Chapter 31
Cindy Santos was the older of two sisters. She had one brother, the youngest of the siblings. Her parents were both Filipino from Metro Manila. Her mother was a nurse from Antipolo, the town with the great Manila Bay view and a slightly cooler climate. Her dad was from Pasay City, very close to the international airport. He was a jet-engine mechanic. They met on the LRT, the above-ground, mass-transit rail line, on its opening day in 1984.
Her parents immigrated to the United States when she was only three years old. They took up residence on the Central California coast, just south of San Francisco. Franciscan Park, a mobile-home community in Daly City, or Little Manila, as many now call it, was where they took root. It was a good fit, as Daly City soon became California’s (and America’s) first majority-Filipino city. However, Daly City sat atop the infamous San Andreas Fault.
The mobile-home park was on the southwestern flank of San Bruno Mountain. This was no ratty trailer park; the homes and grounds were meticulously well-kept. Its biggest allure: stunning, multi-million-dollar Pacific Ocean views – when the fog broke – for a budget price (by California standards).
Many bus routes were just down the mountain on El Camino Real. There was also a BART station close by. The family lived easily without a car the first five years.
Cindy excelled in school. She loved the English language. She also loved to spice it up with Tagalog-English blends. Taglish, she and her friends called it.
She graduated from Jefferson High School in 2005. She then went to San Francisco State University on a partial scholarship and got a degree in Broadcast and Electronic Communication. After graduation she found no luck in landing a job with a Bay Area TV station, as each station had stacks of résumés, and added another pile each week.
Cindy grew tired of waiting for a local bite. She was ready to begin her career. She decided to cast her line much farther and wider; her job search went nationwide.
When she first got word that a TV station in Wilmington was interested in her, she failed to look at the state. She assumed it was Wilmington, California – the port of Los Angeles. She later saw the letters NC after Wilmington.
She researched Wilmington, North Carolina. It seemed kind of charming. She would be three thousand miles from her parents and siblings, but she wanted to show them that she could do it. She had a strong independent spirit. Ah, what the heck. I’m young. It’s not permanent. If I fall on my face, I can always come back home. If nothing else, it’ll get my résumé started. I may even like it enough to stay. Hey girl, let’s go for it! You only live once.
She began doing random field reporting for Channel 8’s 6:00 PM and 11:00 PM newscasts. She felt confident and comfortable doing it. She was a natural in front of the camera with a microphone in her hand.
As the only Asian female on the local TV news stations, she got lots of fan mail from the Asian freaks – men and women. She loved the attention, except the handwritten letters from the ones who seemed like genuine psychopaths. They scared the hell out of her. She soon had someone screening her mail.
After two years of living in a quaint yet cramped apartment on Nun Street, she decided to drop anchor and buy a condo. She found a nice one-bedroom unit on Water Street with a great view of the Cape Fear River. The sunsets were majestically postcard-perfect five nights a week. The World War II battleship that fought in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines was right across the river from her second-floor, picture window. Moreover, she loved her new digs.
She was also right in the middle of the Wilmington nightlife scene. The boutiques, restaurants, bars and coffee shops were all short walks. It wasn’t long before she had a boyfriend.
John was his name. He was a mustachioed, white guy of thirty-two years from Boise, Idaho, who was an insurance agent. He was not a bad bald guy. It was the first time she had sex with a man. Their relationship, though, only lasted six months. It just fizzled out. There was no dramatic ending.
Back in college, a Filipina friend had talked her into a lesbian experiment one night after they ate some green brownies. They were high as untethered kites. She didn’t hate it, but it made her realize that she wanted a real wienie in her bilat (a Filipino term for vagina).
The weekend weatherman at the TV station was constantly flirting with her, but she thought that he was a bisexual swinger, who would never stay faithful and moored to just one female. She laughed at his odd jokes, just to be polite. He had asked her to go out with a group of friends several times, but she always had an excuse for not going. She knew the inherent risks of being in certain public places. Cindy was always afraid that some bigwig in Wilmington would see her out drinking and acting silly, and that it would have a detrimental effect on her career. She was very conscious of her public image, whether on or off the clock.
However, loneliness had found her and was beginning to suffocate her. She considered posting an online singles ad under an alias. She spent three hours one night writing a detailed description about herself sans photo. And promptly deleted it. She just couldn’t do it.