It was there, at a fish market, where she met the boy who became Romeo’s father. She was fifteen then, still short and stocky like her father. Her thighs pressed against each other when she held her feet together, and she preferred to wear skirts so no one could see them. The upper part of her arms was soft. As a girl she had received much teasing. 
     “Isabella, I think the floor is sagging where you sit.” 
     “Isabella, don’t dance; you might start an earthquake.” 
     As a teenager, she learned to ignore what others thought of her looks, and gradually the teasing stopped.
     The boy that became Romeo’s father was from Vigan to the north. “I have cousins in Manila,” he told her. “I am going to work for the rich one as his driver.”
     “Why are you here buying fish?”
     “It’s for my uncle’s market,” he said. “He needs my help.”
     Every day she returned to the same market to sell him her fish. “It’s a fair price,” she said.
     “I think so,” he said, “but I don’t know if it’s my heart or my head speaking. What if you’re taking advantage of me because you know I think you’re pretty?”
     “No,” she said, and she touched him on the forearm. They were embarrassed and looked away from each other.
     One night they met secretly on the beach. They were several kilometers beyond the village, where the land bent back to the east. They watched the lanterns of the fishing boats, which bobbed along with the sea. They spoke of leaving the province to go to the city. The moon climbed and then began to fall beyond the lanterns.
     “I must go now,” said Isabella. “My mother will start to worry.”
     “Let me walk with you down the beach.”
     She felt a nervousness growing in her stomach. Before he could rise to help her from the sand, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him on the mouth. Their teeth banged, and his mustache poked her lip. They let their hands explore each other’s bodies, and both of them began to breathe hard.
     Several more times they met on the beach. He sang to her. They danced to his music, and he twirled her on the sand beneath his arms. Afterwards, they made a bed with their clothes.
     “You are unlike any woman I’ve ever known,” he told her. “I love the way you feel.” He drew his fingers across her stomach and along her legs.
                                                        2

     One night she told him she was pregnant. “Take us to Manila,” she said. “I can’t stand it here anymore.”
     “Yes,” he said. “That would be the thing to do.”
     The next day she went to the fish market, and he wasn’t there. He left her a note saying that his cousin wanted him right away. He would send for Isabella when he was settled. She read the short note a second time, and her face became flushed. She felt the eyes of everyone in the market staring at her, and she looked up. They all pretended to be busy. She folded the note and placed it in the pocket of her skirt. She went about her business selling fish. 
     It was only when she finished, when her buckets were empty and she walked along the road to Caba, that she knew his words were a lie. He would quickly forget the poor fat girl who sold fish in the province. She began to cry. She let the tears flow freely, and they ran down her cheeks and fell across her chest. With each sob her empty buckets swayed, and for a moment it looked as if they might drop off the ends of her pole. When she got close to the village she stopped and set her pole and buckets on the road. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt, then she took a deep breath and continued.
     During her pregnancy, she put on much weight, and she became round as a giant lanca fruit. Even her feet were swollen, and she couldn’t bear to look at herself. She was sick almost every morning. When Romeo was finally born she thought, “How could this small thing make me feel so terrible?”
     At first, it was difficult for her to return to the markets and imagine what the people were saying about her when she wasn’t there. As she lost the weight of her pregnancy, the feeling passed, and she held her chin high when she went about her business. Most fish sellers went to whichever market they came to first, but Isabella liked to watch from across the street to see if some markets needed fish more than others. 
                                                         3

     She learned to sprinkle a mixture of vinegar and brine in the fishes’ eyes to keep them clear and bulging. In that way she could sell the fish whenever she could get the higher price. Shafts of light fell through the cracks in the ceiling of the tiny markets. She brought her fish into the light and pointed to the eyes. “See how clear? Fresh. Two pisos extra.” 
     The extra pisos she kept inside a heart-shaped chocolate box her father had given her for Valentine’s Day as a little girl. She spent the money on trips to Bauong and Baguio City. She bought picture books of San Francisco and Hong Kong.
     She lost all the weight from her pregnancy and then some. She grew tall. Her arms and legs became firm. She walked the dirt road to Santo Tomas or along the beach to the Picar cottages, and the boys tried to catch her attention. “Psst,” they said. “Isabella, psst.” They sat in the shade of the nipa trees and roasted squid at the end of long sticks. They smoked cigarettes. 
     “They are fools,” she thought. “They should be fishing, casting a hand line from the shore or checking the sapiao traps. They will die here as old men, roasting squid and smoking cigarettes.” She kept walking.
     After Romeo turned four, he began to help pull the village fishing net. Everyone who helped shared in the catch, so Isabella bought him his own yellow fish bucket. She taught him how to choose squid and how to look in a fish’s eyes.
     One day they sat on a fallen coconut tree, separating fish, and he asked her, “Mama, what’s a shark for?”
     “I don’t know,” she said. “They’re like fish. They live in the sea.”
     “I know that, but what are they for?”
     “What do you mean?”
     “I want to know what a shark’s for.”
     She looked at him for a moment and couldn’t think of what to say. Finally she made something up. “Sharks are for people like your grandfather and uncle, to remind them how lucky they are to be fishermen and not little fish that might get eaten.”
     Romeo grinned. “And what’s a squid for?” He had stopped sorting fish and was now turning circles in the sand. He hummed a made-up tune.
     Isabella grabbed him by the arm. “Please Romeo, stop singing like that. Let’s finish sorting so I can go back to the market.”
                                                     4  

     Some days there were more fish than she could reasonably expect to sell. On those days, she took the extra fish to the people in Caba, and she traded them for rice or vegetables or a promise to pay cash by the end of the month. Her first stop was always the Picar cottages where her mother worked as a cook. Her mother said they were related to the Picars, who lived in Manila now and rented the cottages to tourists and businessmen. Sometimes the Picars came back to visit.
     One afternoon Isabella went to the cottages and was met by Lourdes Picar. She smelled as if she came from the city, as fresh as drinking water sprinkled with kalamansit. Her hair was black and shiny, and her legs as thin as bamboo poles. She ate her food with a fork and spoon, not with her hands the way they did in the village.
     Isabella had known of her since they were both little girls, and she was not at all surprised when Lourdes Picar asked her to accompany her to the fish markets in Santo Tomas. “I want to get two lapu-lapu for dinner tonight. I need you to negotiate for me.” She called for her driver, and they rode in a car the three kilometers to Santo Tomas. The air inside was cool. The car had air conditioning and white covers on the headrests and rear seats. With the windows closed, Isabella’s odor of salt water and fish began to fill the car. Lourdes Picar seemed not to notice.
     “Not this market, the one at the end,” Isabella told the driver. “This one here, I sold them lapu-lapu this morning, and they paid too much. Now they’ll want their money back from you,” she explained, and Lourdes Picar nodded.
They went to Rita’s Fish Market, where Isabella knew that Rita would be gone for the day. She was training her son to take over the market, and she left him in charge during the afternoon. Lourdes Picar picked out two lapu-lapu that were firm and had clear eyes. 
     “Very nice fish,” said Isabella. She offered a price, much less than she suspected Rita had paid for the fish that morning.
     “I lose money at that price,” said Rita’s son. “You know that, Isabella.” He offered something higher.
     She held out three hundred pisos. “I’ll give you this much for the fish.”
     Rita’s son scratched his head with one finger, then took out a calculator from his pants pocket. He banged it on the table to get it working, then he pushed a few buttons. “Still no profit,” he said.
     “And what will your profit be tomorrow when the fish are still here and no one will buy them because their eyes are cloudy?”
     Rita’s son looked about the small market, perhaps hoping to see some new customers, or his mother standing in the doorway. There was only the sound of water, running into the tank where they kept the abalone. He took the three hundred pisos.
                                                        5

     When they got back to the cottages, Lourdes Picar said, “You did very well. Come to Manila sometime. You can do all my negotiating for me there.” She gave Isabella ten pisos, then went inside the cottage.
     Isabella walked home along the beach. The fishermen and their sons prepared their boats for the evening fishing. Wives and daughters built the cooking fires. Isabella stopped, turned her back to the sea and looked at the village. She had almost been nauseous in that car, the smells of her village life mixing with the air conditioning, trapped inside the car. Now she smelled it again, warmer perhaps, but the same. The smoke, the dog, the fish-the air was thick with decay. I am only nineteen, thought Isabella, but no one will want to marry me because of my child. If I leave Caba, maybe I can make something for my own self, and for Romeo, too.
     By the end of the fishing season she had enough money for a round trip bus fare to Manila, plus one hundred fifty pisos for merienda with Lourdes Picar. Early on a Saturday morning she put on a white blouse and a scarf she had received as a gift on her confirmation. Her only jewelry was a small silver cross, which she hung from a chain around her neck. She put on a pair of blue jeans and a pair of purple sandals that her mother had found in the trash at the Picar cottages. The sandals were large and the leather soft and flexible, but it felt odd to have something on her feet. She flexed her toes and scratched the back of her heel.
     From her cigar box she took a small bottle of hand lotion, a present for herself she bought during a trip to Bauong. Usually she saved the lotion for Easter and Christmas, but on that Saturday she took some and rubbed it briskly into her hands. It smelled of strawberries, and it reminded Isabella of Mass.
                                                       6

     “Mama,” said Romeo, “are you going to church?”
     “No,” she said. “I am going to Manila.” She explained that she would be back later that afternoon with a big surprise for him. “Maybe I will go to Manila again and take you with me.”
     “Do they have basketball in Manila?” he asked. “Mr. Magdaong has a basketball court at his house.” It was an old coffee can with the bottom cut out, nailed to a board on a coconut tree. The children of the village gathered there in the afternoon to throw balls of tape or wadded up paper into it from spots in the dirt.
     “Of course they have basketball in Manila,” she said. It was morning and Romeo was still naked. He scratched his round belly and considered what Isabella had said.
     “Okay,” he told her. “I’ll go. But I want to come back to Caba to help pull on the fishing net.”
     She told him to obey his grandparents while she was away, and then she set out on foot for the bus station in Santo Tomas. The bus took six hours to get to Manila, arriving at Olangapo Station just after noon. The platform was dusty and smelled of urine. The streets were lined with old shacks made of wood, with strands of beads hanging where the doors should be. Isabella searched out a phone to call Lourdes Picar. 
     Isabella would sound casual. She would suggest they meet for merienda that afternoon, whenever was most convenient. They would eat with a fork and spoon, of course, but she would have no trouble. How difficult could it be? After a time Isabella would say, “I would like to leave Caba and make a future for myself. Perhaps I could cook for you and do the marketing.”
     She straightened her hair, dialed the number carefully and spoke to a maid. “Who may I say is calling?” asked the maid.
     “Isabella, her cousin from Caba.” She heard the maid put down the phone. In the background was music-a radio perhaps-playing American rock and roll.
     “I’m sorry, but Miss Picar has no cousins in Caba.”
     “No, wait...,” said Isabella, but it was too late, and the maid hung up the phone.
                                                        7

     Isabella looked out from the bus platform. Children sat along the street or in the doorways of the shacks. Others leaned against signposts, looking down the alleys or kicking at the ground. A car stopped in the middle of the street, and the children surrounded it, begging.
     Isabella dialed the number again. “Tell Miss Picar that I am Isabella from Caba. I took her to the fish markets in Santo Tomas.”
     This time Lourdes Picar came to the phone. “I remember you,” she said. “Your mother is the cook in Caba.”
     “Yes, that’s me,” said Isabella, and she took a breath. “Miss Picar, I am in Manila this afternoon and thought to call and greet you.”
     “How nice.”
     “And I was thinking that perhaps we could meet for merienda. Whenever is most convenient for you, of course.” She moved the phone to her other ear.
     “I’m sorry,” said Lourdes Picar. “I’m leaving for the States this evening, and I’m very busy packing.”
     “The States?”
     “Yes. I’m going to Boston to be with my fiancé for a year while he goes to school.”
     “I didn’t realize you were engaged, Miss Picar. Congratulations.”
     “Thank you. We’re very happy together.” Isabella was silent. “Perhaps next time I come to Caba we could get an ice cream.”
     “Yes. That’s very kind of you, Miss Picar.”
     “I wish you had called from Caba. Maybe I could have saved you the trip.”
     There were no phones in the village. Wasn’t that obvious to her? “Oh no, Miss Picar, I had to come to Manila anyway.”
     “What brings you to Manila?”
     Isabella paused for a moment. “Shopping,” she said, “and...and to go to the movies.”
     “Enjoy your day then.”
     “Miss Picar?”
     “Yes.”
     For a moment Isabella thought to offer herself to Lourdes Picar as a cook or a maid. She had to think of her future. Instead, she said, “My mother asked that I greet you for her.”
     “How kind.”
     “Good-bye, Miss Picar.”
                                                           8

     She left the bus station and walked through Olangapo, not knowing where to go. She came to a park and caught a jeepney to Ermita. People crowded into the jeepney: men with bare feet, women like Isabella, dressed up, fanning themselves with a newspaper to keep cool. In Ermita she found a movie theater and went inside.
     There were no seats available, and she stood in the back against the wall. The purple sandals bit into the sides of her feet. Her shoulders sagged, and the flesh of her hips strained against her jeans. She had made a terrible mistake. She promised herself she would ask Lourdes Picar for a job. But when the time came, she said nothing. What did she have to show for this foolish trip? Her ankles grew weak, and she slumped against the wall of the theater.
     When she returned to Olangapo, it was dark. The prostitutes were out, standing in the doorways and along the street, chatting to each other and smoking cigarettes. The children sat outside, ate bowls of rice and said nothing. Cars drove by; Filipino and American men disappeared into the shacks behind the wall of beads. A U.S. soldier came up to Isabella and offered to fuck her for thirty pisos. She fled inside the bus station.
     She had some time and a little money, so she looked through the stores for something to buy. She flipped through an American magazine and imagined what it would be like to live in Los Angeles. Then she remembered to bring something back for Romeo, so she put the magazine down and went to the candy section. She picked up some chocolates, and stood for a moment, reading the box to see how many pieces it held.
                                                        9

     “Chocolate makes a very poor dinner,” said a voice beside her. 
     She turned to find a man, a boy almost, with a thin mustache. He wore several gold chains around his neck, and his hair was shaped like a box, as if he’d been wearing a hat for a long time.
     “It’s not for me. It’s for my son,” she said.
     “Perhaps the polvoron would be a better choice,” he said. The polvoron was made of dehydrated milk and sugar, pressed into molds and wrapped in wax paper. It was a special treat shared by families. 
     “Please,” he said, “my gift to you.” He took the box of chocolates and returned them to the shelf, then placed a package of polvoron in her hands.
     “Thank you,” she said. “I think you are right.”
     “You’ve come to Manila to escape your village barrio,” he told her. “You want to make a better life for you and your son. Am I right?”
     His words held her, not just what he said, but the cadence to his voice. It swayed and rolled over her, seduced her like a song. “You look tired. Your body sags. Please, let me buy you a meal.”
     “No...I don’t think so...my bus.” Instinctively she felt in her pocket for the ticket.
     “It is easy to return to a barrio,” he told her, “but not so easy to come to Manila. Once you are here, you should make the most of your chances.” He took her hand and wrapped her fingers between his own. It had been many years since a man had touched her that way, and she felt a moment of pleasure. “I can feel your heart begin to quiver. It’s nice to be touched, yes?” He led her to a cashier and let go of her hand. From his pocket he produced a thick wad of hundred peso notes, and he paid for the polvoron.
     “I have money,” she told him.
     “No,” he said. “Let me take care of you.” He took her hand again, and they walked to the bus platform. They went to the far end of the platform where it was quiet and dark. Large, silent buses cast thick shadows in front of them. “A pretty girl like you should be with someone and not be so alone all the time. It must take strength to keep all the men away,” he said. He took her back behind the empty buses.
     “I think I would like to wait with the others,” she said.
     “But from here we can watch the lights of the buses dance along the wall.”
                                                            10

     She turned to look and found his face before her. He smelled very clean. There was even a light sweetness to his breath. She would not let go of his hand. She parted her lips for him, and he ran his tongue very lightly around her mouth. A feeling surged through her entire body, and she sagged into his arms.      Her pocketbook and the package of polvoron dropped to the ground.
     “Please,” she said. “Please.”
     “I can take care of you,” he said. He began to kiss her neck. He flicked at her silver cross with his tongue.
     “Please don’t. No,” she said. “You must stop.” She tried to push him away, but he was too heavy for her.
     “Your body is very soft and full,” he said. “I know many men who would find you desirable. They would bring you much pleasure and pay you as well.”
     “Please,” she said. She meant to stop him, but her words only encouraged him more. He wrapped his arms tightly around her. She looked around the platform, but there was no one to help her. She tried to scream out, but the best she could manage was a whisper. “Please,” she croaked.
     He looked up from her breast. “Please what?” he said.
     She caught her breath and thought quickly. “Please,” she said. “Let me kiss you. Down there.”
     He looked at her and slowly released his grip. She knelt before him. Her knee touched on the package of polvoron, and she grabbed on to it to give her strength. He loosened his pants and worked them down. When the pants circled his knees she had her chance, and she ran. He lunged after her, but his knees caught, and he toppled to the ground. She heard him fall and ran as fast as she could.
     She made it to her bus. Her pocketbook was still on the ground at the other end of the platform, but somehow she was carrying the polvoron. She defiantly hugged it to her chest, as if daring someone to take it away. It was all she had.
     When the bus got to Caba, the wind was blowing, and the rain came down in sheets. She stood on the platform and watched the bus pull away while the other passengers disappeared in cars or jeepneys. Without any money, she had no choice but to walk, and she took the back way through the rice paddies. She was glad it was raining and glad she was forced to walk home. She had been so stupid. She deserved to be rained on. She stuffed the polvoron into her blouse, which was soon soaked through. The purple sandals became caught in the mud, and she abandoned them. 
                                                        11

     Barefoot and drenched, eye shadow running down her cheeks, at last she arrived home. Her mother brought her a towel, her brother a dry set of clothes. Romeo grabbed onto her legs. Her father hugged her, crushing the soggy polvoron against her belly. The rain rattled their tiny house. It wasn’t until Isabella pushed the water from her eyes and smelled her hands-no longer strawberry, but clean now and smelling of fish-that she began to cry. She was alone in the corner of the dirt-floored house.
     “Mama,” said Romeo. “Are you okay?”
     “I’m fine,” she said, and she wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “I have the surprise I promised you.” She produced the package of polvoron from her blouse, but the rain had seeped through the wax paper and soaked the candy. It lay in her hands like a lump of mud.
     “What is it?”
     “It’s polvoron,” she said.
     “It is?” He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. “It’s ruined.”
     “No,” she said. “It’s just different.” The package bore no resemblance to the one she first had at the bus station. Now it was hers, to do with it whatever she could. She took it from her son, scraped the candy into a rice bowl, and added water and a little sugar. She cut up bits of mango and stirred until the candy was thick and creamy as a milk shake. She had no idea how it would taste. “It’s my favorite way to eat polvoron,” she told him. “When I was a little girl, your grandma used to make this for me all the time.”
     “How come grandma never made it for me?”
     She stumbled for a moment, afraid that he had caught her in a lie. “Because some things are just for a mother and son,” she said. “Try it.” She offered him the bowl, and she was nervous, hoping he would take it from her hands.

For Auntie Vivi