Fifteen
FIFTEEN
N othing about Ate Irene’s love story had been conventional.
She had a one-night stand, got pregnant during the pandemic, reconnected with her best friend when things opened back up and decided to marry him after three years. They had opted for a civil ceremony—a church wedding could wait until Luna was in first grade and the Catholic school (if they chose it) made them do it.
Ate Irene had always been a fan of architecture, which was why she chose to get married at the Kontra. The building was housed in a corner lot that used to have an ancestral home turned restaurant, but now had become an incredibly chic, modern hub of cafés, restaurants and shops. The space was built with thin columns of steel painted white, which looked industrial but still tropical.
The bride and groom were married in the middle of all, on top of a set of steps, surrounded by fiddle leaf plants and underneath a gigantic ceiling fan.
“The bride wore a dress by no one.” Jay’s mother sighed beside him as they stood as her witness for the blessed event. Nige had an aunt who was a city judge, and she believed that a civil wedding ceremony was a quick wedding ceremony. “But then again, nothing about our family has been conventional.”
“No. But it’s better this way, I think,” Jay said, shaking his head and trying not to get distracted from Ate Irene looking into Nige’s eyes. “Have you talked to Dad?”
They were both blatant about staring at the man seated a row behind them, his eyes fixed up front. Jay looked a lot like his father, but he hoped he would have a little more fortitude than the man who cheated on his wife and decided it wasn’t worth fixing.
“Forty years, and I still have nothing to say to him.” His mom shrugged. “I would much rather be talking to your plus-one.”
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Jay said fondly, letting his mother be the obvious one this time, as she smiled and waved at Mara, who insisted on sitting in the back row. Jay turned just in time to catch Mara awkwardly waving back. He stifled a laugh, and she was close enough that he could still see her blush.
“The moment she showed up with those flowers, I knew,” his mother declared. Jay was willing to give her that. Ate Irene had wanted no fuss, not even a bouquet. And so when Jay came to pick up Mara that afternoon at Wildflower, she’d showed up with a hand fan that she’d attached a few orchid flowers to, white blooms with bright magenta centers to match the building. “It gets pretty hot at Kontra. If she wanted, she could have a fan to stay cool.”
And so Ate Irene got married in a dress by no one, and without a bouquet.
Jay thought that his Ate never looked more beautiful than she did the day she married the love of her life, wearing a soft pink dress with delicate straps, a lace front and a drop waist. The stylist had tied and retied the ribbon in Irene’s hair until it was Mara who had stepped in and made the bow perfect.
And of course Luna was beside herself with excitement, and the girl was practically out of rose petals when she and her ninong stood at the end of the makeshift aisle. Mara secretly pulled a rose from Luna’s flower crown and pulled out the petals to place in the basket, the awe in the little girl’s eyes nothing short of miraculous.
Jay was enjoying how Mara was slowly fitting into his family’s life. How he was fitting into hers, as well.
“I’m just glad the two of you aren’t so fucked up about love that you swore off of it.” His mom sighed beside him. “I thought your dad and I doomed you when we broke up, when I moved away.”
It wasn’t exactly true. It had taken Ate Irene a long time to decide Nigel was the one for her, and even Jay still had days where he didn’t think he deserved all the happiness Mara gave him. But Jay was old enough to know that there was no point in contradicting his mother’s headcanon, especially when he knew better.
“Well,” Mara said after the short ceremony, when the witnesses finished signing the marriage certificate, when Nigel signed an application to legally adopt Luna. Jay stood apart from all that, and he thought he would feel lonelier today, but any loneliness he had was completely eclipsed by how happy he was for all of them. “What did the judge say?”
She was wearing a sleeveless wrap dress that had a tie on the front right side of her body, like a modern take on a hanbok. She let her short dark hair down, pulled back only by a little clip. She had an orchid tied to her wrist, “just to be a little more wedding-y!” Jay wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her close, breathing in the lovely gardenia perfume she’d put on today.
He realized that before today he’d felt guilty about noticing these little things about her, because he didn’t think he had any right to it. But now that he could enjoy them more fully, he started to notice even more things about Mara he loved—that she had a signature everyday scent, but wore other perfumes when she thought the occasion was “special.” That she considered pants as “work wear” and would have preferred to wear dresses daily.
“Unfortunately, despite being an official witness, I am not their ninong sa kasal.” Jay sighed dramatically, pretending to be devastated by this turn of events. “Scott will be so disappointed.”
“Scott lang ba talaga?” Mara teased, and Jay playfully poked her side to make her laugh. They made their way to the reception place, the Italian restaurant in the basement run by a Sicilian chef that usually said no to private parties, but one does not underestimate the power of Scott Sabio and his charm. And Jay’s power to convince Scott to do things.
The dinner was divine, of course. It just didn’t get better than a five.
But as cool as Ate Irene and Nige were, as elder millennials they still had a bit of cheese and tradition in them, because they chose “Got to Believe in Magic” as their wedding song, and neither of them objected when the even older people in the room came up to the couple and started safety pinning thousand-peso bills into the bride’s dress. A very old, but still very much appreciated, tradition. All of the wedding guests knew the song, clearly, and there was a moment where everyone was singing along to the song as Nige and Ate Irene held on to each other.
Jay found himself on the dance floor shortly after, swaying with Luna in his arms, the little girl making a valiant effort to pretend like she knew the lyrics. He spun them around and ended up facing the spot where Mara was sitting, smiling at them with a fondness in her face that Jay had only recognized because he looked at her like that all the time.
“Are you taking photos?” Mara playfully rolled her eyes but pulled out her phone anyway and snapped pictures of him dancing with Luna. He reached out a hand for her and pulled her into their little dance circle, Luna lazily keeping a hand on Mara’s shoulder as they danced to the song. Jay treated them to some of his singing, because why not.
“…in a world that’s full of stranglers…”
“Strangers,” Mara corrected him.
“Something stronger than the dudes above…”
“Moon!” She laughed, just in time for Nigel and the de--moneyed, de-pinned Ate Irene to pick up Luna so they could dance as their own family. Irene quickly threw her arms around the both of them, said, “I told you so!” and went to go dance with her husband and daughter.
“You think you still have magic powers?” Mara asked him suddenly, as the two of them continued to sway against the music. There was barely any dancing, but Jay didn’t mind.
“Oh, suddenly it’s magic powers when it works on you?” he teased. “You know we’ve only been together a week. You could still be wrong. The love of your life could still walk into your life.”
Mara scoffed, completely dismissing the idea. Jay could only wish he had her absolute confidence. Was that an older sister thing? “Maybe. But at the moment, I don’t think I could be pulled away from you.”
He smiled and enveloped her in his arms, tilting her back a little so she would look up at him. Jay never thought he would end up in this moment with this incredible woman. And he was willing to spend his lifetime being worthy of the task.
He was never going to kiss anyone else again.
* * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Once Upon You and Me by Timothy Janovsky