Thirty-Five

ARIANNA knew exactly who’d arrived just by the kind of noise she could hear from outside the house.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then she stepped out the front door.
And she sighed again when she saw her ‘boyfriend’ standing there, with a smile on his handsome face, talking to Chairman Castro in his soft, modulated and manly voice that seemed always private and intimate to her ears, his eyes focused on the door where she just came out.
Even if she knew it was all an act, her heart still melted at the way his aristocratic face seemed to light up when he saw her.
As if she was a favorite sight those eyes wanted to see. As if all his worries and problems melted away.
And he was so convincing.
The workers were grinning at their lunch plates while they sat at the two long tables set up under the shade of the trees that protected them from the direct hit of the midday sun.
Meanwhile, her servers (the neighbors) were giggling their delight as they rushed to replace every serving bowl that needed replenishing.
The number of workers coming here for lunch had tripled but there were others who’d found excuses to visit and see the new girlfriend of the younger Quiroz. Many of them brought something for the new house.
There were so many potted plants outside now and vases and new dishes, new curtains and even sacks of cotton to fill up pillow cases since her mother got home from the hospital.
They were able to serve lunches again.
Their walls didn’t have enough space for all the wall decorations they’d received.
And they kept coming.
Oh, everything was insane.
So, instead of them piling up where there was no space for them to pile up, my mother gave some away to our other neighbors who could use them, and to workers who were waiting for the new workers whose bunkhouses were just being constructed.
There was the community hall that Señor planned to renovate and make bigger as his son’s active participation in community reach-outs had become a boom these days. Some of the plants and curtains went there, too.
And now, they were saying it was because he fell in love with a beautiful hacienda tenant.
On dinner during the evenings, she and her mama and Tommy usually discussed if her having Eric for a boyfriend was good or not.
They never had this kind of attention or good intentions coming from so many people.
They weren’t asking for it, because many neighbors had been kind enough to them through the years. Their help and concern had been so much more than enough.
It wasn’t like they weren’t grateful, but it had become overwhelming.
But, as long as their mother seemed to be settling with this new change, she wasn’t complaining. Much.
She and Tommy had invented a story about how she and Enrique first met for their mother's ears only.
It wasn’t easy because as far as her mother knew, she and Eric hadn’t actually met before.
Yna seemed to be in another part of the hacienda the few times her family had encounters Eric in the past so she hadn’t seen him when she was younger.
She and Tommy studied in a school in town when her father was alive so they were gone during the day. Their Papa would fetch them late in the afternoon from school, wherein if the young senorita happened to be in the hacienda, he wasn’t anywhere on the way to the house.
He grew up in Manila and other parts of the world because he studied in international schools.
He only used to come here during the summers, when she usually had odd jobs in town and would stay with a classmate to save up on daily commuting expenses.
Enrique visited on his father’s wake, but those two times she was in town taking care of funeral fees.
The few times she’d seen him later had always been at a distance.
And the first time she had been physically near him was that night when she had to, because she was paid to do so.
Of course, their mother did not need to know that, hence they needed to invent something.
They took inspiration from when they used to sell vegetables and fruits early in the mornings on their tri-bike.
Enrique saw them and actually stopped to buy everything, and since then he would drive out to buy whatever she had left on her bike just to see her.
They somehow found a way to communicate and secretly meet each other, and this developed into a relationship that they managed to keep secret for weeks until that reckless afternoon her mother found them out.
She was helpless, and she didn’t like this story because the way it happened, it was like she had been impulsive.
But of course, Eric had to find out what their official romance story was so he could follow through, and gamely acted the part of a very insistent pursuer in front of everyone before anyone could say anything bad about her. Even if they were, it would have to stop in the face of Eric’s attentiveness.
Like, there was no way any woman could fight him off, or not fall in love with him. He was doing so now just by the way he looked at her.
Her mother’s worry was her daughter being played by the wealthy son of the haciendero.
But Eric was doing everything to negate that, and who could dwell on this when faced by an enraptured Enrique?
If she couldn’t see how their machinations had calmed her mother’s worries, it would have greatly disturbed her how much he was enjoying himself..
When she was busy working, he would go to her mother's side to engage her in an animated chat. He also made an effort to befriend Tommy, whom he would talk to regarding his work in the fishery.
Her supposedly smart brother couldn’t help but perk up at the attention.
Eric had discovered that what drove Tommy was learning whatever he could about what he was interested in, so they talked about his apprenticeship.
Tommy was promised visits to other effectively working ponds in other farms and a lot of reading materials.
He was offered a laptop and a smart phone for his research.
She didn’t like it, and their mother also didn’t. When they were told about it, Tommy had already declined the offer.
They were told by a scowling Eric.
“I don’t understand. It will help him in his studies a lot,” he protested as soon as he realized he couldn’t convince her and her mother about it, too.
“He said there’s a computer in the office already. He’s got his keypad phone for calls,” she replied.
“But—”
“He wanted to buy his own phone from his own salary. Let him be,” she further explained. “It’s something he could be proud of. An accomplishment.” She shrugged at him. “A lot of things have happened to us we’ve had no control of. We’ve been helpless a lot of times. Don’t take this away from him. You’ve already done so much and we… we really appreciate all of it. But my brother is the man in the family and he knows it and… just let him be that.”
“I can understand that part… but our drivers use our vehicles on the job and they bring those home. Our technicians are sent to technical schools and were given tools for free. Our farmers have farmer meets and trainings and are given smart phones for their research and those are considered theirs. Your brother, Tommy, proven he can be very good in his job. He is intelligent and he gave the chairman ideas that are working after application… and all from his own research.”
“He is determined to learn, that son of mine. He’s always been like this,” our mother said, pride in her voice.
“Mama, his lunch breaks are spent beside the office computer, watching fish pond management in YouTube, finding out what else can help us here.”
Then he turned to her, and we were still staring at each other, her mother and her, for his casual use of ‘Mama.’
“I didn’t offer him the laptop and the smartphone because you’re his brother, baby. I did it because he works for us and it can magnify his efforts, therefore we benefit from him, too.”
She tried to make her lips firmer to avoid the smile from him calling her baby.
How could he do this? He acted so natural about them being together that he could easily convince her, too.
Her mother had to turn and hide her own smile.
“Think about it, okay? Talk to him. If he still thinks it’s too much, then I’ll offer again next year. But I hope he will change his mind.”
Three days later, her brother changed his mind, but only if the laptop was a used one from one of the offices that wasn’t used all the time.
He was adamant about the smartphone.
He wanted to pay for it himself from a part of his salary. But he was amenable that the hacienda would pay for the internet connection to the house.
Despite insisting that he wasn’t giving special treatment to Tommy, he treated him like a younger brother outside of work, that even the most defensive kid Yna knew started to warm up to him.
But that wasn’t all of it.