Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
PAOLO SHAMBLES INTO THE KITCHEN with his eyes half closed and his glasses not yet on.
“Thanks for making coffee,” he says, yawning. He walks up to the person at the coffee maker. “Can I have some?”
“Sure. Do you like it black? Or creamy and sweet, like me?” Tito Melboy says, turning around with a mug full of piping hot coffee.
Paolo blinks and puts his glasses on his face. “Tito Melboy?”
“The one and only,” Tito Melboy replies, jiggling his hips.
“When did you get here?” Paolo asks.
Tito Melboy hops up onto one of the stools at the massive kitchen island. “About an hour ago.”
“Hey.” I come up from behind Paolo and nestle a cup of coffee into his hands. “Looks like you might need this. You were so sound asleep you didn’t even hear the doorbell ring.”
“Not that I mind, but why are you here, Tito?” Paolo turns to me. “Rex, I thought we’d be heading over to your place to practice, since that’s where all your stuff is.”
The doorbell rings. Paolo gives me a what now? look before heading to the front door.
I trail behind. “Um, about that—”
Paolo opens the door to see Kat.
“I invited Kat, too,” I say.
“Good morning!” Kat says, posing briefly in the doorway.
“Hey,” I say, “was Susan okay with you taking today off?”
“Oh, totally. She’s super happy about how her dinner party turned out. The execs and board raved about me and Nine Tails. We were a hit! Well, us and Paolo’s food.” Kat flashes Paolo an appreciative smile.
“Oh,” Paolo says, looking pleasantly surprised. “That’s awesome.”
Kat takes in her surroundings. “Nice place you got here! Give me a tour.”
“Okay,” Paolo says. “This is the main sitting room—”
The doorbell rings again.
Paolo’s eyes bulge at me. “More, Rex?” He opens the door, and Eva and my mom are there, holding on to two suitcases.
“I needed them to bring all my stuff,” I say. “Hey, Eva. Hi, Mom.” I drag their suitcases inside and hug them both.
Mom stares wide-eyed at everything. “Wow, Paolo! Ang ganda ng bahay mo! I didn’t realize being a karaoke assistant paid so well.”
“Oh. That’s just a hobby. I don’t really get much money from it.”
“He also works at AquaMarine,” Kat says, already making herself at home on one of Paolo’s plush couches.
“And he also kind of owns AquaMarine,” I add.
“What?” Kat and Eva say at the same time.
“You own a restaurant?” my mother asks.
“Not exactly.” Paolo’s face reddens slightly. “It’s my dad’s.”
“He’s Sonny Sazon’s son,” I say.
Eva and my mom shriek.
“Ohmigod!” Eva screams. “Are you that little chubby kid who used to help Sonny make food on Eats Meets West ?”
Paolo covers his face with one of his hands. “Yeah, that would be me.”
My mom clasps her hands together. “That’s my favorite show!”
“What’s all the commotion?” Tito Melboy says, standing at the entrance to the kitchen with his coffee.
“Melboy!” my mom calls out. “Did you know Paolo is one of the Sazon kids?”
“Talaga ba?” Tito Melboy says.
Paolo nods.
Tito Melboy, Eva, and my mom all look at one another and scream.
“This is all way too much for a Friday morning,” Paolo says.
“Would you be willing to teach me a thing or two?” Eva asks.
“Please do,” my mom says with a pleading smile. “She needs as much help as she can get.”
Eva swipes at her shoulder “Mom!”
“Actually, I’d be happy to,” Paolo says. “I love to cook.”
“He’s good at it,” I say, grinning. “Really good.”
Paolo smiles back. “Thank you.”
We stare at each other for a few moments before I realize everyone else is watching us.
“It’s hot in here already, and you haven’t even turned the stove on yet!” Kat says.
Paolo blushes but probably not as much as me. Fittingly, it feels as if I’m staring into an oven door that someone’s just opened.
“How about this,” Paolo says. “Everyone who wants to help make some breakfast, come with me.”
Eva, Mom, and Tito Melboy follow him into the kitchen. Kat and I trail behind and pour ourselves some coffee before sitting at the kitchen island to watch. Kat’s just like me: a big lover of food but more than happy to leave the actual preparation of it to others.
Paolo starts pulling out ingredients from his humongous refrigerator—a plastic tub of leftover white rice, a carton of eggs, and some vegetables. From the freezer, he pulls out packages of meats and then gathers a few vegetables and a long, green papaya from the kitchen counter.
“Are we making silog?” Eva asks.
“Yep,” Paolo says. “But I like to freshen up the meal by adding a salad—what I like to call a quick atchara. Tito Melboy, would you mind making the fried rice? Tita Sharon, I’ll defrost the longganisa and tocino so you can cook it up with the eggs. And I’ll show Eva here how to make the salad.”
As my mom passes by Kat and me to get to the refrigerator, she gets close and whispers, “Rex, I like Paolo for you. He’s very nice. And talented. And rich and haaandsoooome,” she singsongs.
“Mom, shhh!” I whisper back, though I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard us.
“It’s okay now if you don’t learn how to cook. He will do it instead!” Mom adds.
I shake my head. I see Paolo, who is setting up his mandoline slicer, attempting to suppress a smile.
“So what’s the plan for tomorrow night? Walk me through it,” he says. “Eva, can you slice the veggies?” He sets the mandoline, a few carrots, an onion, and two red bell peppers next to her.
“The plan for karaoke night is straightforward, really,” I say. “It’s really all about the lip-synchs.”
“The good thing is, that’s pretty much all you’ll have to do,” Eva says to Paolo as she juliennes the carrots. “We’ve planned it all out so you’ll only have to appear for two songs. One at the beginning and one at the end.”
Paolo preps the green papaya for her by peeling it and then halving it to take out the seeds. “What will I be doing between the two songs?” he asks.
“After you kick off the night, you’ll pretend to get a migraine and excuse yourself to the office for a while,” I reply.
Tito Melboy dumps the container of rice into a pan of hot oil. The air fills with the crispy sound of the rice kernels flash frying. “And I have exactly the right person to help step in to host karaoke for the bulk of the show. They’re in town visiting from Los Angeles and are very happy to help us. You just need to focus on your two lip-synchs, Paolo.”
“Which songs?” Paolo asks. “Hopefully not something with a lot of choreography?”
“No, we’re keeping it simple. They’ll be standard park-and-barks,” I say.
“What?” Paolo asks.
“Oh! I know that one,” Kat says, stirring scary amounts of sugar into her coffee. “Those are songs where you just stay in one place and sing,”
“Standing still sounds easy enough,” Paolo says.
“It might seem simple,” Tito Melboy says, spooning garlic slices that my mom has prepped for him into the frying rice. “But lip-synching is a real art form. Many a queen have based their entire careers off this. And separately, impersonation is also an important and difficult skill. You’re going to have to be perfect at two things at once.”
“Luckily, we have a true master in the house,” I say to my uncle. He winks back at me.
“Okay. I know why Tito Melboy is here,” Paolo says. “How about the rest of you?”
“Mom and I are Regina Moon Dee’s biggest fans,” Eva says.
“If you can fool us, you’ll be okay,” my mother says, frying up the longganisa links and tocino. The sweet smell of pork, paprika, and pineapple drifts over to Kat and me, making my stomach gurgle.
“I can give you some stage presence tips,” Kat says. “But mostly, I just didn’t want to miss out on this learning-to-lip-synch montage moment.”
“I guess it takes a village to make a drag queen,” Paolo says.
“It takes more than a village,” I say. “It takes a family.” I look at everyone around in the kitchen, taking in the beautiful picture that I see. One that feels more authentic to me than the one Aaron sent last night.
But we are missing one important piece.
Paolo shows Mom a foolproof way to finish off the eggs she’s frying next to her sausages by placing a sheet pan on top of the skillet, allowing the steam to gently cook the tops of the eggs without having to flip them over. The eggs slide out onto the serving platters perfectly set with deep orange yolks just on the verge of firming up.
Everyone takes seats at the large, reclaimed-wood table and promptly digs in to the food my family and Paolo have prepared for us. Tito Melboy’s fried rice is steamy hot and redolent of garlic, Mom’s longganisa are so juicy their casings burst, and the tocino is thick and meaty. Paolo and Eva’s quick atchara is the perfect complement to everything, with vibrant papaya and fresh veggies, a tang from rice wine vinegar, and a rich sweetness from muscovado sugar.
“This food is freaking amazing,” Kat says. “Especially this ah-cha-cha salad stuff.”
I’d say something to concur, but I’m too busy inhaling my food, like everyone else at the table.
But I do manage to catch Paolo’s eye when Kat gives her compliment and see the unmistakable sense of pride there, bright as day. I smile and keep eating.
AFTER brEAKFAST IS DONE , Kat helps Eva and Mom clean up so that Paolo can begin “Lip-Synch Camp.”
First, Tito Melboy shows us videos of his favorite non-dancing lip-synchs. Latrice Royale performing “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” Jujubee doing “Black Velvet.” And Jujubee and Raven lip-synching for their lives to “Dancing on My Own.” No props or cartwheels or shablams. Just communicating the lyrics to the audience.
“You see, Paolo?” Tito Melboy says. “How they make you forget that they’re not the ones actually singing? Their lips, their mouths, even the way they breathe is in sync.”
Paolo watches each video intently. Kat, however, floats in and out of the room, watching sometimes but mostly checking out everything in the house, flipping through Paolo’s books and sitting on every piece of furniture she sees (even the ones not meant for sitting).
“Now we watch Regina Moon Dee do the songs you’ll be lip-synching,” Tito Melboy says, navigating to a video of me doing Sara Bareilles’s “Gravity” at Dreamland.
“Ooh, I love this one!” Kat says, wandering in from who knows where. Eva and Mom join us from the kitchen later and sit next to me on the couch to watch.
We all observe me sing it once. Twice. Both times, Paolo scrutinizes my performance, sitting perfectly still to take it all in. By the third time, he’s able to mouth some of the words and move his body a little bit like mine.
“You sound so beautiful, anak,” my mom says, rubbing my knee. “And your dress is so pretty.”
“Thanks, Mom. I found it at a consignment store, but Tito Melboy altered it for me.”
“Was this the last performance you did there at Dreamland?” Mom asks.
“No. This was the week before Baby Buko’s farewell,” I say. “Before I stopped going.”
“Before I asked Rex to stop,” Tito Melboy says.
“You asked Rex to stop?” Eva says. “Is that why you quit drag?” she asks me. “You never told me why. Or why you and Tito stopped talking to each other.”
Tito Melboy turns the TV volume down, and we’re suddenly surrounded in silence.
“He was just trying to protect me,” I say.
“From what?” my mom asks.
“He didn’t want me to get hurt again. For…”
“For what, anak?”
“For being a drag queen,” I say quietly.
“Why would anyone do that? No one would do that,” my mom says. “Drag queens don’t hurt anybody. They only bring happiness.”
Tito Melboy looks at me sadly.
“I think it’s time they heard the full story, Uncle,” I say.
“Okay then, Rex,” he says. “Tell them. Let’s get it out in the open.”