Every Bright Star - A Novella

Every Bright Star is the contuination/end of a previously blogged story called "I'll Remember Too". You need to go back and read that one to get the full effect.


Every Bright Star
A Novella by
Tony Killinger

Part I


“Mister Daniels,” the doctor said, very seriously, “Parkinson’s Disease isn’t going to kill you. I’d guess, given the general state of your health, that you will probably die of old age a long time from now, but….”, he hesitated, and I waited, “this is going to change your life, somewhat. You don’t have the classic form of the disease that normally causes the pronounced shuffling gait or the bent posture, but that too might develop one day. Remember, this is something that is happening deep in your brain, not in your body. The symptoms it presents are wide and varied and there is no definitive test to confirm our diagnosis.”

“So, how sure are you that this is it?” I questioned.

“Ninety per-cent sure,” he said, without the hesitation. “You have that tremor on your left side when you get tired; that’s the big tip-off. Your blood pressure was difficult to get under control and this tendency you have to become exhausted and lose your voice is another red flag. The imaging of your brain was, to put it vaguely, inconclusive, but we know there is something going on up there.”

While the doctor was speaking my mind was racing, and nowhere that you would expect it to go. I was thinking about all the articles I’d read about how doctors don’t take the time to talk to their patients, but here I was, getting this man’s full attention; he trying to put me at ease and me not even listening closely. In my own defense, I had read, studied and researched my symptoms and I had pretty much reached the same conclusion he and his team had. But, now it wasn’t theory, it was reality, or as close as we could come to it.

“How quickly can I expect the disease to progress?” I asked.

Doctor Miller shook his head. “No way of telling until we watch it for an extended period of time. I don’t envision a rapid deterioration of your mobility in the short term, but I think perhaps this exhaustion and voice problem might be a bit more progressive than we would like it to be. We can treat that, however, when it becomes necessary.”

“It isn’t necessary now?” I wondered aloud.

“No,” he said, almost insistently. “All the medication we use to treat Parkinson’s eventually becomes ineffective; the brain gets used to it, so to speak. Consequently, we like to hold off as long as possible.” He looked at me with a mixture of sympathy, empathy and perhaps a little envy. “You’re retired for all practical purposes, you live a comfortable life. Take a nap, don’t let yourself get exhausted, exercise and build up your endurance. You can handle this, Dan.”

“How about dementia?” I asked. “I’ve read that it sometimes makes an ugly appearance in this diagnosis.”

“It does, occasionally,” he admitted. “When it does occur it general presents about the same time one would normally expect to see some decrease in mental capacity, and I certainly see no indication of that in your case.”

I wasn’t quite sure what I was feeling, except to say it wasn’t good. I needed to be alone, to find a quiet place and think and absorb, or possibly not to think. It must have shown on my face.

“Look Dan, I’m going to give you some pamphlets to read over; they are full of stuff about Dopamine and receptors and things like that. Don’t get all hung up on the mechanics of this thing. You can live a long, healthy and happy life with this if you do it reasonably, and you’ve been about as reasonable as anyone I’ve ever known. Go home, relax, drink a glass of good bourbon and put a couple of good cd’s on the stereo. I think you’ll find that not much has changed from this morning except that we know now what we’re dealing with. That has to be a good thing.

I suppose, in a way, that was a good thing, and it had put an exclamation point at the end of a sentence I’d been thinking about for a long time. The time period wasn’t really that long, only since I became suspicious of what was happening to me and considering the options. The sentence was really short; only two words to be exact, it said, simply, ‘do it!’

‘It’ wasn’t as simple as you might think, only a loose outline of what to do and had no definitive action connected to it. I would just play it by ear, learn what I could and try not to hope for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or a happily ever after ending. I just needed to know and the time for finding out might have been shortened by that day’s news.

You see, a very long time ago, twenty five years, give or take, I had accepted fate’s decision about a matter quite close to me. Accepting it had never meant being comfortable with it however, and what I planned did not mean that I was reneging on an unspoken promise or anything like that, but I needed to learn the end of this story, one way or another.

Her name was Reyna, and sometimes I’m not sure if what we had was even real. It seemed real, but if it had been as substantial or as solid as I remember, why did we let it go so easily? Why had we walked off in different directions without even a goodbye? Had we both been cowards; afraid to look at the hopelessness of our situation or was it all just a misty, gossamer daydream that we could smile about in our golden years? And if that were true, why wasn’t I smiling?

If I know anything at all about Filipinos, and I have reason to know quite a bit, I know that they never leave home forever. The pull of their culture, the deep roots of family and the lure of those lovely islands never allows them to break those bonds permanently. She would be there, or would have been there enough for me to find a trace of her, I was sure. That is where I would begin my search, not in the last place I saw her or in the place I knew she had gone, but back in the place she would have to return to one day.

Surprisingly, I didn’t throw caution or common sense out the window; I actually booked my flight to Manila for three weeks later, so I could take advantage of a price savings. I would miss the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy of Metro-Washington/Virginia/Maryland, and if I really got lucky, possibly one of those early season snow storms. The trade-off wasn’t all that attractive either; Manila during the holidays was just about total mayhem, minus the snow.

I used those three weeks to do exactly the things the doctor recommended. I walked a lot, at a leisurely pace, and gradually increased the distance every day. I stayed away from the office except for a couple of short meetings, left my cell phone at home most of the time and drank a glass of the best bourbon I could buy every afternoon after my stroll and before my nap. My blood pressure was hanging right in the 130/80 range and I was feeling pretty good. The tremor, which has always been very slight, never bothered me in the least, and my voice lasted until bedtime.

I had made arrangements for an old friend to drop me off at Dulles on his way to Washington, although it meant I’d spend about 4 hours waiting for my flight. It was okay, United gave me access to their business-class lounge in the mid-field terminal and I had my laptop with me so I could play solitaire. I even had my glass of bourbon, but I had to settle for a lesser quality.

Just about 2PM a pretty attendant tapped me on the shoulder and said that I could board whenever I was ready and said it was just a short walk to the gate. The general boarding section was a noisy throng of people, a lot of them Filipino, along with a mixed bag of business men, tourists and families. I wondered how many stories more interesting than my own were being played out in that crowd.

I was in an aisle seat on the port side of the aircraft, a preference for some strange reason. I particularly liked the long-haul 747 configuration for its business class seating. The window seat next to me remained vacant for a very long time while an endless line of people passed by on their way to the coach seats. I was paging through the in-flight magazine when I saw a small, smiling head periodically pop out of the line of people and beam a smile in my direction as she inched her way down the aisle. She was Filipina, I was sure, quite pretty, very short and just a little chubby, but the smile was as bright as a search beam.

When she finally came abreast of my seat I could see she was loaded down with bags of every sort. I got up in anticipation; there was no way she could get all that stuff into the overhead bins given her limited height and I was pretty sure I would have to help her.

She started talking immediately, with soft little laughs thrown in every few words. She was genuinely excited and I’m sure if there has been room she would bounced right up into the seat. Most of her stuff was small, decorated and wrapped presents that she had stowed into two shopping bags. How she got it through security I have no idea, but we had plenty of room to get it all strategically tucked away.

“Hi,” she said, never slowing down, “I’m Emily Garcia and I do so hope you are a talker, because if you’re not I’ll probably drive you crazy on such a long flight. They bumped me up from economy class and I’ve never ridden up front before. Wow this is really nice up here. Have you been to the Philippines before or is this just a holiday jaunt.”

I chuckled to myself. I hadn’t seen such boundless energy in one individual in a long time. “Carlton Daniels,” I said, offering her my hand. “What makes you so sure I’m going all the way, I could just be getting off in Tokyo?”

“Wow,” she exclaimed, “one name and you sound like a whole architectural firm. “I’ll bet you’re a lawyer or something like that, huh? And you have a look about you that says you’re all snuggled in for the long haul.” She laughed again.

“You were closer with the architect guess,” I laughed. “I’m a construction engineer, but nearly retired now. I only go into the office to see how badly I overestimated my own worth. They seem to be doing just fine without me. And you’re right; I’ll get off at the last stop.”

Emily, as it turned out, was a degreed RN working in the geriatric ward at Fairfax General Hospital. She was going home for a month long holiday, the first she had taken since coming to work in the states. Before we were airborne I knew all this; before we reached altitude, somewhere over Pennsylvania, I knew that she had two patients with PD and somewhere over Lake Erie she had figured out I had been recently diagnosed with the disease myself.

“This long flight could be very stressful for you,” she said, her pretty face remarkably serious and professional. “We’ll have to make sure that you rest often, keep your food intake light and to a minimum, that you exercise as much as possible and that you drink lots of water. No coffee with your dinner or breakfast, you can have tea and maybe some wine with dinner. Now, let’s see what they have on the menu for this evening.”

I suppose I could have objected at that point, but I’m sure she would have brushed the objection aside and continued on her prescribed treatment plan; besides being fussed over is hard to reject for a guy my age. She had found a focus; it was giving her something to do and keeping her excitement threshold in check.

Emily poked at the flight attendants call button and a handsome young man practically ran from up forward towards us. “Bring Mr. Daniels a bottle of water please, and whenever he finishes it, bring him another. He should have water in front of him at all times.”

The kid scurried away as if he were on a mission after giving me a real questioning look. “Emily, I’m fine,” I said in mild protest. “Let’s not treat this like an emergency in the making. I’ve flown a half a million miles and I doubt this trip will be much different than the others.”

“That is precisely my goal too,” she laughed. “Now, you have the fish and the salad, a little bit of the pasta and a nice glass of white wine. No bread though, ok? You can have a little bread at breakfast.”

“And I presume you’re going to have the sirloin tips I was planning on?” I chuckled.

“Yes, it sounds delicious, doesn’t it?” she giggled.

We talked, off and on, through dinner. She had been in the states for four years, although she looked barely old enough to be a full-fledged nurse. Her intellect was as sharp as I’d ever seen and I got the impression she would do very well for herself one day. She had that innate ability to make herself indispensable somehow.

I’m sure Emily thought I must be some sort of scatterbrained idiot when she found out, through subtle questioning, that I had not made hotel reservations. I hesitated to tell her that I had no idea how long I might be in one place, that my quest might have me dashing off to some interior city or town. That was a mistake of the first magnitude I was to discover.

The polar route to Asia from North America staggers the imagination of anyone who picks up a map and looks at it seriously. Oceans are oceans, everyone flies over and across them, but the polar wastelands present a whole new definition of vastness and peril. All of Canada stretches out before you, along with the polar icecaps, Alaska, Russia, bits of China and North Korea, all places that sound foreboding and forbidden.

Sleep came in fits and starts, nothing restful or relaxing. Emily was restless too, but I suspected her inability to sleep was due more to anticipation than the uncertainty which caused my own uneasy feelings. She told me about her small family, a brother and her father and mother. I got the impression she was daddy’s girl and I thought he must be terribly proud of her already. Apparently she must have had quite a large extended family however; she was counting on a throng of people to meet her when we would finally touch down in midafternoon.

Along towards daylight, even though our talks had been quiet and relaxed, my voice was beginning to fade. Emily noticed it too. That revelation brought on a whole new set of instructions. She took me through a set of in-seat exercises and then insisted I try to sleep even though the activity in the galley indicated breakfast would soon be served. Surprisingly, I was able to doze off for a few minutes and felt somewhat better when I woke up. Most people had already finished eating, but an attendant brought me a tray as soon as they saw I was conscious.

“You’ll have to hurry a little, Mister Daniels, we will soon start clearing the cabin and getting ready to start the descent into Narita.”

I nodded. Emily glanced over a couple of times to make sure I was eating the proper foods and smiling at me occasionally. Most of the time she had her face close to the window trying to see through the clouds. It wouldn’t have done her much good if she had been able to see, Japan would be at least an hour ahead of us and the South China Sea would appear to be a flat, grey expanse with little or no shape.

I made my way to the forward rest room and stood in a short line waiting for the next vacancy. While I waited, I rose to my tip-toes and stretched the muscles in the back of my legs, as per Emily’s instructions. She really was quite a delightful young woman; I don’t mean to debase her efforts on my behalf. Had I been fortunate enough to produce a daughter in my life, I would have been tickled to death to have one just as sprite and caring as she.

The stopover in Tokyo was a brief two-hour layover. I took Emily in tow and we headed for the United Business Lounge. Maybe I cheated the slightest bit; I gave her my ticket folder to hold, which she did, making sure the attending hostess noticed it, and I used my Gold Card to get the okay nod.

I wasn’t quite due for my glass of bourbon, even though we had been airborne for half a day, but I doubted it was on Emily’s approved list of consumables and I settled for a cup of tea. Narita looked cold and nasty in the December morning. The tea, at least, made me feel warmer.
Emily headed for a phone and spent a few minutes giggling and laughing and I was pretty sure she had roused somebody from bed, either in the Philippines or back in the states. I found myself secretly hoping that she had some young doctor madly in love with her and that he welcomed the call.

“You’re all set,” she beamed as she came back to our small table. “My Uncle Hector has a vacant apartment in Makati and you’re going to stay there.”

I felt like a turncoat. “Emily,” I began, hesitating, “I may only stay in Manila for a day or two. I can’t put your family to all this trouble. I might even have to leave the country and fly out to somewhere unknown. It all depends on what I’m able to find out, everything is pretty tentative.”

Her face brightened like a child at Christmas. “Are you looking for someone?” Without realizing it, I made the second monumental mistake.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Someone from a very long time ago. I have no idea if this person is even alive, but I’m going to do my best to find out.”

“How wonderfully exciting,” she bubbled. “Oh please tell me it is an old love that you’ve never been able to forget.”

What could I do? Lie to her? It wouldn’t have done any good anyway. And so, for the next two hours and for all the remaining waking hours of the flight into Manila, Emily heard the Reyna story. Her eyes filled with tears towards the end of the story, but she kept smiling. It had been so long since I had put it all together again, even for myself. I always thought about it in bits and pieces and it always ended with that night when Rick told me she was gone. The music and the lyrics of that old Elvis song would filter through my subconscious and I would remember it all over again.



Part II

With Emily and her gaggle of Christmas presents in tow, our luggage piled on a cart and an absolute mob of people ahead, behind and on all sides of us, we headed for the shortest of the customs inspector and passport check lines. We were more fortunate than some, our luggage had dropped onto the revolving conveyor belt relatively early on, but there had to be more than one arriving flight being processed given the size of the crowd.

I was pleasantly engaged in a conversation with a young man directly behind me; Emily was busily chatting with an elderly lady ahead of her. We moved slowly but steadily forward, and before too many minutes had passed Emily was standing in front of the passport official and gesturing back towards me; the officer motioned me forward. “Have a Merry Christmas,” I said to the guy I had been talking to and I pushed the cart up to the counter.

“Passport please,” the officer ordered, without any particular emphasis or emotion. My passport was nearing the end of its scheduled life and was completely full of arrival and departure stamps, visas, notations and whatever else all those stamps meant. The Philippines does not require a visa of U.S. Citizens, although we practically go out of our way not to return the favor. Filipinos go through a mild form of humiliation getting a visa from their former colonizer.

“A business trip, Mister Daniels, or are you just here for the holidays?” The officer showed just the slightest hint of a smile.

“No business this trip,” I replied. “Just visiting old friends, hopefully.”
“Have a very Merry Christmas, then, and welcome back to the Philippines. Please proceed to the customs inspection area.” By this time his smile seemed quite genuine.

Emily was having a hard time containing herself. She knew she was only minutes from seeing her family if we didn’t run into problems, and I didn’t anticipate any. I think Emily was thinking she might have to unwrap each and every one of those tiny gifts and we would be there the rest of the afternoon. It wasn’t to be. The customs officer pawed through a few things, smiled, opened my laptop, switched it on and watched the screen light up, smiled, closed the cover, handed it back to me, smiled, wished us a Merry Christmas and waved the next individual in line up to the counter.

Walking through the double swinging doors from the customs area to the reception area is slightly akin to walking out of the dugout and into Yankee Stadium, I imagine; a cheer goes up from the crowd for each appearing traveler. The cheer, in our case, seemed to come from a group of people about half way down the line behind the roped off area. I nodded to Emily for verification, but she was already headed in that direction on a full run. Funny, I felt her happiness and anticipation, and it felt quite good. I stood back a few steps while she embraced her mother and then her father, and then a young guy I imagined was her younger brother, and then she went into the subset of smiling, waving faces.

Her father approached me first, but I met his outstretched hand with a quickly cobbled up greeting. “Mister Garcia, let me tell you that you have an absolutely wonderful daughter there; she has been my nurse, my dietitian and my companion for the last 20 hours and it has been a complete joy to be with her.” I felt quite proud of myself, given the short time I had to prepare. Telling the truth made it measurably easier though.

Mister Garcia took my hand in both of his and smiled broadly. “She is our pride and joy also,” he grinned. “She has always been a helpful, caring child and we wouldn’t want her to be any other way. She seems intent on taking you under her protective wing and she seldom takes no for an answer. I am Gilbert and I and my family welcomes you.” He half-turned and took the diminutive little woman next to him by the arm. “May I present my wife and Emily’s mother, Emma. A man’s fortune can be measured by the beautiful women who surround him, and I am doubly blessed.”

It was easy to see where Emily got her looks; her mother was a small, trim and quite lovely woman who looked at me through eyes half-filled with tears. “Thank you for watching out for our little girl,” she smiled. “You may have thought she was taking care of you, but I am sure your presence provided her with protection also. A mother must sometimes count on the assistance of kindly strangers; we are so pleased you were watching out for her.”

I was starting to get a little choked up myself from all this intimacy, but I was genuinely touched. In all my years traveling the world, I have found that I am often impressed by people who are open with their feelings and seem to have little to gain by being that way. Maybe it was just the approaching holiday season.

After that I met Christian, or Chris, as they called him; Emily’s brother, then Uncle Hector, then a crowd of extended family member and old classmates, etc., etc., etc.

“I’m going to call you Tio,” Chris announced, “if that is cool with you; I don’t know if I can handle Carlton all that well,” he laughed.

“Well almost everyone calls me Dan,” I offered in relief.

“Nah,” Chris laughed again, “that’s too informal; I’ll go with the Tio thing. I’m going to drive you over to Uncle Hector’s apartment building and get you set up. I’m sure you are ready to relax after this long haul. We’ll give you a day or so to get settled in, and then I’ll be in touch.

With that he reached into his pocket and handed me a small cell phone. “These things are cheap as dirt here,” he chuckled, “I picked this up for you. I’ve got all our numbers keyed in already. We’ll stop on the way over to the apartment and exchange some money, if you want. There are a few fruits, a couple of San Miguel beers, and stuff to make coffee with; anything else you need will be within easy walking distance from the flat.”

“You’ve done all this since Emily called while we were on our layover in Tokyo?” I asked.

“Well you have probably already figured out that when Emily gets something in her head, you’re a whole lot better off to just get behind her and make it happen,” he said, quite seriously. “My folks have never been really comfortable with the fact that she is way over there in the states, working and being on her own without some family member close enough to check on her if she needs help. You may not realize it, but you might be putting yourself in line for that position.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure there are plenty of people who are concerned with her welfare, but I’d gladly volunteer to be one of them,” I chuckled.

“Not anyone who they have met and had a chance to get to know,” Chris smiled. “That makes a big difference. Besides, I don’t know that you have much choice; Emily seems to have nominated you already.”

After more hellos and goodbyes and a minor grilling from Emily about taking my blood pressure pills, drinking plenty of water and getting at least eight hours of sleep, Chris and I headed for the parking lot. I made one quick stop at the duty-free shop and picked up a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon, the best they had.

Manila was dressed to the hilt for the holidays. Snowmen adorned the telephone poles, blinking red and green lights hung from the shop fronts, the streets were jammed with traffic and excitement filled the atmosphere.
“Just one more week until Christmas,” Chris volunteered. “Things are tight this year, but they always are here, and we’ll make the best of it. Have you ever spent Christmas away from home, Tio?”

“More times than I care to remember,” I said. “Often in countries where there isn’t much of a Christmas season. Not having a family, I was usually the one person they could send out on a job that wouldn’t object a whole lot. It seems good not to have a project dogging me this time. Maybe I’ll feel more like celebrating this year.”

Uncle Hector’s apartment was so cozy it bordered on being downright cramped. It was sort of an efficiency set up in that the living/sitting room doubled as a bedroom. There was also a small kitchen and a bathroom. Inside the shower was a large plastic garbage can filled with water and a gourd dipper. Chris explained that there was no hot water, so the best thing to do was to fill the garbage can and let that warm up during the day, shower using the dipper and replace whatever water you had used when the level got too low. Believe me, I’ve had worse conditions in some of the old Soviet bloc countries, I could make this work just fine.

The bed was a fold-up and there was a colorful cover that sort of hid the whole thing during the day. The refrigerator was about the size of a picnic cooler and the kitchen table and two chairs filled that end of the flat.

The apartment building had 4 units on each floor and there were three floors. My flat was at the far end of the second floor. The apartments were side by side so I had the luxury of an extra window in the sitting room. I also had the disadvantage of being right next to the street, but I thought it was an even trade.

Out in front of the building was a partially vacant lot and then a large open air café or lunch counter. We were quickly approaching the dinner hour and the place was bustling. The cement counter formed a perimeter and inside the counter the cooks operated around a huge open stove, smoke and steam billowing into the early evening air from their woks and fry pans. The aroma was wonderful, but largely unidentifiable. There was also a large sink where girls and boys washed, rinsed and dried an endless parade of utensils, plates and silver. There was no doubt about the quality, everything was open to inspection. Even after Chris had left I watched, utterly fascinated with the beehive of activity below me.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I had my very own television in the sitting room. I turned it on but didn’t increase the volume. First of all, the broadcast was all in Tagalog and, secondly, my neighbors had their audio levels turned up to the point I didn’t even need my own. I took the cover from the hide-a-bed, opened it up and sat up looking at the evening news between my outstretch legs. I drank a double shot of the Maker’s Mark, took my pills and relaxed.

Sometime during the following hours, none of which I was even remotely aware of, the din from the lunch counter ceased, the traffic in the street quieted down, and I think perhaps it might have even rained softly. I was completely unaware of any of it; I slept like a baby and, for some strange reason, I was remarkably at ease.

The traffic and kitchen noise stirred me between six and seven the next morning, but I was able to ignore it until the seven to eight time frame. Kids were playing on the walkway in front of the building, pots and pans were rattling and staying in bed was out of the question. I put together all the pieces necessary for a pot of coffee, set it on a low flame of the single burner stove and headed for the shower.

Apparently the night had been relatively cool, the water in the plastic garbage can was a little on the frigid side. The little coffee pot was perking merrily along as I threw on a tee shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts.

I had coffee, a banana and a delicious mango for breakfast while I watched the news. I know a few words of Tagalog and along with the few words of English that were mixed in the narrative, I was able to basically understand that the world had not come apart since the last time I watched CNN on the monitor in the United Lounge in Tokyo. That was really all I cared about at that point.

Somewhere around 9AM, Uncle Hector stopped by and asked if there was anything I needed. I used the opportunity to ask him what I owed him for rent. Uncle Hector was kind, but he was no fool. Almost sheepishly he asked if I thought fifty U.S. dollars a week would be satisfactory. Considering that a room at the Inter-Con Hotel would probably run me close to $100 a night, I agreed it was a bargain, the traffic noise notwithstanding.

The morning was rapidly being used up with idle chatter and rent negotiations and I hadn’t even had time to come up with a basic plan of how I was going to start this quest. I had all but reconciled myself to the fact that it was going to be a long, drawn out process and that as long as I was logistically well supplied, the priority could slip a little without causing any great setback.

Chris and Emily showed up just after noon. They had driven separate cars. Emily had begged or borrowed a blood pressure monitor from somewhere and Chris had the first step of the mission all mapped out, thanks to his mother. Apparently the whole family now knew the Reyna story. Emma suggested that since we knew Reyna came from the entertainment sector; we should start by checking with some of the booking agents in the city. I had to admit, it sounded like a good place to start in my estimation. Chris had the names and addresses of a couple of the agencies and he said that if we weren’t successful, they could surely put us on to others.

Emily’s wrinkled nose and brow indicated she was not liking what the monitor was telling her. She scowled at me as she unwrapped me from the cuff. “You had coffee this morning,” she frowned. “And whiskey last night, I’ll bet. Did you take your pills?”

“I took one last night,” I said, truthfully, “I haven’t had one yet this morning. I wasn’t sure if I should stick to my Virginia times or switch over.”

“Get back to your regular schedule,” she ordered. “Have you missed a medication in the course of the trip?”

“I think I might have,” I admitted. “We’ve been gone from DC about 32 hours and I’ve really only take one day’s medication.”

“That would account for the blip,” she explained. Finally she let loose with one of her radiant smiles. “But I don’t want you getting all excited and worked up,” she beamed. “Just take it easy.”

It was just about 1:30 when Chris and I walked into the second floor office of the Spotlight Talent Agency; it was the first one on Chris’ list. A pretty receptionist sitting behind a large laptop at a work station looked up. “I’m Carlton Daniels,” I announced. “I wonder if I might be able to speak to a Mister Hernández for a few minutes.”

She smiled and took off the compact headset she had been wearing, stood up and smiled again. “Let me see if he is busy,” she said. “If you are looking for holiday entertainment, we are pretty well booked solid,” she frowned slightly.

“Nothing urgent,” I sort of lied.

She walked a couple of steps into the hallway behind her and rapped softly on a door before she opened it and entered. Within a few seconds she reappeared and motioned for me to follow her. Chris took a seat in front of the receptionist’s work station.

Mister Hernandez and I shook hands and he waved me towards a chair in front of his desk. The walls of his office were nearly covered with head shots and group pictures of various artists. Mister Hernandez himself was a portly sort of gentleman, wearing a white dress shirt, a green tie and a flame red vest. The holiday spirit was alive and well in this particular counting house.

“How can I help you, Mister Daniels?” He asked, quite seriously.

I decided not to be coy with Mister Hernandez. “I’m looking for information about a singer named Reyna De Santos,” I said flatly. “She had a couple of accompanists and they performed under the single name, Reyna.”

Mister Hernandez settled back into his chair and studied me for a moment. “She left the business,” he said flatly, “several years ago. Had some trouble with the law, as I recall. She wasn’t my client and I didn’t keep track of her. To tell the truth, I’m not sure if she was with an agency or not. Why are you interested?”

The news sounded foreboding and it caused an immediate knot in my stomach. I decided I’d better lay it on a little thick for Mister Hernandez who might just take a proprietary attitude and try to protect a member of his profession.

“An old fan of hers, an American who I represent, is considering mentioning Miss De Santos in his will, if she is still alive and can be found.”

Hernandez brought his chair up to the upright position. “It must be a sizeable amount to go to all this trouble,” he smiled.

“My only instructions were to learn her situation and find her, if possible. I really don’t know any of the details.” It was a lie, at worst, but I was content with the fact that there were several parts of the explanation that had an element of truth to them, at best.

Hernandez hesitated. “I wish I could be of more help to you, Mister Daniels, but I’m afraid that’s all I know about it.” He paused for a moment and then reached for a small pad of post-it notes. “However, I know someone who might have a little more information.” He scribbled on the post-it. “Here is his name and address. Take a bottle of scotch with you when you see him, tell him I sent you and give him my regards.” He tore off the note and handed it to me.

The name on the slip was “Lord Bentley” and an address in Quezon City, a suburb on the other side of town.

“Lord Bentley?” I questioned. “Is he some sort of royalty?”

Hernandez laughed. “He is British and he was treated like royalty in this city for many years, but he is more or less just an old newspaper man. He likes history. Go see him; hear what he has to say.”

We exchanged Christmas greetings, shook hands again and I showed myself out. Chris was doing his best to make the pretty receptionist a bit more receptive and having little luck with it, I assumed.

“Where can we pick up a medium price bottle of Scotch?” I asked when we were back in the car.

“Lots of places,” Chris laughed, “but it isn’t going to be medium priced. “I know a few places where we can get cheap stuff that’s been relabeled, but I don’t know that I’d want to drink it or give it to anyone I cared about.”

“We’ll stick with the genuine stuff,” I chuckled. “We may have a lead to work on. Mister Hernandez knew of her and wants me to contact a guy in Quezon City. Can we do that in any reasonable amount of time?”

“Sure,” Chris reassured me. “I know a pretty good liquor store there too; you have an address?” I gave him the pink post-it note. “Hmmm,” he hummed, “I’ll have to stop and ask for directions to this anyway. I think it is in the old section, lots of old bungalows and places that were upper class a generation or two ago.”

He was right, on both accounts; but he missed the time line by at least one additional generation. Lord Bentley’s bungalow had known better times, but probably not since the 1950’s or 1960’s. Behind a chain link fence, that seemed to be well maintained, and old Jaguar town-car glistened in the late afternoon sun. Either it had been recently polished or it hadn’t been driven in ages, but in any case it was a beautiful piece of machinery.

“You coming with, or do you just want to sit out here?” I asked.

“I’ll wait out here,” he laughed. “I don’t think this Lord Bentley will have a pretty secretary. I’ll just listen to the radio.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” I said.

While it was true that the older lady who came to the door was no stunning beauty, she had a look of quality to her; old family, probably money at one time, nice clothes but a bit outdated, and that unmistakable aura of class. I would have bet the bottle of Scotch I had in my hand that she had relatives who were prominent in Filipino history books.

She looked at me without saying a word. I waited what seemed to be just a second too long before I decided she wasn’t going to speak and I had better. “Good afternoon,” I said softly. “I am Carton Daniels and I wonder if it might be possible to speak to Lord Bentley for a few moments.”

She studied me for about 20 seconds and then apparently decided I was okay. She stepped back from the door and I entered the old house. For a moment I couldn’t recall what that odor was, but it came back to me in a flash. It was newsprint; I recalled it from my youth when I delivered newspapers. Every day I would have to go to the basement underneath the print room and wait for the small daily paper to come off the presses. It is a semi-sweet smell, not unpleasant, but certainly not something I would want to live with on a twenty-four hour basis.

“I’ll take that,” she scowled and reached for the bottle of Scotch. “Thomas is in his archives, at the end of the hall,” she nodded.

The hardwood floors creaked as I walked the twenty feet to the double doors at the end of the hall. I wasn’t sure if I should knock or not, so I just rapped lightly and opened one door a bit and peeked in. The inner room was huge, interspersed with shelves and tables everywhere, and every available space was piled high with large, flat books, about the size of a family scrap-book, or something of that nature. Two girls sat at one table behind desk top computers, busily pounding away on keyboards.

“Come in, come in,” a voice with a heavy British accent bellowed from just alongside the door and close to my ear. I did as the voice directed.
“Thomas Bentley,” the small, thin man standing over a table said. The British seem intent on beating you to the punch when it comes to introductions.

“Carlton Daniels,” I smiled, extending my hand.

“How can I help you Mister Daniels?”

I frowned. “I came looking for information about an old friend,” I said truthfully, “but I guess I don’t understand what I’ve come upon here; is this some sort of library or something?”

Thomas Bentley laughed a full belly rolling laugh. “A library? Yes, but much more than that; it is more of an historical archive. And it is one we are trying desperately to transfer to computer records before my allotted time on earth is finished.”

I looked around the room, amazed. “I hope you live a long time, Lord Bentley, because it seems there is an awfully lot of material in here. Just what is it that you archive?”

“Come and sit down, and forget all that Lord Bentley stuff,” he chuckled. “It was my moniker when I was a young reporter on the Manila times.” We made our way to a coffee table that had two sitting chairs on either side of it. “You see, Mister Daniels, not too long ago the Philippines went through a golden age. Whatever the world needed in the way of manpower, they came to the Philippines for it. Maritime seamen, domestics, teachers, nurses, entertainers, wives, girlfriends and hookers. We had them all here, and in quantities that guaranteed you could get exactly what you were looking for. They left by the boatloads and planeloads, headed in every direction on the compass. When they got to where they were going they worked, sent back money to their families, provided the entire country with a foreign currency exchange that was the envy of all Asia. They were the base of the Philippine economy.”

“I see,” was the only response I could think of.

“A large portion of our population was living abroad and they were all hungry for news from home. I began by writing a weekly column, and in each column I would feature some few individuals who were working at some other place in the world. Families here would buy papers, clip those articles and send them to their relatives. It was so popular that I had to go to two columns a week, then three, and finally it became a daily feature. Lord Bentley’s bright stars, they called them. I had a staff larger than the city desk, larger than the international desk and far and away the biggest money making division of the paper.”

It was beginning to dawn on me. “And you saved all those articles?” I wondered.

“Oh, much, much more than that, Mister Daniels. You see, they all thought I was real, that I knew all these people and I was their link to home. Every day I would receive hundreds of letters telling me that so-and-so had picked up a new gig at the latest disco or that Lourdes Makapagal had met Esteban Avilla in Cairo and they were going to be married; and they all wanted me to be aware that they were still out there, still part of what they had left behind and that, one day, they were all coming home with enough money to open a kiosk stand or buy a nipa hut in Fernando. It’s all here, all saved for posterity if posterity ever decides they want to read it.”

“Amazing,” I barely breathed. “And when the golden age passed, did they all come home?”

“Many have,” Thomas said, sadly. “Mechanization has reduced the number of crewmembers required to sail a ship down to practically nothing, and they all must be computer operators, no oilers or boiler tenders. Some countries finally got their nursing programs up and running, thanks to Filipina nurses who set up those systems; the electronic age made everyone sound like a rock star, the law of supply and demand finally caught up with us.”

“And your bright stars are gone?” It sounded even sadder when I said it.

The older woman from the front door walked into the room with the bottle of Scotch and two crystal glasses on a tray and brought them to the table.

“I want you to know, Mister Daniels, I am a drinker, but I am not a drunk. There is a huge difference. Will you join me?”

I laughed. “I too am a drinker, but unfortunately, not a Scotch drinker. Please don’t hold back on my account.”

He took a long gulp of the Scotch. “And who is your bright star, Mister Daniels? Which one of these thousands of stories is it that you want to hear?”

I was immediately struck with the absurdity of it all and I hesitated even going any further; she would be lost in the vastness of all of those personalities, but something made me say it anyway. “Her name is Reyna De Santos,” I blurted out.

Thomas paused for a moment and let the whiskey bite at his tongue. He looked up at the ceiling and then down again. “Ah, the lovely Reyna,” he said finally. “Her beauty and her talent should have made her a wealthy and happy woman, but in the end they only served as her prison.” Without another word he got up and walked to a large table with several wooden file boxes on it. He pulled open a drawer, fingered through a few cards and then walked to another table. From a stack of several, he selected one volume and brought it back to the coffee table. He leafed through a few pages and then laid the book in front of me.

There, on a taupe colored page was a newspaper photograph of Reyna and myself, apparently taken on that fateful night of the movie premier in Kuala Lumpur. My left arm jumped visibly from the tremor that pulsated through my body. It was the very first verification I’d had in nearly twenty-five years that it hadn’t all been imagined.

“Some bright stars were brighter than others,” Thomas smiled. “Some of them were dazzling in their beauty, don’t you think?”

I was speechless for a full minute, my eyes locked on the image in front of me. I was shocked by how I had aged, how the photograph seemed to come from another era, which of course it did. As a distraction, I turned to the next page and was shocked again. “Local star arrested, held overnight and released in bizarre case of murder and torture.”

“Murder?” I said aloud. “They thought she murdered someone?”

“She was never prosecuted,” Thomas explained. “Her husband, a leach of a man, had held their daughter hostage for years, forcing Reyna to perform as an entertainer, outside the country while he lived the good life here. Whenever he needed money he would threaten to kill the child and to subject her to the same sadistic treatment he apparently visited upon Reyna whenever she would come home. He was known to have a pistol, often brandishing it in front of people to impress them. Then, one day, as the story was told, he was beating her and cutting her skin with a knife; she was screaming and apparently someone came into the house, shot and killed the husband, took his gun and some other valuables and ran. When the police arrived, Reyna was tied to the leg of a large table, unconscious and the daughter was weeping and screaming uncontrollably. They arrested Reyna and questioned her for several hours, but in the end they released her. She never went back on stage after that.”

I listened to the story as if it were being broadcast on the radio, my mind was numb. It all sounded so alien, so impossible that I couldn’t get my brain to attach reality to it. The one thing that made it seem genuine was remembering those three ‘x’ mark scars I had seen on her torso those many years before. Why hadn’t I asked? Why hadn’t I demanded an explanation? Because it was none of my business? Could I have put an end to all this and prevented it from happening?

“Mister Daniels,” Thomas said, quietly, “are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink of this whiskey? You look quite pale.”

“Can I borrow this book?” I said, nearly begging. “I need to digest this at a little slower rate; I’ll be very careful of it.”

“It is already archived,” Lord Bentley explained. “I’ll have one of the girls burn you a CD and you can go over it at your leisure.”

Chris saw me exit the house a few minutes later and apparently my appearance was enough to bring him running to my assistance. “You okay, Tio?” He demanded.

I wasn’t okay, I was shaky and exhausted. “You’d better take me back to the apartment, Chris. I’ve had a few too many shocks for one day.”



Part III

Reyna’s daughter had been nine years old when this thing with her father happened and that was twenty years ago. That would make her roughly the same age as Emily and Chris. That meant she had been about four years old during the time Reyna and I had been together, and I didn’t have a clue. Her name, according to the newspaper clippings in the file that Lord Bentley had given me, was Honoria.

I read and reread the material in the file many times, but there was not much more to the story than Thomas had told me. No mention was ever made if there was an eventual arrest or apprehension of the killer, only that Reyna was either cleared or there was insufficient evidence to hold her any longer than they had.

To say I was shocked would be a terrible understatement, I was physically stunned. After Chris brought me back to the apartment I was able to settle down, a little. Chris stayed for another hour or so, but he was uneasy about leaving, I could tell. When I was completely calmed down I went to the café in front of the apartment building and had a small meal of rice and chicken, some green vegetables and a beer. I spent the rest of the evening just sitting around the flat, looking at the pictures on my laptop and kicking myself for some of the stupid mistakes I’d made in my life. It wasn’t a very healthful evening. I was also in a fog and I must have been that way since I first looked at that picture. I left an awful lot of information sitting there when I left, feeling upset and confused. I hadn’t even bothered to ask if he knew anything more that might help me. I would have to go back and continue the conversation with Lord Bentley, but not until I had thought about it a little more.

Emily called just about the time the late news came on. She asked how I felt, if had any more tremors, was my pulse racing, etc., etc. I told her to stop worrying about an old man and get together with her friends and other young people and have a little fun while she was home.

I didn’t sleep nearly as well that night as I had the night before. I heard the balut vendors making their nightly rounds of the residential streets selling their unique delicacy, one which I had never had the nerve to try. To the uninitiated, a balut is a fertilized duck egg that is buried in the hot sand for a couple of days or baked in an oven to cook, at least partially. To eat one, you just peck a hole in one end and suck out the contents. Supposedly it goes well with cold beer, but it was something I would never know firsthand. Thinking about it did give my mind somewhere else to go for a few minutes and shortly after that I drifted off into a fitful sleep.

The Garcia’s were bookkeepers; always had been and apparently always will be. The family business was in its fourth generation. In some of our sidelight conversations, Chris indicated that he might like to do something different with his life, but he had no strong likes or dislikes pulling him in any specific direction. Meanwhile he worked in the family’s office in the old section of town. He was definitely pleased with this chauffeur assignment; it gave him a chance to be out of the office during this holiday lull. Things would get going quite quickly right after the New Year, I gathered.

At any rate, Chris was there just a few minutes after 8AM the following morning. “I’ve got to go back there,” I said, firmly.

“Well if we do, this time I’m coming in with you,” he announced, just as firmly. “I’m not sure what that guy told you, but you were pretty shook up when you came out.”

You must understand, Filipinos often use a generic term for someone, even though they might know that person’s name, when there is some negative connotation connected. Even friends and relatives become “that guy” when they’ve supposedly stepped across some invisible line of behavior. Until they are forgiven of that offense, they don’t get their name back.

“He told me the truth,” I said in Thomas Bentley’s defense. “He meant nothing personal; I asked him for information and he gave me what he had.”

With that I went and got my laptop and let him go through the file Bentley had given me. Chris read through it, commenting only on the picture of Reyna and myself at the movie premier. When he finished he sat back on the kitchen chair and studied me for a moment. “Does this change anything as far as you are concerned?” I got the feeling he was truly interested in my reply.

“Chris,” I hesitated, “this is hard for me to explain. Reyna and I knew almost nothing about each other. I suppose we did that on purpose. I was married at that time and not behaving in a very honorable manner. She was doing the same thing, but for a very different reason, as I discovered yesterday. Her husband was apparently using their daughter as a hostage, forcing Reyna to send all the money she made back to him. The only thing I can add to that is that I developed some very deep feelings for her and I think probably she did the same. Those feelings haven’t changed for me and I don’t even know if they existed for her. But, I’d certainly like to find out.”

Chris backtracked his way through the file, back to the now infamous picture. “She sure looks worth the effort,” he laughed. “I guess we better get back to work.”

We stopped for coffee at a little restaurant on Roxas Boulevard called the Golden Cup, or the Tasa de Oro. It was full of holiday shoppers; all of them pretty upper class, I imagined. Chris was on a first name basis with several of the waitresses and the floor manager, and he waved to several customers.

“You got a girl, Chris?” I asked.

“Oh, not you too, Tio” he answered, frowning. “No, I don’t have a steady girlfriend. I just haven’t found one interesting enough to keep me entertained long enough to fall in love, I guess. I’m only 31 and I’ve got lots of time. Dad didn’t marry my mother until he was 38.”

“And Emily is a couple of years older than you?” I guessed.

Chris laughed. “She’s just ten months older than I am,” he said, still chuckling. The folks might have waited a while to get married, but they made up for it. Emily feels pretty much the same way as I do; she isn’t ready for a total commitment yet either.”

The coffee, in spite of Emily’s reservations about me drinking it, did a world of good. I felt calm, relaxed and my mind was working overtime. I was as much up to the task as the Santa Clauses working the streets in their abbreviated fur costumes, at least.

Thomas Bentley himself answered the door to the old bungalow in Quezon City. He breathed a long sigh of relief when he saw me. “Oh, Mister Daniels,” he exclaimed, “I’m so happy to see you have returned. I was concerned to the point I would have called you, had you left me with any contact information.”

I smiled as broadly as I could. “I’m fine, Lord Bentley, and thank you for worrying about me. I wonder if you might have time to continue where we left off yesterday.”

“Of course,” he answered. “I painted you a rather bleak picture, I’m afraid, and as with most things, nothing is all bad. Please come in.”
I introduced Chris as a good friend, which was what I regarded him to be, even more so as time went on.

On the walk back to the archives, over the creaky wooden floors, I corrected aloud a thought that had struck me since our last conversation. “You made a remark yesterday, Lord Bentley,” I started. “You said about your correspondents, they all thought you were real and that you knew their stories. I think they were right; you do know all these thousands of stories, don’t you?”

He stopped in mid-stride and turned to face me, a playful grin on his face. “Not every bright star is to make wishes upon,” he smiled, “but to someone, one solitary story might be a whole universe. How could I be so cold and uncaring as to relegate their stories to the trash bin of forgetfulness? I’ll do what I can to make sure that at least some of them are remembered.”

When we were seated at the coffee table again, after Thomas had pulled up an additional chair, Chris made, what might seem to be, an unnecessary remark. “Lord Bentley, we’d like to thank you for your help and if there is ever anything I or my family can do to help, I hope you will feel free to call on us.” It was a clear indication Chris had lost any feelings of ill will towards him; he had given him back his name.

Thomas nodded, probably understanding more than I did; he had dealt with this culture much longer than I had. “Too early for whiskey,” he laughed, “would anyone like a nice cup of tea?”

I wondered if the English ever had an un-nice cup of tea, but both Chris and I declined. “How much more of Reyna’s story is there?” I wondered aloud.

“I said yesterday, that Reyna’s beauty and talent should have made her a rich and happy person, but it served only as her prison. That might have left you with the impression that she somehow failed to achieve success,” he smiled. “Quite the opposite is true, of course. Using her knowledge of the entertainment industry and a clear understanding of fashion and style, she went on, after some interim years, to become a very prominent part of the Philippine social register. Her gowns and dresses are known throughout Asia.”

“She is still alive and well?” I nearly blurted out.

“Alive and well?” Thomas laughed. “Why my dear fellow, she has a very upscale boutique not twenty minutes’ drive from here.”

I’m not sure if the body or the brain, whatever it is that registers shock, knows the difference between good shock and bad, but I know the shock I had just received was a lot more pleasant than the ones I received yesterday. I felt restored somehow, reinvigorated, wound up, and rearing to go, maybe even happy.

There was some mixed conversation after that point, I’m not even sure what it was about, but my thoughts were not very cohesive, to say the least. A few minutes later, in the car with Chris I sat there just a little numb. Chris didn’t even bother starting the engine.

“Can I make a suggestion?” He asked.

“Sure,” I said, happy for the fact that one of us was thinking clearly.

“I imagine you are wondering what to do next, right?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “something like that. Funny, now that I know where I’m going, I’m not sure if I’m ready to go there; can you understand that? I mean, what if she doesn’t want to see me?”


“That’s where my suggestion comes in,” Chris chuckled. “I know two women who are absolutely dying to know what we know, and they are both pretty clear thinkers. Besides, they come with a built-in feminine intuition about such things. What do you say we drop by the house, tell them where we are at and get their slant on it, or are you just too geared up right now?”

I thought about it for a second. “My boy, you might be absolutely right. It would provide me with a bit of a recess.” I laughed aloud. “You know, I was perfectly prepared for this to go on for weeks and weeks and here we are, looking at the culmination already.”

“It’s the season,” Chris laughed. “Follow the star, all that kind of stuff.”

* * * *

“Not a word, do you hear?” Emma told me forcibly. “I’m going to prepare a small lunch that we will eat on the veranda, but I don’t want to hear anything second hand. You must wait until I can sit down and listen.”

Chris snickered behind his hand and I could see that Emily was more than ready to begin the story right now without waiting for anyone.

“I’m damned if I do and damned if it don’t,” I laughed. I was a bit surprised at how cheerful I was feeling, but there was also an element of uncertainty mixed in with it, I had to admit.

Emily held her excitement in check by running to get her blood pressure monitor. When she returned she put me in a straight backed chair with my feet flat to the floor and put the cuff tightly around my upper arm. “How much coffee have you had today?” It was a question but it sounded much like a scolding.

“About a cup and a half,” I admitted. “Chris insisted we stop at some café before we got going this morning.” I hoped I had successfully deflected any blame off myself, but I know she wouldn’t abide any excuses. She listened through her stethoscope and eyed her wrist watch with a strange look on her face.

“Hmmmm,” she hummed. “Even a little bit on the low side. You must have slept well.”

“As a matter of fact, I had a perfectly horrible night. I was restless, the balut salesmen kept waking me, I couldn’t get settled and the kitchen crew from the lunch counter was up about 4:30.”

“Well, something has eased,” she said, smiling, finally. “I’ll go help mother because I can’t sit here and wait and wonder all afternoon. You had better have a lot of news to make us wait like this.”

I shrugged. “This was your mother’s idea,” I chuckled. “But, I don’t think you will be disappointed.”

My laptop was back at Uncle Hector’s apartment, so I had no visual aids with my presentation, but it might have been a distraction, all things considered. Surprisingly, it took nearly an hour to tell it all, which wasn’t too bad since we also had a lovely lunch in the meantime.

“Oh, I remember those articles in the paper,” Emma said. “They were very popular with anyone who had friends and relatives working abroad. Lord Bentley didn’t print much of the bad news, so I doubt if the particulars about Reyna came out in his column. They might have been in the regular news, but I don’t remember any of it.”

“Well the main question for me is, what do I do now?” I looked at the three of them for any hint of what might be coming; they gave nothing away.

“I think you should wait until tomorrow,” Chris ventured. “Get all slicked up in your best clothes, get a haircut and a professional shave, hire a limousine and drive up in front of her boutique like a rock star, or something.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Chris,” Emily objected. “He’s not a rock star and it would be completely out of character. Maybe it would be best to wait until tomorrow; possibly get there before things got really busy. I’m sure they are swamped with customers looking for gowns for the holidays, so you would want to get there before they had the place all jammed up.”

I looked to Emma. She smiled at both of her children and then looked at me. “Unless I am very wrong, there is a woman there who has had you on her mind for twenty-five years. Even if she has remarried, the thought of you is still with her. Don’t make her wait a minute longer; what will be, will be. You owe each other that much.”

Chris reached in his pocket and got out the car keys. “I’m ready, Tio,” he said. “I’ll probably have to drop you off in front of the place and then spend an hour trying to find a parking place. Don’t pass out until I get back in there, okay?”

As we left the Garcia home Emma embraced me. “Some things are written in the stars,” she whispered to me. “I think this is one of them.”




Part IV


Labor is cheap in Manila. There is no such thing as a minimum wage; there are people who will work for next to nothing. Surprisingly enough, that doesn’t lead to the excesses you might imagine, but for a few extra dollars, or Pesos, it allows you to do things your competitors might not do. In Reyna’s case, that meant having valet parking, and in the week before Christmas I would dare say it was one of the best investments she had made for her business. Chris, at least, was greatly relieved.
We could have been in New York, or Los Angeles or perhaps even Paris, Reyna’s boutique was that well done. The street windows featured only a few gowns and the interior of the shop was not visible from the sidewalk. Simple gold-leaf lettering across the cottage style door was the only introduction needed apparently, and always with that one-word, Reyna. Not Reyna’s or some glitzy fashion name, just Reyna, as thought that should be enough to tell you all you needed to know.

There was a large open area in the interior, surrounded by small alcoves. There was not a dress, gown or a counter to be seen anywhere. You didn’t come here to sort through the rack, you came to buy something that would be exclusively your own. After only a few seconds, a young woman came out of one of the alcoves and approached me. “May I be of some assistance, sir?” she asked politely.

“I just stopped by to pass on my personal holiday greetings to Miss De Santos, is she in?” I was getting pretty good at this half-truth routine, but my stomach was a hive of butterflies.

“Please have a seat and I’ll go and check,” she smiled. “Could I bring either of you a cold drink?”

I declined and Chris shook his head. The young lady headed for the back of the shop. “Quite a place, huh Tio?” Chris grinned. “I wonder who does their books?”

I laughed. I was beginning to treasure the Garcia’s as a family, but Chris had been especially good for me. The young woman who took our message to the back reappeared at the door and went immediately to her alcove. I took that to mean that Reyna would come out next.

But it wasn’t Reyna, only someone who looked remarkably like her, walked like her and swiveled her head on that long swan neck the way Reyna had always done. As she approached our sitting area she smiled broadly at Chris and pointed her finger at him. “Oh, I know you,” she chuckled, “I’ve seen you so many times in the Tasa de Oro, how nice of you to come by.”

Chris grinned and stood up. “Yes, I remember seeing you there too,” he said. “But, it’s my Tio here who has brought the holiday greetings. This is Carlton Daniels, and he isn’t really my uncle.”

She laughed and looked at me strangely for a long moment. I stood up, saying, “And you must be Honoria,” I said quietly.

Honoria put her hands in front of her face as though she was smothering a scream, her eyes wide open and rapidly filling with tears. “Oh my God”, she whispered, “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re mother’s Danny. I can’t believe you’ve finally come.”

She threw her arms around me and sniffled into my chest. “You’re exactly what I pictured you would be,” she sighed, “mother will be so very happy.”
“Is she here?” I asked.

“No, she is in Hong Kong buying silk,” Honoria said, pushing back away from me again. “She’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Normally she would be here at this busy time, but we were dangerously low of material and she had to make this special trip. I knew I should have gone, but she insisted. Please sit down; I have so much to ask you and so much to tell you. You have no idea of how she has lived for this day.” She grasped Chris by the hand as he sat down. “And what was your name?” she smiled.

“Chris Garcia,” he answered. His nearly flamboyant mannerisms were gone, but he smiled warmly, I could tell this young lady had really made an impression on him.

“Oh my heavens, what are we going to do?” Honoria grinned at me. “If I don’t tell her you are here she will be terribly upset, but if I do tell her I’m afraid she will be on the next plane home, and we really need that silk. We are behind production on the New Year’s dresses.”

“Perhaps you could delay the announcement for a day,” I suggested. “After all, we have waited twenty-five years, would one more day be so terrible?”

“Not if you order me not to tell her until then,” she laughed. “Mother has said this is her last year and she is going to retire, but no one believes her, but still, we wanted this to be the best year we’ve ever had.” Honoria stood up and nearly beckoned to us. “Please come with me, I want to show you something.”

Both Chris and I followed her towards the rear of the shop. On the other side of the door we saw the real heart of the business. There must have been more than 20 ladies at sewing machines working with yards and yards of billowing material. There were dress forms standing on short tables, all with beautiful gowns in some stage of completion. “You know,” she said, turning to me, “this entire idea came from you?”

“From me?” I objected. “How could that be?”

“Well mother said the one time in her life when she felt most special to someone, was when you had a dress made for her so she could attend a movie premier. She never forgot that feeling and she wanted to give that experience to her clients. So, this is where it all comes together.”

I was genuinely touched. Honoria continued on further back in the rear of the building. She opened the door to what was, I assumed, hers or her mother’s office. It was a simply furnished, comfortable room with two desks and two chairs and half a dozen phones. Between the desks, on a wall completely devoid of any other furnishings, hung a full-length oil painting. It was Reyna, posed against a grand piano, wearing that oyster-white gown she had worn to the premier. “Recognize it?” She grinned.
I stood there looking at the painting, a thousand memories crowding into my mind, every one pleasant and comforting, except one. She was as lovely as I remembered; I could hear her laugh, yet I wondered how she could have laughed, carrying that heavy burden. The McDonald’s hamburgers, the Irish Coffees, the music, the thought of waking up on a Sunday morning and feeling her close to me, it all came rushing back. “I’ll remember you, your voice as soft as a warm summer breeze, your sweet laughter, mornings after, ever after, I’ll remember too.” That song, the omen of sadness that colored the days and nights since that night, was there too.

I felt Honoria’s hands circle my left arm, just as her mother had always done and it brought me back. She was smiling, wondering where my thoughts had taken me, I suppose, but I was there. “Just give me a number where I can reach her,” I said. “I’ll call her.”

* * * *


Manila and Hong Kong share the same time zone, the distance between them in on a North-South line, but I waited until about 9PM to punch the group of numbers into the cell phone Chris had given me. Honoria told me that Reyna seldom left her hotel on business trips, and I took her at her word. It is difficult to explain how I was feeling at that moment, so I won’t try.
It seemed as though the phone was ringing in slow motion, every break between rings seemed like minutes. On the fourth ring I heard a slight click and then a soft, sleepy voice say “hello?”

I thought I had it all prepared in my mind somewhere, but I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say. “Reyna,” I nearly whispered, “this is Dan.”

At first there was only silence, and then I heard a soft sob, and another pause. Finally, this tiny voice answered; “oh Danny, I’m so sorry,” she cried, “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I couldn’t risk you getting involved. Can you ever forgive me?”

Hearing her voice again, the absurdity of the whole thing struck me as some obscene kind of humor. We both thought that we could protect the other one by hiding away all the good and honest feelings we wouldn’t admit to and cling to a deception that could only end in tragedy. “I know the whole story now,” I told her, “we have paid for our mistakes a thousand times over. It is all behind us now.”

We talked then, the way we should have talked all those years ago. I told her how I had found her, how and where I was, and all the silly, minor, idiot things that weren’t really important but so terribly vital for us to share. After nearly an hour, she agreed that she would finish her business just as quickly as possible and she would fly back to Manila as soon as she could. But before we said goodbye, she corrected me. “You don’t know the whole story now,” she breathed, “you might have guessed, but I want to tell you, now, I have loved you from the moment you agreed to be my lover, that night at the food stalls.”

“And I had loved you for at least a week before that,” I laughed.

Twenty-seven hours later, at midnight on the 22nd of December, Honoria and I, along with a driver and a van, met the incoming UPS flight from Hong Kong. Somehow or other, Reyna had managed to talk someone, somewhere into letting her fly with her cargo. I’m sure it couldn’t have been very comfortable for her but I was happy she had done it. She ran down the stowed ramp and across the tarmac to where we waited and hit me like a college half back. She fit into my arms just the way I remembered in spite of the heavy overcoat she wore. Tears were running down her cheeks and I’m not entirely sure I wasn’t crying a bit myself. Our kiss was crushing but so wonderfully warm. We stayed in embrace for a bit too long, I guess, because Honoria finally got through an audible “ahem”. Reyna hugged her and then they both cried again.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Reyna laughed. “Have you had time to get to know each other, because I’ll be honest with you, I have no intention of letting even one more day slip away from us again.”

“Well, he does have a very handsome nephew,” Honoria grinned, “who has been running errands for me all day. If I can get this material back to the shop in a reasonable time we’re going to go out for a nightcap.”

“Oh my,” Reyna chuckled, “he must be quite something for you to be up past midnight. We’re going to have some hectic days coming up, you know?”

“Everyone is on overtime for the next two days,” Honoria said. “It will be touch and go, but we’ll make it now. Chris is helping with the deliveries, serving all the seamstress’ refreshments, sweeping floors and he says if we need more help he can recruit his mother and sister too.”

“Chris?” Reyna said, but then answered her own question. “You mean Danny’s nephew?”

“Adopted nephew,” Honoria laughed. “The whole family; I’m not sure if he adopted them or they adopted him, but we are invited there for dinner on Christmas evening.”

“And how did this all come about?” Reyna mockingly scowled at me.

“Well it began with Emily, who happens to be a nurse in Virginia, and I being seat-mates on the flight over. She was a little concerned with my health and she looked out for me. Then I met Chris and he has been my chauffeur and guide the last few days, and I just somehow inherited the rest of the family, including Uncle Hector, who is my temporary landlord. It’s all very complicated,” I said, grinning.

Reyna’s mock concerned turned real in an instant. “What is it about your health that she is concerned with?”

Honoria injected another “ahem”. “You two have some talking to do, I suspect.” She hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. “Just tell it like it is,” she admonished me. “No sugar coating, no making it more than it needs to be either. For once in each other’s lives, just put it out there and don’t be afraid.” She hugged her mother, what seemed to be extra hard. “Don’t be an alarmist. You can’t expect him to be thirty-five years old forever you know? He’s going to find out you have sore feet and backaches after a long day too. I’ll see both of you in the morning. Don’t stay out too late.”

With that, she and the driver were off to the customs area. “Do you have to get a passport check?” I asked her.

“Yes, if we can find one awake. It won’t take a minute. Now tell me.”
She grabbed my left arm with both of hers like she had always done and we started walking towards the terminal. It was late, I was just a little tired and I suppose it was natural, given my mental state that my brain would pick that particular moment to send a mild, jumping tic through the very arm she held. She felt it too.

I did my best to explain Parkinson’s to her in a straight forward manner. She listened without showing much emotion. I finished about the time the customs officer came and handed her back her passport that he had taken a few minutes earlier. “Have a Merry Christmas, Miss De Santos,” he said. “And the same wish for you,” she returned.

“Honoria is right,” she smiled. “My feet are killing me right now and I could probably go to bed and sleep right through tomorrow, but I can’t. “ I gathered her up into my arms. “I just want us to be together,” she whispered. “I don’t care where; I’ll let you decide those things, as long as I can see my daughter and eventually my grandchildren once in a while. But, I still need a lover; are you interested?”

“The last time you asked me that, I wasn’t quite sure what to say,” I smiled to myself. “Maybe I’m a little older and a little more worn than I used to be, but I’m pretty sure that I can curl your toes from time to time, if that will help your sore feet. You’re still the most beautiful, exciting woman I’ve ever known, and the answer is definitely yes.”

I suppose it must have looked rather strange to the skeleton crew that were busy doing clean up chores and going about their midnight routine, to have a slightly older than middle age couple, kissing in the middle of a deserted airport, but we didn't care.

Reyna took a step back from me, her eyes shining brightly behind a thin mist of tears, and she smiled lovingly, and in a soft voice she sang; “To your arms one day, I’ll return to stay, till then – I’ll remember too, every bright star we made wishes upon, to love me always, promise always, we’ll remember too.”

We went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, only a couple of hours after we had locked the doors of the boutique. Reyna knew a little church snuggled away in the back of a residential community in Makati. It was packed with people and children too excited to be at home in bed. We had to stand in the back next to the doors and the crowd overflowed onto the grounds and peered through the windows. We sang hymns and Christmas Carols and shook hands with smiling people who seemed to have left the cares of the world back somewhere else. Afterwards we went home to Reyna’s house and she made excellent Irish Coffees on a small burner. She fell asleep on my lap, stretched out on the sofa and eventually I snuck out from underneath her, covered her in a light blanket and tucked a pillow under her head.

The next morning the three of us opened the very few gifts we had managed to purchase in the bedlam blur of the last days. I made breakfast and then Reyna and Honoria did the dishes. It was all so ordinary and so very natural.

We took a nap in the afternoon and about 4PM Reyna began her dressing routine. When she reappeared nearly an hour later she was as gorgeous as I’ve ever seen her, dressed in a beautiful blue dress and white accents. Honoria wore black and red, and you could tell she went through some extra effort as well. I suspected Chris would be the most immediate beneficiary of her glow.

The Garcia’s opened their home and their hearts to us that evening. Emily was enthralled with Reyna and they had several long and serious conversations during the course of the evening. Gilbert danced with Honoria, Chris doted on her, and Emma hugged her at least three times that I was aware of. Late in the evening, we sang Christmas Carols and drank toasts of a special punch that Emma and Emily had made. Reyna would come by occasionally and touch my arm and smile. I think it was the best Christmas of my entire life.

There are so many lights in Manila that it is often difficult to see the stars, even on a clear night. But that night was different, somehow. Reyna and I stood on the veranda and looked up into the sky. I offered a silent prayer for a skinny old Brit who knew every one of those stars by name and the stories behind each of them. He couldn’t have known how much he had changed our lives, but perhaps he suspected. I lifted a glass of the punch to the sky; “Merry Christmas, Lord Bentley,” I whispered.


End