I gaped at her. "Your sister? No way! I met all your sisters already, Karyl. We've been friends for ten years and not once have you mentioned that you have a sister named Lexie." I looked at the photo and at Karyl, trying to find even the smallest resemblance. Nada.
"She's my younger half-sister," Karyl explained quietly.
It took me a second to process that sentence. Karyl was the eldest and had three younger siblings, which meant...
"Oh shit."
Karyl nodded. "That's the only acceptable response, really."
I hugged her quickly. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way. I'm not judging. But how come you never told me about her before?" My feelings, to say the least, were rioting. And how does this change our relationship? I wanted to ask, but I didn't want to be selfish.
Karyl fidgeted on her chair. "Remember I had a family dinner last night?" I nodded and she proceeded with her riveting story. "Well, actually, we just met her last night. Mama knew about Lexie all along, but they only told us after Rico saw Papa with her yesterday morning. They were having breakfast near Rico's school, and he thought Papa was having an affair. It was quite an eventful afternoon when we all got home." She shrugged. "After that, all of us siblings demanded to meet Lexie last night. Dad called her, in front of us, no less, and she agreed to meet us for dinner."
I recalled Lexie's very text that blew Tom's cheating out in the open. Just got home from my family dinner. It was great! I stayed silent as I absorbed that my very own best friend, who was like the sister I never had, was the actual blood-relative of that scheming bitch. My life was starting to feel like one of those never-ending drama telenovelas on Philippine television that my dad secretly loved to watch.
"She was nice," Karyl finished lamely. Then she saw the look on my face and rushed to say, "But what she did was still wrong. She shouldn't have gone out with Tom."
Good Lord. Her baby sister and her best friend's ex-boyfriend. I started to giggle a bit.
"What's so funny?" Karyl asked, her eyes looking a bit hopeful that I'm finding humor in the situation.
I just shook my head. "Well, this is quite a tangle. Your newfound baby sister and your best friend's ex-boyfriend. I understand if you don't want to listen to me anymore rant about..." I trailed off. "Sorry, I said all those nasty things about your, uhm, sister." Almost sorry, I silently amended.
Karyl smiled at me knowingly. "Dad might hit the deck if he finds out your Tom has been fooling around with one of his daughters." She sat back on the couch and just stared off into space.
I laid my head on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't even realize you were having such a huge day yesterday! You've been so patient, listening to me rant and cry all morning. How was the dinner? Was it weird meeting her?" I didn't even notice that she was uncharacteristically silent since I arrived. I thought she was just being sympathetic.
Like a true best friend, she picked up on my hint and started to talk about her Twilight Zone-ish night. "Well, it was really painful at first, finding out that Papa cheated on Mama twenty-four years ago. But she has already forgiven him, since it was just a one-night stand. I was only a year old when it happened so I wasn't aware that they were actually estranged and only got back together when I was three. When they tried to patch things up, Papa confessed everything to Mama, and she took it in stride and said that Papa should still financially support Lexie, since it wasn't Lexie's fault. Mama and Papa decided not to tell us anymore since we weren't affected anyway. Papa worked really hard to be able to provide for all four, I mean five, of us. Then when Lexie graduated from college, her mom died."
I ducked as her hand holding her fork almost jabbed me in the cheek. Karyl was one of those people who got so animated while talking, and their arms just moved around a lot. She must have been quite okay about this if she was regaining her usually spirited mannerisms. "We almost found out about her then. Mama told Papa that Lexie can live with us if she wanted to. But she was already quite independent since she was eighteen. Nowadays she lives by herself and is only partly supported by my dad." She rolled her eyes. "She can live on her own and her condo is even paid for by Papa, but his eldest, and older, daughter, moi, cannot even go out past midnight!" She threw up her hands, the very picture of a frustrated woman. "That's parental logic for you."
Karyl gave me an unsure look before continuing. "She was very friendly last night. She knows all about us." She scratched her head. "She and Mama even kissed on the cheek like old friends, and she calls her tita."
"How did Rico, Katherine, and Emma take the news?" I asked. They were her siblings, aged twenty, eighteen, and sixteen, respectively.
Karyl took a sip of water and brushed her light brown hair out of her eyes, which fell when she leaned toward the table to put the glass back. She leaned back again before answering. "Well, at first they were really cold toward Lexie, but she won them over eventually. She was funny and warm, and by the end of the night, we liked her." Her eyes suddenly widened and she quickly interjected. "Except me, of course! I hated her from the start."
I covered her hand with mine and squeezed reassuringly. "K, don't worry about it. I understand that the situation is a bit hard for you. You liked her, that's not a crime."
After a few more minutes of her constant reassurance that Tom was the one at fault and that he'd surely regret what he did, we parted ways. As I sat inside the cab on my way home, I finally let sink into my mind the one thought bugging me since Karyl's revelation: I couldn't even turn to my best friend for this, the worst event of my life. I couldn't be unfair to her, and I didn't want to put her in the position of choosing between her newfound sister and her long-time best friend.
—OoOoOoO—
The next morning, I woke up to my phone blaring out The Corrs' All the Love in the World. That only meant one thing: Karyl was calling me. The Corrs was one of our favorite bands and she insisted that this should be her ring tone, and hers alone. I looked at the clock and saw that it was only seven in the morning. Too early for phone calls, in my book. I covered my head with my pillow, but Karyl just kept calling for the next five minutes.
"Ugh! Karyl!" I barked when I answered the phone.
"Good morning, bes!" she replied cheerfully.
The woman had a death wish.
"It's too early for phone calls!" I growled. One good thing about our decade-old friendship was that she knew I was cranky in the morning, and I knew I could growl at her and she wouldn't get mad at me for doing so. The same way she knew I wasn't really mad at her for waking me up at such an ungodly hour.
"Well, I couldn't wait. I was up all night thinking, and I finally decided that you should meet Lexie and tell her that Tom was cheating on her, too. I think Lexie will dump Tom's fugly ass."
I was still trying to clutch at sweet sleep's fast fading tendrils so I didn't catch her meaning immediately.
"What did you say?" I yawned.
I heard Karyl chuckle and quietly admonish someone in the background. I would guess, for five hundred points to Gryffindor, that she was already having breakfast with her long-term beau, John. (Being avid fans of the Harry Potter franchise, we kept "awarding points" to our respective houses. According to our sorting when we visited the Harry Potter exhibit in Singapore, I belonged to Gryffindor House and she should be with Slytherin—something that bugged her immensely.)
"I said, you should meet her. I couldn't sleep so I met her last night and we got to talking about relationships. I subtly steered the topic toward infidelity, and she said she hates it because of what our dad did with her mom. Before we could go on further, I asked if we could continue our conversation tonight. She's expecting me," Karyl said, "and you, my best friend, whom I talked about extensively, tonight. After work."
That had me jackknifing from the bed, all thoughts of sleep out of my head. "Are you out of your mind?!" I whispered loudly. I heard my parents getting ready for the day and I didn't want them to catch me awake, eyelids sore from another bout of crying myself to sleep.
"John Demetrio, stop it!" she giggled. I heard soft murmurs and an "I love you" from John. I wanted to throw my phone across the room.
"Karyl!" I almost shouted.
Karyl returned with a squeal. "Sorry! Okay, I have to go but I'll pick you up tonight at seven sharp. Dress nicely, okay? And for god's sake, take a deep breath, a thorough shower, and stop crying on your pillow like I know you did last night," she admonished.
After some threats (from me) and bribery and ignoring (from her), she finally extracted an unbreakable promise from me that I would be ready tonight and talk to Lexie. Without punching her—another unbreakable promise from me. Damn it. I knew I shouldn't have agreed to include "unbreakable promises" in our best friend code of conduct all those years ago.
I checked my phone for any messages or missed phone calls, but not one of them was from Tom. My heart sank, but I physically and mentally shook myself. I needed to be alert and awake for my job and to be ready to meet Miss Anti-Adria.
— OoOoOoO—
Karyl parked across Lexie's building and turned to me. She held me by the shoulders and said, "You can do this."
I took a deep breath and picked on imaginary lint on my short skirt. I was manicured and pedicured, and tastefully spritzed with my favorite perfume, Bvlgari white pour homme. I got a new haircut and my hair had been styled quite nicely. The hair attendant at the posh salon I went to during lunch actually asked me if I had a party that night, but when I mentioned that I was going to meet my ex's mistress, she gave me a knowing look and said, "You go, girl!"
That boosted my morale.
A little.
Ate's statement suddenly transported back to ten years ago, when I first met Karyl. We were both at art camp for summer, and I was just so timid. The other girls my age were off-beat and loud, dressed in colorful clothes, some with paint splatters.
It was my first time to attend summer camp, and my first time to meet other young and aspiring artists, so I was a bit overwhelmed. I was in the classroom, running late because my dad had to get something from his office before he brought me over. When I arrived in time for our first three-hour activity, some of the students were already splashing their paintbrushes on canvas. Some were meticulously putting color on the tiniest details and nooks of their drawings. I was too busy gawking at them to pay attention to where I was going, until I heard a girl shriek. Loudly. And she muttered several colorful curses that I couldn't bring myself to repeat.
I looked down and saw that I had inadvertently stepped on someone's almost perfect painting. The only thing that looked out of place was the huge shoe print smack in the middle. I looked at the artist, apologies ready on the tip of my tongue, and finally got a good look at her. Her curly hair was frizzy like mine, but her outfit looked like it came out of a rainbow explosion, and she had a big grin. Like an oh-my-god-this-is-perfect grin. I had to do a double-take to make sure she wasn't just trying to fool me with her smile and would "accidentally" deck me later if I came too close.
She jumped up, introduced herself as Karyl Buenavista, and chatted a mile a minute about how she was going to be the next Picasso with her wonderful painting with a multi-colored shoeprint. She started squealing again and hugged me tight.
"We are going to be great friends!" she exclaimed.
I was so amazed by her reaction that it took me a while to get my bearings. "Hi, I'm Adria Arevalo." I held out my hand. "I'm so sorry about the painting."
She laughed at me, eliciting hushes from all around us as the eccentric budding painters of our time concentrated on making their masterpieces. She rolled her eyes and settled her painting on her easel. "Don't worry about it. It looks fantastic, really! I'm not going to go all The Hulk on you." She pointed to the empty easel beside her. "Well, you're late! Get going with your painting and let me look at it."
I'd had several private instructors before I attended camp. I used to think my technique was good, but looking around, I'd never felt so lacking in talent. At the end of our first activity, we had to present our work so the instructors could group us according to what they thought our level was, and our areas of improvement.
Karyl was watching me as I painted. I felt like one of those tigers in the zoo, cleaning its face and wondering why so many people were pressed against his glass enclosure. I had two hours and I was so nervous that I'd be put in the beginner's group. I took a deep breath and tried to block out all the noise, and Karyl's stare, and lost myself in my painting, as I usually did.
"Oh my god. You. Are. Good."
I was so startled, my paintbrush slipped out of my hand, splattering blue all over my white sneakers. I actually saw in my mind's eye the period after every word in Karyl's statement.
I stood up and looked at it from different angles. I nodded, feeling satisfied. I just painted my favorite island in the Philippines, Coron, as I remembered it before we went back home from our three-day vacation. I looked toward the horizon, at a boat passing between the mountains that blocked the view of the open bay of Coron. I was satisfied with the mixture of blue, green and white that represented the water. It wasn't as good as the others, but I was proud of it. Somewhat.
"You go, girl!" Karyl gave me a thumbs-up sign and asked me about the colors and techniques I used to make the water look alive. One decade later and we still hadn't run out of things to say. We ended up in the same intermediate level, and became best friends that summer.
Back to the present: Karyl sighed and let go of me, jolting me out of memory lane.
I took out my brand-new compact mirror and checked my makeup for the nth time before turning to her. "You sure you want to do this? What will happen to your budding relationship with her? I mean, she's your half-sister for crying out loud. Wouldn't she think we're ganging up on her?"
Karyl had that devil-may-care look in her eyes again, the one that usually meant things were going to go crazy. Mainly because of her. "Well, before you call her out and accuse her of things, I'd like to talk to her and tell her to hear you out first. You won't hurt her anyway, will you? Like drag her by the hair and start a screamfest with her that will get us thrown out of the building, or worse, in jail, right?"
I was so lost in thought on how I was going to approach Lexie that I didn't respond to her question.
"Right?" Karyl asked loudly with a fist pump to the air.
That jolted me out of my thoughts. "Right!" I said, startled. "Right," I repeated, in a quieter tone. "Well, let's get this over with."