Don't Tell My Mother Read online

  Spark Books is an imprint of Anvil Publishing, Inc.

  Don’t Tell My Mother

  Copyright to this digital edition © 2017 by

  Brigitte Bautista

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

  Published and exclusively distributed by

  ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC.

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  1550 Philippines

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  www.anvilpublishing.com

  Book design by Miles Tan (cover) and Michelle Soliman (interior)

  E-book formatting by Arvyn Cerezo

  ISBN 9786214201846 (e-book)

  Version 1.0.0

  To Oya, and our mutual weirdness.

  You are my story.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  CHRISTINA GUZMAN WAS the first one in our class to have ever masturbated. She was a trailblazer, that one, and she made sure the whole school knew of her exploits. She swore by taping a Nokia to her crotch. Inside the panties or outside was a matter of choice. Set that at 6AM on vibrate mode and it’s good morning, Laguna! In true go-boldly-where-nobody-has-gone-before fashion, Christina was also the first in our class to go preggo. Her parents sent her to the States before her bump showed. Shipping to the US? Try Mr. and Mrs. Guzman next time. Faster than FedEx, money-back guaranteed. They told the whole village that better academic opportunities waited for Christina in the US. Better academic opportunities, my ass. The only education she needed was sex. If we learned the right stuff about penises and vaginas and condoms, instead of Googling and giggling over them in sleepovers, it would have saved Christina the trouble. She could have made it to graduation. She could have ended her reign enthralling her minions by the school gate steps. She could still be in this neighborhood. If you put it that way, maybe Christina’s the lucky one.

  I stopped talking to Christina in third year. Or, rather, she stopped talking to me. I suddenly didn’t meet her standards. The buy-in to her clique was a weight of a hundred and five pounds, give or take five percent, and a weighted grade average of seventy-five. I didn’t stand a chance. Not only did my nineties and third-quarter rally ninety-threes cut it. I also loved cake, thigh gap be damned. Now, I have never given her much thought until I found an old Nokia in the study drawer. Orange block of hard plastic, the size of a Snickers. Black sides, orange backlight. It will survive a drop test from a Makati skyscraper and put your smartphones to shame. It vibrated like a mild earthquake, as if all calls coming through bore earth-shattering news. It doesn’t take much to deduce where the phone is now. It’s 6AM on a Sunday, and I wake up with my toes curled, teeth sunk into a pillow. Go figure, Einstein.

  Mama barges into my room and breaks my trance. I am awake, I am awake! “Mama! Good…” The phone is still vibrating. I bite my lip to keep from moaning. “Good…” I stretch my legs so far out I could pull my hamstring right here and now. Wouldn’t that be a good bedtime story someday?

  So, Samantha, can I call you Sam?

  Sam is fine.

  Sam, how exactly did you sprain your hamstring?

  See, Doctor, funny story, you gotta laugh. This old phone found its way to my crotch…and, would you believe it? It stayed there all night! You gotta laugh. Please? Just one tiny chuckle?

  How exactly did that sprain your hamstring again?

  “Good morning, Mama!” I scream and gasp before covering my mouth, before the pleasure comes gushing out in whale sounds like a movie on the Internet I saw once. Don’t ask me what kind of movie. Let’s leave it at movie on the Internet, shall we? My mother swats away an imaginary fly from her ear. The little fly is in my little fly. If only I could reach it with my hand like a ninja and kill it. Alas, my dexterity is failing me. Buzz, buzz.

  “Where is all that buzzing coming from?” She sees me looking less and less of a person, like I’m on the seventh day of Sadako’s curse. “My dear, are you alright? Gas pains? What is it? Let me feel your stomach.”

  No choice but to flip over like a hot pancake and crawl back to the far side of the bed. “No, mama! I’m fine! I’m fine! Just…” I click a button and hope to God that wasn’t the snooze button. Mom would file for emancipation if she saw my crotch glowing like devil’s fire. “Just morning sickness. I’m fine.”

  “Come now, my darling,” she says, rolling me over on my back. Fingers crossed I turned it off for good. If that was the snooze button and the phone suddenly lights up, I lose. I snooze, I lose. She presses her fingers into my belly, and I think she’s just teasing now. She’s laughing and saying I should lay off the cheesecake. Sorry if I can’t laugh right now. My mind is stuck to ‘Please don’t light up, please don’t light up. Glad my baby fat is giving you the giggles, Mama. Really.

  “Get ready for Mass. We don’t want to be late. We can’t sit with — Oh, just the thought makes me shiver!” She shakes her shoulders, like a thousand cockroaches had come to nest on her. “If it were up to me, she would be banned from entering the church at all!”

  Mama leaves and the phone vibrates. I had snoozed it after all. I look at the sun outside, not yet fully awake, sitting pretty on a backdrop of blue sky. I have time to ride it out, so why not? Christina was right on with this. Good morning, Laguna, indeed! That ought to bring a spring to my step. I sashay to the shower and go downstairs dressed in pants and a flannel shirt. Big mistake.

  “What are you wearing? Pants in church? Go change!”

  “But, Dada’s wearing pants! He should wear a dress, then.”

  Dada looks at Mama. Mama looks at me. I look at Dada. We stand there in the sala, the picture of a happy Christian family on a Sunday morning. Not.

  “Now, Samantha. I let you wear those hideous flammable shirts any day of the week. But, not on Sundays! Not in the presence of the Lord!”

  “It’s flannel, Ma. Not flammable.”

  “Samantha!” Her nostrils are flaring. The only thing missing are plumes of smoke. This is never a good sign. I think I should go change now. Mama wouldn’t let me leave until I was an ankle-length, full-sleeved, floral-print disaster. I could pass for a funeral wreath.

  Adding insult to my fashion injury, we arrive in church late. By late, of course, I mean right on time. There are only three seats left. Two in the second row from the last, one seat behind it. Mama and I look at each other before making a discreet run at it. Mama turns into a little Pomeranian, walking as fast as her tiny feet could allow. I don’t think we’ve ever competed so fiercely to sit beside Dada before. She wins, of course, but not without boxing me out with her elbows. I almost tripped over those luncheon-meat-can heels of hers. Dada looks disappointed. He was clearly rooting for me.

  “This seat’s usually not taken.” A nervous laughter follows, like she is not used to people breathing in her space. Human life-form detected! Alert, alert! She picks at her diamond earring and attempts t
o keep up the one-sided conversation. “So, what did you do to deserve this?”

  I want to say something polite. But, I know Mama is testing me. I know because her ears are flushed pink and her jaw is set tight. Whatever I say or do could be used against me. So, I bounce my eyes from the red of her dress, of her lips, of her hair. I look past Mama’s much-too-tight updo, past the row of gossipy mothers looking at me, past the front-row children bribed into going to church. I train my eyes on the cross, repeating to myself the question, “What would Jesus do?” Just ignore her like Jesus did the Devil in the desert, I say to myself.

  I see her purse her lips and nod in acknowledgment. “As you wish.”

  We both stay in our own space. We never intersect, not even coming close. Just as well. Everything is right in the world. It’s just another ordinary Sunday until Pastor Paul says, “Let’s put our hands together as we sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ ”

  All my life, I have loved this song. I get up every Sunday just for this. What could be more beautiful than a community who are practically strangers to each other, holding hands and singing off-key? People in the suburbs, they only meet and greet people they want to know. They drive in SUVs everywhere, even to the supermarket just outside the gate. Their maids become couriers for birthday invitations, leftover dinner and the daily gossip. This song binds us all, even for just a moment, makes us equal somewhat.

  Now, beside Mrs. Alves, I feel as if the community had abandoned me. Mama, I try to whisper. But, Mama is too deep in worship. Either that or she’s ignoring me on purpose. She may still be furious about my fashion choices that had us running late in the first place. My heart pumps with dread at the sound of the slow familiar melody. Mrs. Alves turns to me and reaches out her hand, open and loose and unassuming. Even as I sweat through my hesitation, it stays there like a low-hanging fruit. The forbidden fruit. Is she truly the serpent in our Garden of Eden? Is she the Devil, as Mama bluntly put it? There is only one way to find out. I take the fruit. I clasp her hand in mine.

  Hellfire. Oh, dear Lord, why are you smiting me from the inside? This is more than a blush, more than what I get when someone casts a glance at me. This is much more than that. It makes my head swell. It makes my blood boil. The prayer ends. The Mass ends. I’m still burning. “I don’t feel so good, Mama. Can I skip Sunday school today?”

  “Oh? Do you want me to call the healers?”

  No! Not the healers! “I just need the day to rest, I guess.”

  “Dada will be there if you need anything.”

  It turns out that a dose of bed rest made things worse. I see her everywhere, looking at me with that slight smile on her face. I can’t rub off the memory of her skin on my palm. I take four showers to douse the fever, breaking my long-standing personal record on hygiene. Mama returns from her Sunday school in Intsikan, the adopted community of Stuck-up Moms for Christ. Or, is it Moms Sticking Up For Christ? Moms Standing Up for Christ? I keep forgetting. She finds me in bed under two sheets and a comforter. I’m smoking out the Devil. If this is punishment, then I must grin and bear it. I fix myself a bowl of my signature chicken soup, but find that I have no taste for it. This is bad; that thing could cure anything. There’s only one thing left to do. I go to the garden and pray like Jesus in Gethsemane.

  Not again, Lord. Not again.

  Chapter 2

  “OKAY, GIRLS. REMEMBER this. Homosexual orientation is okay. But, homosexual acts are not. Acting on these feelings is a sin,” Teacher Grace explained. I listened from the back of the classroom, expecting a continuation when she made a solemn pause. But, when she spoke again, it was about another topic entirely. I was left more confused about the whole homosexual situation than before. That’s it? Look, but don’t touch? It wasn’t what you would call knowledge. Was it, if it screwed with your mind? The school handbook referred to it as “unhealthy girl-to-girl relationships.” What do they even mean by unhealthy? Did they urge each other to binge on complex carbohydrates? I could think of tons of practices unhealthier than two girls kissing. Wearing wet socks. Not washing your hands after tending the garden. Drinking tap water, for crying out loud. Christina passed me a note.

  Follow me outside. I have an idea.

  I looked at her. She looked like mischief waiting to happen, with that slight smirk and eyes that had suddenly come alive. I shouldn’t follow along. I’m the straight-A kind of student, my ducks always lined up in a row. I should pass a note that said, ‘Cutting classes is never a good idea. Why won’t you listen to the ills of homosexuality like the rest of us?’ But, I didn’t. Of course, Christina got her way with me. When she raised her hand for a May-I-go-to-the-restroom exit strategy, I followed suit after five minutes. Of course, she was waiting for me at the third floor landing. She pulled me past the quadrangle, past the clinic, up the stairs of the chapel.

  “What are we doing here, Christina?”

  She told me to be quiet before pushing me into one of the prayer boxes. My mind said, Danger, danger! Abort, abort! But, if we’re being frank here, what kind of 15-year-old ever listened to an order, even if it came from her own conscience? It was the age for thinking the world was ours to taste and bite and devour. Try and stop us, just try.

  “Christina, I don’t think—” My words retreated to my throat as her lips found mine in the stuffy prayer box. I was still working up a fitting reaction when I heard the clack of footsteps. I peered into the rattan mesh to see who it was. Shit! It’s Mrs. David, the skirt chaser! No, not that kind of skirtchaser. She literally chased our skirts with a wooden ruler. Two inches below the knee was the golden standard. Fall below or above that, and it’s detention for you. She’d have you rip off the seams and then sew them back up with the right hemline. Two inches below the knee the way she liked it. She caught me once with a non-golden standard skirt and threatened to put it on my record. Threaten me with anything except a smear on my record! I cried and called Mama. How can I destroy such perfect stitching?

  “Why do you have to take up so much space?” My chicken-wing arm was jabbing at Christina’s ribs and pinning her to the wall.

  “Oh, I’m sorry if my lumps are too hard to resist. Let me remind you, this was your idea!” I hissed back.

  “Is someone there?” Mrs. David asked. Clack, clack, clack, went the marble tiles. Cold, cold, lukewarm, cold again. Christina and I inched closer together. Her breath smelled of cherry gum. I wished we could magically transform into Siamese twins joined at the hip. If I got expelled, I would need the circus to take me in and abuse me for my freakishness. Mrs. David stared down the prayer box. She seemed to mull over the possibility of two 15-year-olds so ill-raised and blasphemous to commit a sin in the very place where sins are forgiven and prayers are heard. The footsteps finally receded; we were in the clear. I meant to get out when Christina stopped me. She kissed me again, just a light peck this time. “Me, first. You, after ten minutes.”

  Was it possible to become catatonic after just one kiss? I sat there in the prayer box, ten minutes like she asked me to, thinking about this sin that didn’t feel like one. Bad things were supposed to make you all heavy at the ankles and slumped at the shoulders. Guilt should be bearing down like a gorilla on your back. But, all I felt was light and fluffy and giddy. Like a laundry detergent commercial with the fluttery dress and soap suds and unbelievably white seamless panties. I wanted to sing and dance. On my way back to class, I think I did.

  “What happened in school today?” Mama would ask me this question every day, and I would respond with a blow-by-blow recap. That day, with the taste of Christina’s lips on mine, I was Eve caught face-on-fruit, juice dripping down the corners of my mouth, white specks of flesh still lodged between my teeth.

  “I…uh…I…” I started. Mama waited. Did Adam stutter in the face of God before scurrying towards the bushes? “I…It was okay.” I ran to the bathroom to pretend-pee.

  Next morning, I went to school feeling like a champ. Even my double belly jiggled with swagger. Christina, fa
r and away the prettiest girl in the whole school, kissed me. Twice! Most people don’t even get one. They don’t even get a sideways glance from Christina. They’re just flat out ignored. Me, though, she likes. Nobody ever kisses someone they don’t like, right?

  I laid a rose on Christina’s desk and waited for her to come see it. I was always early to school, so I was used to waiting in an empty and dark classroom. I gazed at the rose and lost myself in daydreams. We would be the couple that would blow up Twitter. Sixers would squeal from the fourth floor windows when we walk by. We would have our own fan page. Two hundred likes in the first ten minutes! An hour passed before Christina came in and saw the rose. She kissed a petal before looking at me all shy and flirty. This was a sin I’m committed to committing.

  Class ended and I found the rose on her desk. She must have forgotten to take it home. I chased after her like a knight in shining armor. I was Romeo in a checkered black-and-white skirt. The only color was the red in my hand. I caught up to her at the school gate, out of breath, sweat dripping underneath my camisole, and offered her the rose again.

  “You forgot this.”

  “Oh, Sam.” The way she said ‘oh’ was like a punch to my throat. “I’m sorry.” Another punch to the throat.

  “I don’t understand.” The rose fell to the ground. Neither of us cared to pick it up.

  “The thing yesterday. It was a one-time thing, Sam. I was bored and I thought you were, too. Sorry if you didn’t see it that way.” She squeezed my arm, as if saying “You poor, poor girl. Now, you are a sinner and a loser. Good luck with the rest of your life.” She crossed the street to a parked car with orange rims and rolled-down windows. A pimply-faced boy waved her over. Curse you, Christina! I hope you get knocked up by that punk. And, wouldn’t you know it, she did! I was not only a sinner and a loser. I was a sinner, a loser and a witch. Ding, ding, ding! Samantha, the Christian Nightmare trifecta.