Three
THREE
G rowing up, Mara loved watching princess movies. The Swan Princess in particular was her favorite. She learned at a very young age that falling in love was done when you were wearing a beautiful dress. It made sense because a beautiful dress made you feel beautiful, and how could a prince not see that?
In her younger days, Mara loved to pretend that she was the princess. She liked to throw her mother’s yellow sweater over her head (because the princess was blonde, of course she was), and tied ribbons up the arms of her mother’s bathrobes to simulate Princess Odette’s puffy sleeves. She would sing the songs word-perfect, skipping through the house, twirling and waiting for the day someone would make a vow of everlasting love to her.
What else was there?
Years later, many of those concepts were unpacked, of course. When all she saw were thin, blonde and blue-eyed princesses, she changed the channel. She found more princesses to watch—more Filipinas, Black women, other Asians and Latinx people to inspire her. Vows of love would come after a lot more trials than facing an evil wizard or a spell that turned you into a swan in the daytime. Vows were tested on a daily basis when the person you chose failed to meet some expectation you didn’t express.
But the power of wearing a pretty garment and feeling beautiful? That was never going to get old.
But it would be nice if someone said it to her, right? You look beautiful. You look like someone to love. I will do my hardest never to disappoint you.
Sadly, the fantasies remained fantasies. The closest Mara got to The Swan Princess was with one client who wanted to re-create the dress from the movie. Complete with puffy sleeves and blond hair.
“Thanks for the sandals,” she said to the wedding coordinator, who stood beside her and off to the side of the ballroom. Des had just explained that the tacos were still being made and would be served with the other after-party food following the reception. Disappointing, but late tacos were better than no tacos at all. “You know you didn’t have to help me take off my heels.”
“I can tell when a person in a gown isn’t totally comfortable in heels,” she said, and Mara had to agree. Heels, she decided, were the worst part about wearing a dress. “And it can’t be easy, with your…um.” Des very pointedly eyed Mara’s body. Her arms, her legs.
“My boobs? My stomach?” Mara asked, daring Des to say it out loud. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, connecting her discomfort to her weight. But even though that was applicable to her, it was not something to just be assumed. “Thanks for the consideration, I guess.”
“I didn’t—I mean, wasn’t—”
“Relax, Des. It really was hard. My feet thank you. And I did appreciate your help,” she said, and the wedding planner sighed with something that sounded much like relief. “Are we still on track to start the reception at seven?”
“The Wildflower staff is just about to finish up, and the sound system is being tested as we speak,” Des said, nodding and peeking at the clipboard in her hand. “I’m checking on your sister after this, and if we can find your parents before six, we should have enough time for family portraits and head in.”
“Find my parents?” Mara echoed, taken by surprise. “You mean they aren’t here yet?” She swept her eyes across the venue and, sure enough, found the ballroom absent of her father’s salt-and-pepper hair and her mother’s scarlet red dress.
Her parents had left the church a full hour before Mara and Mabel could join them. The plan had originally been for the unmarried Barrettos and their parents to head to the venue together. Mara had briefed her parents of that plan during the despedida de soltera. But no, Mara and Mabel were left behind, and had to hitch with David and Marina in the bridal car, and now her parents were not even at the venue yet.
“I’m going to see to the bride,” Des said, smiling sheepishly. “You can let any of the staff know if we can get an ETA on the father and mother of the bride.”
Mara nodded wordlessly, but after a moment remembered why she wanted to talk to Des in the first place. “Please make sure Marina and David get dinner. Marina gets mad when she’s hungry, and David has acid issues. Can’t miss a meal.”
“Got it!” Des shouted over her shoulder before she disappeared to wherever Marina and David were. “You really should get some kind of award. Best Maid of Honor.”
“Ate Doing Bare Minimum to Get Everyone Together?” Mara joked to herself. Her mother picked up her call on the third ring, seemingly unconcerned that they were currently MIA.
“Oh, honey, we went to Sonya’s Garden!” her mother exclaimed like it was just another Saturday at the mall, and not a wedding in the middle of January. “Your dad had to meet with Alden, and I remembered how much you liked the Spanish bread.”
“You went to a meeting on Marina’s wedding day?” Mara asked with disbelief, because for all the scenarios she anticipated from her parents, disappearing to the complete opposite end of Tagaytay for a business meeting was not one of them.
“Don’t be mad na, anak. You can have Spanish bread for breakfast tomorrow at the hotel.”
“I’m heading back to Manila tonight, remember?” Mara asked, but maybe her mother didn’t remember, which she really should be used to. Both Martin and Jasmine Barretto had just entered their sixties, holding hands and diving into the deep end of being lovable and unreasonable at the same time.
Mara wondered if age really was the determining factor of this role reversal, where it felt like she was parenting them when she was only just learning to pick up after herself. Or maybe her parents had always been as free-wheeling and “bahala na” as two boomers could be, until she was the one controlling their schedules, appointments, meds, because she was the one who needed stability.
“Cheese hopia, then.”
“Are you guys coming back now?” Mara asked, sighing. “It takes a while to get from there to Luisa’s.”
“Oh, we’re staying here a bit longer. Your dad’s not done with his meeting, and I wanted a bit of merienda before the reception.”
Mara’s dad was a fan of a neatly tied afternoon. If he could stuff ten things to do in one outing, that was his favorite kind of day. Which was totally fine. Days like those were needed sometimes. But any other afternoon would have made more sense than this one. Boundaries, people!
“There’s food here,” Mara pointed out, gesturing to the entire veranda designated for serving snacks and drinks until dinner. “Marina specifically requested food for Papa.”
“Yes, but we wanted Spanish bread from Sonya’s.” Mara sighed and rolled the growing tension out of her neck. “Did you really expect all the guests to just wait around at the venue until seven?”
“Yes, which is why Marina and David paid extra for ice cream and beer!”
“Hay nako, I can picture your angry face na.” And Mara could very clearly picture her mother’s pouting face through the phone. She sounded disappointed, which was always shitty to be on the receiving end of. “Like in that picture everyone shares in group chats.”
“Please let’s stop talking about my internet infamy.” This was not the first time Mara had asked her family to stop bringing it up. “Just be here by six, please? The photographers want to do one more session with the family before the reception.”
“Photographers! As if they’re in charge of the wedding!” Her father scoffed in the background. “I didn’t like the way they hovered around the venue. They weren’t even dressed up! It ruined things.”
“They’re just doing their job, Papa. Also, Marina really likes their SDEs.”
“Is that a marketing term?” her mother asked. “Super Duper Endowment thingy?”
“What? Same-day edit. It’s a—well, you’ll see later.” Mara sighed, chuckling at her Mom’s assumed acronym. “Basta. There are things happening here. And a schedule that Marina and David both want. Please, let’s all cooperate na lang.”
“Okay, okay. We will see you later, anak,” her mom cooed, another tactic to try to get her to shout less. It worked most of the time. “Try to have fun! It’s Marina’s wedding day, after all.”
Mara pulled the phone away from her ear and mouthed, “Wow.” Okay. It was time to hang up, because Mara was not ready for her mom to tell her to back off. But who else was going to worry about these little things that mattered, if not Mara? Better her than Marina, especially today.
Mara tucked her phone back into her tiny purse. Mentally she ticked off a little box next to “locate parents” in the list of things she needed to deal with. Most days that list was so long that the only way her brain didn’t explode trying to keep track of it was by writing it down. Today, though, the rest of the list was suddenly, oddly, not so important. Maybe she should start trying to enjoy today.
Worst day for a delay on Luisa’s tacos.
The casita extension of Luisa’s was reminiscent of a rich relative’s living room, if said rich relative had a living room the size of a ballroom in the middle of the Tagaytay mountainside. Luisa’s was one of those upper-middle-class places that radiated chic, classy and elegant Pinoy tastes, usually run by chic, classy and elegant upper-class Pinoy families. The kind of families that were über-rich, but you didn’t actually know why.
The ballroom was furnished with antiques so fancy that Marina only knew them by their Spanish names—estantes, bastonero, mesita. Impractical in a modern home, but oh-so-elegant in a formal setting like this. The swirling patterns on the floor were the work of one family in Ermita that had been making patterned concrete floor tiles since the Spanish colonial period.
All the entry and exit points of the ballroom were built under decorated arches, and the bar tables in matte green glass added a special modern touch, matching the pots of several houseplants growing happily in the empty corners. In the background, the string quartet was playing Stevie Nicks’s “Crystal” as Mara walked by, making everything dreamy and romantic while the wind wafted cold air through the space.
She paused in front of the mesita that greeted all the guests by the entrance, the centerpiece of the smaller ballroom. She had personally made the large arrangement and placed it on the table herself in an antique vase of deep red Murano glass. Marina wanted all red, warmth and fire, and so Mara complied. “Fall vibes, Ate, I want Fall Vibes!” She chose deep orange birds of paradise to cascade down from the top and rich red chrysanthemums and ranunculus with bursts of orange stargazers. She chose dyed foxtails and eucalyptus, selecting wispier leaves that faded in the background of all the reds and oranges. Mara had arranged this particular piece on their dining room table, with Marina exclaiming appreciatively in the background.
But she didn’t remember the photographs placed on the table, printed and framed like they were entering Marina and David’s living room. It was a nice touch.
She recognized half the photos of course. She was in a lot of them, or had taken the others. The timeline of Marina growing up was something she was only too familiar with, gaps of time between the photos filled in by her own memories. There were a few baby photos, them on trips together, David with his family, their friends…and one photo that Mara had never seen before.
It was a photo from the night she went to that gin bar with Marina, David and Jay. The fateful night when Jay had taken her photo and sold her to the internet. But she’d never seen this photo before. Clearly Jay had also taken it—it was from the same angle as the meme photo. In this photo, David was speaking to Marina, the smile on his face showing he was unmistakably in love while she laughed at whatever he said.
Meanwhile Mara was sitting next to her sister, looking completely away from the camera, totally unaware of what was happening right in front of her.
Hot embarrassment warmed her cheeks. Had she really been that stupid? This was the night David told her he was in love, and Mara had stupidly assumed that he had been talking about her. Silly of her, thinking that it had to be her because he asked her to eat out with him all the time, because she shared things with him that not even Mabel or Marina knew. Because he drove her home, because he said she looked pretty. It certainly couldn’t be Marina, he’d just set her up with his friend!
She really didn’t know if that memory on full display, or Jay turning her face into a joke, was the highlight of that particular evening.
Mara cleared her throat, hoping it would help push down the bitter taste on her tongue. She began to step away, already making up an excuse about needing to check on the flowers. Screw the beer and ice cream, she just needed to get away from this wedding for a minute. But the road to being alone was laid with weddings guests and relatives who needed to talk to her.
“Hija, this arrangement is lovely, can we take it home?”
“Marina is so lucky her Ate has a flower shop, so convenient!”
“You look good ha, are you dieting?”
“Naku Mara, make sure you stay away from the ice cream booth. All those flavors, too sinful.”
Those comments were fine. Those she could handle because she got them a lot, fat phobia included. What made her grind her teeth and wish for a wormhole to jump into were the ones that clawed on the feelings she was trying not to pay attention to, such as:
“It’s just so modern, no? Marina getting married first?”
“Naku, you should hurry up and get married before it’s too late, Mara!”
“You’re still single? A diet might help with that. Have you spoken to an endocrinologist? I’ve heard wonderful things about this weight loss pill for diabetics…”
Good god, save her.
Or, since Mara was single, she was going to save herself.
She was her parents’ daughter, after all. And while the elder Barrettos had zero boundaries, Mara’s were sixty feet tall. So she smiled to all the comments, nodded at all the words, and said she was going to the bar to get a beer. Which she did, taking a deep sip of the craft beer on tap. It helped. “Mara, dear!” exclaimed a voice. Mara looked up and saw her Tita Claudine, breezing through the crowd in her deep red gown, the same shade as all the other ninangs. Tita Claudine was her father’s eldest sister, her favorite tita. In her dream weddings, she always had Tita Claudine as her ninang, but that honor went to Marina today.
Which was fine. Tita Claudine was everyone’s ninang. “Look at you! I thought you said you were going to tell Marina that orange wasn’t your color.”
“It’s not my color, but it’s hers.” Mara put a hand on her chest to keep the dress from shifting as she took a deep breath. Her top’s boning was shaped like a corset, held up by a long zipper instead of a button to “give shape” and very little breathing room. “And thanks for the compliment, Tita. Very nice.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t look lovely. You look like a happy marigold. With glasses.”
“You could just call me pretty.” Mara sighed, but she was going to take “happy marigold.” Sure, why not.
“I wonder what your happiness is going to look like,” Tita Claudine mused, wrapping an arm around Mara’s and squeezing fondly.
“Not Luisa’s, I don’t think.” She cast a look around the place. As much as she loved the venue’s rich society decor, it was already Marina’s, and it would be for as long as Luisa’s stood. Plus Tagaytay traffic was really bad. It was asking a lot out of everyone just to come. “This is Marina’s place now.”
“I didn’t mean your wedding, Mar.” Tita Claudine interrupted her thoughts. “We all get to choose our path in life. It doesn’t always end at the altar.”
She knew that, and knew it well. In fact, she spent most of her twenties learning that she had the privilege to make a choice. Studying why she wasn’t required to get married, that the world was trending away from marriage and kids because society wasn’t fair to women (and to a lot of people). Meeting people who made different choices, and were happier for it.
“I never married,” Tita Claudine pointed out. “I chose that, and I like it for me. Now I can flirt harmlessly with other wedding guests because it’s fun. I’m just having fun. Happy with my choices. Are you?”
What a question. And trust Tita Claudine to be the one to ask out of nowhere. And maybe it was the environment, or the dress, or just Mara’s feelings bubbling to the surface. But she knew she had something to say.
“I think for me to make a choice, I would need to be presented with the options,” Mara said slowly, carefully. “And for me to say I choose to be single without finding out for myself what not being single is like—seems unfair,” Mara announced suddenly, biting her bottom lip as if taking the answer back. Too personal. Too vulnerable, especially for a day that wasn’t hers. Too late now. “If I stay single it’s because I preferred it, not because nobody wanted me.”
Tita Claudine tilted her head curiously at Mara, and she had a strange feeling like she’d said the wrong answer to a teacher’s question. But before she could say anything back, someone had ambled over to them with an unmistakable swagger.
“Aha! Mara, there you are.” Tito Bong, her father’s youngest brother, tipped his fedora at them. Mara knew that Tito Bong had agonized over that hat choice for at least a week. The Barretto siblings were always well dressed and loved to impress. Even Mara’s father had especially commissioned a beautifully embroidered pina cloth barong from Laguna—a four-hour drive back and forth.
Tito Bong was holding a bottle of craft beer in one hand, and a bright red envelope with gold Chinese lettering in the other. He held up the envelope to her. “Here.”
“Here?” Mara echoed, confused by the appearance of the ang pao. It was a pretty thick envelope, too. “For Marina?”
“For you,” Tito Bong said, which only confused Mara further. “For the wedding.”
“I’m not the one that got married…?”
“Bongs naman, fix the meanings of this!” Tita Claudine rolled her eyes at her baby brother, making Mara laugh. Yep, the drama was inherited from one side of the family, and one side of the family only.
Tita Claudine gently took Mara’s wrist, the same one that was still holding on to the surprisingly thick envelope. “Mara. I’m sure you heard this na, but there’s a tradition that when the younger sibling marries before the oldest, the oldest gets a gift from the younger. It’s usually gold.”
“That’s a tradition?” Mara asked, the first time she’d heard this. Although maybe someone had mentioned it in passing? It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. “Is that sukob?”
Tito Bong and Tita Claudine looked at each other, confusion and surprise evident in their eyes. Unfortunately neither sibling seemed to have the answer and wordlessly shrugged at each other. Basta, it was a thing, so it was going to be a thing that they honored. Tradition!
“Sukob is when siblings get married in the same year. That’s malas,” Tita Claudine explained, tutting her lips and whispering, as if talking about sukob at a wedding was bad luck in and of itself. “It’s also a Kris Aquino movie. It was ok lang.”
“Ate,” Bong said behind her, holding his beer away from his body. “The point. It’s way over here with my craft beer.”
“Yes, the point,” Tita Claudine huffed, making sure to direct a glare at Tito Bong before giving Mara a warm, gentle look. “The point is, Mara. Nalipasan ka.”
Jusko, would she ever escape that fucking word? “And…?”
“And so, money.” Tita Claudine pressed the envelope into her hands. “It’s a luck thing. Marina got hers, passed it on to you, and as her new ninang and ninong sa kasal, we added to it.”
Mara had no idea what to feel as she held the surprisingly thick envelope in her hands. On one hand, free money. On the other hand, just because they said it wasn’t a consolation prize, didn’t mean it didn’t feel like one. As if she lost out on something, because her baby sister had gotten married first.
But then again. Free money.
“Use it for something fun,” Tita Claudine urged her, “or something really, really stupid.”
Japan was lovely in the spring. As was Seoul in the fall. Or she could buy new underwear in Melbourne, since her size didn’t exist in Asia. New underwear was always nice.
“Just don’t use it on food,” Tito Bong said, rubbing his larger stomach. “Collectively our family’s done enough damage to buffets from Manila to Tagaytay.”
Mara was a good daughter and a fucking awesome niece because she knew that Tito Bong was aware that his little comment was absolutely uncalled for. And while millennials and Gen Z kids acknowledged they had shit to unpack when it came to their body image, it was way harder trying to convince the boomers of that.
So she smiled at her tito (pitying him a little that at his age, he was still so unhappy with himself that he needed to bring her into his self-hate) and excused herself to head to the reception area, saying she needed to check on the flowers.
This Barbie needed a fucking break.