Chapter 1
One
ISABEL
My boss, the inimitable Amparo Banaag, literary wunderkind turned publishing rockstar who, at seventeen, published her debut novel that became an overnight sensation, holds up a hand to stop me from speaking. “Isabel,” she says. “I’m seventy-two, not decrepit. I know what’s on my itinerary.”
I blow out a breath. We’re standing on the pebbled driveway of her compound, her stark white house behind her in all its post-war architectural glory.
When I first started working for Amparo, she explained that her ancestral home was destroyed during the war, but because her mother kept its floorplan, they were able to rebuild a replica several years later.
Since then, Amparo has built three other similar structures inside the compound: her boutique hotel, run by her son and his wife; her publishing house’s headquarters; and another, which used to be a gallery but now sits empty after the tenant left.
“I’m just making sure,” I tell her. I open her car door and help her slide into the backseat. “You have everything you need?”
She peers into her bag, made of abaca with multicolored lines and vegetable-tanned leather handles, then nods. “Oh, wait. I forgot my—”
I hand over her Kindle. “You left it at the breakfast table,” I tell her.
She was a major stickler for paperbacks until I convinced her to invest in an e-reader three weeks into working for her.
Now she never leaves home without it. She has me convert all the submissions we get at the publishing house into ePubs so she can read them on the go.
The slush pile, she says, is less daunting this way.
Amparo opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.
“I’ll be fielding all your calls and emails to make sure they know you’re away for the workshop,” I say, “and I will take care of all submissions while you’re gone. Anything interesting, I will message you about it and upload it to your Kindle so you can review it for yourself.”
It’s what her previous assistant taught me before she moved to Europe.
I’m told Amparo typically goes on sabbaticals, but this year, she was offered to lead a workshop for writers-in-residency at a university in upstate New York.
No surprise there; Amparo knows craft like no other.
It’s why it’s always been my dream to publish under Sinta Press.
Her publishing house is at the forefront of romance and literary fiction in the Philippines.
They publish women and queer authors, and during my short stint in college, the same college Amparo graduated from, Sinta hosted an editorial internship that I applied for, but which eventually went to someone else after I dropped out of school entirely.
For the longest time, working for Amparo and Sinta Press was my greatest what if.
After chancing on a job listing for this specific post and sending in my application, it’s now become my reality.
“That’s not it,” Amparo finally says. She twists toward me and touches my wrist. “I think it’s time.”
“Time?” I echo.
“Time, hija,” she repeats. “For me to give you a proper chance.”
What on Earth is she talking about?
“I’m not stupid. You think I think you’re working for me just ‘cause you like me?”
“The salary helps,” I joke. “And I do like you.” She’s become something like family. She invites me and Mama over for dinners, just because. Recently, she hosted us at her rest house in Batangas for Holy Week.
Amparo laughs. “Loka-loka ka talaga.” With a shake of her head, she says, “I’ve read your reports.
You have a great eye for a good story—or a great ear, if you will.
That tells me you’re either born to be an editor or a writer.
Or, if you’re one of those rare breeds: both.
I’m not going to live forever, but you have years and years ahead of you, and Sinta Press will have you either way. So, which one will it be?”
“Writer,” I answer quickly. I don’t even hesitate. “Writer.” I barely have time to process all that she’s saying to me.
“That’s what I thought. Okay.” She tucks her feet back into the car. “You have enough time this summer to work on a pitch. Full synopsis, one-inch margins, single spaced, twelve-point serif. Attach—”
“The first ten pages, and an artist’s statement or a cover letter. Both? I can do both.”
Amparo chuckles. “Do your best,” she says. “Don’t disappoint me.”
As if I’d even dare try.
Amparo pulls the door shut. I step back to give the car space to drive away. When it doesn’t, I furrow my brows.
Amparo rolls the windows down. “I’ve told Divina you’ll be offloading all your tasks to her so you can focus on this project.” Divina is the managing editor at Sinta Press. She’s worked the longest for Amparo, so it doesn’t surprise me that she got selected to take over for me.
“I can handle it,” I say, but Amparo won’t hear any of it.
“I want you focused and at your best. You can’t do that if you’re sorting through my spam mail and getting distracted by never-ending calls.”
She does get a lot of calls, often from people wanting something or another from her. A blurb, an interview, a talk. Sometimes a free stay at Hotel Amparo.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “What about my sal—”
“You’ll keep your salary. Don’t worry. Just spend today endorsing your tasks to Divina and then go home. Start writing.”
Excitement bubbles up inside me. Amparo shoos me.
“Go! Go!”
* * *
“Isabel! There’s a letter for you.”
Weeks later and approximately fifteen thousand words drafted and deleted, Mama hands me a thick cream envelope sealed with pearlescent pink wax.
It’s emblazoned with two golden roses. There is no return address, just my name in neat script on the back.
I’ve never received anything like it. Mama hovers close by with an excited energy radiating off of her; if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was buzzing.
I slide my finger under the flap, and the seal comes off easily.
Inside is cardstock decorated in a summery theme of watercolor art: palm leaves, hibiscus flowers, and flamingoes.
The sun sits high, glittering in gold foil, on the top of the page.
If there was any doubt who this was meant for, there is no mistaking it now: there is my name again, front and center in the same neat script on the envelope.
But it isn’t my name that catches me off guard. It’s the other.
Natalia Aranaz invites you to spend an all-expenses-paid summer with her at 23 Laurel Street, Exeter Park, Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines.
To RSVP, please contact Shirley Sandoval at +63-927-894-3626.
I haven’t heard Natalia Aranaz’s name since the end of freshman year of high school.
Memories of the intense bullying she put me through flood my brain.
Her taunts were as endless as they were cutting, ranging from the way I wore my uniform to my mother’s job managing a resto-bar frequented by senior citizens in the basement of a hotel in Makati.
It started simply enough, so minor that you could ignore it: snickers, eyerolls in the hallway.
Then Freshman Night, when I overheard them making fun of me in the bathroom.
It spiraled from there: they told everyone I pissed all over myself, and then—Natalia’s favorite go-to—accused my mother and I of being sex workers, which in hindsight shouldn’t have been shameful to anyone other than the men in power who exploit women and the system for sexual gratification.
“I bet your mom sells her body to pay for tuition.” Because it was unfathomable that a girl like me could afford to attend a school like Walden.
The comment made me paranoid for weeks, and the look of heartbreak on my mother’s face when I asked her if it was true will never leave me.
I was on a damn scholarship! Mama had it all handled so I could focus on my studies.
But telling them that only made the bullying worse.
Of course she’d say that, why would she tell us the truth?
And worse still was Natalia getting the rest of the kids in school in on it.
For the rest of the school year, they called me Sugar, saying I was destined to follow in my mother’s footsteps if she weren’t already pimping me out to rich men and pot-bellied politicians.
I had only one person on my side, my best friend to this day, Rocío, who didn’t care that we came from extremely different financial backgrounds, and could give our classmates the stink-eye like no other.
“If we’re calling anyone Sugar, shouldn’t it be Kelsey?
How many farmers has your family shot dead so they don’t have to pay them a living wage, Kels?
Oh, sorry—I forget you guys can afford to hire someone else to do the dirty work.
What’s the going rate for shooters now, Kels?
Probably not more affordable than a living wage? ”
I started having nervous breakdowns so often that I had to drop out.
For so long, all I wished for was that Natalia Aranaz would forget my measly existence while she jet-setted across the globe and plastered her bikini-clad photos all over the internet.
Why on Earth is she inviting me to summer with her now?