ora squints as she separates a garlic clove from its skin. It is a humid day and the sun glares at her rotund face through the vents of the kitchen window.

The house was in its customary shambles this morning. Mrs. Carrion complained in her fisherwoman voice about the stale food, pink-stained clothes, jungle-like garden, and garden-like house. The housecleaner bawled, the gardener packed his bags, and Mrs. Carrion forgot to give Cora money to buy vegetables for dinner.

"Hoy! Keep quiet!" Cora scolds the singing housecleaner and laundry woman, who are chattering interminably about the houseboy next door. Cora's head feels heavy and her perspiration douses her fleshy back. "Why don't you clean Maryssa's room?" She wipes her sweaty temple with the side of her thumb and she notices a wet stain on her striped uniform's underarm area.

"Ate , she's not awake yet."

"What? She has school." Cora drops her knife to the sink and approaches Maryssa's room. Her armpits' onion scent grazes her nostrils as she lumbers down the corridor with vases and figurines scattered on the floor.

Cora taps Maryssa's door lightly. "Senorita, wake up. You have school."

There is no response.

Cora sticks her large ear on the arc door.

There is no sound.

She turns the brass knob slowly and peeks inside Maryssa's dim room. The plaid curtains are drawn.

"Senorita, are you awake?" She enters Maryssa's dusty chambers with her arms affixed to her sides; this is to prevent her armpits' sour odor from engulfing the room.

Maryssa lies face up on the bed and her slender limbs are strewn over the sheet's printed ducks. The pupils of her wide black eyes are dilated and her pink mouth's corners are slightly upturned.

Cora places her index and middle fingers on the artery of Maryssa's neck. Maryssa's soft pulse throbs beneath Cora's rough skin.

Cora twists the pale skin of Maryssa's meatless arm with all her strength.

There is no response.

She bangs her fists on Maryssa's sharp knee.

Maryssa remains immobile.

Cora scrambles out of the room. "Carding! Carding!" she calls out to the driver. Tears are hurtling down her plump cheeks. "We have to take Maryssa to the hospital!" She flaps her flabby arms above her head to catch the attention of the other maids, who are engrossed in neighborhood gossip.

She is oblivious to her armpits' reek swaddling the humid air of the igloo-shaped house in disarray.

 

wake up to a spiral of heat embalming my body.

Mother wails in the garden about her wilting yellow bells and dead yucca tree.

I am required to study seven chapters for my botany exam.

A twine of heat enters my brain and snaps an axon into a million flakes.

I hear the drone of Taira's blowdryer burning her brittle hair in the room next door. The overpowering scent of my sister's Poison perfume invades my nostrils and dissolves my lungs.

I am bound to my lunch engagement with Jerome. I am compelled to bleach my moustache, raid my closet, and apply douche.

My finger joints remain immobile.

My stepfather watches a football game via satellite. His heavy stamps jolt my floor and his booming howls produce a thick sprinkle of stars to flow out of my ears.

It is my duty to swallow my vegetables and do my daily calisthenics.

My leg muscles are crippled.

Cora and the other maids giggle and gossip about the actresses on TV. I listen to the clang of dishes and pots, and I smell old chorizos and rice.

I am obliged to supply my acquaintances with interesting facts. A Haitian recipe, a Japanese movie, anything that elicits a constant gasp.

I smile and stare at the ceiling's uneven paint. Dots make lines, lines fill out an area. Michelangelo made angels. Angels fly. Fly out of the earth.

I smell garlic and onions and I hear Cora's fast whispers. I feel her fist pounding my knee. She is so funny. And so strong. She stinks.

I am laughing. I am laughing so hard the space between my eyebrows aches.

I don't see the ceiling's dots anymore.

Someone's lifting my body.

 

hysically, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her," Dr. Melendez informs Mrs. Carrion.

Mrs. Carrion mentally computes the amount of money she wasted on the hospital room CAT scan, and X-rays. She scowls.

"It's okay, Mrs. Carrion." Dr. Melendez places his smooth hand on her hefty shoulder. "Mental illness occurs in at least one member in most families." He hands her a calling card of a psychiatrist, who happens to be a member of his golf club.

Mrs. Carrion sits on a recliner and looks at the TV screen.

She visualizes herself entering her amiga's house in her black dress with printed roses. Connie and the other ladies will notice her weak smile and distant eyes.

"What's wrong, Genevieve?" They will seat her on the cream-colored banquette and beg her to tell her tale with their gentle voices, made-up eyes, and annointed hands.

She will burst out crying and everyone will hand her tissue and hug her quivering body.

"What an awful daughter you have," they will croon after she sobs out her story. "You have nothing to do with it," they will assure her. "She's twenty-one. She's responsible for her own life."

"Hi, Tita." Sharon, Maryssa's best friend, and Jerome enter the hospital room and kiss Mrs. Carrion's cheek. They place a vase of pink orchids on the sidetable.

"I'm glad both of you came. I have to go." Mrs. Carrion brushes past them, rushes down the disinfected elevator, and whirs off in her Mercedes Benz.

"Oh, Maryssa. What happened to you?" Sharon shoves Maryssa's dark hair out of her pale face.

Jerome notices Sharon's candle-shaped fingers.

"Your group-mates in Psychology are pissed. Your teacher didn't extend your thesis deadline despite what happened."

Jerome eyes Maryssa's flat chest and hairy toes.

"Jerome thought you stood him up yesterday."

Jerome observes Sharon's pert nose and white teeth.

"I thought you were pretending to be sick because you didn't study for the botany exam."

Jerome glares at Maryssa's scrawny neck and bony knees.

Sharon yawns and looks at her watch. "We have to go. We're planning to watch the five o'clock movie."

They saunter to the door and Jerome opens it for Sharon. In the hallway, Jerome slips his thick arm around Sharon's slender shoulders.

 

he violet crepe paper tied to the aircon vent sways in the hospital room's cool air like a frill of a piñata.

It's a fiesta in here.

People wearing white coats stick electrodes on my scalp and take notes on their clipboards. They discuss my brainwaves and the Tagaytay trip they planned for the weekend.

Cora clutches my limp hand and bawls on my neck. She mumbles the rosary's prayers under her breath.

Tita Lydia arrives with a cheesecake, pretzels, baby's breath, mint candies, orange juice, and a bucket of fried chicken.

A man in an orange turban waves a gold pendulum in front of my eyes as he tries to take my gaze away from the crepe paper.

My stepfather lounges on the recliner and watches an NBA game on cable TV. He stuffs a bag of potato chips down his esophagus.

Tita Lydia and the orange-turban man discuss vegetarianism and astrological charts.

A woman in a yellow suit strokes my forehead and repeatedly asks me, "Is there anything wrong? Would you like to talk about it?"

Taira chats on the phone about the babies in the hospital's sixth floor.

Cora and the yellow-suit woman share Filipino pastry recipes and sewing tips.

A nurse shoves a bedpan under my butt and waits for me to urinate and relieve my bowels.

Tita Lydia kisses me goodbye and locks her arm around the orange-turban man, who is taking her to a psychic in Old Manila.

Mother bursts into the room and embraces me tightly. "Oh, Maryssa." She wipes the corners of her eyes with a silk handkerchief. "I came as soon as I could."

Dr. Melendez thrusts a Popsicle stick down my throat and strikes my knee with a miniature silver hammer.

Taira whines, and my stepfather reluctantly takes his eyes off Charles Barkley in the middle of a fast-break to take her and Cora home.

Dr. Melendez tells Mother that I have a mental illness.

Sharon and Jerome bring pink orchids. Sharon attempts to supply me with interesting facts.

Mother exits.

Sharon and Jerome leave for their movie date.

I am left with green candy wrappers strewn around the bed and sidetable.

The fiesta is over.

 

nton is Mrs. Carrion's husband's brother-in-law's cousin. He is a photographer, who has a fetish for tombstones.

He examines the cone-shaped tree with its quilted hearts and silver angels.

"You like the tree?" Taira bats her lidless eyes that are coated with green eyeshadow.

"No, I like the angels." He notices her toned stomach and the cuts on her arms. "Do you work out?"

"Oh, yes. I do weights, I run, and I jet-ski." She licks the red lipstick on her mouth. "Do you like my bracelet?"

He eyes the Christmas-tree-shaped dangles on her wrist. "It's very nice," he says through his plaqued teeth.

Taira giggles and tucks Anto's long bangs behind his ear. "Would you like to walk?"

"I think we're having lunch soon." He looks at her roasted skin and the red velvet on her hair.

He suppresses a grimace. "C'mon." She grabs his elbow and leads him to the garden. "Why did you leave New York?"

He views the trim green grass on the lawn. "There's more to life than waiting on tables."

Taira trails behind him. "Do you have a sport?" she shouts at his ear.

"No." He glances at the pink santans and red bougainvilleas. He approaches the yucca tree. "This is beautiful." He caresses the pale rough bark.

"It's dead," Taira whines.

He glares at her warm brown eyes. "I know."

"Tairaaaah!" Mrs. Carrion screeches from the salon. "Lunch is ready!"

Anton dumps a piece of steak and clump of mashed potatoes on his plate. He seats himself on a ladderback chair and views the gray and black clouds in the sunless sky.

Lydia plugs in the karaoke set and sings Jingle Bells while swaying her butt.

Anton wrinkles his forehead, abandons his full plate, and decides to explore the house.

He walks past the kitchen, swaddled with the aroma of boiled crabs and roasted chicken. He strolls down the corridor with tea caddies and Philippine santos scattered on the floor.

The arc door of the room to his right is ajar.

He peeks inside and his eyes widen as he sees a white gaunt body strewn on top of a black velvet quilt on a brass canopy bed. An unfinished bowl of oatmeal occupies a mahogany side table.

He approaches the pale figure and his fingertips graze her thick black lashes. He sits beside her slender torso.

"Who are you? You are so beautiful." He strokes her stomach's slight protrusion with the palm of his hand.

Her black eyes glow as she gazes at his aquiline nose.

He leans over and blows her pale smooth skin.

She closes her eyes and he hears a faint sigh.

"Are you hungry?" He takes the porcelain bowl and pours the gray substance into her pink mouth with a silver spoon.

"Anton!"

The spoon slips out of his callused fingers.

"My husband is looking for you," Mrs. Carrion informs him.

Anton stands up, returns his bowl to the sidetable, and straightens his faded black shirt. "Mrs. Carrion, I would like to marry this woman." He eyes the vein pattern on the ebony-stained floor.

She raises her eyebrows and purses her lips. "Her name is Maryssa." She glares at the holes on his jeans. "Take her."

A gush of blood floods Anton's pallid cheeks. "Thank you." He slightly bows his head.

"I'll provide you with a fair settlement." She turns her back and the thump of the arc door resonates in the cluttered room.

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