Beng was picking unhusked grains and bits of rock out of the rice, a task she accomplished by putting it on a cookie sheet and raking through the grains with her nails. The grains made a pleasing sound as she sifted through them. I sat down beside her and began to help. The activity was almost a meditation, yogic, which struck me as funny.

“Beng,” I asked, “what do you want to do with your life?”

“I want to go overseas and make money, but your tita says I’ll end up in a refrigerator in Dubai.”

It was a distinct possibility.

The telephone by the front door began to ring and Beng rose from the table and ran over to answer it. Beng seemed to like answering the phone. When she said hello, she lowered her voice to make herself sound older or maybe more formal, something else she might have picked up from watching Downton Abbey.

“Ate Ting,” said Beng, gently waving to me.

I got up from the table. No one called me on the landline except for Tita Dom, and that’s who I thought it was until Beng, handing me the phone, mouthed the word “lalaki”: it was a man.

“Hello?” I said.

“Ting, let’s go for lunch.”

It was Chet Rey, my old boyfriend. I’d been wondering when he’d call. “Lunch?”

“Yeah, like now. I’m here.”

“In Quezon City?”

“No. I’m here.” There was a sudden, loud knocking, Beng opened the door, and Chet walked in. I put the phone down. Chet was wearing an immaculate white shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of perfectly tailored black pants. I was wearing the floral housedress. “Okay,” he said. “Where should we go?”

“I’m not ready,” I said.

He put his cell phone in his pocket, looking me up and down. “Not ready for what?”

“All right, fine,” I said. “I’ll go like this.”

“Fine,” he said.

Tita Rosa exited out the library. She too was wearing a floral housedress and slippers. We looked like twins. “Chet!” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.” She gave me a sympathetic, wary look.

“Tita!” Chet took her hand and raised it to his forehead in the traditional, polite way. “Okay. Ting, come on.”

I shrugged at my aunt and followed Chet out of the house.

His car was pulled up directly in front of the stairs. Top Gun, his driver, was leaning against the hood, arms folded, the focus of his gaze some distant target. I smiled at him and he smiled back. The car, a Toyota, was big, black, and very shiny.

I asked, “What happened to the BMW?”