Excerpt: My Imaginary Ex

My Imaginary Ex was the first of my books to be published. The idea for it had been in my head for a long time -- through a short story that I had written almost ten years before. That story shows up in the book eventually as this part of Chapter 4.

*** 

“Problem? Did Zack talk to you about our ‘problem’?”

Perhaps I had caught Lena at a bad time. She wasn’t as relaxed as she usually was. She didn’t look like she was in a hurry to go somewhere, but she sure looked annoyed at me.

“No,” I said, quickly trying to save myself. “But he’s been moody lately. He thinks something’s wrong with the two of you, but he didn’t say what. He wants to fix it though.”

Lena petulantly hugged her binder, and I didn’t need to be a psych major to know that she had just put up a wall between us. “Whatever the ‘problem’ is, it’s none of your business, Jasmine. I am done with the two of you, honestly. I should lock you two in a room and you can either fight it out or end up together. Either way, I’m done.”

“Wait! Lena, you don’t mean that. It’s not what you think—”

“It doesn’t matter what you say, Jasmine. It’s how it is.”

“No, please, don’t break up with him over this. Please, think about it—maybe you misunderstood? We don’t have feelings for each other. You might be seeing something completely innocent and giving it the wrong interpretation.”

Lena paused at this, and her tight grip on her binder loosened a little. “Why does he tell you everything?”

“He doesn’t.”

“Well, fine, but why does he tell you everything he tells me? Shouldn’t I come first?”

“You do, Lena. I don’t even know where he is half the time. We don’t even hang out.”

Technically that was true. We spent most of our friendship in transit. On his way to the coffee shop? To the Internet cafe? The library? The Math department? Drive me home from choir practice?

He’d wander over to my usual spots, and if I had nothing to do, I went along.

“I’m not friends with any of my exes. It’s not healthy,” she looked at me accusingly.

We share a secret, and that can really bind people together. I did not say that.

“Lena, it’s not what you think. We’re just friends, really.”

“I don’t treat my friends the way he treats you.”

“Lena, you liked how mature he was when he forgave me and decided we should remain friends,” I reminded her desperately.

That seemed to work. If Lena’s defiance were a balloon, it started to deflate.

“Jasmine,” she said. “Thanks for standing up for him, but this still is none of your business.”

***

She broke up with him right before Christmas, but it looked like she stuck around and gave it a try three weeks after we talked.

I didn’t tell Zack about it, and from the looks of it, neither did Lena. So now that was a secret Lena and I shared. I probably had to write it all down at some point.

The news got to me on the last day of school, before the Christmas break. I was looking for Zack in his usual spot, and only saw Ramon, his block mate. I didn’t know many of Zack’s friends, but the year before, Ramon was my ballroom dancing partner for PE.

“Did he leave already?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Went home. Lena finally broke up with him.”

“Just now?”

“They were talking by that tree for almost an hour.”

I showed up at Zack’s house with a half gallon of Double Dutch ice cream. The sight of me and my gift made him laugh. “I’m not a girl,” he said.

“Trust me, this will make you feel better.”

I stayed over for dinner, but I wasn’t hungry because I already had a few cups of ice cream in me.

Zack, at first, didn’t want to talk about Lena. I played the supportive friend and didn’t ask, so instead he told me about his economics teacher, the electives he was thinking of taking, and the business idea he wanted to use as his thesis the following year. There was also a movie he wanted to watch that weekend, maybe I wanted to see it with him?

Two hours later, I couldn’t wait anymore.

“Zack, about Lena…”

“I thought you wanted me to feel better.”

“Talking will help resolve your issues.”

“If you want to help, come with me to this movie. Robots at war! I’ll feel better after that, I know it.”

“Are you sure your problems weren’t caused by our fake relationship?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” he said, vehemently. Was he trying to protect me? He knew I’d feel bad if I had a role in their breakup, but he didn’t know that Lena had spilled the beans already, and some of those beans had my name on them.

“Well then. I think that next time, you shouldn’t even bring it up. I think Lena’s…impression of you was tainted by a lie. Next time, just be yourself.”

Zack exhaled dramatically. “I didn’t exactly think that one through, did I?”

“No.” I scooped out another cup of ice cream for myself, finally accepting that we both kind of ruined that relationship together. I needed chocolate.

I reached over and squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry about Lena. You should never again tell anyone I was your girlfriend.”

“That’s a good idea.”

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Excerpt: Love Your Frenemies

Taking off was harder than I thought it would be. Not the concept of it, but the execution.
   When I was younger I heard stories of teenagers who would run away. In my high school, I think a girl tried to do it. While it sounded easy in theory, I wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish. How exactly was she going to get money? How many bags of clothes could she bring? Where was she going to stay, and how long could she stay there before someone tipped off her parents and sent her back? And, what bothered me most -- what if her parents didn't want her back?
   On this topic Mom was the surprisingly reliable source of information. She didn't blink when I told her that I managed to get an MNL-LAX-MNL out of what would have been two honeymoon tickets to Seoul. When I complained about not being able to pack light, she peered at my luggage critically. It was large enough to fit a human being.
   "How long will you be away?" she asked.
   I shrugged. "My return trip's in six months."
   "You won't be spending Christmas here?"
   I didn't think of that. "I guess not."
   Christmas wasn't that big of a deal for my mother, I quickly told myself. I could remember a few Christmases in my teens when she wasn't around, either because she was on a cruise with my dad (in happier times) or with friends.
   She didn't make a big deal out of it. Instead, she started picking things out of my bag. It formed a small pile on the corner of my bed. No heavy winter clothes. Just a few pairs of pants, a simple skirt, a nice dress, tops in various earth colors, a sweater, some night shirts and underwear.
   "That's all you need," she said when she was done. "Anything else, you buy when you need it, or borrow. Do you have enough money?"
   "I think I have enough." Despite losing money on the wedding, I had enough saved up to live on, very simply, for a while.
   "It's never going to be enough. Call these people and stay with them if you're going to be around." She wrote names and numbers on a piece of paper -- her trusted cousin in San Francisco, a close friend in Illinois, a former business partner in Florida. "You know what to do when you run out."

   What went unsaid there was "Ask your dad" who was still our silent benefactor for when things went to shit. I never asked him for anything, but I suspected that he bailed us out a few times over the years.
   At LAX they decided to indeed give me six months in the US, and indeed the money was never enough. But at least there was novelty, and being in unfamiliar places, encountering strange and different things every day, was a healthy distraction for the most part.
   On this "sabbatical" I learned something too. I learned why my mom liked to take off. It cleared the mind, so it focused only on what mattered. I discovered what just might keep me sane when I made my way back to Manila, and the first step was to move out of my mother's house.

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Excerpt: Welcome to Envy Park

When I first met her, during registration day on our first year at college, I thought we'd be at each other's throats. We were both only children, academic achievers from our respective high schools, vying for recognition in the same business management program. Sometimes she got the lucky break, and sometimes I did, but when we met to compare notes I was always happy for her.

But I would just never do some things the way Roxie would. We were just wired differently.

"Your parents haven't been here?" she asked. "I thought they'd be over every weekend, knowing your mom."

"They've been here. Just not a lot. They discovered a social life now that they're sort of in retirement. It doesn't involve me."

"Are you okay with that?"

It was an adjustment, but one I welcomed. "Yeah, for now. I guess I got used to the once-a-year face-to-face thing. It's great when I know I'm here for Christmas, because it's all good stuff. But the rest…"

Roxie nodded. "It's a stage. Your parents want to continue treating you like a kid, but you're not a kid. They'll get it eventually. Or your mom will. But you have to be around to make it happen."

"No, it doesn't work that way with them. I have to prove myself somewhere else."

"I'm not like you," Roxie said. "I stay put. I have roots. I work it out where I am."

"Living in another country is going to open your mind to everything, Roxie. I think everyone should try it."

She was sitting on my living room floor, barefoot, scarf off, drinking her passion fruit margarita from a jam jar, my attempt at being shabby chic. "You don't realize what would happen to my career if I just suddenly took off now. I get out, and I won't be able to just pick up where I left off. I can't afford to Eat Pray Love myself out of this funk."

I was lying flat on the sofa just behind her, and I could see that the pitcher on the coffee table needed refilling. But I didn't move an inch. "Well maybe you don't want to go back to the same career."

"I have a huge payment on the condo coming up. Can't think about that."

"When do you get to move into that by the way?"

"Next month, I think, if I'm lucky."

Roxie and I were an interesting study in parallel lives, if anyone bothered to look. I packed up and left Manila, as so many others did, and at the time it seemed like the only smart thing to do, if you wanted to get ahead. My hometown (if you could call a city of 12 million people "hometown") felt too cramped and crazy. Roxie stayed, because it was her nature to thrive in cramped and crazy.

Five years later, and what did we have?

"Well you have this," Roxie said, waving an arm toward my ceiling.

"And you're getting your own place soon."

"And you helped your parents with expenses and stuff."

"You did too."

"We had that New York trip."

Yes, that was excellent, I agreed.

"We don't have cars," Roxie added.

"We don't drive. But we can afford it if we wanted to."

"We don't have kids."

"Yeah, we don't have that."

"I'd settle for a date on Saturday."

"Well, I've cursed you, so no."

"So let me recap. You left. I stayed. Now, we both have some money, helped out our families, went on a cool trip, bought ourselves apartments. But our social lives are still limited to you and me and a margarita pitcher."

"Huh. It kind of sounds like we're even," I said.

Were we? Maybe it was the tequila buzz, but I really did think that I had come out ahead. Surely the lessons in independence that leaving home provided a person counted for something. Counted for more, at least, in terms of emotional growth, and maturity, because those years were the most difficult and humbling of my life so far.
"No we're not even," Roxie said, giggling. "I have a job. You don't."

She had to refill the margarita pitcher all by herself then, I told her.

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