A whore named Pearl

He was not sure how long she had been outside his hotel room, but he was sure that she had been lingering there for quite some time before she knocked. She was not sure whether he was awake or not, but she was sure that he anticipated her visit.

He did not know whether she was visiting him with certainty and confidence, but he did know that such words did not describe his offer of his hotel room number. She did not know whether he would stay on the island with her, but she did know that he had the means to take her off of it.

She knew that he knew she was young, beautiful, and warm. He knew that she knew he was as lonely as a fresh drink left open in an empty bar. He did not know that she spent 15 minutes outside room 21, which opened directly to the beach, pantomiming a knock that would be hard enough to stir the sleeping inside, but soft enough to keep it a secret. She did not know that he spent the next fifteen minutes considering her intentions.

The spaces of silence in between knocks were painful, for she thought that he thought from inside the room, that a struggling young lady on this tourist island, from Northern Luzon, was not good enough to keep him company. The spaces of silence were painful, for he thought that she thought, from inside the room, that the sound of her knocking was the sound of a whore. A whore named Pearl. ***

Turning around and circling the still swimming pool at the hotel on the beach – more for show than use in the Puerto Galera hideaway, and even less so in June – she walked slowly toward the beach. Slowly, giving time for him to open the door and rub his eyes and tell her that he was asleep. Slowly, giving time for him to take her to his bed one more time and plan to take her with him to the city, and even further.

Of course the door didn’t open, she knew it wouldn’t. But she hoped to Jesus and the Virgin Mary that this time the banca would pull away with him and her phone number on it. When sailors were shipwrecked years ago, they used to burn tree bark and driftwood to get someone’s attention – someone who would take them off the island. This was the only fire she knew how to burn but no one was coming. And she was running out of time.

Her days were getting shorter and shorter, and she slept later and later. When she first arrived from the province she ended her days working at the Okay Bar, now she began them there. Leaving work early to roam the beachfront of Sabang, first by herself, but eventually with the local cast-offs, too uneasy and too unstable to house in the go-go bars. Now she was sick, and running out of time.

The night before, or rather, the morning before, she left before the sun rose. She was not asked to, but it seemed understood and she didn’t want to do anything to upset him. He had a job, was kind, passably handsome. But he would pause for seconds before saying something. As she walked out the door, he called to her, “I was supposed to be a better person than I am.” ***

Rubbing the cheap pillowcase with his cheek, he let the knock fade away and slip into the cracks of the island’s virtue. This island must have had many cracks. He knew that the night before was a night of weakness, and he knew that alcohol cost more here than in the city. He felt that she felt that he was a target, and she felt that patience, in this case, was a virtue, for last night was a night of implicit understandings, and not a night of direct confrontation.

He asked her questions, and paid for her drinks. He spotted her with tasty clarity at the beginning of the evening, a clarity that faded away and slipped through the cracks of the island as the night drifted, like the banca that brought him here. She asked him questions that he could answer, and he asked her questions he assumed she could not.

As they left the bar, he noticed an old keeper wink her consent to Pearl. He noticed the wink as something he expected, and maybe he noticed it because it was expected. This wouldn’t happen otherwise. He never did come to conclusions…he never did make decisions. ***

She let the wind blow through her dress and she let the water of the pool slide down her toe. She laughed last night, laughed at his foreign will and his honest concern. Her laughter with the man who could take her away came easy, and maybe it came easy because he could take her away. She noticed him with genuine focus at the beginning of the night, and her focus faded away and fell through the cracks in her innocence as the night went on.

She knew that he knew that last night brought more questions than answers, and she thought that he thought that the morning would only ruin the night. She cooked him breakfast and laid next to him and told him stories of her trip across the country. But he never noticed, for she had left, and could neither give him the breakfast nor touch him.

Her need to leave rose as it became harder to stay. Her cousin spent every night as she spent last night, but for money. People come to the island and leave the island, and are never heard from again. She knew that he knew that he was never coming back, and she forgot how to appreciate someone like that. ***

He knew that she coughed as she slept, and he knew that she never asked for a drink. He knew that she was beautiful, and he thought that she knew that he was not. He knew that there was something else that was needed, and he knew that she thought that he could give it to her.

A cigarette, rolled the previous night, dangled in his fingers, but he would not light it, for she would smell the smoke. She would smile and knock again, and he would be with her again. And again, he would wonder what she would expect. And again, she would ask for nothing, but she would make sure that he remained on this small island.

And because those questions were never answered, and because Pearl was so beautiful, he could not answer the door. He would not open the door, and he would not have to decide. Last night was a warm fire, and he could not figure out who set the fire ablaze. ***

She knew that he knew that she was out there, and she hoped that he hoped that she would not leave again. She coughed and looked across the bay. Tonight, she knew, she would not leave the island, but last night, she knew, meant more than it should have.

Her lips felt that his lips were comfort and fire, and his arms were reassuring as an old story that never gets old. And she left the bar with him last night, because those lips and those arms made her forget about the island.

She knew that he knew that she was out there. And she cried.

by bgiaco