All About You

Four

T he house shakes from the roars of my family, as we all erupt like a crowd of concert goers. My Tita Bea is getting married ? An eternal union, a permanent fairytale?

I remember the first time Tita Bea told us about Jonathan. In fact, the first words out of her mouth were about how Jonathan was an arrogant asshole.

They first met four years ago, at the restaurant that Tita Bea manages. Jonathan had been attending a work dinner, and was displeased at the service. He boldly demanded to chat directly with the manager to complain, but the moment he laid eyes on my Tita Bea, all words seemed to be forgotten.

He was instantly smitten .

Since then, Jonathan always held his work meetings at the restaurant, and tried to flirt relentlessly with Tita Bea. She complained about his conceitedness, and how he and his workmates were always so loud.

The gleam in her eyes begged to differ whenever she mentioned Jonathan and his jet-black hair that was ‘so black it’s like a black hole.’

One month later after they’re first encounter, they started dating.

Their story, their beginning, just added another meet-cute tale in the family. Another to fuel my yearning.

My eyes flutter around the room, at the awed expressions of my relatives’ faces.

Lola Evangeline is chatting animatedly with Jonathan and Tita Bea. Mum has gravitated toward Tita Lucillia, as they both squeal over their younger sister.

My older cousins - Kuya Peter and Kuya Joseph - mutter amongst themselves.

That’s when my gaze settles on Marlon. He’s standing at the dining table beside his Dad, conversing animatedly as he points toward Tita Bea. In an entirely coincidental moment, he turns his head to the side, and meets my stare. I turn away instantly.

I will never understand what my family sees in us. Other than the fact that our Mums grew up together, we don’t have anything in common.

Him and I…we’re like earth and air. Literally nothing happens between them. Air breezes past earth without so much as a reaction, although sometimes the sight of him has me fuelling like fire. But still. We are nothing .

The type of romance I want, the magical, confession-in-the-rain type of love … Marlon is lightyears away from that. I could never fall in love with a boy who drew X’s across my Barbie dolls’ eyes, and I doubt he’d want to be with a girl who dismembered the arms and legs from his wrestling figurines as revenge.

“Tita Bea, getting married,” Ria whispers, and I whisper back, “I know, right?”

Is this the day for relationships? First, the hard launches on social media. Now, with Tita Bea and her engagement.

Maybe this is some kind of premonition… no. I’ve got to stop believing every little coincidental thing is a sign from the universe.

Once, when I was 13-years-old, I prayed that God send me a sign to tell me whether I should confess to Owen Lawson, the bookworm with auburn hair who sat beside me in English, or forget about him. The morning after, I woke up to one of the sunniest days during a week that was otherwise gloomy. I took this as a sign to confess my love to Owen at the locker bay. He ended up just laughing in my face. He also asked to change seats away from me in English. For the rest of that term, my English class would whisper and laugh behind my back about Owen and I.

I shiver as the memory runs a replay in my head and quickly tuck it back into the ‘never-again’ archives.

“Don’t you think it’s scary, dedicating your life to someone?” Stephanie chimes in, “I could never imagine myself being married.”

I poke at her side, and she swats at my hands, grinning.

“You don’t have to worry about that for a long time,” I tell her.

Yet, she’s got a good point. Love, I’ve come to read about, and see in movies, is all consuming. My parents have dedicated their lives entirely to each other, Ria and I. To be bound to someone like that, it’s daunting. Confronting.

But it’s also beautiful, to choose your person time and time again, against all odds. I smile as I observe Tita Bea and Jonathan, their arms around each other, like two halves of one whole. I think I’m more afraid of not finding love, than experiencing it.

Soon after the thrill of the announcement, the day peels away to night, welcoming the infamous family karaoke session. Whenever my relatives are all gathered in one space, it’s an unspoken rule that we must all partake in karaoke, no matter what. Filipinos are incapable of breathing the same air without singing in it.

All of us have migrated into the living room space, squashing ourselves onto the couches and folded chairs.

Right now, Mum and Dad were locked in a Summer Nights duet.

Balancing a plate of buko pandan pie atop my knees, I clap along, swaying to and fro to the infectious melody of the Grease tune. My parents have good voices too. I wish those were the genes they’d passed onto me. Instead, it got passed to Ria.

She sits beside me, recording them as they shimmy toward each other.

It’s moments like these I realise I’d never trade my family for anything else in the world, no matter how infuriating they may be.

Their duet ends, and we all erupt into applause. Dad leaves the stage, but Mum stays at the centre of the living room, holding onto the microphone. Her eyes scan the room, until it falls somewhere behind me. With her finger, she motions come hither to her victim.

“Come on Reggie!” she calls into the microphone, and all my relatives cheer.

I crane my neck behind me, and see Tita Regina turn a deep shade of red which juts out against the white wall she’s leaning against. With an overexaggerated roll of her eyes, she saunters toward Mum, who holds out the second microphone to her.

They type in the song code from the karaoke book, and the opening melody begins. Instantly, I recognise Beyonce and Shakira’s Beautiful Liar , one of their favourites.

Mum and Tita Regina have told Ria and I many times how they used to rush home together after school to catch the TV program replaying popular music videos. Beautiful Liar was one of the first they’d watched together after they met.

Mum claims Shakira, while Tita Regina does her best rendition of Beyonce. They even have their own little choreography.

“Go Mum and Tita!” I exclaim with a whoop, chuckling as they do a hip twirl that they pull off quite well.

“Go Mum-yonce!” I hear Marlon’s voice holler from somewhere to the right of me.

Mum and Tita Regina complete the performance with the final line of the song, ending back to back with their hands on their hips, their heavy breaths heard through the microphone. My family cheers, clapping as the two give bows of satisfaction.

“Okay, who’s next!” Tita Regina calls.

I push my fork into my pie as Tita Regina waves the microphone around the room, searching for the next karaoke victim. As the portion pushes past my lips, Lola yells out, “ Gusto ko si [8] Lene and Marlon!”.

Pie crumbs catch at my throat as I gasp from the shock of hearing my name, resulting in a coughing fit. The rest of the room doesn’t seem to take this as a sign that I did not and cannot sing for the life of me, because they all erupt in a roar of cheers and whoops.

Tito Daniel claps Marlon’s black, pushing him forward. Mum and Tita Regina are looking ecstatic, and I hear them begin to cheer our names into the microphone.

“No, I really can’t sing,” I begin, but Lola waves away my excuse.

In a last attempt of desperation, I shoot Ria a look that’s a cry for help. All she does is shrug, though the smirk suggests she wouldn’t have helped me otherwise.

“Do it for me, Lene! It’s my birthday,” exclaims Tita Lucillia.

My mind desperately scrambles for a reasonable excuse that would convince Tita Lucillia and the rest of my family that I really can’t sing, but now I had both the birthday girl and my Lola piling up against me. If I went against their wishes, I’d just look like the bad guy. Especially against Marlon, who was already taking his place at the centre of the living room.

With no other choice, I heave my body from my safe place on the couch and toward Mum, who’s excitedly holding the microphone toward me. I take it, sighing into the mic, but the round of enthusiastic applause drowns it out. Hesitantly, I settle beside Marlon.

“This is so High School Musical,” he mutters, glancing at me.

I scoff, ‘This is so far from it, Marlon.’

“You know, this reminds me of when we were kids.”

‘What in the hell are you tal-’

A wave of deja vu passes over me. When we were younger, around 7 or 8, Tita Regina used to bring Marlon over for playdates, where he and I used to fight over the old karaoke machine all the time. We’d always battle for more solo parts in songs that weren’t even duets. The only time we reached a truce was when we used to duet Don’t Go Breaking My Heart .

We both really enjoyed the melody, not realising yet that we were singing a love song. We’d been feeding out Mums more reasons to ship us.

“Oh , I remember. You hogged the mic too much back then,” I state, sarcasm dripping from my words.

“Well, you always took the good lines,” Marlon counteracts.

“Sing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart !” cries Mum and Tita Regina at the same time, and I imagine bursting through the living room walls and running far, far away from here.

Before Marlon and I could protest, Lola is typing the song into the search bar. The melody bursts through the speakers, and I brace myself.

I guess this is happening.

Marlon starts the song with Elton John’s line, and I follow along with Kiki Dee's verse.

I wince at the squeaky off-keyness of my voice, but soon the cheers of my family fills my ears, and the joy is so infectious that I can’t help but grin. The melody carries me away, and the weight of my previous anxiousness lifts. I sneak a glance at Marlon.

His lips are all puckered up, eyebrows furrowed in a poor attempt of an overexaggerated smoulder, as though he was a superstar actually performing on stage to his adoring fans. The sight of it genuinely amuses me, and I find myself grinning larger. He catches my stare, and there’s a childlike glint in his eyes. He’s enjoying it too.

We continue the duet, and I even let myself harmonise with his voice (unsuccessfully). As we reach the end of the song, I almost, almost question why I was ever annoyed with Marlon in the first place.

I sing the final line, adding a little adlib that has my parents cheering for me and the adrenaline of performing pumping through me is palpable. I even smile at Marlon.

“Not too bad,” I admit.

He shrugs nonchalantly, suggesting that all of the singing came easy to him.

“Of course. Although, you’re a bit rusty there Garcia.”

The words dump over me like an ice bucket, and all positive feelings toward Marlon immediately drowns itself.

That, right there, is all but enough to remind me of why I will never stand Marlon Salvador.

My brow shoots up, “Says you, Mr Can’t Even Stay On Tune.”

Which is totally untrue, because contrary to the insults I throw at him, Marlon can genuinely, annoyingly sing well, for as long as I could remember. He knows it too.

He leans forward, holding my glare.

“As opposed to Miss Off Key And Off Beat.”

“Okay my turn!”

Thankfully, Marlon is saved from my wrath by my older cousin, Kuya Peter, who I didn’t notice had been patiently waiting on the side for his turn. Unlike myself, Kuya Peter is actually pursuing a profession in singing. He’s accumulated about two thousand followers on TikTok from his singing covers alone.

He begins to sing Ikaw by Yeng Constantino, a Tagalog classic. As Kuya Peter begins the ballad, and my relatives sway to and fro to his voice, I take the opportunity to grab more dessert from the table. That’s when Tita Bea sidles up beside me, grinning from ear to ear.

“You and Marlon were so cute up there,” she whispers. I quash the urge to scream in protest, and just attempt to match her smile.

“When are you two finally going to get together,” she questions, a whine in her voice and my eye twitches.

I have no response that will pass as appropriate, only very strongly opinionated phrases about Marlon that’ll have them sending me to the Pope for a personal exorcism.

“The real question is, when will the wedding be?” I ask, diverting the attention from me.

Tita Bea opens her mouth to answer, but is distracted when she hears her name being called from the living room. She glances back at me apologetically.

“Sorry, singing duty calls.”

I sigh, relieved that I didn’t have to chat about Marlon any longer as she scurries away to the living room. I just wonder how many more times this’ll happen in my life before they all get the point.

Everyone begins to trickle away around 8pm after they’d all taken portions of the leftover food in their takeaway boxes, except for my family.

We all say our goodbyes as our relatives leave, and by the time the Salvadors get up to go, I excuse myself to the bathroom to avoid having to awkwardly half-hug Marlon to appear friendly.

When everyone is gone, and it’s just my family and Tita Lucillia’s family, we help tidy up. Mum and Tita Lucillia chat about how their little sister was finally getting married, and we gush over what her wedding will be like. I know that Tita Bea isn’t a grandiose type of person - she appreciated the simple things. She’d want to have her wedding in a nice little church, and it would be a small ceremony too. Nothing too fancy, too overwhelming.

Once the house is tidy and we grab our leftovers, we say goodbye and pile into the car.

“I still can’t believe Tita Bea is getting married,” I mention, leaning forward and propping my head between the passenger and driver’s seat.

“How does it feel to have a little brother now, Mum?” Ria teases.

Mum laughs.

“He’s only a few months younger than me,” she reminds us, “So it doesn't feel that much like a little brother.”

"That's going to be your Tito, girls,” Dad adds, as he reverses onto the street.

That’s true. It won’t just be Tita Bea anymore. It would be Tita Bea and Jonathan. Tito Jonathan.

I wonder what it’s like, being a pair. To have an ‘and’ with someone.

“Did you girls have a good time tonight?” Mum asks, and Ria and I hum in agreement. Despite having to see him , and all the endless teasing, I always have a good time when it comes to my family.

“You definitely seemed like you had a good time tonight, Lene, especially with that karaoke duet with Marlon.”

I doubt she’d agree if she knew that he thinks my singing is bad.

"Yeah, it was whatever” I respond, nonchalantly.

“Did he tell you about how he may be able to start working for his Uncle’s company for business experience?” Dad adds, reminding me that Marlon doesn’t only have my Mum enamoured by him, but my Dad too.

“Oh, that’s cool,” I simply respond, hoping they will one day get the hint that I don’t care about Marlon.

“Isn’t it! His Mom told me all about it the other day -”

As Mom continues on her little gushy Marlon ramble, I naturally tune out her voice, as I always do when this happens.

It was always Marlon this, Marlon that , always being fed a random detail of Marlon’s life, a piece of lore that I tuck away in my little I Don’t Care drawer, which is bound to be overflowing now.

I wonder if Tita Regina ever gushed about me and my achievements to Marlon. What would his Mom have to say about me? My academic strength didn’t particularly lie in the sciences or anything like that - my interest and talents mainly lay in the arts, especially writing. Maybe Marlon had to hear all about the writing awards I won during high school.

Somehow, the thought of that happening makes me smile a little. I hope that Marlon would have to sit through hearing all these details about me.

That makes me feel less alone in this whole tirade.