Table for Two (4 page)

2

The first time
I met
Vicky almost a year ago, I actually thought she was kind of cute. And I thought
she was flirting with me. Blake asked me to meet him at a secluded café
recommended by his younger brother Robbie. “That place makes things happen,” Robbie
had supposedly said. I didn’t know why Blake needed to visit some café for
things to happen—it seemed good things had been happening for him all his
life without him even having to try. He was just one of those people: He was
born with good looks and effortless charm and more than enough money; in
college, he got good grades and great girls, and when we started working, he
never complained about his job being stressful or demanding because like
everything else in his life, it was easy and breezy and naturally perfect.

“Why are we here?” I asked him. He
pretended not to hear me at first, concentrating on pouring condensed milk into
his coffee, and I had to ask him twice. “Why are we here?”

He looked up at me. “I want you to
meet someone. A girl.”

I laughed.
“Blake, I have a girlfriend. Remember?”

“I know you
have a girlfriend,” he said. “So do I.”

“That’s great,” I told him. His
last real relationship was back in our college sophomore year. “Since when? Who
is she?”

“Since last week,” he said. “Her
name’s Vicky.”

I waited for him to add something
to make her sound impressive, like “she has amazing lips,” or “she’s a
supermodel” or even the generic “she has a great sense of humor.” But he
didn’t. I smiled my most supportive smile. “Her name’s Vicky and...?”

He shrugged. “And she’s really
something else.”

“I bet she is,” I said. “You’re
not introducing her to me over beer and
sisig
while
the rest of the guys crack dirty jokes and ogle her. And you actually seem
worried about me getting along with her, or at least worried enough to believe
your brother’s claims about this place. It must be serious.”

“It is,” he replied. We were both
quiet, absorbing these two little words, until the door opened and a girl with
long legs and long straight black hair entered the café. She smiled like she
owned the room and walked over to our table. Blake stood to kiss her on the
cheek.

“Sorry I’m late,” she told him.
“Work ended fifteen minutes ago, and I had to drive like a madman to get here.”
She looked like the kind of girl who didn’t have to work a day in her life, and
the kind of girl who never let herself feel any semblance of stress, and the
kind of girl who was driven around in a shiny black car by a chauffeur in a
uniform.
 

“No problem, sweetie,” Blake said.
“We just arrived.” We did
not
just arrive. We
were there at six
PM
.
It was almost seven-thirty. Blake grabbed a chair from the next table and
dragged it towards ours, the legs scraping the wooden floor and making a
horrible screeching sound. Vicky sat down and placed her huge white bag between
us on the table, almost knocking over my iced cappuccino and leaving me little
room to prop up my elbows.

Vicky gave me a little wave. “You
must be Carl.”

“Hi,” I said. “You must be Vicky.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. She
tucked her hair behind one ear and I noticed her fingernails were painted a
pale shimmery pink that matched her pink pearl earrings and the pearl pendant
on her silver necklace. Everything about her looked so...coordinated. She
smelled clean and disinfected, like a mixture of baby powder, laundry
detergent, and isopropyl alcohol. Blake excused himself to go to the bathroom,
and once he was out of earshot, she made a face at the ceiling fan whirring
overhead, declared, “It’s hot in here,” and took off her jacket to reveal a
sheer white tank top. She leaned forward to take a sip of Blake’s coffee, and
her neckline dipped an inch or two. She smiled at me and asked, “What are you
doing on Friday? How does dinner and a movie sound?”

“Oh, uh, wow,” I stammered. She had
a very pretty smile—full lips and white, even teeth—and I was
trying to focus on her face while trying to keep mine from turning red. I
couldn’t believe she was actually coming on to me. “I have a girlfriend,” I
said, for the second time that evening.

“I know,” she said, knitting her
perfectly shaped eyebrows. “I meant me and Blake with you and your girlfriend.
Like a double date?” If she was embarrassed by what I had just assumed had
happened, at least she didn’t call me on it.

“Yeah!” I said, stretching my lips
as far as they would go. “Good! Great! Awesome!”

“What’s awesome?” Blake asked
behind me.

I jumped. “We’re going out on
Friday!” I told him, a bit too eagerly. “On a double date, and I cannot wait!”
I paused, trying to remind myself that I was not Dr. Seuss. “Awesome!”

“Are you okay?” he asked me. When
I didn’t answer right away, he looked at Vicky, who didn’t notice him looking
at her because she was studying me like I was a specimen in a laboratory that
could be the key to a significant scientific breakthrough. She recovered
sooner, put a hand on her boyfriend’s arm, and said, “He’s fine, sweetie. I
think he’s just hungry. I’m so sorry I was late. Do you guys want to stay here
for dinner? Because I kind of want a real meal. I’m starving.”

“We can move somewhere,” Blake
said.

“You guys can go ahead,” I told
them. “I’m waiting for someone. My girlfriend. Kim. I’m waiting for my
girlfriend.”

“Okay,” Blake said, staring at me
curiously. Vicky stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll see you on Friday
then?”

“Sure,” I replied. “I’m bringing
Kim. My girlfriend.”

“Great,” she said.

“Great,” I said.

Blake put an arm around Vicky,
regarding me suspiciously. “Bye, Carl.”

I watched them leave. Just before
the door closed, Vicky said something that made Blake laugh, and I wondered if
it had anything to do with me. I hoped it didn’t.

“You used to
like
her,” Kim reminds me, fiddling with the tuner on my car’s radio before settling
on a station playing Tyson Ritter and his gang wishing someone hell.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” she insists. “You
found her cute.”

“That doesn’t mean I liked her,” I
tell her.

“The point is, you were fine with
her when she was his girlfriend. You just started reacting when he proposed to
her.”

“I wasn’t fine
with her. I just
tolerated
her.
I figured she’d go away sooner or later.” And it was true. As I got to know
Vicky, her calculated, controlled overachieving became less admirable and more
like something that was getting in the way of Blake being his old fun self. We
hardly saw him anymore, and he was always coming up with excuses for
everything, almost all of which were Vicky-related. Friday night out with the
boys? He’d have to ask for her permission first. A basketball game after work?
He’d love to join us, but he promised her he’d take her shopping. A spontaneous
beach trip? He can’t, it was Vicky’s uncle’s wedding, and he was going as her
date.

“Carl, you can’t be this
possessive of him. You’re being selfish,” Kim says. “You thought you and Blake
would be each other’s wingman until you’re thirty. You feel betrayed that he’s
getting married now while you could both be enjoying the bachelor’s life.”

“That’s exactly the right word,” I
say. “Betrayed. Yes, I feel betrayed. Explain to me why there’s anything wrong
with that.”

“Because it’s not fair to Blake,”
she says, sounding frustrated with me. “He made a decision, and he needs you to
support it. Why can’t you just be happy for him?”

“Because I’m not,
okay
,” I tell her, a little too loudly. She crosses her
arms over her chest and looks out the window.

I reach for her hand. She lets me
take it, but doesn’t wrap her fingers around mine like she always does. “I’m
sorry,” I say softly. “I just think he’s making a mistake. He hasn’t known her
long enough. He doesn’t know her the way you and I know each other. How can you
possibly know someone well enough to marry her in less than a year?”

“You can’t compare them with us,
Carl,” she says. “It’s different for everyone.”

“And she’s trying to change him,”
I say. “She’s trying to change him into someone he’s not. She can’t do that.
She has no right. I mean, you’ve never tried to change me, have you? You love
me as I am, even if I obviously need a lot of work.”

At this, she finally squeezes my
hand back. “Maybe Blake thinks he needs to change, too. Maybe he’s willing to
do it for her.”

“But he shouldn’t have to.”

“But maybe he wants to anyway.”

I can’t come up with a decent
reply to this. Kim leans her head on my shoulder and starts running her hand
gently up and down my arm—her usual way of comforting me, which works
even when I’m in the worst mood. I can smell her hair—it smells like
vanilla and cherries—and definitely not for the first time in the seven
years we’ve been together, I feel very lucky that she’s my girlfriend, because
what we have is more stable and special than what any other couple will ever
come close to.

3

Martin is being
melodramatic again. He slams his beer down on the table, crumples his
gambas
-stained napkin, and throws it at me. “You lied to me,
Carl! Why, man?!
WHY?”

I roll my eyes. “I did not lie to
you. Kim said she wanted to go, and then it turned out she needed to stay at
the office overtime.”

“But, but...” he gestures at his
legs and feet. “I’m wearing
pants
. And
shoes
!”

 
“I can see that,” I say. “I’ve told you a hundred times, you
don’t have to dress up for Kim. She doesn’t mind. Really.”

“Really?” Henry repeats. “She
doesn’t mind that she’s like, the empitome of
fasyon
, and we’re in shorts and step-in
all the
time?”

I don’t even correct him that it’s
epitome,
and that nobody says step-in anymore. “Look at me,” I
say, gesturing at my own legs and feet, clad in shorts and flip-flops. Since I
resigned from my full-time job several months ago to “find myself” and “decide
what I want to do,” I have been partial to this laid-back, hassle-free style on
my apprenticeship’s off days (which is five days a week). “She’s never ashamed
that I look like this when we go out. Why should she be ashamed of you? You’re
not the boyfriend. You’re just the boyfriend’s friends. She doesn’t care.”

Henry shakes his head at me.
“Yeah, but dude, you look like...”

 
“Like her younger brother?” I finish for him. “That’s fine.
I’m baby-faced. The ladies find it cute.”

“More like her driver,” Henry
says.

“
Alalay
,” Martin butts in.

“
Taga-buhat ng
shopping bags.”

“
Taga-bukas ng pinto.
”

“-
Taga-bili ng merienda.
”

“
Taga-timpla ng kape
.”

“
Taga-punas ng pawis.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I say.
“But I’m telling you, it’s not a big deal. Kim doesn’t judge. She’s not like,
well, not like Vicky.”

“We know she’s not like Vicky,”
Henry says.

“Nobody can possibly be like
Vicky,” Martin says, grinning.

I grin back. “So what’s the
problem with her?”

“Nothing,” Martin replies. He
looks at his brother, who nods at him. “Kim’s perfect.”

“And that’s the problem,” Henry
says. “Because
you’re
not perfect. And you don’t even try.”

I stare at the
both of them. Could these two possibly be making enough sense to lead me to an
epiphany? I begin to consider it, but I am distracted when Blake storms in,
takes a seat beside Henry, gulps down Martin’s beer, and completely ignores me.

“You can’t ignore me forever,” I
tell him. He doesn’t say anything.

“Apparently he can,” Martin says.
I have a feeling the twins are enjoying this. I wouldn’t be surprised if they
actually placed bets on who would throw the first punch.

An awkward silence descends over
the table. “Why are you so mad at me?” I ask, just so it wouldn’t be so awkward
and so silent anymore.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Blake says.
“Maybe because you assumed Vicky and I were getting married because we were,
oh, I don’t know, having a baby, and not, oh, I don’t know, because we’re in
love?” He is flushed and out of breath when he finishes this sentence. It’s
still awkward, but at least it’s not silent anymore. Good start.

“You don’t have to keep saying,
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Blake,” Martin says. “Because you do know.”

“Yeah, and one ‘Oh, I don’t know’
is enough for sarcastic purposes,” Henry adds. “Carl got the point: that you
think he’s being an asshole.”

“He didn’t say that,” I protest.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t think it,”
Blake mutters, glaring at me with gritted teeth. He actually looks kind of
creepy, like a thirsty vampire but not in a mysterious, intriguing Edward
Cullen way. Not that I find Edward Cullen remotely attractive.

“Ooh, snaaap!” the twins chorus
gleefully.

“You know what, this is a waste of
time,” Blake says, pushing the table away from him and standing up so abruptly
he knocks over a couple of empty glasses. I hope he pays for those; he’s the
only one currently employed full-time. “I came here because I thought you were
actually going to be man enough to apologize. But now I see that I was
mistaken.” He fishes out a five hundred peso bill from his wallet, slams it
down on the table, and says, “I’ll see you around,” before turning away.

What is up with all the slamming
down of innocent things tonight? Sheesh.

Henry and Martin look at me
expectantly. “What,” I say, getting a napkin and trying to sweep the shards of
glass away from me.

“Dude, you totally have to go
after him,” Martin tells me. “That’s your only choice, according to the
Universal Laws of Bromance.”

“You’ll run across the parking lot
to catch up with him,” Henry says. “You’ll grab his arm. You’ll shout, ‘Wait,
Blake!’ And then you’ll finally tell him what you’ve been wanting to tell him
all this time: ‘You’re my best friend. Please don’t marry Vicky.’”

“‘Marry me instead,’” Martin
finishes, in a high-pitched voice. “Violin music, fireworks, fairy tale happy
ending. Boo yeah!”

“Boo yeah!” Henry echoes, pumping
his fist.

I look at them, confused. “Why do
I have to shout at him when I’ve already grabbed his arm?”

“Minor details, man,” Henry says.
“What are you waiting for?”

“Go get him,
tiger!” Martin says, beaming encouragingly.

“I won’t let you down!” I promise,
before bolting out the door to their enthusiastic applause. I chuckle to
myself.
Suckers.

But I do
go after
Blake, and I do catch up with him at the parking lot, and I do tell him not to
marry Vicky. “You don’t know enough about her to love her,” I say, just as I
rehearsed in my head. “She hasn’t been in your life long enough for you to want
to spend the rest of it with her.” I feel very noble and very clever and very
proud of myself.

“What gives you the right to tell
me what to do?” he asks.

“I’m in a seven-year-old
relationship,” I say.
“So I think I know what
I’m talking about. Besides, doesn’t it bother you that Vicky’s such a control
freak? Don’t you mind that you’ll probably never get to have as much fun as you
did when you were single?”

“No,” he says,
jerking his car door open. “Priorities change. People grow up. You should try
it sometime.”

I place a hand on his shoulder.
“But you don’t understand. You don’t have to pretend that you don’t care that
this is moving too fast. It’s okay. I’m only trying to help. I want all the
best for you.”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t
understand: I’m not pretending, I really do not give a shit. I’m ready to marry
Vicky.” He pushes me away (as easy as swatting a pesky fly when you’re nearly
six feet tall) and gets behind the wheel. “So, no, it’s not okay. And no, I
don’t need your help. I know what’s best for myself.”

Before he revs the engine and
speeds off, he says, “By the way, your girlfriend called me, looking for you.
She says you were supposed to be celebrating your perfect relationship’s
seventh anniversary today, if only you remembered. She says she never wants to
see you again. She could be exaggerating, but I just thought you’d want to
know.”