FOUR
I had packed a change of clothes for the weekend, into which I delved that afternoon when, after a shower and nap, Setti and I went grocery shopping for the house. We returned home at dusk with boxes and bags. Tikki barked some more but seemed to be getting used to me. He even allowed me to pet him, though the privilege cost me a treat.
“Daddy!” Setti called up the stairs. “I’m going to cook dinner!”
I heard footsteps above the ceiling. The bathroom door came open, clicked closed.
An hour later we were eating in relative silence. The dining room table felt cozy, the light above it glowing like a bonfire on a dark beach. Setti asked me how the show was going. Hoping to keep a lurking awkwardness at bay, I answered with as many adjectives as I could find. Good, great. Pretty decent. Interesting. A bit rough about the edges.
“Are you telling us about Lester’s Ghosts or yourself?” my girlfriend demanded to know.
I laughed as if this were the funniest thing I’d ever heard. But Mark? Mark wouldn’t do anything except eat, and even this display looked more robotic than human. His arms moved left, right. He poured sauce onto his rice. He speared with his fork and cut with his spoon.
The house featured a patio overlooking the canal. After dinner I went here for a cigarette, listening to the cocks crow while clouds of smoke floated around my head. The canal smelled bad. Its water was, in fact, quite rank. But the cigarette helped to divert my attention, as did a series of confused thoughts about the old man. It was clear he didn’t like me at all. For now at least, he refused to even consider a place for me in his daughter’s life. He was being protective. A helicopter parent. Maybe that was wise; maybe I needed to leave Setti alone. Except that I couldn’t, of course. It was too late—had been too late, really, since we’d first met.
That night I went to sleep in the guest bedroom. It was little more than a walk-in closet. There was a frail, squeaky bed, a chest of drawers. I wanted to walk Setti back up the hill, but the wind had gone, leaving the air heavy and humid. So rather than fall asleep to the sound of her breathing, it was to the sound of an electric fan.
At 4:30 I heard voices come from downstairs. Setti and her father’s. They were raised in argument, and while most of it was in Tagalog, I was able to decipher a few fragments from the darkness of my bed.
You’re not the girl I raised! The old man’s voice hollered at one point. Or rather I thought it must be his.
You didn’t raise ME! Setti came back with.
Who was it then? Her father shouted. Who? WHO?
There were lots of other words in between, words I didn’t understand. My Tagalog was and is still poor. But of this much I could be certain: The high ceilings of the house fairly echoed with animosity. Insults and accusations. This was a serious family squabble. Worse, it appeared to be my own fault.
Your hair is too long! Your skirts are too short! What happened to you, Setti? TELL me!
I don’t understand you, Daddy! I’ve always been this way!
Was she bringing home different boyfriends every weekend? I wondered. Did Setti consider me to be nothing more than another of her conquests? I couldn’t sit for that. It was absurd. Ridiculous.
Outraged, I threw the cover off my bed and got dressed. Then I went out to the landing. I was ready to leave. Go back to Quezon City, back to PTN, and forget all about Lysette Roxas forever. Except that morning’s strangeness had only just begun. The landing—indeed, the entire house—was dead quiet. I peered downstairs. None of the lights were on. Tikki was curled up in a little bed on the half-landing, fast asleep. And I could hear the living room clock ticking. And cocks crowing outside the window. Other than that...
I went to Setti’s bedroom door and carefully opened it. She lay asleep in front of a fan, one arm wrapped around a stuffed toy. There was no sign whatsoever that she’d been awake just minutes before, screaming at her father. Now I went back to the landing. I picked up my boots and walked downstairs. Tikki flashed me a menacing glare but, to his increasing credit, abstained from barking.
“What’s going on, fella?” I whispered.
The dog looked to have no idea what I could be talking about. So I proceeded to the living room, which was pitch black. I snapped on a few lights, went into the kitchen, and made a cup of instant coffee. As I sipped at the table it hit me: Either the house was haunted or I was going insane.
Not long after that Setti appeared in the archway. My thoughts scattered. She wore a long T shirt—one of her father’s, perhaps. Beneath this her smooth, slender legs were bare.
“Magandang umaga,” she purred.
I knew that one. “And good morning to you, dear,” I replied.
“You’re already dressed. Planning on leaving?”
I shook my head. “No. I just like to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“For whatever another day may bring.”
I watched her fix a cup of coffee for herself and sit down at the other end of the table. Here I discovered that she was one of those girls who left the stirring spoon in while she drank; it clinged musically on the porcelain mug every time she took a sip. “I like to be relaxed when I’m not at work,” she told me.
“You look good either way.”
“But then relaxed isn’t prepared now is it?”
She was looking at me through a plume of coffee steam. Setti’s eyes were not kind. I thought of cold sculptures cut in marble. Bernini’s bust of Bonarelli. Monti’s Veiled Lady. Yes, as I remember it today, there existed a certain chill in Setti’s stare that morning, and in many mornings to come.
“I had a dream last night,” I told her, as if this might change her expression. “About you and your father. You were arguing.”
“Did it frighten you?” she asked.
I allowed that it did just a tiny bit.
“So you got fully dressed. Then you came down here.”
Now I felt obliged to initiate a full retreat. I looked at my coffee cup, which was empty. No help there. Then, ridiculous as it sounds, I cast my eyes toward the stairs, hoping to get assistance from Tikki. Tikki would have none of it. For all I knew he’d gone back to sleep in his box. The archway was empty; I was defenseless.
“Was I in the wrong?”
“I don’t want us to be different,” Setti replied. “What I feel, you should be feeling too. Like last night. We both enjoyed that. We both wanted it.”
Here I was powerless to argue her point. I had wanted her all right. Back then Lysette Roxas was the best thing about life. Did I but know it, she may have been the only thing.
“I want you to understand,” she went on, stirring her coffee some more, “what’s expected of you. What your role is in our relationship.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“No. It won’t be that way. I’m not going to give you a list.”
“I don’t—“
“Just pay attention, Fredo. Pay very close attention. At all times.”
I heard a noise on the stairs. Seconds later Tikki appeared, looking hungry. “Gutom ka na?” Setti asked him, her face brightening. “Eh? Eh?”
She got up to fix the dog something to eat. As for myself...
Opening the refrigerator, Setti took notice of me again, as if I were little more than an afterthought. “What about you? Dalawang itlog?”
I laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Two eggs would be just fine.”
∞
“Sit,” the station manager said, after calling me into his office.
It was Monday morning—a little more than twenty-four hours since my breakfast with Setti. As had been the case with her, there was an intuition today that I was in trouble. Maybe not much (not yet) but trouble all the same.
“What’s wrong with the show?” Mr. Reyes asked.
And there it was. As instructed, I had taken a seat. Reyes, on the other hand, had chosen to place his bottom on the edge of his desk, so as to tower over me like one of the condos in Salcedo Village. He then mentioned that he’d heard about Friday night’s difficult shoot. Had the director lost his temper? He wanted to know. I admitted that this had indeed been the case, but that we’d still met our deadline for the week.
Mr. Reyes grunted. His eye went to a glass ash tray on the desk. The ash tray was clean. Pristine. Yet I could see the man wishing for a cigar. I’d met with him a few times in the smoking lounge, where he liked to indulge. He wasn’t emulating Alan Bautista, however; he only smoked under stress.
“My daughter bought me this,” he said, noticing my scrutiny. The ash tray was now in his hand, and being hefted like ball. “Of course we’re not allowed to smoke in office buildings anymore. It would upset the babies.”
I frowned. “The babies?”
“Social justice warriors.”
“Oh, them.”
Reyes looked at me for a moment, laughed, then put the ash tray back down. “So today it’s little more than a paper weight. But when I see it I can still think about my daughter. So the show,” he went on, snapping us both back to the moment. “It’s doing okay?”
I didn’t wish to answer this one with a bald-faced lie, nor besmirch the proceedings with too much mud. I decided upon a middle ground. “We’ve got some actors who like to ad-lib a bit more than they should. A temperamental director. But yes, the work is getting done. We have a solid script and it’s all on schedule.”
Reyes’ eyebrows went up at this last. “Really? Your executive producer seems to think we’re running behind.”
I felt my chest tighten. Oliver Madilim had his misgivings about Lester’s Ghosts. He’d let as much be known to the station manager a week ago. Were his doubts beginning to take hold in the old man’s mind? Was that why he’d looked at his ash tray?
“Mr. Madilim is still learning the ropes,” I said.
To which Reyes couldn’t help but remind me: “So are you, Fredo. You’re both young.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But of the two of us, only one seems receptive to the power of positive thinking.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Grunting again, Mr. Reyes slipped off the edge of his desk and went to the window, beyond which the tropical sun—as always—was killing the city with its joyous, healing rays.
“Positive thinking, shit,” Reyes said, his back to me. “I tried that for years. Told myself if I could just believe in PTN, it would succeed. Not keep its head above water, but succeed. Thrive.” His head snapped round to look at me. “Did you read the book?”
“Sir? What book?”
“The Power Of Positive Thinking.”
“That one. No.” The station manager’s sudden departure from the desk had rocked me back on my heels. My confidence, my coolness, had flown. I needed to recuperate. Reconstitute.
But Reyes was still talking. “I did,” he said. Then he pointed at the glass. “And when it didn’t work I threw the book out this window. To this day I have no idea where it landed. I hope it was in a pile of tae.”
“That bad, eh?”
At last Mr. Reyes decided to use the chair behind his desk. He sat down slowly, mindful of his creaking joints, and shook his head. “Oh, Fredo. The preachings of the hopeful, lunatic mind. See it and it shall be. Believe and it will come true. I wanted to put PTN at the top. Scare big boys like ABS-CBN and TV5. So for three years after I got this job I walked around the building with a big, stupid smile on my face, clapping everyone on the back. Back then PTN was the same as it is now.”
“Sir?”
“Hopeless,” he answered. “Despairing. We were dead last in every ratings category, just like today. No one wanted to work here. Problem was—is—is that everyone’s already been fired from everywhere else. Including me. That’s right,” he pressed on, as if I’d objected. “Shit-canned, Fredo. Flushed away.”
“This is my first job, Sir.”
“I know that. Your resume is nothing more than a pool of clear, cool water. A tempting oasis for employers lost in the desert. Employers like me.”
“Sir? That’s not really how you feel, is it?”
His metaphor had shocked me even further. Just how bad of shape was PTN in? How close to the edge? Then I remembered what I’d just been told: We were dead last.
Reyes looked at me over a pair of folded hands. “Put it this way,” he said. “If you turn out to be a mirage, I may have to take up drinking again. And I haven’t touched a drop for ten years.”
I smiled at him. “I’m no mirage. The show’s going to be a hit. It’s clever. It’s fast-paced. Everyone believes in it. Well,” I added, thinking of Oliver Madilim, “almost everyone.”
“You’re referring to Oliver,” the station manager deduced rather easily.
“Yes, Sir, I am.”
Reyes let out a sigh. “He’s a loose cannon, all right. Makes too many quick decisions.” Here he paused, tapping his finger on the desk. I could tell he had something more to say but hadn’t yet decided if it was wise. His next words were tentative. “Has anyone told you about Giselle Chavez? Ever hear of her?”
I tried to recall the name. Nothing came up, so I shrugged my shoulders. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“She was a stunt-woman who worked on a big project of Madilim’s last year. Or maybe it was a year and half ago. As far as time goes all that really matters is four minutes.”
“Four minutes?”
Reyes nodded. “That’s how long Miss Chavez was able to hold her breath underwater. Pretty impressive. So Oliver put her in a scene where the heroine had to escape from a sunken car. The director called action. Chavez got a good, deep breath before going under. After that the rigging the car was attached to malfunctioned. It got stuck.”
“Oh God,” I muttered.
“She should have been all right anyway. There was an O2 canister under the dash. But Miss Chavez was wearing mock handcuffs, and they got stuck, too. She...she couldn’t reach it.”
“What about frog-men?” I asked. “I mean if I ever saw a scene like that in a screenplay there’d be no way—“
“Miss Chavez insisted that she’d be fine. That the scene would be a breeze. Oliver believed her. Why shouldn’t he? The two of them were engaged to be married.”
“Jesus Christ!”
The station manager raised his hand. “I know. I know. It’s sickening. Here we had this wretched girl, trapped in a sunken car, holding her breath. It was over six minutes before Madilim’s crew could get the car to the surface. By then Miss Chavez had succumbed. Run out of air. She was...she was dead.” He sighed again. “After that I wanted to keep Oliver away from heavy responsibility for awhile. Give him some air of his own. I still don’t think he’s quite ready. He will be, but...no. Not yet.”
“It certainly would explain his disposition,” I fumbled. “Toward Lester’s Ghosts.”
Reyes laughed. “Yeah, Fredo. He thinks it’s a bomb.”
I nodded. What else was there to do? Oliver Madilim had not been on board with Lester’s Ghosts since the very beginning. Now here was Rodrigo Reyes, telling me about false oases and drowned stunt-women. It was all too grim. I wanted to get back to work on the show, boost morale with a good week’s shoot.
But Reyes wasn’t quite done surprising me yet. “Another network has picked up Boom Boody Boom,” he told me.
I tried to make light of this news with an incredulous little laugh; in truth, I could feel my stomach beginning to turn. First Oliver had been interested in the show. Now somebody else liked it, too. “Get out of here,” I said. “Which one?”
“Doesn’t really matter, does it, Fredo?” Reyes replied, leaning forward. “Because the show is absurd. Totally ridiculous.” He hesitated. “Right?”
“Yes,” I told him with feigned confidence I hoped would sell. “That’s right.”
“Taking the crew to Baguio this week?”
“Yes, Sir. Our protagonist is investigating a haunting.”
He winked at me. “Have a good trip, Fredo. All of you.”
I left his office shortly afterward, not feeling very well. The station manager’s wink had been a little too wry, a little too rusty. It suggested that perhaps Giselle Chavez wouldn’t be the network’s only casualty by sunken vehicle, that someone else might be trapped. A certain producer who had suddenly begun to think that maybe Cleveland wasn’t such a bad city to live in after all.