22. Georgia

TWENTY-TWO

Georgia

The last three hours have passed in a blur, especially as my adrenaline wears off and I start to crash. I am comforted, inexplicably, by Oliver’s mother, of all people.

I’d stood behind him, after watching his regal face and powerful body projecting a calm fury, parting the crowd like butter, after putting himself between me and Mr. Jones’s hulking body and separating me from danger, protecting me. I’d smelled the detergent on his clothes, the rough skin on his fingertips as I’d reached out.

I’d felt two small, warm, soft yet strong hands tugging on my arm, then, pulling me back and even further away, found my face being held between those hands. I’d looked down at the brown face of a miniature, plump Asian woman with familiar facial features.

“Shh, darling, I’m Oliver’s mother. Are you all right?,” she’d said to me, soothing, eyes searching my face frantically for signs of distress. “Oh no. Come here, come here,” she said, enveloping me in a warm embrace, as I scrunched my body down to be fully enveloped by her tiny body. I may have dissolved into tears, then, as I mashed my face onto her soft shoulder and she caressed my hair. “Shhh. That was terrifying. You did the right thing. You’re so brave, anak, ” she murmured into my ear.

I spend the next few hours keeping myself busy, stopping into the precinct to give my statement, coming back and setting up the projector to play the movie for the remaining families, helping vendors clean and pack up their booths.

Avoiding Oliver. But not his mother, nor his sister, Izzy, who is a gorgeous, sassy, tiny version of her older brother, and who I like immediately. They’ve both attached themselves to my hip, helping me pick up trash, taking down decorations, organizing bins, and bringing things back into the school building, peppering me with a trillion questions, with no concept of boundaries. Comfortable, and acting as if they’ve known me my entire life.

“You’re not a vegetarian, are you, Georgia?” Oliver’s mom, who I’ve learned is named Gloria, asks me.

I wrinkle my nose. “Hell, no.”

Gloria and Izzy exchange a look. Gloria whips out her phone and, squinting at her screen, types out a text. She eyes me after throwing her phone back into in an abnormally shiny Louis Vuitton tote. “You come to the house after this, okay?”

“Wait. Wh-What?” I stutter.

She waves her hand towards my body. “You need to eat. Look at you. You are so skinny, and you are traumatized. You need some lechon in your life. Lechon makes everything better.”

Confused, I look at Izzy, who shrugs. “She cooked already. We’re just eating dinner. Come over. No big deal.”

“I-I’m not sure that’s okay. Have you asked Oliver? I’m one of Oliver’s teachers, I don’t think?—”

“Well, I’m Oliver’s boss,” Gloria tells me, matter-of-factly. “Which makes me yours. And this is an explicit directive,” she says to me, her face looking identical to Oliver’s in that moment. “You come to the house, and you eat. ”

We wrap everything up in the next fifteen minutes, ushering everyone out of the yard. Oliver finally makes his way over to us, the first time I am seeing him in hours. “Hey,” he says to me, in a tone somewhere between pissed and worried that immediately calms my soul.

“Hi.”

“You doing okay?” he asks, searching my face, looking for something.

“I’m doing okay. Thanks… Thank you for stepping in earlier. And… I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t call you or Lina right away, it just happened so fast, and he came out of literally nowhere, and he was screaming and harassing Dorothy’s parents,” I’m rambling, the stress of earlier making my mouth disconnected from my brain. I feel tears welling behind my eyes.

“Hey… Hey,” he says, stepping closer, arm reaching out for me. I take a step towards him.

A small squeak sounds next to me. We look over and see Gloria and Izzy, watching us with gleeful faces, Izzy eating popcorn from one of the bags handed out at the beginning of the movie.

Oliver drops his hand, sighing. “Hi, guys.”

“Hi, anak ,” Gloria says, delighted. “You were so brave earlier, hah . So strong. Para kang Pinoy Clark Kent .”

Izzy screams with laughter and punches her brother, popcorn flying everywhere. “Hell yeah, Filipino Superman.”

Oliver rubs his arm where Izzy hits him. He turns back to me. “It seems like it escalated quickly. I didn’t even notice it was happening until Izzy pointed it out. That man is a sneaky bastard.” He frowns. “But I still would prefer it if you wouldn’t put yourself in danger. Or call people ‘jerks.’ Even if they deserve it. Especially in front of about five hundred other parents. That’s still never okay. I told you, Georgia. ”

“He went from zero to ten in seconds. I didn’t have a choice.”

He runs his hands through his hair, frustrated. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I tell him, gesturing to Gloria. “Your mom made it all better with her hugs.”

A vein pops as he clenches his jaw.

Gloria bounces on her toes. “And now Georgia is coming to the house to get even more better. She will heal with food. I didn’t even have to cook anything new.”

Incredulous, Oliver whips his head towards his mother. “Ma… no.”

“That’s okay, Gloria, I told you, I don’t want to intrude—” I attempt.

“You are, actually,” Oliver tells me.

Gloria smacks Oliver. Hard. “ Ang rude mo talaga ,” she growls at him. “How dare you? We’ve already extended the invitation. You can’t just rescind it. She is coming.” She vibrates with a power, seeming to grow taller than everyone standing around her. Or at least, everyone seems to shrink, everyone including Oliver, who in actuality stands over a foot taller than her. He pokes at a loose piece of gravel with his toe.

Izzy claps her hands. “Great! That’s settled, then.” She loops her hand through my arm, Gloria taking my other side, and together, they drag me towards the exit of the schoolyard.

I turn my head to look at Oliver, using my eyes to try to convey S.O.S. . He doesn’t see though, because he is busy crushing his hands into his eye sockets.

“This is insane,” Oliver is mumbling to himself on our walk over. For some reason, he is carrying a plastic bag filled with what looks like several empty Tupperware containers. Gloria and Izzy power walk ahead of us, chattering like chipmunks.

I keep my mouth shut.

He turns to me. “Can I ask you a favor, Georgia?”

“What’s up?”

“Remember…” He stalls and tries again. “Can you please just… not mention this to anyone at school?” His eyes are glowing under the streetlights, feline and wide.

“I see nothing wrong with this. I’m just going to your parent’s house for a small dinner. I mean, it’s not like we’re fucking,” I tell him, feeling a little hysterical.

He stumbles over a crack in the sidewalk.

“Who’s a mess, now?” I mutter under my breath.

“Just… please,” he pleads.

“Fine,” I say. I mean, he did save my life, or whatever.

It’s still strange, seeing him like this again. Wearing a pair of worn-in boots, jeans, and a flannel, covered by a totally nondescript jacket, he’s just another regular guy in Brooklyn, instead of a suited city official. His normally well-kept head of hair is mussed by a full day of being rustled by an autumn breeze.

This powerful, confident man is reduced to ash by his mother, a very terrifying, very miniature archangel, harbinger of hellfire and glory. Who, by the way, is my new favorite person.

We walk no more than ten minutes into Fort Greene, to a block I frequently pass on my walk home from school, when we approach a nondescript brownstone teeming with the buzz of conversation and yelling and music.

“I thought this was just a small family dinner,” I say out loud.

Izzy grins at me. “This is a small family dinner. For our family, at least.”

Another tiny woman version of Oliver slams open the front door of the first-floor apartment, shrieking. Two little girls, miniature versions of the woman in front of them, follow her, also shrieking, impossibly louder.

The woman dashes to me, and I suddenly find her in my arms. She is just as small as the other two Flores women. “Georgia!” she yells, voice muffled by my breasts. “It’s so nice to meet you. Ma and Izzy have been texting me all day about you.”

She pulls away to hold me at arm’s length, hands squeezing my arms. “You’re so brave, standing up to that man like that. I’m a flaming homo. Thank you for standing up for my people and their kids.”

She hugs me again as I stand there, off-kilter. “I’m Tala, Ollie’s big sister. Welcome to our house. Well, the house we grew up in. But sorry I can’t show you Ollie’s old room. Ma made it into her crafting room after she retired.”

I look over to Oliver, again attempting to project S.O.S. , but he is busy being tackled by the two little girls, screaming, “TITO OLLIE!”

His earlier reticence has disappeared. He has transformed, from the serious Oliver I know, to someone entirely different, someone loose, relaxed, free. His face is glowing now, wearing an unfiltered and unabashed grin shining with love.

“Hey, girls,” he laughs, picking each of them up in either arm. “Let’s go inside. Ang lamig .” He bends to kiss the top of Tala’s head.

Gloria is standing just behind me, dabbing her eyes. “It’s just how I imagined it would be.”

“Christ, Ma,” he says, using his body to shove her and the other Flores women inside the house.

I stand there, frozen. “I… we… How is it like this already? We’re not even in the house yet,” I tell him, not making any sense.

He stands there, incandescent, looking comically like Filipino Superman indeed, as he holds one little girl in each arm. He is comfortable now, around his family. Grinning, he lets the girls jump down and run into the house after the matriarchs. “Get ready,” he warns me.

The moment I step through the door, I am assaulted with warmth, the smell of garlic, and a raucous cheer.

“HEYYYYY!” the voices of what sounds like a million people yell. Someone starts scream singing ‘Happy Birthday’, in a rhythm I am unfamiliar with, and the whole room chimes in. Inexplicably, someone in the back of the room provides guitar accompaniment.

I look at Oliver, horrified that I’ve come empty-handed. “Whose birthday is it?”

“No one’s,” he shrugs. “It’s just a weird thing we’ve always done.”

The next thing that happens is that I trip over approximately seventy-two pairs of shoes in a pile just inside the door. Oliver darts out to catch me, my entire upper arm cocooned by the heat of his large, powerful hand. He lets me catch my feet, then lets go, my arm feeling sad and bereft after he releases me. “Shoes off,” he smiles at me, gesturing to the pile.

The room we enter is small, a common space that seems to hold both the living room and kitchen. It seems even smaller, maybe because of the sheer amount of people currently inside it.

It feels like I dive headfirst into an ocean of people then, a never-ending stream of hugs and cheek kisses and introductions, ‘Tito and Tita Somethings’ and ‘cousin This’ and ‘cousin That’s.’ My cheeks hurt with how my smile stretches across my face, everyone seemingly genuinely happy to meet me. I’m passed along from person to person, following Oliver, who is doling out an equal amount of kisses and bro hugs.

We make it into the small kitchen area, where silver disposable trays of delicious smelling food are already laid out on the counter. Someone shoves a plate in my hand from somewhere, with the directive to eat.

“One sec, Georgia. Before you eat, meet my dad,” Oliver says, gesturing to a tall, handsome white man, with a shock of white hair and piercing blue eyes, currently manning the stove and deep frying what looks like skinny spring rolls.

Oliver’s father wipes his hands on his pants and draws me in a for a hug. “Hi Georgia, nice to meet you. I’m Ben. Gloria’s been telling me all about you,” he says with a wink.

“It’s really lovely to meet you as well,” I say with a smile, clocking his features, noting that ways in which Oliver takes after his dad.

“Thank you for what you did earlier,” Ben tells me. “I couldn’t imagine something like that happening to Tala and Jill and the girls. I only hope that if it did, they would have someone like you to defend them.”

“Of course,” I say. “Tell him that though,” I say, cutting my eyes to Oliver. “He’s the one who might fire me over it.”

Oliver shakes his head.

His father frowns, looking so much like his son in that moment. “Ollie, what the fuck?”

“I told Georgia that there’s a modicum of professionalism we need to uphold as educators. We can’t go around poking people or calling them ‘jerks.’”

Ben and I roll our eyes.

I’m suddenly shoved aside. Gloria wiggles her way in between us, outraged. “Why aren’t you eating yet? Give me that,” she says, yanking the plates from mine and Oliver’s hands. She names each of the dishes but gives no explanation as she loads it onto our plates. White rice first, with everything dumped on top, lumpia , and pancit , and lechon , and kare kare , and something called Bicol express ? She pours suka , a tangy, vinegary smelling sauce over the lumpia and lechon .

My plate must weigh fifteen pounds, but when I open my mouth to say something about how I cannot possibly finish it all, I feel Oliver’s socked foot on top of mine, pressing down. I look up to see him, eyes wide, shaking his head no . I keep my mouth shut.

“Okay,” Gloria says, handing me a spoon and a fork. “Eat, na .”

A tito stands up from the couch, saying he’s eaten already, offering us his seat. Oliver and I squeeze into his spot, thighs touching, warm and separated only by denim, his knees much higher than mine. He shows me how to hold the spoon in my right hand, how to shovel food onto the spoon using the fork in my left. It’s a difficult task, seated on the couch, a balancing act with the plate rested on our knees. He shows me how to make the perfect combination of food on the spoon. He insists on the ratio. This much rice, this much protein. An explosion of flavor, of garlic and vinegar and salt and fat.

I moan after my first bite.

Oliver grins down at me. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I brought Tupperware.”