Love in All the Right Places (Chick Lit bundle) (2 page)

“Oh?” Gio tried to downplay his relief. “Was there anything Her Highness was not satisfied with?” The second he said it, he immediately wished he hadn’t been so sarcastic.

The older girl looked confused at his term. “Now she says the book she’s reading is not okay? But it’s all right… I think we are finished?”

Evidently, Min Hee didn’t think so. She kept her arms crossed over her chest while the photographers put away their equipment. The way she glared at him made Gio think that she blamed him that the shoot was ending, despite being there for more than an hour already. But all he did was shrug at her.

Ki Woo the translator spoke for the group when he thanked Gio. “We’re grateful that you accommodated us. We hope we didn’t bother you. Don’t worry, I’ve already arranged the payment with Frank.”

Gio made a mental note as the rest of the group said goodbye. Min Hee was the last to go. But instead of addressing him as the others had, she merely thrust the visitor’s log towards him. There was a smirk on her face. For a moment, Gio wondered if he had lost the log in the confusion and she had done him a favor by finding it.

“Thank you,” he said formally.

She gave him a coquettish two-fingered salute in reply and left.

It was only when he had returned the desk and the boxes to their rightful places did he allow himself to sit. The museum was back to its normal quiet, looking as undisturbed as it did on most days. The east end where most of the displays were kept bore no trace of the photo shoot. Gio felt satisfied that his day could move on. Finally, he brought out the logbook and opened it for the next visitors, then stopped.

In a large, rounded scrawl, Min Hee had left her name. Then underneath the comments section, she had written the words
‘Mr. Museum is sooo boring!’
Not exactly the most glowing recommendation for the next group of tourists. Worse, Gio didn’t know how he could cover it up short of tearing the whole page out.
Point to her.
He merely sighed and put it away, and wished he could just as easily forget the scent of vanilla that still lingered.

Chapter Two

“
SWEET BABY
!” the dispatcher called out, pointing to the pump boat that was already filling up with people. Gio shook his head and sidestepped the tourists taking their last photos by the busy port. Evening had just settled in, chasing away the rich purple and red hues that the sunset had left. Even on a good day, the jetty port that shuttled people to and from the island looked like any local port, just with a lot more vacationers in sunglasses and maxi dresses. In this light, Gio doubted that their photos were going to be spectacular.

He didn’t want to grow cynical about the island. He had loved coming here when he was younger. Boracay was one of the country’s foremost tourist spots, but to him it was always
there
—the default location for family reunions and high school adventures, always intricately linked to his best memories growing up. But when he started working here, the island just sort of faded into the background. Now he barely looked at the blue strip of water beckoning just beyond the powdery beach. He shied away from the pub crawls and the parties. There’d be days when a pretty tourist would walk into the museum and he’d rub his sweaty palms against his regulation shorts to try to look cool, but he had outgrown the need to impress them with his knowledge of Malay trading routes. From his experience, they rarely were anyway.

The dispatcher made another gesture towards the
Sweet Baby
, but Gio had another ride. Instead he jogged a few boats down, to where the familiar white-and-green pump boat named
Marina I
was preparing to push off.

“Headed home, sir?” one of the men balancing the boat asked him.

“Yeah,” Gio replied, crossing the narrow wooden plank from the dock to the boat in two large strides. It swayed a bit under his weight, but he was used to the rocking of the water. He had to be; he crossed over from the island to the mainland five days a week. There were some empty seats in the front but Gio headed to the back.
Marina I
was the private transportation that the Aqua Resort used for their guests, and Aqua Resort was owned by the Torres family—the same Torres family that owned the museum. Gio preferred sitting with the rest of the hotel staff who headed back to the Aklan mainland at end of day, instead of up front with the rest of the tourists. He was grateful enough for the free ride.

As the small pump boat pushed away from dock, Gio turned his attention to the water, away from the pockets of conversation around him. His mouth felt dry at the thought of small talk. Technically, he was an Aqua employee too, same as the receptionists and housekeepers that the resort hired. But he was also a Torres, and no amount of telling the others that he was from one of the lesser branches of the family changed how they saw him. So he always held himself apart, unsure whether his presence made the other staff members uncomfortable.

At the Caticlan Jetty Port, Gio waited until all the guests had departed the boat before getting off himself. With a polite nod to the boatmen, he exited the port through a wire-link gate and headed for the first van he saw. The vans and shuttle buses plied the long and twisting road to Kalibo, the province’s capital municipality, where he lived. Around this time of the night, people streamed out of the island so it didn’t take long for the 14-seater van to fill up with passengers and depart.

Gio’s phone buzzed. He fished it out to read a text message from his mother:
Did you get me some muffins?
The only people who texted him these days were his mother, his sister Toni, and Sir Frank. Not exactly the most thrilling bunch. He thought about old friends in college, his colleagues at the art gallery where he had his first job, even Arianne of the greasy hands and the kindest smile. His world had gotten so claustrophobic since he had left the city.

On my way home. Tomorrow, I promise,
he replied.

Some falls from grace happened overnight. Gio’s took almost a year and counting.

* * * *

If he were honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had grown used to this. The only thing variable about his life now was the time he came home. Everything else just locked into place and refused to budge.

He hadn’t meant to stay late today. Often, he would close up at five and go straight home. By the time the sun would set on Boracay’s White Beach, he would be in a rickety van somewhere in the mountains, jolted awake by a particularly sharp turn. But today, the photo shoot had set him back a day’s work and he wanted to at least get the boxes in order before he went home.

Thankfully, their house was only a short walk from the corner where the van often stopped to unload passengers. Already, the streets of Kalibo had a quiet sleepiness to them, dulled from the days’ activities. The deeper down the street he went, the less people he saw.

There was an order to his routine that he liked, a predictable pattern that comforted him. There was part of him that yearned for the frenzied activity of the city, he admitted, but he had already come to terms with his life here. He no longer strained against the what-ifs and could-have-beens that bothered him so much before. Now everything felt steady and familiar. Dependable, just the way he liked it.

“Goodness,
hijo
, do you know what time it is?” his grandmother scolded him when he entered the house.

Gio bent down and took his grandmother’s hand, soft and heavily wrinkled. Then he pressed his forehead down to the back of her hand. “It’s barely eight-thirty, Lola Lising,” he replied, trying not to grin. They had this conversation every time he arrived after dinner.

“Eight-thirty? You should be sleeping at this hour!” Lola Lising sounded horrified. “Have you eaten? Lourdes! Do we still have food?”

“Yes, Nanay,” Gio’s mother replied. Gio released his grandmother’s hand so he could buss his mother’s cheek. She patted his shoulder. “There’s
adobong pusit
. I got some fresh squid earlier.”

“Don’t worry, Lola Lising,” Gio told his grandmother. “I already had dinner. Someone at work treated me to pizza.” Sometimes a little white lie was better than the truth. If it made his grandmother sleep a little better, then he didn’t mind making things up for her benefit.

“Ah, I know,” she said. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? It’s about time a good-looking guy like you had someone special. You’ve been coming home late all the time. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Her smile turned conspiratorial. “So tell me. I won’t be mad if it was a girl. Will we meet her? Are you getting married? Did you use your Lolo Turo’s pomade? Don’t use that,
hijo
! Especially if you’re not marrying her. There’s a love spell on it and you’ll end up fending off her unwanted advances.”

He laughed. He had no intention of smelling like something from his grandfather’s closet. “Lola, there is no girl. If there were, I’d tell you right away. Besides, you married Lolo Turo. You didn’t think it was because of some love spell, did you?”

Lola Lising rose to her feet. “I’m still wondering about that up to this day,” she grumbled good-naturedly. “Well, then, it’s off to bed for me. Today’s my third day of the novena. Make sure the doors are locked and the lights are turned off.” Gio offered his grandmother his arm, but she shrugged him off.

His mother waited until Lola Lising had retired to her room before speaking. “Gio, you know it’s not good for Nanay to stay up,” Mama admonished him. “She may act like she’s fine but she worries about you every night.”

He knew it was quite useless to protest but he tried anyway. “It’s only eight-thirty, Ma. I’m not a child anymore. Besides, nothing ever happens out here enough that she should be worried.”

“You know how it is. She doesn’t have to say it,” Mama replied. “We all said we’d come back to make sure she was all right, not keep her up later than she’s used to. Besides, have you really eaten?”

“No,” he replied. He tried to shake the tiredness and resentment that was creeping back in, and stick to playing the role of the dutiful son and grandson. “Has the electricity bill come in yet?”

Over dinner, they discussed expenses. It was easier for Gio to talk about things that he could manage to solve: electricity bills and Toni’s college allowance. She asked about the special exhibit’s progress. Gio just shrugged. “It’s going,” he reported. He didn’t want to mention today’s distraction. “I’m trying to get some research done in between cataloguing and labeling. Once that’s done, I can start thinking about the displays.”

“I know you’re excited about it,” Mama noted. “I hope everything goes smoothly.”

Gio chewed the squid ink-drenched rice slowly, hoping that would give him an excuse not to answer right away. He
had
been excited—once—when the committee had announced that there was room for a special exhibit. Gio had thought long and hard about what to propose. He had hoped that he could put together an exhibition that they could loan to other museums, one that would highlight Aklan and Boracay. He might even be able to bring it to a small museum in Iloilo or Bacolod, or maybe Manila. But when the committee announced their choice for a topic, he had shelved all those plans. Maybe next time. He was used to that anyway. A life placed on hold.

He must have mumbled a reply because soon they were talking of other things. He offered to clean up and lock the house. He checked the wall clock that hung above Lola Lising and Lolo Turo’s wedding portrait. It was only nine yet already it felt like midnight.

Gio locked the doors and windows then closed the lights, all except for the red light bulbs on a shelf by the stairs. They were made to look like candle flames, a hard feat considering their dull and cheap looks. But they served their purpose, illuminating the two framed photographs that watched stoic and unblinking over the rest of the old house.

* * * *

But before going to bed, Gio made the obligatory video call to his younger sister. Toni answered right away. Growing up, they didn’t have a lot of company outside of school, so the two of them had grown extremely close. Although there was a five-year gap in their ages, they functioned on a similar wavelength.

“Studying?” he asked her.

“I’m at my friend’s unit near school,” she replied. “You remember Reese? We have a project due in a couple of days and this was the only time we could do it. Don’t worry. Auntie Belen knows where I am.”

Toni was studying Multimedia Arts in Manila; she stayed with their mother’s sister and her family to cut down expenses. Gio had done the same. But where Gio devoted hours studying to get Latin honors, Toni spent her free time joining university organizations and taking on odd jobs. Even in her last two terms of college, Toni didn’t show signs of slowing down.

“Want me to hang up?” Gio asked. “I can call tomorrow if you’re busy.”

“No, stay, Kuya,” she insisted. “We’re rendering anyway.” Then she launched into an explanation of what this particular project was for. “So what happened to you today?”

“Do you think I’m boring?” he asked instead.

“Hello, topic change,” Toni teased. “Uh, this hurts me more than it hurts you but yes, you are boring. Why are you asking?”

Gio frowned at the memory. “Someone called me a boring guide.”

“And you suddenly care because—?” Toni let the question sink in before continuing. “You’ve always been boring. Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, but I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve heard it.”

“Point.”

“So why do you care?”

“She wrote it on the visitor’s log at the museum,” he answered distractedly. “Sir Frank would probably see it. I mean, if he took the time to read anything.”

“Aha. A
she
. Tell me more.”

“You’re useless, you know.”

Toni tsk-tsked. “You asked, I answered. Brutal honesty, Kuya.”

“So about that allowance you’re not getting….”

Toni shrieked so loudly that her friend Reese came running. “What’s wrong—oh, hi, Kuya Gio.” She flashed her dimples at him, a hand immediately smoothing her long hair.

“Hi, Reese,” he greeted politely. “How are you?” Behind Reese, Toni was making funny faces. She always did that when her friends talked to him, ‘flirted’ with him, as she called it. He tried to keep a straight face.  It wasn’t as if Reese was really flirting; it was just his sister’s overactive imagination hard at work.

But at least that got Toni off her line of questioning and when she regained her bearings they began talking about other things. What Gio wanted to say to his sister before they got sidetracked was no, he didn’t care. But by then the conversation had moved on, and Gio didn’t think he needed to convince anyone, especially not himself.