Page 9 of On the Beat

“So, Paulo, what have you been doing since we last saw each other?” I say, trying to pull myself out of this funk. The scent of roasting meat and grilling vegetables reaches me, and my stomach growls. Smoke rises in the air, standing out against earth-toned houses with the occasional brightly-hued paint. We caught up a little over the phone, but didn’t get to say much before I flew out.

“I’m a doctor now,” he says proudly.

“Oh yeah, runs in the family, right?” I remember him telling me that his entire mother’s side was in the medical profession, with nurses and surgeons galore.

“Yeah, my aunt on my mom’s side and her husband have a bunch of kids, so I have a lot of cousins, but I’ve only met them once or twice.” Paulo ignores his phone as it dings on the dashboard, a text in a language I can’t read. “Anyway, we’re here.”

Having driven past numerous skyscrapers, high-rise hotels, and glittering buildings not only on this trip but in my life, there’s nothing that looks more welcoming—and secluded—than the small beach house that Paulo pulls up in front of. Warm teak wood panels cover the front of the bungalow, with a thatched roof and a cozy ambience that reminds me of home, though I’m a thousand miles away from Kentucky. The sound of the ocean reaches my ears, and I realize this is actually right on the ocean, the pungent and sharp aroma of saltwater wafting toward us. I can practically feel the spray of the relentless tide on my face.

I clamber out of the car, take my meagre luggage with me, and walk toward the porch. Peering my head around the wraparound veranda, I catch a glimpse of the sea, unobstructed by trees or houses. So much mystery, power, and beauty all in one place.

“Do you surf?” Paulo asks, catching me looking at the ocean. “I mean, you have to have picked it up in L.A., right?”

“No, I guess that was one thing I never caught onto,” I say. I feel sometimes I’ll never shake that city out of my bones. That though I’m not from there, some part of L.A. will never leave me. The need to impress, put on a show, sticks to me like a second skin.

He barks a laugh, startling me. I barely hear his voice over the roar of the ocean. “You know, I forgot that my cousin moved to L.A. from New York, too, but a few years after I’d already left. Crazy coincidence. Maybe you know her now.”

“I doubt it. L.A.’s too big for that coincidence.”

“Yeah, true.” Paulo unlocks the door with a jangle of keys. “Welcome to your new home away from home, Ryder.”

* * *

Paulo introduces me to his mother, who instructs me to call her Tita Evangeline. She manages this Airbnb and several others that they own. Gushing over how much she’s heard about me, she gives me a brief tour of the house. She wraps me in a warm hug and busies herself in the kitchen, but also seems to possess a keen business sense. With a sharp eye, she scans my dishevelled attire before declaring me “too skinny.” Tita Evangeline makes promises to remedy this at dinner, which she ropes Paulo into helping her with. With that, I’m off to see what the next few months of my life will hold.

An hour into my stay in El Nido, I realize I have no idea what to do with my free time.

Paulo is in the kitchen and his mother refuses to let me, a guest, try to cook, so there goes my plan to catch up with him over a beer or something. I’ve unpacked my scanty belongings, played a few songs, sat on the balcony of my room and watched the waves crash over the shore in a pounding rhythm. In L.A., I would be on tour, playing shows, or talking to my agent or manager. I would be in the recording studio or doing a press junket or at an interview. Without my life being micromanaged and controlled to the last beat, I don’t know how to justlive.

Having arrived in the late afternoon, I whittle away chunks of time until dinner, exploring the area and walking along the beach. The sand is warm and soft beneath my bare feet, studded with pale shells, tide pools, and small crustaceans. I collect a few seashells, reminded of how Poppy and I used to skip stones on the lake by our home. We grew up surrounded by water, yet in the middle of a landlocked state. I almost think of giving her the seashells as a souvenir, before remembering that I left in the middle of the night, with no idea of how or when I’d return, and I have no idea if Poppy will ever speak to me again.

And right now, I don’t even know if I want to speak toher.

I’m not the grudge-holding type, no matter what Skye or Poppy might think. But I remember promises kept and broken, threats flung at me in anger, and secrets given in trust that were revealed in greed.

I open my eyes when cold water washes over my feet, barely flinching as the sea rises around my ankles. My days of running barefoot over creek stones as the fish tickled my heels have well prepared me for this. As a boy, I curled my toes to grip the slippery rocks as the current rushed over them, holding onto the hem of my brother’s t-shirt as we ventured through the woods, pretending to be cowboys. River dangled a rubber snake in front of me, and I screamed. He laughed.

The aroma of salt revitalizes my senses. I blink, looking down at the blue water lapping over my feet, and bend down, throwing my seashells back into the ocean like an offering or a debt paid. As I turn to go back toward the beach house, I spy something unusual amidst the sand.

Something not quite manmade, not quite natural. Sea glass. Made first by people, then shaped and polished and moulded by the forces of the ocean. I bend down, pick it up, and tuck it into the pocket of my shorts.

Chapter 6: Isla Romero

A borrowed audiobook blaring from my headphones, my eyes drift open and shut as I make it halfway through the twenty-three-hour journey from Los Angeles to El Nido. Ryder Black probably took a private jet to the Philippines. I remain in coach, next to a mother with a crying baby and a businessman who doesn’t understand that the passenger in the middle seat should be allowed to commandeer at least one of the armrests.

I drum my fingers on my knees, wondering what the next three months of my life will look like. Will I finally see the place where my parents fell in love?

Biting into one of the tiny pretzels in the foil package that the stewardess gave me, I allow myself to dream. For once, I allow myself to abandon pragmatism and realism, and I decide that something magical will happen. Even if it’s only for the next twelve hours, I can still let myself believe this trip will be a whirlwind of adventure, excitement, of rediscovering a heritage I’ve long pushed away and exploring a place I’ve never been. I read somewhere that people who travel together are more likely to fall in love, and even if I am travelling alone, with a string of failed blind dates behind me, and about to be twenty-seven, I choose to believe that I could be one of those people.

Whydopeople fall in love more easily when they’re travelling together? Is it that they’re already falling for the place—that they’re finding the buried gems of an ancient city, or the tiny oases in a lush jungle, or the hole-in-the-wall restaurant of a new town—and as they do so, all the excitement only makes it easier for them to fall for one another?

I flip through my Philippines guidebook, the one I purchased on a whim while walking through LAX, telling myself I didn’t need it. Yet I was curious about what a tour guide or travel agent had thought about my parents’ home country that they wanted to condense and package into a neat little pamphlet. That curiosity gnaws at me still, mixed with a dose of familiarity as I read about the seasons in the Philippines.

There are the wet and dry seasons, of course, but also theBermonths, that last quarter of the year devoted entirely to celebrating Christmas. I smile, remembering my father putting up Christmas lights in September, my mother playing Mariah Carey and Jose Mari Chan’s Christmas songs and decorating our apartment in October. All my friends growing up thought my family was crazy, but I secretly loved it.

Closing the book, I check my email with the airplane’s wi-fi I charged to the company card. I reread the email from Jane with my hotel information. She booked a room for me at El Nido Resorts, and a driver will meet me at the airport. Though I’ve read the email enough times to memorize it, a fist still clenches tight in my ribcage. This is my first big assignment. Nothing can go pear-shaped. No matter how much I dream of romantic vacations or sampling local cuisines not made by my parents or Filipino-American restaurants, this is far more serious than any of that.

This isn’t a game. It’s my career I’m gambling with, and I can’t afford for anything to go wrong.

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