Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
ISABEL
It’s bad enough that the girls are now cold to me, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned the temperature down to freezing.
I don’t tell Mama that, of course; she’ll be disappointed, and not to mention hurt, considering she’s worked so hard on their clothes and is looking forward to a meeting with Luz.
I kind of wish I had the girls pay now; at least then Mama would have gotten something out of it.
But I was too prideful; I knew I couldn’t afford to give them anything they’ve given me, so I wanted to show them that I could keep up somehow. How ridiculous.
After calling Mama, I message Rocío. Chatting with her makes me feel endlessly better, at least. She’s offered to pick me up seventeen times in two hours, but each time I rejected her.
Maybe it’s pride again, but I’m in too deep to back out now.
I don’t want to run from this. I don’t care that their feelings about me yo-yo so frequently that I never feel as though I’m standing on solid ground.
I’ve made it this far, haven’t I? I’m seeing this through, book or no book.
God has a plan for me. He would never put me in harm’s way.
That thought, however, brings about a new fear.
I’m so near to the finish line, and while I’ve abandoned all desires to write something inspired by Natalia and her friends and instead consider survival as its own victory, I realize that this also spells the end of my time with Kieran.
He’s going to fly back to New York, because of course he will, and then what?
We do long distance? I sincerely doubt it.
We’ll try and it’ll fizzle out, then he’ll forget about me.
I’ll hear about him months later, or see some girl soft launching him on Instagram.
She’ll have everything I want because he never has to leave her side.
Now I’m miserable.
It’s not like I can beg him to stay. He has a life he needs to get back to. So do I.
What were we thinking, getting involved?
Maybe if I were Natalia, it wouldn’t have been stupid. I would have the means to travel abroad, to sustain this relationship.
All the same, I don’t regret any of it. If these are to be our last few weeks together, then so be it. I’ll make the most of it. When it’s time to leave, I’ll wish him well. If nothing else, we’ll always have this summer. And those paintings.
Oh, God, I can’t believe I let him paint me naked.
I work out my feelings in my journal. I try to remain optimistic. I focus on the many things there are to be grateful for.
Thank you, Lord, for my family’s and my good health. Thank you for the good food and the opportunities and blessings you’ve given me this summer. Thank you for bringing Kieran into my life, who has been like the sun to me.
And then it’s all just Kieran, Kieran, Kieran.
I wax poetic about his eyes, the way they stare deeply into mine as he listens to me speak.
The way they darken with lust before the plunge, and how they clench tightly just before his peak.
And those lips: sensual, pink, plump, so soft against my skin, my neck, my breasts.
I know what doctrine says about premarital sex—and how sex in general is meant purely for procreation.
Jokingly, I write to God: what if all we’re creating is an understanding between two people, love not in its corporeal infant form, but something more nebulous though not any less real?
Ah. To be Catholic and grapple with the standards set by doctrine while keeping one foot firmly rooted in our present realities.
You understand, don’t you, God? How giddy I feel when I’m around him? This can’t possibly be a test of my faith—not when he is further proof of Your love and devotion to me.
There are naysayers in my head. An imaginary audience telling me that I only feel this way because it’s my first love.
But it’s beyond sex and hormones, isn’t it?
I love hearing him talk. I love his perspective on things, on how God and pleasure aren’t mutually exclusive, on Ireland, and how he renders things on the canvas.
Even without the sex, I would still love him.
I get kilig when our knees touch just as much as when he’s eating me out.
When Kieran and I re-enter the house, Cisco is just coming downstairs, already changed into a jersey shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
“Hey,” he says. “We’re smoking outside. You guys wanna come?”
Kieran hesitates, but I say, “You guys go ahead.”
“I’ll see you later,” he says to me.
I don’t want to go upstairs. I know the girls are going to be there, and I don’t feel like being ignored.
Even Chiara hardly spoke to me on the plane; she seemed as unsettled but equally confused as I was.
I guess she didn’t want to rock the boat.
No one ever does. Nobody in this circle ever seems to want to address things directly.
It’s all fun and games to talk shit about people, but no one—not even Kieran—wants to stop and say, hey, maybe we shouldn’t.
I could read my book—I’ve just started Bonjour Tristesse after finishing Mere Christianity (3.5 stars rounded up), and I’m enjoying it so far, but I’m too restless.
I find Shirley arranging books on the coffee table, in the living room with the baby grand piano.
“Hi, Shirley,” I greet.
“Hello, Miss Isabel!”
“How are you?”
“Oh, you know—busy.” She laughs and gestures to the books. “Ma’am Leticia had these books shipped in, and she wants them arranged before she gets back.”
Leticia Aranaz. Former model turned philanthropist. Married Alvaro Aranaz at nineteen when he was twenty-six. Had her first kid at twenty-one, and kept having children until she finally got a daughter.
Everyone knows Leticia Aranaz’s story. It’s been told a hundred different times, in just as many formats: magazine features, T.V. specials, video interviews. It’s about as close to a Cinderella story the Philippines will get.
I’ve only ever seen her in school events, flanked by a minimum of three bodyguards. One on her left, another on her right, and the last one bringing up the rear. You can never be too safe, I suppose. I never liked her after hearing what she said about my mom in the bathroom at Freshman Night.
“When is she getting back?” I ask.
“This week, I think,” Shirley says. “From Spain.”
Of course. When the Aranazes aren’t in Manila, Oikos, or New York, they were honoring their Basque heritage in the motherland.
I glance at the baby grand piano. “Is it okay if I—”
“Please!” she says, shooing me toward it. “I was just wrapping up here.”
I thank her and approach the piano. The seat lifts open. Within are sheets of music. Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Liszt, Beethoven. Someone in the family has a real love for classical music. I pick out Debussy’s Clair de Lune, or at least the pages of it I can find, and set it down on the music desk.
I crack my knuckles. Stretch out my fingers.
I play a few scales to warm up, then fix my gaze on the sheet music.
I was never the best at the piano; I had to work very hard to get anywhere near proficient.
But music, like God, is always there for me.
In lonely times such as these, it comes to me when I call on it.
I play the first few notes tentatively. I get a feel for the melody. After a few false starts I’m losing myself to it. I’m transported to another world, lifted high above this one into the clouds, where nothing and no one can harm me.
I reach the last page and stop. I wish there was more.
“Don’t stop on my account,” Erin says. “I was just listening.”
How long has she been there, leaning against the piano?
I gesture to the sheet music. “I can’t find the rest of the pages.”
She sits next to me. She places her hands on the keys, picks up from where I left off, all from memory. I sit, transfixed. She’s a natural.
I’m breathless when she plays the finishing notes. Her fingers linger over the keys before she slumps her shoulders and turns to me. “For what it’s worth,” she says, “I think you’re a really nice girl.” And then she leaves.
I sit there, feeling even more confused than ever.
It’s like there’s a conversation happening, one that largely has to do with me, which I don’t get to be part of. Instincts tell me lines are being drawn in the sand. Everyone stands on one end, and I, alone, on the other.
I blow out a breath. I turn my thoughts to God, but find, in that moment, that I can’t hear His voice. For the first time in a long time, I am immeasurably alone.