already had, or was refreshed by being with someone who was not afraid to show how much he loved her, or both, but before they returned to Angeles, they had renewed their affair.
It was on their last night away that he’d asked her to marry him.
“He surprised her,” Analyn said. “She didn’t expect him to ask that so she told him no. But he told her to think about it.”
Apparently, she had. I guess that’s what she was doing when I found her in the kitchen on that Saturday morning. And I guess whatever she found at home had helped convince her to say yes.
That night at The Lounge, Manus came in and Cathy told him she would marry him. As Analyn was telling me this, I realized I had seen him talking to Cathy. He was the old guy who had been at the bar.
“While the paperwork’s going through so he can take her home, he’s renting an apartment in Manila for them to live in,” Analyn said. “I’m sorry, Papa Jay. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
Analyn went back out into the bar, leaving me alone.
I couldn’t blame Cathy for making the choice she did. Manus was offering her a way out to a better life. Me, I was just offering more of the same. I guess what hurt most was that she had left me, a guy who she thought never truly loved her, for a guy she had never truly loved.
The party beckoned to me from the bar. Music, squealing, laughter filtering down the hallway back to my little nook. But what desire I had left to join in was gone.
Forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t try to find Cathy in Manila. Unfortunately, wherever the Swede had stowed her, he had chosen well. I could never find even a hint of where they were. After a week, it seemed like I was searching the same places over and over again. That’s when I decided to give it up.
Several months later I heard that she’d received her visa and had left the country. I hoped it was true for her sake, but I never knew for sure. That moment in front of my house while she sat on the back of Manny’s trike was the last time we ever talked to each other, the last time I ever saw her.
In the weeks following her departure, life at The Lounge was the same as it had ever been and yet completely different. The perpetual party rolled on, old Angeles veterans cycled through, and new Angeles “cherry boys” walked wide-eyed through the streets. The beer was just as cold, the girls just as available, and the drama just as insidious. But it all seemed out of tune now, an ill-conceived rock opera played on ancient instruments.
I didn’t know what to do about it. I now was not only bar manager, but part owner of The Lounge. I couldn’t just get up and leave.
I told myself I had to make the best of it. Things would get better. I just needed a little time. I guess, after a while, things did get better, if you consider becoming numb to almost everything better.
In those first months after Cathy left, Mariella started showing up at The Lounge more and more. I wasn’t in a mood to care, so she seemed to annoy me less than usual. Since she normally came in early before the crowds arrived, I never asked her to leave.
Sometime she was alone, other times she was with one or two of her friends, but she never came in with a guy. I knew it didn’t mean she’d stopped working, not Mariella. It was too much of a way of life for her. She would spend most of her time when she stopped by talking to the Mariella Fan Club, which consisted of anywhere from six to a dozen girls. Occasionally she would talk with Isabel, but it wasn’t as much as I would have expected. And always, she would make it a point to stop and say a few words to me.
At first I thought it was because she was hoping I’d buy her a few drinks, but slowly over time, as our little chats grew longer, I began to realize, with subdued amusement, that she was taking a more active interest in me. I wasn’t flattered-in fact, if I wasn’t so numb I probably would have been disgusted-but I was curious to see how far she would take it.
“It was so hot today, wasn’t it?” she asked once.
“A little,” I replied.
“Did you do anything fun?”
I shrugged and told her I went for a swim.
Suddenly she got that Mariella ear-to-ear grin and said, “That’s right, that’s right. You have a swimming pool. I’m so jealous.” She slapped me playfully on the arm.
I nodded.
“A private pool,” she said. “You don’t even have to wear a swimming suit.” She laughed, but the look in her eye was inquiring. “You should have a swim party someday.”
“Maybe I will,” I said.
Her head tilted downward, chin resting on her chest. She looked at me through upturned eyes, in that look of helplessness so many of the girls had mastered. “You’ll invite me, won’t you?”
“If I do, you’ll have to bring your own swimsuit,” I said. “I don’t have anything that’ll fit you.”
She smiled. “That’s okay.”
There were dozens of conversations like this. I suppose any sane man would have pushed things to the next level. I knew Mariella was expecting me to, all her previous experience with men on Fields undoubtedly telling her I would. But I wasn’t buying in.
It was a game to me, nothing more.
The problem with going numb is that you don’t notice things, things that would have jumped out at you on any normal day. Things like how Isabel stiffened anytime Mariella came into the bar. Like how the afternoon receipts seemed lighter than usual. Or how more and more of the girls seemed to be taking
The once stellar reputation of The Lounge was beginning to slip, but I was oblivious. Even as we lost some of our best girls, girls who’d been with us since before I even started, I acted like nothing was wrong. In many ways, I had become like an alcoholic, only most nights I wasn’t drinking at all.
A couple days before Christmas we had our annual Christmas party and body-painting contest. It was usually a highly attended event. Only this year the crowd was thinner, maybe half the normal size. And while everyone had fun, I don’t think anyone went home thinking it was the best time they’d ever had in Angeles.
The highlight of the evening, though, was Larry’s unannounced arrival. I hadn’t seen Isabel’s face light up like that in months. Even I felt a certain amount of happiness when I saw him.
“How you doing, Doc?” he asked, after we’d given each other a warm hug.
“I’m good,” I said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
He winked at me. “No one did. My Christmas surprise for Isabel.”
“If you had surprised her any more, I think you would have killed her.”
We both laughed.
“I guess I came on the right night,” he said, taking in the festivities.
I nodded.
“Good turnout,” he said.
“Not bad.”
“I got you something.” He removed the backpack that had been slung over his shoulder and opened it. From inside he pulled out a package, wrapped in gaudy Santa Claus paper, about an inch and a half square and eight inches long. He handed it to me. “Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the package. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“Shut up and open it,” he said.
The paper flew off and the white cardboard box that was underneath was quickly opened. At first I was looking at the wrong side of whatever was inside, so it appeared to me to be a long piece of metal that had been bent into an “L” shape. But I turned it over and quickly realized it was one of those name placards you see on
