The Pull of Gravity

Undoubtedly, she had demons much larger than mine that needed to be put to rest.

After she got dressed, we went for a long walk down the beach. The rain had stopped, though the sky was still gray and threatening. I asked her if she wanted anything to eat, but she said she wasn’t hungry. She held my hand, and occasionally leaned against me, but it was different now. We were Papa Jay and Isabel again, Big Bro and Little Sis. What had happened to us in the room, that moment of weakness-for both of us-was forgotten.

“Did I ever tell you he sent me flowers on the twenty-fourth of every month?” she asked after we’d been walking in silence for a while.

She had, but I told her no. There were things she needed to say, not for me, but to me.

“That was when we met. When we went on our first date.”

Though the two events had happened on different nights, I realized they had indeed happened on the same date-the incident with Mr. Comb-over after midnight, and the EWR with Larry less than twenty-four hours later.

“Every month he would send those flowers,” she said. “Every month. He never missed even one.”

She fell silent again. She had drifted closer to the wound than she wanted to, and wasn’t yet ready to rip it wide open. But the inevitable had to come, and when it did, just like when we worked at The Lounge, I would be there for her.

Back in Angeles in those crazy days, those of endless parties-manufactured though they were by the very nature of the business-I somehow got the reputation of being a voice of sanity. How the hell that happened, I don’t really know. But soon, if someone had a problem, more times than not, I was the one they came to.

That’s where this Doc business came from. I’m not sure who was the first to call me that, but soon people I didn’t even know were calling me by this new nickname. Larry learned it from Cathy, Cathy from Manfred, and God knows where Manfred picked it up. Tommy? Nicky? Dieter?

But Isabel never called me Doc, which was funny, because probably more than anybody, she was my biggest “client.”

When she came back from Manila after that first time she took Larry to the airport, it was three nights before she returned to work. Alona, a Lounge girl who lived with Isabel, would come to me each night and tell me, “She sick.”

When I asked what was wrong, Alona said, “Stomach, I think,” then “headache,” and finally, “I don’t know.”

It was Thursday night before Isabel showed up again.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“Sorry, Papa,” she said. “I didn’t feel very well.” She tried to walk past, but I reached out and touched her shoulder, stopping her.

“Stomach flu?” I asked, pretty sure it wasn’t that.

She shook her head.

“A cold, then?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

I put my hand under her chin, and tilted her head up until our eyes met. “Did something happen with Larry?” At that point, the last I knew was they were going out to dinner on Sunday night, and then she was going home.

She said nothing.

Suddenly I was concerned my assessment of Larry had been wrong. “Did he hurt you? Make you do something you didn’t want to do?”

“He would never hurt me,” she said quickly.

And then I could see it. The spark in her eye, the set of her jaw as she defended her man. Something had happened, but nothing bad, at least in Isabel’s opinion. In fact, just the opposite.

I told her to go in back and get changed. I knew I wasn’t going to get the whole story that night. It was something that would only come with time, and eventually it did.

After Larry left, Isabel had gone into a funk. First it was the sadness of saying goodbye to him. Then, despite the fact he promised her he’d come back as soon as he could, came the fear she would never see him again.

Finally, Mariella, her own cousin, the experienced, all-knowing one, and-though Isabel didn’t suspect it then- the manipulation queen of Angeles, found out and came to talk to her.

“Do you think he’s coming back?” Isabel asked her.

“Of course he’s coming back,” Mariella said. “Once you hook them, they always come back. What kind of job does he have?”

“He owns some sort of company. I can’t remember exactly. Why?”

Mariella smiled. “Good for you. But you have to be careful.”

“I don’t understand,” Isabel said.

“Don’t ask for anything yet.” Mariella gave her cousin a very serious look. “He has your cell phone number?”

Isabel nodded. “He also asked if I have an email address.”

“You don’t have one yet?”

Isabel moved her head from side to side.

“Sirang ulo ka ba?” Mariella said. “It’s so easy. We’ll go get one for you today.” Mariella took a deep breath. “When you talk to him, you tell him you love him. You tell him he’s the only man for you. You tell him you can’t wait until he comes back.”

Though all of that was true, Isabel remained quiet. Mariella, after all, had been here a lot longer than she had.

“If he asks you if you need money,” Mariella continued, “you tell him you okay right now. Some other girls might tell you different, but don’t listen to them. You got to think about the future. Like I did with David. Look at me now. He send me money every month. I only have to work when I want to. He going to buy me a house, too, when he comes in January. If you do things right, you could be like me.”

Before Isabel could even say she didn’t want to be like Mariella, that her life was not the life Isabel wished for, her cousin stood up. “Come on,” Mariella said. “We go get you an email address now.”

Several hours later, Isabel was alone again and as depressed as ever. She was even considering just going back home to her parents. Angeles was not the place for her, and she didn’t want to be there anymore.

But on Thursday morning, Larry called and life had meaning again.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Months passed after Larry’s first visit to Angeles, and Fields was the same as it always was. Except for Isabel, of course.

Three times a week she’d get a call from Larry. I always knew which days those were, because she would fly into The Lounge, the smile on her face large and genuine. On other days, he would send her text messages, and while she reread them over and over, she said there was nothing like actually talking to him.

Almost every night, someone would ask her if she wanted to go out on a bar fine. She would smile, then tell them she was a cherry girl. This usually turned any would-be suitors away. The last thing most guys who came to Angeles wanted to do was waste money on someone who wasn’t a sure thing. And for those few who still persisted, she would pretend to feel ill, and disappear into the back until the man either found another girl or left.

The only money she made came from the small salary she received every night, and her share of the lady drinks bought for her. Occasionally I overheard some of the other girls saying things like “what a waste,” or “think of all the money she could have.”