Free Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn Page B

ko ’day, it’s too hot for coffee…Too much beer, bruja —you’re gonna end up fat like your brother if you don’t watch out.)
    We blame everything on the heat. It’s been a typical Saturday, not much is accomplished. My mother Dolores spends hours at SPORTEX with Pucha’s mother, my Tita Florence. As usual, they will return without any purchases, complaining loudly of crowds, snooty salesgirls, and exhaustion. “ Que ba , I think those people just mill around the store because it’s air-conditioned!” Tita Florence sniffs in disgust. She is an older, plumper version of Pucha, with the same sharp nose and flaring nostrils.
    My cousin Pucha and I get our weekly manicure, pedicure, and complimentary foot massage at Jojo’s New Yorker, right across the street from the Foodarama Supermarket and ten times cheaper than Chiquiting Moreno’s Makati “salon”— a saloon of a salon , as my father describes it, strictly for society matrons and high-priced whores. My father thinks women are constantly being duped, especially by baklas who run trendy beauty parlors.
    “Why can’t we go to Makati just this once?” Pucha whines. “We have the car and driver, it’s not so fair—” Pucha hates it every time we go to Jojo’s. “Because Jojo’s right around the corner,” I sigh, “and I’ve only got one hundred pesos to spend for both of us. That won’t even get you a shampoo at Chiquiting’s.” That shuts Pucha up. Pucha never has enough money, and she’s stingy besides. It depresses her to sit in Jojo’s unpretentious beauty parlor with its modest neighborhood clientele, several steps down the social ladder Pucha’s been climbing so fiercely since the day she was born. Jojo waits on most of her customers herself and has no time for idle chatter. She’s an enterprising woman with frosted tips in her short hair and a large mole on her nose. Pucha’s sure Jojo’s a lesbian, and mistakes all of Jojo’s gestures toward her as passionate come-ons.
    There is only one other unglamourous patron this early Saturday morning, wearing a faded house dress and rubber slippers; she dozes with her mouth open, slumped under Jojo’s prehistoric hair dryer. “ Que horror ,” Pucha mutters, as we walk past the sleeping woman.
    (Hoy, and how do you think that alembong Nestor used to pay his rent? Aba, sino pa —who do you think told me? Max himself, that’s who. Chica , they went to the same school and no matter what Nestor says, Nestor is definitely the same age as Max! Exactly, doña… Max happened to be right there in the lobby of the Manila Hotel and saw the whole thing with his own eyes…)
    One of Pucha’s goals in life is to be able to afford going to Chiquiting Moreno’s whenever she wants. Like when she feels too lazy to wash her own hair, for example. The first and only time either one of us ever went to Chiquiting’s was when we all got our hair done for my cousin Ricky’s wedding—Pucha, Tita Florence, my mother, and me. My mother paid the exorbitant bill. Pucha still brags about it to this day. I can’t tell what’s more important to her: being invited to debutante parties or having Chiquiting lacquer her hair. She thinks marrying that creepy Boomboom will insure her social standing. She’s probably right. Ahhhh, people will whisper, here comes Mrs. Doña Pucha Alacran with a new hairdo. Plus, money will never be a problem. Pucha imagines countless hours of pleasure decorating and redecorating the fabulous rococo palace of her dreams. When she gets carried away with her high and mighty plans, she describes her fantasy future wedding to Boomboom in gory detail, the gown her mother will order from some Frenchman, and all the guests she’s planning to invite, including the President. “I’ll insist we can’t live in Greenhills,” Pucha says, with authority. “Too many Chinese.” “What do you care,” I respond, bored to death, “so long as they’re rich ?” Pucha frowns. “But Rio—even