh no.” I take a huge, flaky, chocolate-y bite. “I’m trying to unlearn that. This is simply for pleasure.”

  He leans and brushes a pastry flake from the corner of my mouth. There’s a brief flare in my belly at the contact of his fingertip with my lip.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I ask, a tad breathless, “how old are you?”

  “Me? Twenty-seven.” He gives me a puzzled grin as he pulls a free chair to our table. The sound of the leg scraping against the tiles wakes Magnus up. His curly head pops up from under the table, rubbing his eyes with chubby paws.

  Luke takes in the sudden appearance of a tiny human in stride. “Oops, sorry little guy!” He ruffles Magnus’s hair affectionately. “Is this your son?”

  “The very one.”

  “And how was nursery school, my man?”

  Magnus’s eyes squint at him, and then back at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I chuckle. “He’s not used to being sociable so soon as he wakes up.”

  “You and me both, man. What’s your name?”

  He clings to me but mumbles “Magnus” at the relentlessly cheery intruder.

  “That’s a real nice name. Magnus. Like a king’s name.” Luke puffs out his chest and stares around the room imperiously. That gets a giggle from my son. “I bet you’re the king in your house, aren’t you?” Magnus nods shyly. “Ha! I knew it. You say the command and your mom and da--”

  I shake my head, quickly and furtively. Luke glances at me, looking stricken.

  “--and Auntie Tilde,” I supply.

  “--your mom and Auntie Tilde jump up and do your bidding, right?”

  “Yes,” Magnus giggles, tickled by the idea of me and Auntie Tilde catering to his every wish—which really isn’t too far from the truth, honestly.

  “Do you say, ‘wash my stinky socks!’ and your mom says ‘yes, right away, Your Majesty’?”

  “That’s siwwy!” Magnus giggles harder now, the laughter tumbling off him in that adorable, shaky way of children when they’re trying to control themselves.

  “Maybe you’re a good and noble king. Are you kind to your subjects?”

  I look at Magnus and pull a shocked face. The guffaws shake out of him like a rush of pebbles out of a can, and he shakes his head. “N-nn-ooo!”

  Luke pretends to look shocked too. “Oh my goodness, please forgive me, Your Majesty! I did not mean to offend you!”

  Magnus is helplessly laughing now. He buries himself against my armpit, shaking with hysterical kiddie laughter. I wrap my arms around him and try to calm him down; people are starting to look at us. The giggles are infectio
us; Luke and I join in.

  “What are you laughing at?” I ask him.

  “I have no idea!”

  Magnus is hiccupping; every time he raises his face I can see tears “Oh no, Buchoy, calm down,” I laugh-mutter, wiping the moisture from his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry!” Luke cranes his neck to get a look at my son. “Are you OK, little guy?” Magnus calms enough to nod back, smiling in a giggle-drunk way. An odd emotion passes in Luke’s eyes. Before I can wonder what it means, it disappears.

  “You’re a natural with kids,” I say, to cover the weirdness of that moment.

  “Why thank you.” Another flash of emotion dances on his face. A full minute passes before I realize that we’ve been locked eye to eye for longer than what’s considered polite among new acquaintances.

  “Magnus!” My voice turns high-pitched and singsong-y; Luke’s eyes are on me as I start gathering my bag, Magnus’ backpack and Auntie Tilde’s pasalubong together. “Whew, it’s so late! We should be getting home soon, what do you say, Buchoy?”

  Of course everything falls and scatters as I pick Magnus up. “Oh gosh, I’m such a klutz!”

  “I got it, no worries,” he hands me my stuff.

  “Thanks. It was really great to see you!”

  “You too. Nice to meet you, man.” He forms a fist and bumps it against Magnus’s tiny knuckles. My son gives him a sunny smile. “You’ve got a charmer here, Mags.”

  “I know. He’s got me wrapped around his finger.”

  “I bet.” He picks up a stray plastic pack of mini-buns that had rolled under the table and stuffs it into my take-home bag, taking care not to pull on the arm carrying my son and all our stuff. “Can I walk you to the taxi line or…? You look a little overmatched here.”

  “I’m fine,” I laugh. “I’m used to this. Thanks for picking that up.”

  “I’ll see you on Monday then.”

  “See you!”

  “You sure you’re--”

  “Yes, yes, I’m good!” I hoist Magnus higher on my hip and hang on to all our stuff in a death grip. “Gotta go, byeeee!”

  I have to stop myself from running like hell from there.

  Chapter 4