Every Bright Star – A Christmas Story – Part III

Every Bright Star
A Short Story by
Tony Killinger

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.”