Thankfully, Marlon is saved from my wrath by my older cousin, Kuya Peter, who I didn’t notice had been patiently waiting on the side for his turn. Unlike myself, Kuya Peteris actually pursuing a profession in singing. He’s accumulated about two thousand followers on TikTok from his singing covers alone.
He begins to sing Ikaw by Yeng Constantino, a Tagalog classic. As Kuya Peter begins the ballad, and my relatives sway to and fro to his voice, I take the opportunity to grab more dessert from the table. That’s when Tita Bea sidles up beside me, grinning from ear to ear.
“You and Marlon were so cute up there,” she whispers. I quash the urge to scream in protest, and just attempt to match her smile.
“When are you two finally going to get together,” she questions, a whine in her voice and my eye twitches.
I have no response that will pass as appropriate, onlyverystrongly opinionated phrases about Marlon that’ll have them sending me to the Pope for a personal exorcism.
“The real question is,whenwill the wedding be?” I ask, diverting the attention from me.
Tita Bea opens her mouth to answer, but is distracted when she hears her name being called from the living room. She glances back at me apologetically.
“Sorry, singing duty calls.”
I sigh, relieved that I didn’t have to chat about Marlon any longer as she scurries away to the living room. I just wonder how many more times this’ll happen in my life before they all get the point.
Everyone begins to trickle away around 8pm after they’d all taken portions of the leftover food in their takeaway boxes, except for my family.
We all say our goodbyes as our relatives leave, and by the time the Salvadors get up to go, I excuse myself to the bathroomto avoid having to awkwardly half-hug Marlon to appear friendly.
When everyone is gone, and it’s just my family and Tita Lucillia’s family, we help tidy up. Mum and Tita Lucillia chat about how their little sister wasfinallygetting married, and we gush over what her wedding will be like. I know that Tita Bea isn’t a grandiose type of person - she appreciated the simple things. She’d want to have her wedding in a nice little church, and it would be a small ceremony too. Nothing too fancy, too overwhelming.
Once the house is tidy and we grab our leftovers, we say goodbye and pile into the car.
“I still can’t believe Tita Bea is getting married,” I mention, leaning forward and propping my head between the passenger and driver’s seat.
“How does it feel to have a little brother now, Mum?” Ria teases.
Mum laughs.
“He’s only a few months younger than me,” she reminds us, “So it doesn't feel that much like a little brother.”
"That's going to be your Tito, girls,” Dad adds, as he reverses onto the street.
That’s true. It won’t just be Tita Bea anymore. It would be Tita Bea and Jonathan.TitoJonathan.
I wonder what it’s like, being a pair. To have an‘and’with someone.
“Did you girls have a good time tonight?” Mum asks, and Ria and I hum in agreement. Despite having to seehim, and all the endless teasing, I always have a good time when it comes to my family.
“You definitely seemed like you had a good time tonight, Lene, especially with that karaoke duet with Marlon.”
I doubt she’d agree if she knew that he thinks my singing is bad.
"Yeah, it was whatever” I respond, nonchalantly.
“Did he tell you about how he may be able to start working for his Uncle’s company for business experience?” Dad adds, reminding me that Marlon doesn’t only have my Mum enamoured by him, but my Dad too.
“Oh, that’s cool,” I simply respond, hoping they will one day get the hint that I don’t care about Marlon.
“Isn’t it! His Mom told me all about it the other day -”
As Mom continues on her little gushy Marlon ramble, I naturally tune out her voice, as I always do when this happens.
It was alwaysMarlon this, Marlon that, always being fed a random detail of Marlon’s life, a piece of lore that I tuck away in my littleI Don’t Caredrawer, which is bound to be overflowing now.
I wonder if Tita Regina ever gushed about me andmyachievements to Marlon. What would his Mom have to say about me? My academic strength didn’t particularly lie in the sciences or anything like that - my interest and talents mainly lay in the arts, especially writing. Maybe Marlon had to hear all about the writing awards I won during high school.
