Tala Read online

  Tala

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

  Cover art by Mercy S. Dela Cruz

  Copyright © 2016 by Blackstone Publishing

  All rights reserved

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  “I deposited the money yesterday,” Tala Mercado told her mother Dalisay on the phone. It had been five years since she’d married Stephen Wright and left Manila for “a better life”, and her mother’s monthly phone call was right on cue.

  Dalisay Mercado did not ask about Stephen. What was the point? She knew her daughter had never really been in love with the much older man anyway. Tala had married him at her parents’ request. Life in Manila was hard, and when the wealthy white man had appeared, claiming his love for their eldest daughter, Dalisay and her husband Cristano had eagerly nudged the situation along.

  “We are struggling, anak,” Dalisay had often reminded Tala. Anak meant “my child” in Tagalog but in the months leading up to Tala’s move to America, she’d barely felt like anyone’s child at all. “Don’t you want to do this for your family? Papa’s job is no longer enough to keep us going. We will be squatters soon. Your brother and sisters will have no future at all.”

  Tala had caved to the guilt. She was twenty-three years old at the time and just a few credits short of getting her BA in accounting. She was paying her way through school working as a housekeeper in a five-star resort and had, what she’d hoped, was a great future ahead of her. But her parents made it clear that future would have to be put on hold. Unless she wanted to see her entire family starve, there was no other way.

  “Stephen said he’ll give me more money to send next month,” Tala said, clutching the phone tightly to her ear, and reminding her mother that the money she sent each month was, in fact, not hers at all to send.

  “Stephen said,” Dalisay mocked. “Anak, don’t you know you cannot trust a man who would pay for a wife?”

  Tala bit her lower lip in frustration. Stephen, for all his faults, was a decent man. “And can you trust parents who would sell their eldest daughter?”

  Tala could hear Dalisay suck in a shocked breath. “We did not sell you, Tala! You always had a choice.”

  “A choice?” Tala snorted. She didn’t want to disrespect her mother, but Dalisay claiming she’d had any choice in the matter was absurd. What choice was there when your options included your family starving to death? Living in the slums of Manila was hard enough, but living there like just another homeless dog in the street was unthinkable.

  Manila was overrun with stray dogs, Tala remembered. They wandered the slums, much like the homeless families, ready to bite at any time.

  Tourists were their favorite meal. Rich, white people who came to the Philippines in droves, soaking up the best of country and ignoring the rest.

  Stephen Wright had been one of those tourists. Tala had met him during his stay at the resort, and she’d saved him from uncertain doom. Like many white people who came to Manila, Stephen had thought he could wander the streets untouched. Until one night he wandered onto the wrong street and was immediately surrounded by the angry and the hungry. Things got out of hand and Tala, recognizing her highest-tipping guest from the hotel, came to his defense.

  “Ta mana!” she’d yelled in Tagalog. “Enough!”

  She didn’t generally get involved in such matters, but from her place in the club across the street, she could clearly see Stephen, terrified and fumbling in his pockets for money.

  “Give them one-thousand pesos,” she’d told him. “Around twenty American dollars. It will make them go away.”

  Stephen had done as she’d asked and it didn’t take him long to fall in love shortly after. He extended his stay in Manila and spent each day of his trip trying to win her over. Each morning she’d come to clean his room, he’d engage her in small talk and ask her to dinner. Each morning she’d reject him. Then Tala made the mistake of telling Dalisay about the wealthy American, and before she knew it, she was dating a man who was more than twenty years her senior and in no way at all her type. Tala preferred women.

  “If it makes you feel better to think I had a choice, mama,” she told her mother now, fumbling with the phone in one hand and the dirty dishes she was rinsing under the sink in the other “then please do continue to fool yourself.”

  Tala could hear Dalisay stirring something on the stove and longed for her mother’s pork sinigang. Dalisay made the best sinigang in all of Manila, and Tala missed the smell of that soup. She missed the salty, tangy taste of it. Maybe if she could convince Dalisay to visit soon, she’d get to have some after all.

  Dalisay had no interest in visiting America again. She’d gone a couple of times, but she much preferred when Tala and Stephen came to Manila. Tala knew that Dalisay would never come back to America unless it was to stay.

  “What are you cooking?” Tala asked, glancing out the window and watching the tall, auburn-haired woman jog by. Each day around this time the same woman jogged by the house and Tala looked forward to seeing her, as if she were silently saying hello to a drive-by friend. Sometimes she went out to the garden around this time and pretended to work, just to get a better glimpse of the woman.

  “Your favorite,” Dalisay boasted, not thinking how her words may injure her daughter. “Pork sinigang. And your brother brought home some balut.”

  Tala shuddered. Balut was a Filipino favorite that she had never much enjoyed. Something about eating a boiled, fertilized duck egg had never sat well with her. In that way, she was probably more American than she realized.

  “I must go now, anak,” Dalisay said. “Papa will be home soon and you know he expects dinner on the table already. Mahal kita.”

  “I love you too, mama.”

  Tala hung up the phone and turned on the TV. There were a lot of hours between now and when Stephen got home from work and the TV was, at least, good company.

  Chapter 2

  Kelsey Daniels returned home from her jog, took a shower, and fed the cat. She didn’t know why this cat was even still living with her. It was Julia’s cat. Julia had moved out eight months earlier and kept saying she was coming back for the thing but never did.

  Kelsey left another message on Julia’s voicemail. “When are you coming to get this cat?”

  She’d been leaving messages like this for months and Julia always made excuses. It was always “next week.” Then several more weeks would go by and Kelsey would call again.

  The cat wasn’t any trouble, really. But Kelsey wanted things with Julia finalized and having her cat around wasn’t allowing that to happen.

  Kelsey went into the kitchen to make breakfast and the cat followed.

  “You just ate, Snickers,” she admonished. Julia should have named the cat Shadow instead. Snickers was always right behind or right underfoot and Kelsey couldn’t count the number of times she almost tripped over him.

  “Go play with your toys.”

  Snickers let out an annoyed meow and arrogantly walked away. Kelsey laughed because she could almost picture Julia doing the same.

  What had she ever seen in Julia DeSantis to begin with? Certainly she hadn’t seen Julia’s cold streak in the beginning or it never would have gone as far as it did. Kelsey was a kind soul who always seemed to get involved with people who were the exact opposite. Fortunately, she’d had the good sense to ask Julia to leave after it became clear their living situation was not going to work out. They’d dated for a year, which had gone well enough, but as soon as Julia had moved in, her whole attitude changed.

  No longer did she want to go out with Kelsey
’s friends, only her own. She didn’t care to have Kelsey’s family around –which didn’t happen often to begin with—and she constantly left a mess around the house. It didn’t matter how many times Kelsey asked her to please pick up after herself; Julia knew if she didn’t, Kelsey eventually would.

  It grew tiresome quickly.

  Kelsey owned several rental properties. In addition to being the owner of these rentals, she was also the manager and maintenance person. Over the years she’d learned how to fix leaks, change locks, repair walls, and a variety of other tasks her tenants were always amused to see the five foot six, one hundred and twenty pound redhead handle. Roofs, furnaces and electrical fixes were a bit out of her league, but she had a handful of trusted contractors she worked with to handle things like that.

  To Julia, this meant that Kelsey was free to do her tasks whenever she wanted. It also meant she was free to clean the house and do all the cooking since she didn’t have to work a “real” job like Julia did.

  Julia never understood the stress of it all. The emergency phone calls from tenants in the middle of the night, the hassle of eviction notices when one would suddenly decide it was no longer necessary to pay rent. Julia didn’t understand things like going to court over broken leases or windows. She didn’t understand that being an independent property owner was just as demanding, if not more so, than working for someone else. At least when five o’clock hit, Julia’s day was over. Kelsey’s never ended.

  But you couldn’t pay Kelsey enough to change it. She loved her job. In all the hassle, there was still, in fact, freedom. It was nice knowing she didn’t have to depend on an employer. Her income, and her life, were entirely her own.

  Kelsey jogged twice a day, once between six and seven in the morning, and again between six and seven in the evening. She wasn’t sure when she’d developed this pattern, but it suited her. The first jog gave her energy for the day, and the second jog helped tire her out enough to sleep fitfully at night. In the hours in between, she maintained her properties, gardened and cooked.

  Kelsey was more of an okay cook than a great one, but she enjoyed doing it. She took pleasure in creating colorful plates that were almost too pretty to eat. Most of the vegetables came from her garden and the small amounts of meat and dairy she consumed came from local farmers. Her community had been good to her, the least she could do was support them in return.

  On vacation, Kelsey was an adventurous eater. She’d tried everything from durian fruit in Vietnam, to fried alligator and turtle soup in New Orleans. She’d eaten chicken intestine Yakitori in Japan, frighteningly moldy cheese in Italy, and a variety of other dishes that would turn the stomach of a less adventurous person. Her friends often sought out the most extreme dishes they could find, just to see if they could get her to eat it. And she always did. While her friends spent their vacations lounging on beaches, or touring museums and popular landmarks, Kelsey was on the streets, getting to know the locals and trying their foods. She could smell an interesting food stand a mile away.

  Even in her own neighborhood she could smell food being cooked inside houses as she jogged past. Most smelled like pot roast and other oven-baked entrees, but the smells that came from one house always intrigued her.

  It was a large brick house with a white picket fence around the front of it and a vegetable garden at the side. There were flowers growing in front of the house, and a silver wind chime dangled from the porch. It could have been like any other house in the neighborhood, except for one thing: the smells.

  Each time Kelsey passed the house on her evening jog, she could smell food that reminded her of other places. She smelled lemongrass, and ginger, and steamed rice. The windows were always open and the intoxicating aroma of whatever the person inside was cooking always made her want to slow her steps, just to get a better whiff of it.

  She knew an Asian woman lived in the house because she’d caught glimpses of her now and then. Kelsey could never see the woman very clearly, but her posture always seemed to be positioned in a way that expressed sadness.

  The man who lived in the house seemed happier. Kelsey often saw him leaving for work and he’d smile, wave, and say hello as she passed. She suspected the man was around fifty. He had thick graying hair, alert blue eyes, and a very charming smile. He always wore a suit and he always tossed a briefcase onto the backseat of his Lexus before getting in. He seemed like a man who was most comfortable when everything was in order. Kelsey could relate.

  Chapter 3

  Julia DeSantis sat at the bar, staring into her wine glass considering her options. She could stop by Kelsey’s house to pick up Snickers, or she could continue to enjoy her freedom without him, knowing that Kelsey would care for him whether she liked it or not.

  “Are you going to go get him?” her friend, Sonya, asked.

  Julia shrugged her rounded shoulders. When she first moved in with Kelsey she’d thought her life would be smooth sailing. No longer would she have to sit with her head chained to a phone all day taking customer service calls. She’d been dating Kelsey for a year and, during that time, had managed to keep up a personality that wasn’t quite her own. She smiled a lot, laughed at Kelsey’s jokes, and pretended to enjoy spending time with Kelsey’s friends. She’d done everything she needed to do to get her foot through the door of Kelsey’s beautiful suburban home, and it had worked --for a time, anyway.

  Within a few weeks she was showing her true intentions and within a few months Kelsey asked her to move out. Julia had gone back to her old apartment and counted herself lucky that her roommate had been willing to take her back.

  “It is your cat,” Sonya pressed, thinking it odd that her friend didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

  “He’s in good hands.”

  “What if she gets rid of him?”

  “She won’t.” Julia was often more confident than she should have been. “I’ll get him when the time is right,” she said, thinking that maybe given enough time, she could persuade Kelsey to give her a second chance.

  It’s not like she’d done anything that horrible. Julia didn’t consider pretending to be someone else in order to get what she wanted horrible. She was an attractive woman, with long black hair, deep blue eyes and a killer body. Wasn’t that enough for Kelsey? Why did Julia also have to be humble and kind? Julia believed kind people were weak people, and if there was one thing Julia didn’t know how to be, it was weak.

  **********

  “Turn you motherfu—”

  “Hi Kelsey.”

  Kelsey blushed at the sound of the small voice and slid out from under the sink to say hello to her tenant’s five year old son, Martin.

  “How much of that did you hear?” She asked, wiping her grimy hands on her jeans.

  Martin grinned. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to get this pipe off so I can see what’s going on with your sink. Can you hand me that wrench, please?” She pointed at a large wrench in the toolbox beside Martin’s feet.

  Martin handed her a hammer.

  Kelsey laughed. “This is a hammer. The wrench is the other thing.”

  Martin dove into the toolbox again and produced the right tool. “How come your husband isn’t doing this?”

  “I don’t have a husband. Besides, women can do things like this too.”

  “You look too weak,” the boy said, shaking his small blond head. “You’re skinny and you’re pretty and pretty girls don’t get dirty.”

  “This one does.”

  “You could pay a man,” Martin suggested.

  “I could,” Kelsey agreed. “But I like to try to do things myself first.”

  Martin shrugged and wandered off to the living room to watch cartoons.

  When the job was finally done, and the water draining freely down the sink again, Kelsey said her goodbyes and headed out. The whole thing had taken fewer than forty-five minutes and the rest of the day was now hers.

  When she got home, Snickers was gone. It di
dn’t worry her. Snickers was an indoor/outdoor cat and loved to roam the neighborhood. She suspected several neighbors fed him during his daily outings, but he always came back in the evening because he liked to sleep in his own bed.

  **********

  Tala looked out the window to see the large brown cat in her yard again. He seemed to stop by every two days or so and she always looked forward to his visits.

  Pulling a plate of leftover chicken adobo from the fridge, she warmed it for thirty seconds in the microwave and went outside to feed her only friend.

  “Here Sneekers.” She had read the tag on his collar the last time he’d stopped by and was glad to know there was an address on it, should she ever have to return him.

  “You like it Sneekers? It’s adobo.”

  Snickers finished his third meal of the afternoon and lazily curled himself in Tala’s lap. She stroked his head and marveled at his beautiful fur. She had never seen such a chocolate brown cat before.

  The auburn-haired jogger came up the street and Tala waved. She didn’t normally engage neighbors but she was feeling friendly with the cat in her lap.

  Kelsey slowed her jog and walked to the picket fence surrounding Tala’s house, startling her a little.

  “So you’re the one who’s been feeding him,” Kelsey said, her green eyes kind as she smiled at the pretty Filipino woman.

  “Sneekers is yours?”

  Kelsey’s grin widened at the adorable way Tala pronounced the cat’s name.

  “He was my roommate’s cat but he still lives with me,” she said, thinking that as good an explanation as any.

  Tala frowned. “Your roommate left but did not take Sneekers?” How could a person be so cruel?

  “Snickers,” Kelsey corrected, still grinning.

  “Sneekers.”