Chapter Seven
Evan’s sanctuary, outside of The Basement, is the bookstore. Hooked On Books, a little independent shop just down the street from his condo in Noe Valley, is one of the only bookstores in town that allows dogs. He and Tallulah can often be found wandering the aisles of the cramped shelves together. Evan likes it because it has an extensive collection of case-bound classic fantasy novels that make him feel like a wizard reading from a spell book when he holds them, they’re so heavy; Tallulah mostly likes it because it has free treats. The women running the front desk always coo and fuss over her and give her too many. Today, they can’t get enough of Tallulah’s flower-print coat. It’s Evan’s duty to make sure that Tallulah never gets too cold when the temperature drops below fifty, and he honestly can’t blame them for melting down and taking a bunch of pictures. She’s too damn cute.
It’s the perfect weather to go to the bookstore. Granted, he believes any kind of weather is perfect for shopping for books, but on a gray, chilly day like this, it’s almost a cliché. Besides, Evan’s in search of some comfort. His eyes glaze over as he skims the titles, looking at nothing in particular as his mind is still squarely back in front of the museum after the disaster that was stage three. He really thought he had something there. Her smile, the way the skin around her fingers turned pale from pressing them to her mouth so hard, the gleam in her eye, the snort of her laugh … He knows he looked like a fool, but he really tried. He didn’t have to, but he did. For the sake of the bet, of course.
Rationally, he knows that it doesn’t mean anything whether it changes Dalisay’s opinion about him or not, he just has to complete all five stages to win, but a part of him wants her to look at him like that again.
He still can’t believe Riggs told Kyle, Noah, and Leo—old classmates of theirs—to come catcall him while he was dancing. He hasn’t seen them since college. Obviously, when Riggs found out what Evan had to do, he texted them immediately that night.
“Riggs is just teasing you,” JM said at the gym the next day.
Despite their best efforts, Evan thinks he handled the embarrassment pretty well, even if Dalisay told him his Tagalog was terrible. It’s not in Evan’s nature to quit, especially not after he looked like a complete tool in front of everyone. He doesn’t know when to cut his losses.
Every day this week at work has been like a game all on its own. Work has been so busy for both of them now that they’re working on a bunch of separate pieces from their finished analysis. But simply being near her is practically driving him crazy. The scent of her lavender lotion overwhelms him, the ring of her laugh across the office always makes him perk up, and the look in her eyes when she catches him staring … Evan tries hard not to look at her, but each time he breaks from typing notes on his laptop, his eyes lift to Dalisay, and he must force himself to look away again. Like Perseus fighting Medusa—if he meets her gaze, he might as well be turned to stone.
Being around her makes his heart thump with anticipation.
No matter what he does, she’s the only thing he can think about. She’s everywhere. He doesn’t want to believe he’s obsessed with her but …
The bells at the front chime as the door opens and he turns to see silky black hair sweep inside. For a moment, Evan’s heart stops. Dalisay.
Daniel said she likes bookstores. What are the odds that she’s here now? She’s new to town, maybe she’s checking out all that San Francisco has to offer.
But the woman says something to the others at the front and just hearing her voice, Evan knows it’s not Dalisay. He was mistaken. Seeing her now, as she moves farther into the store, he realizes the only thing they have in common is hair color. Unless Dalisay moonlights out of the office looking like a goth vampire in fishnets and a choker, which he highly doubts.
He lets out a sigh of relief.
And for a brief, baffling moment, disappointment follows. He can’t seem to get Dalisay out of his head. Even in his sleep, he can’t get rid of her.
This morning, when he woke up, still hovering in the warm haze of a dream he can’t remember, he rolled over in bed, and wrapped his arm around Dalisay’s body sleeping next to him. Except his arm passed through cold, thin air, and he jerked awake feeling like he’d lost something.
It wasn’t real, he reminds himself. He can’t lose something he’s never had.
Dalisay Ramos :
Ready for stage four?
Evan’s in line to board his flight when he gets the text. He’s headed to London for a weekend trip for work, but seeing Dalisay’s name makes him feel like he’s already in the air, defying gravity.
Bring it on,
he types.
I’m heading to jolly ol’ London now, though. Be back Monday.
Before he hits send, he winces at his own words. He sounds like such a dork. Who says ‘jolly ol’? Really? He edits the middle sentence and hits send.
Me:
Bring it on. Catching a flight now. Be back Monday.
Dalisay Ramos :
The anticipation is excruciating. ;)
“This is her house?” Evan asks.
JM shifts the car into park and nods. He offered to drive Evan, seeing as Bettie decided not to start today. She might be on her last legs.
Evan still doesn’t know what stage four entails, and JM and Pinky keep mum about it, even after he asks them a million times. He wants to prepare as best he can, but they’re resolute. They told him it’s not fair if he googles it either. He’ll find out soon enough.
After work, JM drives Evan to Outer Richmond, a neighborhood on the north side of the city. Despite Evan having lived in San Francisco most of his life, he’s never visited this side of town before, and for some reason it makes him nervous. Maybe it’s because now he’s on her home turf.
The Ramos home is a robin’s-egg blue, single-family house with a large bay window overlooking the driveway leading up to the front door and garage. It’s one of the nicer houses on the block, and like Dalisay, he knows that there’s more behind the facade than meets the eye.
“This is the address Pinky gave me,” JM says. “All you have to do now is knock on the front door. Prepare for servitude, my guy.”
Evan whips around to look at him. “Servitude? You’re making this up now. Are you and Dalisay in on it together?”
With a laugh, JM shakes his head.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Evan asks.
“Because I know you can do it, no sweat,” replies JM. “You need to serve to prove that you’re useful, that you can take care of things, that you’re not lazy. Shows that you’re willing to make an effort.”
“I’m not lazy. Haven’t the first three stages proven that?”
“Now you gotta prove it to her family.”
Evan puffs out his cheeks. “Family.” For some reason his heart pounds in his chest. Why is he so nervous about meeting her parents? “Can you at least tell me what kinds of things I need to do? Like, run a few errands?”
JM just chuckles and says, “Whatever they ask you to do, you do it. No complaints. Good luck, bro.”
He holds out his hand and he and Evan complete their elaborate handshake, one they crafted way back when they started Berkeley together before finals. Old habits die hard. Their good luck ritual never failed them before. Evan doesn’t want to think about the fact that he might need it today more than ever.
“Let’s get this over with. Thanks, man.” He gets out of the car and JM pulls away.
No one’s at the window, and he can’t see a shadow moving at the door, so Evan takes a beat to gather himself while he walks up to the house. As he smooths out the front of his sweatshirt, thinking he should have worn something nicer, he finds his palms are sweaty. Why is he so nervous? Is he really that worried about making a good impression on her family? Of course, he always wants to make a good impression. He’s a people pleaser. But for some reason, the idea that he’s meeting her parents makes the stages feel … real. He shakes his head and forces his heart to stop hammering in his chest.
At the door, he rings the bell and Daniel opens the door, greeting him with a big smile.
“Evan!” he says. “You’re right on time.”
“Oh, uh, okay!” Evan says. He didn’t know Daniel would be expecting him.
Daniel lets Evan inside and has him take off his shoes, leaving them on a rack full of others. The entry area leads to a split-level, one small set of stairs going up while a door nearby leads to the garage. For a foyer, the entry is heavily decorated, with dozens of different kinds of crucifixes and family photos in gilded frames covering every inch of the diamond wallpaper. Based on their number, the Ramos family loves taking photos. Christmas, vacations, weddings, baby photos—each happy moment preserved. One thing is clear, the Ramos family is close. It occurs to Evan that he can’t remember ever seeing a framed family photo in his parents’ houses. They’re all saved on phones or computers. Daniel hands Evan a pair of slippers to wear in the house and beckons him up the stairs.
The main floor is even more decorated and lively than the entryway. Evan isn’t sure there is a single white object or straight line in the entire house. The first thing he sees is the kitchen and the living room. The smell of cooking onions and garlic washes over him, and a crowd of people—all women, Evan notices—are standing in the kitchen, yelling over one another. An old woman hunches over the kitchen island, tasting a pot of something steaming with a wooden spoon, and scowls, speaking quickly in Tagalog. A pregnant woman leans on the counter, her hand on the small of her back as she gesticulates wildly with the other hand as she tells Nicole a story. A toddler no taller than Evan’s knees crawls on the polished wood floor pushing a large fire truck. A woman with salt-and-pepper hair nearly trips over the toddler and she scolds him for getting underfoot. Five other older women chat and gossip, holding on to each other as they laugh.
To say the room is chaotic is an understatement. It’s loud. At first, Evan’s so overwhelmed by everything, his feet root to the spot.
“Evan’s here!” Daniel announces to the house.
Everyone spins around to look, then roars in approval. They descend upon him like a flock of birds.
“Finally!”
“What took you so long?”
“Open this for me.”
Someone hands him a jar of pickled papaya and without thinking, he twists it open and hands it back. He’s not even sure who it went to. It’s a flurry of introductions by Daniel.
“Evan, meet the family. Our cousins, who live out in Richmond—”
The gossiping women smoosh his cheeks and crow about how handsome he is, and his face goes hot as he remembers what JM talks about when he visits family in Cebu City.
“You remember Nicole,” Daniel continues.
Nicole appears, pats him on the cheek, and hands him a vacuum.
“This is our Lola.” Daniel gestures to the elderly woman. He can surmise that “Lola” is the Filipino word for “grandmother.” She elbows her way through the crowd and inspects Evan with a stern eye, like she might inspect a piece of furniture for scratch marks. In contrast to her glower, she wears a bright, floral button-up shirt and matching skirt. She says something in Tagalog, but Evan distinctly hears the word “Dalisay.”
Evan holds out his hand. “Mano po. I’m Evan.” Sure, he might be doing the Five Stages for a bet, but he’s determined to get it right. He’s done his research. He’s not phoning any of this in.
Whole-ass, like he promised.
Lola’s eyes widen, and she looks at his hand, then back at him. She takes his hand and shakes it. She says something else, though it doesn’t have the bite it did before, and when she leaves, someone uses the opportunity to fill his empty arm with a toddler.
“This is Little Luis,” says Daniel, nodding at the squirming child, “and cousin Melinda.”
Melinda, the pregnant woman, looks like she’s about to collapse with exhaustion. “Baby needs changing,” she says.
Evan can smell it already, and his eyes start watering. Little Luis flails and cries, and Evan has to hold on to him for dear life; otherwise, the toddler will pancake onto the floor.
“The list, where’s the list!” the salt-and-pepper-haired woman in her sixties calls out. She’s got her arm in a sling, a cast on her wrist.
“On the counter here, Mama,” Dalisay says.
Finally, through the crowd swarming him, he spots Dalisay near the sink. When she’s at home, she wears more comfortable clothes than the ones she wears to work. Her hair is piled on her head in a messy knot, and she’s wearing yoga pants and a loose-fitting shirt that makes him think she’s just finished a workout. She smiles at him and shrugs, as if to say Sorry, not sorry and Evan smirks back.
The woman hustles over to them and hands a notepad to Daniel.
“This is our mom,” Daniel says.
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Ramos says, barely looking at Evan. She’s got her glasses on a delicate gold chain, looking fashionable in just a knit sweater and long floral skirt. He notices her cast is decorated in flowers in permanent marker. “This is all I could think of off the top of my head. I’ll probably add more, don’t worry!”
Daniel hands Evan the list, and Evan isn’t sure where to keep it. His hands are full, so he pinches it in his armpit while Little Luis tries to crawl over Evan’s head, screaming the whole time.
“Bro, you better roll up your sleeves,” says Daniel with a sly grin.