Summary: Talia spent the entire night with her Mom but the wonderful time of being together triggered some unwanted memories and thoughts. Talia unleashed all the negative emotions inside her at the treehouse, with Jay as a witness.
"You can't miss it. You can't."
Jay was standing by the entryway wearing a black shirt and a black hoodie while speaking in a very animated manner. He sent me a text message asking me to meet him at the front door. Before I could say hello, he started to prattle on about what else? Art.
"Jay, stop. You're babbling like a madman. Start over." I asked him to come inside but he said no. We walked outside by the gate. There was an umbrella tree outside our house. It was not big but Mom wanted to move it elsewhere because whenever she pulled out of the driveway, she feared that she would bump into the tree.
I listened as Jay invited me to come to him to a friend's art exhibition that was also a photography shoot. It was a form of auto-destructive art, which was no surprise. Jay had rarely gotten ecstatic over art that was common (he could not resist a beautiful mosaic though) which I told him was ironic because all these "anti-art" art would become "regular art" in the future. Jay's friend was putting on a show called Imprimatura Exitium wherein he made a gigantic piñata head which was filled inside with paint, not candy. A wide canvas would be placed under the vessel to catch the mess which was the art part.
"Where do you even get the energy to join another art event? We came home from Baler less than two weeks ago. I still have creative euphoria residue."
Jay gazed at me, his eyes were fiery. "I am never tired for art." He lightly pulled on my fringe and said, "See, art made you happy. This will make you happier. I will let you take a whack at the piñata, if that's what you want. You can give it a proper knockdown."
"What, no guitar will be smashed? That's a shame." I was teasing Jay because Pete Townshend of The Who liked to do that.
"You can't make fun of that. That's art. Besides, those moments are jaw-dropping and historic." He frowned at me slightly.
I raised my eyebrows at him, trying to challenge him.
He did not take the bait. "Anyway, my friend hired this young photography whiz and he would take amazing perfectly timed images just as the piñata would disintegrate into pieces and specks of paint would fly off in every direction. You know what would make it cooler? It would be so great if the photographer will convert the pictures into a set of stereographic projections."
"What's a stereographic projection?" I removed the beret that I wore on my head. I dressed hectically that day because I was running late. We were not required to wear our uniform so I wore my trusty, black combat boots, black socks, a short sleeveless dress, a small vest and my hat. Avis liked my layered, thrown-in outfit.
Jay's hand grazed the top of his head. A few months ago, he got a semi-mohawk. The sides of his head were partially shaven but the middle section was not. I thought it suited him well. "You have seen them. They are also called Tiny Planets, I think."
I nodded.
He added that next week, the photographs would be in a gallery. He further said that he was one of the "piñata killers." His term, not mine.
"Next time, okay? I'm sure you or one of your friends will find a way to create another auto-destructive art. I promise I will be there for that."
"But," he whined. "You will miss a great art show. Come on, Talia. Plus, there will be a party after. Are you not even the least bit curious who the head is?"
I shook my head with a smile. Knowing these mutinous art geeks like Jay, the head was probably either someone they adored or someone they abhorred. Since there would be a lot of destruction and demolition involved, I figured it would be the latter. After another round of fruitless persuasion, Jay left reluctantly. He feigned sadness for a while but I was resolute in my decision.
Celia called me to her room then. She was going out on a group date that included Sam after her classes.She said she would be home late. Mia was invited to a sleepover birthday party so it would just be Mom and me for the night.
Mom came home early. She asked me if I wanted to accompany her on poring over for items for the wedding registry. We went into a shop. We looked through all of the things in the store. I could tell that Mom was uneasy. She picked out a few goblets and some silverware. She let me picked the china plates. I chose the one that was the simplest, white with a scalloped edge. We avoided the ones that fell under the categories froufrou and high-end. We wandered to another wing and chose some throw pillows and candle holders. Mom admitted that she did not want a registry. People should give what they wanted to give but some of her friends had no idea what my mom liked. Mom loved mismatched pieces and things that people would consider as yard-sale vintage stuff.
"Do you think this is plenty?"
I squinted at the list in her hand. It was too few but Mom did not need two cake knives. We already have those. Thinking about cake knives made me think of what Mom said a week ago. Everything would change once she married Tim. They were thinking of looking for a new, bigger place to move into next year. Our house was still ours though because my grandparents gave it to us.
I kept quiet as Mom and I had dinner at a newly opened Japanese restaurant.
When we arrived home, Mom told me that she had to bake cookies as a gift for a friend who was in the hospital. When I lingered around the kitchen, she flashed me a smile and asked me to help her.
"Do you remember the first time that you baked?" She carefully arranged the ingredients on the counter.
I nodded. I was six years old and Mom taught me how to bake chocolate chip cookies. I remembered that it was almost Halloween then and I was dressed as an astronaut with a foil headpiece as a space helmet and a pillowcase as an improvised space suit. Back then, Mom baked to feed us, not to earn money. "I messed up the recipe," I said as I separated the egg white from the yolks. I looked at my mom with admiration. She came a long, long way from being a naïve young wife to a savvy entrepreneur and a multi-tasking mother. I was so proud of her.
"You put too much baking powder in the dough," my mom said, smiling at the memory.
"The cookies looked like muffins."
She gave me a big smile. "You learned from that experience though. Now, you can bake chocolate chip cookies with your eyes closed." She checked the temperature of the oven. "The funny thing was, your dad ate all the cookies that you made. Do you remember that? He ate everything."
"I do," I said.
Dad was a great person. He was a good father. But in the end, Mom chose Tim. When she started to date Tim, Mom said that she did not expect to like him but somehow, the pieces fell into place. Her description reminded me of my Lego sets. Every time a block would fit without drudgery, it felt mystical.
Before I left for Baler, I overheard Mom tell Mia that she loved Tim. She did not say that she chose him but she did. She chose to be with Tim, to marry him and to grow old with him. She chose Tim over Dad. People would always say (often in a preachy way) that it was the spoken words that hurt us the most but they could not be more wrong. It was the unsaid words that could put a painful knot in your stomach. It was the unsaid words that would haunt us the most.
A strong surge of bitterness mixed with contempt ran through me. It settled in my mouth and I could taste it. I let go of the whisk that I held in my hand. Tagging along at that wedding registry thing was not the best idea ever. Baking cookies and recollecting memories with Mom was even worse. I excused myself, telling my mom that I felt dizzy.
"Are you okay, Talia?" Her face was etched with concern.
I uttered a weak yes. I assured her that I was only light-headed and it was probably PMS or something. I ran out of the room and went straight to the shower. In there, in the jets of water, I came undone. There were no tears but I collapsed on the cold tiled floor. I let the rivulets of water fell over me, silently asking the stream of liquid to take everything with them to the drain. I stayed there until my hands pruned and I became one with the damp.
I was high-strung from my reminiscing with my mom, like a wind-up toy that needed a release. As I dried my hair with a towel, I contemplated on going for a run but the thought of being sweaty in the dark repelled me. I sighed as I processed the thoughts in my head. I was not infuriated at Mom for falling in love again. That was her choice. That was her right. I was not outraged at Dad for letting that happen. That was his choice as well. I realized that I was mostly livid at my own helplessness.
My phone blinked in the dark. I picked it up and saw a text message from Jay. The text consisted of only thre words. "Tree house. Now."
I was in a big shirt that I used to sleep in with no bra but I did not care. It was late. It was Jay. He would not notice the difference.
When I entered the tree house, he was on the floor. He was sitting idly with his phone in his hand, his shirt had small streaks of paint on it. I sat next to him and said hello. I saw that he was listening to an Oasis song. Without saying a word, he put a small piñata on my lap. It was round in shape wrapped with cut decorative paper. It was a bit bigger than a Christmas tree ornament. Jay said that it was a memorabilia from the art event.
"Can I break it?"
Jay looked at me. His gaze assessed me. I knew that he knew that I was not okay. I expected him to pry further. To ask for answers to the questions that he had. To ask for an explanation that I could not give because I did not know myself how I felt. I predicted that he would hug me. I expected him, wanted even, to let me cry on his shoulders because I was bottling a lot of hideous things inside me. Mostly I was scared and lonely. I anticipated him to tell me that everything was asinine at the moment but soon, all of the nonsense would mean something more than the pent-up sadness in my heart and in my gut. Jay did not do any of those things. Instead, he rummaged around and pushed a small hammer in my open palm. Then he closed my fingers over it. Wherever he procured the tool, I did not care.
Instantly, I was on my knees and I hammered at the piñata with all that I had. Paint splattered everywhere with a squelching sound. I hit the thing too hard. Some of the globs of paint landed on the Darth Vader memes. Dots of bright red paint covered a few of my geometric drawings. The shoebox was doused. The floor became a mess. My wrists and knees looked like they came straight from carnage. Jay's jeans were not spared. But I did not stop. I slammed the hammer again and again.
Jay let me. He sat next to me as I crushed, shattered and obliterated what was left of the piñata. When my hands went slack, he took the hammer away from my hand. I felt him took me in his arms. I was pulverized like the thing that I reduced to a pulp. The likeness of it to what I was feeling inside made me weak. Hot tears fell down from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.
"I'm sorry," I said with a hiccup. "I'm sorry I broke the piñata."
His fingers ran through my hair. I cried harder. He said, "Don't. It's fine. That's what piñatas are for."
I stared at the havoc that I made. I felt lighter but not really. I funneled something ugly in a place that had been nothing but a sanctuary for me. My anguish was replaced with rue. Jay was probably seething at me. I did not wait to see if he was.
I stood up and ran away from my best friend and from the tree house as fast as I could.
The next day, school was the same. As we sat in the cafeteria, Avis asked for advice how to tell her grandparents that she liked girls, not boys.
Valerie said, "Tell them quickly but gently." She looked at Avis with encouragement.
I patted Avis' hand. Telling her parents had been a breeze, mostly because they were too busy with their own lives to listen to her. Avis did not mind. She merely told her parents out of courtesy. Her grandparents were a different story. She did not want to upset them, but she wanted to be truthful to them too.
"Valerie's right," I said. "They love you. They will accept you."
Valerie gave me a timid smile. I have not seen TJ since I called him a terrible player and a person. They were still together. Somehow, the spell that TJ cast on Valerie was not yet broken. Valerie still did not see TJ the way that Avis and I did but we hoped that someday, she would. She deserved to be with a better person.
In our Art Appreciation class, one of my classmates said that some architectural masterpieces, sculptures and art in general were timeless because they each had a story to tell. "Inspiration is a huge part of what can make an art timeless. That and many other things as well, like technique, design and creativity. Also, the art's significance to the world." He then discussed a few structures that were built out of love. He cited the Boldt Castle and Taj Mahal as examples.
The discussion went into other art forms with love as its theme. Our teacher listened with interest. He was sitting on a nearby chair. Our teacher had a laid-back teaching method. He often let us discussed art on our own ways, with him in the sideline.
"I like Banksy's Gay Bobbies," Avis said. "Not only because I too am a proud queer but that stencil was a reminder that art was not only a powerful instrument to voice out our thoughts and the truth that we want the world to know but it proved that art has always been and always will be immune to discrimination."
Valerie smiled. "I like Hearts of San Francisco, and the LOVE sculpture by pop artist Robert Indiana. They were not inscrutable like most sculptures but the lack of ambiguity was a welcome change. It's like they're saying: 'Hey, this is about love and that's it.' That's all you need to know. It's not brain surgery or string theory or aerospace engineering. It is as you see it."
Our teacher gave me an encouraging smile. "What about you, Talia? What can you say about the subject at hand?"
I fled from Jay last night. After cleaning myself up, I buried myself under my blanket and cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, there was a dull ache in my wrists. I went to the tree house before I went to school. There was no vestige of the chaos from the night before. The floor was cleaned. The only remnants left were the ones that Jay could not remove or hide. I noticed that I slopped paint all over Jay's artworks and in some of my postcards.
I stared at the window with the light filtering in, showering the room with golden rays. My doodle pad had Marc Chagall's words on it. He said: "Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing."
I faced our teacher and said, "Art is a manifestation of love and love itself is an art," I said. "I like Michael Cacnio's sculptures, especially the ones from the Mother and Child collection. It speaks of unconditional motherly love, perfectly captured and molded in brass." I smiled shyly when our teacher gave me an encouraging smile.
The class ended soon after.
When I got home, Celia and Mia were waiting for me. Mia was playing with some of the stones from Mom's small garden.
"Put your things inside," Celia ordered. "We're going out." She was dressed casually in denim shorts and a striped tank top. Mia was in a cotton dress and Crocs.
"Please tell me we are not going to have our nails done again. It takes too long."
"Better," Celia said with a smile that was so wide that it was almost evil. "Tell her, Mia."
"We're going to get a yummy someday." Mia jumped in the air in glee. "But before that, we're going to work."
I frowned a little, not understanding what my little sister said.
Celia said, "What she meant was we're going to get yummy sundaes but before that we're going to a pottery for beginners workshop first. You've always wanted to try getting your hands dirty in earthenware, right? Mia can paint ceramic figurines."
I smiled and said, "I can't say no to some yummy someday."
Image Source: Daily Mail
"Gay Bobbies" by Banksy