Moondogs (27 page)

Monique let out a laugh-grunt and put her head in his lap. He ran his small fingers through her hair.

“Anything like this ever happen before?” he asked.

“You mean did I ever screw up this badly before? Did I ever get caught cheating? Did I ever ruin my marriage?”

His fingers stopped and started again. He worked his thumbs behind her ears, soothingly. “This is a featherweight screwup. Totally fixable. What I meant was: Did you ever make weird shit happen before?” He pointed an accusing finger at the overturned speakers.

“Ha. You’re blaming me for that?”

“Should I?” Reynato glanced about the room again. “I think your maid does. Caviteños can be superstitious. I’m pretty superstitious myself.” He quit stroking her hair and placed his hand on her chest, as though to keep her from sitting up. “Could be she thinks the Duwendes saw us last night, and got pissed. You know what Duwendes are?”

Monique nodded. The cleaning woman in Subic had told her all about those sometimes troublesome, sometimes lucky little goblins. An especially mean one supposedly lived in the eaves above their single-family house. The cleaning woman was terrified of him.

“Those little fuckers hold a grudge. You’re getting off easy if they quit after breaking your shit. When I was young my mother sat on a Duwende and to get even they ganged up and pushed her down the stairs. She was on crutches for months and never sat down again without saying:
Lookout, here I come, get off my chair, please
.” He stared down at her, sunlight glinting in his braces and eyes. “Or, it could be she thinks you’re a bruha. Shaking the place up with some black magic. Look at you, bruha. Making earthquakes when you get off.”

Monique sat up. “I don’t care what she thinks. I care what she says and doesn’t say. What if she calls Joseph?”

Reynato was quiet for a moment before speaking. “Again, this is a small-scale problem. Just call him first and say you canned her. You
caught her stealing, or something. Then, on the off chance she says anything, he’ll chalk it up to disgruntled.”

“I’m not going to lie about her.”

“You lie about me all the time. Listen, if you’re feeling guilty about it,
I
could offer her a job. I’ll add a grand a week to whatever you were paying. Everybody wins.”

“What about your wife?”

He laughed—a big, round sound. “If my wife believed the help I’d have been divorced years ago.”

REYNATO HAD A BUSY DAY AHEAD
, but he stayed to help Monique clean. They swept broken glass and repotted overturned plants by the window. He righted Leila’s computer and got the Internet working again. Monique chased the lovebird and the gecko, trying to trap them under a plastic colander, without any luck. Reynato offered to bring his cat over—he had this incredibly obedient, incredibly smart black cat. But the kids would have been devastated if anything happened to the pets. Sooner or later they’d get tired, and Monique would catch them.

They cleaned Shawn’s room last. Reynato crawled around on all fours, catching feed-crickets in unbroken spice jars. Monique vacuumed mulch and wood-chips out of the burned carpet. Just being in there made her feel like some kind of intruder. Joseph thought it essential that the children’s rooms be a “private space” and Shawn defended his as though life and honor depended on it. Only Amartina was allowed in to get laundry, make the bed and feed the gecko when Shawn let it starve.

Reynato chased a cricket under the bed and stayed there for a moment, his butt and legs protruding. When he spoke his voice had a muffled, echoing quality. “Do you want bad news you can ignore or bad news you should probably know about?”

Monique shut the vacuum off. “I want both.”

“All right. Well, the bad news you can ignore is that I’ve found your son’s porn stash. Hardcore but not scary-freaky. And … how to put this delicately … well used.”

“What’s the other bad news?”

Reynato’s legs twisted as he shimmied out from under the bed. He stood, his left hand cupping something translucent—a zip-lock baggie. Inside was a stubby little glass pipe, a plastic lighter and a tiny smattering of gray-green pot. Monique felt punched in her abdomen. “Hey,” he said, “hey, no need to get so upset.”

She snatched the bag from him and sat on Shawn’s perfectly made bed. “I’m going to murder him.”

“This is nothing.” He sat beside her and rubbed a hand up and down her back. “There’s hardly an hour’s worth of fun in here. And the pipe looks new, no resin burns and no ash. Either he cleans it like a pro or he’s only used it a handful of times.”

“He’s thirteen.”

“That’s young. But I’ve seen younger do worse.”

If only Joseph were here, she thought. He’d feel so fucking vindicated. She unzipped the baggie and took the pipe out, turning it over in her hands. Reynato took it from her. He put all the pot into the bowl and it was hardly half full. He lit it, puffed and coughed.

“Oh my. Can’t get this just anywhere.” He offered her the pipe.

“I could lose my clearance for that.”

“You could lose your clearance for a lot of things. Many of which are things you’ve done. With me. In that room and in others.” He offered again. The pungent, familiar smell ringed their bodies. She shook her head. “Suit yourself.”

Reynato puffed and coughed. He scrutinized a framed photograph of Shawn hanging lopsided on the wall. He scrutinized Monique.

“He must take after his father.”

“Not after Joseph. Shawn and Leila are adopted.”

“Oh. But … you’ve had at least one of your own.” She looked at him and he put both palms in the air, contrite. “Hey, I’m no stalker. Bea, my daughter, was a breech birth. I know what the scar looks like.”

“We had a son, named Walter. He died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. He was gone before we knew him.”

They were quiet for a while, but Reynato kept rubbing her back,
hitting the pipe occasionally. The smell reminded her of dates with Joe that ended with a joint in his overpriced Georgetown studio. He used to wear a full beard, and the scent would linger about his face until the next morning. Reynato finished the bowl. He put it back in the baggie, which melted around the hot glass pipe, and placed the plasticky mess on the end table. The lovebird hopped past the open door, retreating through the den, doing its best to fly with clipped wings. The gecko chased after, chirping. Music began to play. A synthetic beat, cymbals, and a voice singing Tagalog a few octaves deeper than it should. “Villie Manilie,” Reynato said. “My daughter loves them.”

The music was coming from Shawn’s closet. Monique opened it and jumped a little—one of his hanging shirts trembled as though dancing. She reached into the pocket and pulled out a vibrating, singing mobile phone that she’d never seen before. It was thinner than a candy bar and had a silver trim that made it look swanky and mean. She waited for it to quiet down before flipping it open. A picture of a girl in a too-tight sweater greeted her; the same girl who’d invited Shawn to the prom and financed his ear piercing. There were seven missed calls, all from her, and the inbox was full of bubbly texts addressed to
Shugs
.

Monique tossed the phone to Reynato, who held it up to the light and whistled like he was impressed. “That girl must have given it to him,” she said, chewing her bottom lip. She looked around her son’s room, so much emptier and cleaner than his room in Washington had been. The desk, the walls, the closet; all orderly and spotless. Even the shirt she still held with one hand was ironed, fashionable and new—so new she didn’t recognize it. She slid the shirt down the bar and went through Shawn’s other hanging clothes, the way she used to before they had a maid, before it was an unforgivable intrusion. She couldn’t remember buying most of these clothes, and she felt a little sick as she realized that maybe she hadn’t. Everything she didn’t recognize she pulled off the bar, tore from its plastic hanger, and piled on the floor. Wrinkled pants four sizes too big, scuzzy metallic button-downs, and jackets that he’d never need in a country like this. She added white sneakers that looked like they’d never been worn, as well as a basketball
and pump that she found, overtaken suddenly by a nervous dawning, in the back of the closet. She went back to the desk and pulled the drawer out, emptying its contents on the bed. There were cuff links in there, an empty leather wallet, two pairs of oversized sunglasses and a blinged-out necklace with links cut to look like dollar signs—Joseph would have had a field day with this. Monique put both hands under Shawn’s mattress and told Reynato to move his butt. He got up and helped her flip the mattress, sending it crashing against the far wall. She had to sit then to control her breathing. Three ziplock baggies lay on the box spring, each filled with a fistful of twisted leaves and seeds. So much for hardly ever smoking it.

Monique watched Reynato open her son’s phone. He hit redial and switched it to loudspeaker, holding the phone out in the space between them. Ringing filled the room, followed by a tinny, lilting voice. “Hey Shugs, I’ve been trying to call you all week! Where you been?”

“Shawn isn’t here,” Monique said. “Who is this?”

There was a long pause. “Who’s this?”

“This is Monique Thomas. Shawn’s mother. Did you give my son this phone? Are you selling him drugs?”

The girl huffed impatiently and Monique imagined overlong bangs skipping in the plume of her breath. “I’m not selling anything.”

“I said a month ago that you weren’t to bother him again.”

“Which would mean something if you were my mother. I’m not bothering anyone.”

“You’re bothering me.” She took the phone from Reynato and held it tight. “My son’s thirteen. I don’t know or care why you can’t find a boy your own age, but you’re crossing a major line here.” She took a breath, trying to find the tamest version of the threats inside her. “Put your father on the phone.”

“Step off, cunt.” The girl hung up.

“Snap,” Reynato said. “This girl. This girl is asking for it. Doesn’t know who she’s messing with.”

Monique dropped the cell phone, still open, on the floor. In the den she found the school directory and dialed the girl’s home number.
A maid picked up after a few rings but before Monique could say anything she heard the girl’s voice as well on another line. “It’s all right Lucy,” she said. “It’s for me.” The maid apologized, called the teenager ma’am and hung up.

“Your father,” Monique said. “Now.”

“What’s wrong with you lady? Why do you have to be such a bitch?”

“Listen to me. Just because your parents let you act like trash doesn’t mean everyone else will. My son is not in the Philippines for your entertainment. You’re never to speak to him again, and I’ll be seeing the police about the drugs you’ve given him.”

“Get a life, bitch. Everyone we know will say I didn’t give him shit, just a phone and some clothes. He’s embarrassed to wear the kiddy shit you still buy.” The girl hung up. Monique let the round hum of the dial tone fill her head. She called three more times but the line was busy. Then, as calmly as she could, she went into the bedroom and took one of Joseph’s old sports bags from the closet. She opened the locked drawer, fished out the diamond earring she’d confiscated that spring and dropped it into the empty sports bag. She brought the bag into Shawn’s room and filled it with the clothes she’d piled on the floor. Reynato helped, stuffing in the bling chain, the cuff links, the cell phone, the glass pipe and swollen baggies. The school directory said that the girl lived in Dasmariñas Village, a gated community not three miles from Fort Bonifacio. Reynato offered to drive. Minutes later Monique stood outside a strange house on Calamansi Street, Reynato waiting in his Honda across the road, in case she needed him.

The maid answered Monique’s knock at the gate and told her “for a while,” which meant wait. She heard an argument moving through the house and out into the yard, alternating between some kind of Chinese and Tagalog, but not enough of the latter for her to make it out. It was the girl’s voice, for sure, and an older man who must have been her father. They spoke for nearly a minute on the other side of the door before the father opened it, looking more conciliatory than Monique expected. He wore a business shirt and slacks, his tie draped loose
around his shoulders, reading glasses on the bridge of his nose. The girl stood with her arms crossed tight over her chest, white high-heel shoes puncturing the grassy yard.

“I understand that you called earlier,” the father said. “Unfortunately I wasn’t home. I’m sorry you went through all the trouble of coming here. Something like this is better discussed over the telephone.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Monique said, pleased to be so in control of her voice, “and I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you. I just wanted to return these things.” She hoisted the swollen sports bag through the open gate and spilled the contents out on the flagstones. The basketball rolled over wet grass to rest at the girl’s feet. Two of the plastic baggies protruded from the top of the pile. “These are gifts that your daughter has given my son. They look expensive, and he can’t accept them. You should also know that she’s been giving him drugs.”

The girl whipped a few consonants at her father’s back and he smiled, sadly. He plucked up one of the plastic baggies. “You’re mistaken. Your son got this elsewhere. It’s a problem, among some of the Western students.”

“She’s lying to you.”

The father’s smile grew sadder—he looked absolutely grief-stricken. “This is very unfortunate. I will have to call the police if you don’t take this off my property and leave right away.”

“That’s great, in fact, I’ve already brought them.” She turned back to Reynato, whom she only now noticed was giving the old man and his daughter a slim middle-finger. “If you’d like I can call him over.”

“Bitch, you are in-fucking-sane,” the girl shouted over her father’s shoulder. “Just because the ugly little horndog you call your son is a stoner, it’s not my fault.” Monique turned to look at her. “Yeah, he told me,” she said. “And now that I see you, it’s no surprise either. That shit is
obvious
.”