CHAPTER 2: MORNINGS AT PARDILLAS
THE GIRL WHO CAN’T DATE
By Eleventh
CHAPTER 2: MORNINGS AT PARDILLAS
2017 JOURNAL
21 years ago...
“AAAAAAHHHH!”
Friday morning wasn’t as peaceful as usual. The Pardilla brothers woke up to the scream that bawled out from the kitchen.
THUD!!!
“Ow! That hurts!”
Eros, the 29-year old second-born, pale, fit, chiseled, and dreadfully good-looking, stroked his butt after falling from his bed. The scream startled him.
He slowly got up from the floor and squinted his eyes when he directly looked at the window. He stroked his silky, straight, black hair and groaned wondering what the scream was all about. So, he went down to the kitchen to check what the problem is.
Walking lazily in the interior balcony, he met Orion, the 22-year old fourth child, fair-skinned, round-faced, curly hair, most narcissistic among the Pardilla siblings.
Eros grimaced while staring at his brother yawning with a facial mask on his face. “What the fudge is on your face?”
“Facial mask, duh! What else could it be? How can a model like you be so ignorant to stuff like this?” Orion rolled his eyeballs when he answered his brother while kneading the facial mask on his face with his knuckles.
“Of course I know it’s a mask, idiot! What I wanna know is if you woke up like that.”
“Yup! I definitely did!” Orion proudly answered his brother with a wide grin on his face.
“You wore that overnight?!”
Orion stopped kneading his face and looked at Eros with blinking eyes and slowly gave him a creepy smile. “I certainly did!”
Eros sighed in disbelief. “What an idiot! You can’t put on a facial mask overnight, Rion! It will irritate your skin. Sheez! You really are stupid, aren’t you? Thank God he blessed you with a handsome face.”
“Excuse me? I am NOT stuuu-pid. You’re just oooutdated, bro!” Orion gave his brother a teasing look. “FYI! Facial masks that can be worn overnight are already available in the market. Guess you weren’t updated, huh? BOOMER!”
“I am not a BOOMER, idiot! I’m a millennial!”
“Whatever! It’s all the same to me. You’re old. That’s it!”
Pissed off, Eros grabbed the facial mask from Orion’s face and crumpled it. Orion cried and tried to steal the facial mask from his brother’s hand.
“Give it back, Boomer! There’s still moisture in it.”
“It’s already dry, okay! Throw it away!”
“NO! NOT YET…” Orion was able to steal the facial mask and placed it back on his face. “It still has… WOAAAH!”
The boys came to a halt when they came across two deadly eyes staring at them like a predator. They froze in fear wondering what’s with the morning mood. And those frightening glares belong to no one else but to the most notorious and the only girl in the family - Ira Micole Pardilla.
The Pardilla brothers hate it when their sister is not in the mood because she has quite the temper. What’s worse about her being erratic is the fact that she can’t handle her emotions well. Things get broken, fly in the air, and get torn into pieces. Sometimes, people could get hurt when she’s mad.
“Eros? Why is Ira angry so early in the morning?” Orion whispered, his body still and only his lips are moving.
“No idea. Did you wash the plates last night?” Eros whispered very lightly.
“I did! I even dried them up and arranged them in the cabinet.”
“Wait! Let me handle this!” Eros confidently moved closer to his sister, smiling sheepishly. Then he greeted her ecstatically. “GOOOD MORNING, Ira Bear! What’s poppin’? You look… Uhm,”
Eros paused. What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say?
He was tense for a second. He doesn’t know how to describe her little sister in a positive way because there isn’t any spot of positivity in her. For him, she was all grim.
He placed his arm at his back and snapped his fingers at Orion to ask for help. Orion instantly followed Eros and bluffed all the way. He’s the master of bluffing after all.
“Yo, what is up, sistah! You are looking great today!” Orion noticed the pan on the stove and popped his eyes out, troubled at the idea that Ira was cooking. “Oh! Wow! Is-is that breakfast on the stove? Uhm… looks appetizing.”
Then Orion whispered to the young man beside him. “Gawd! That’s gonna taste like trash again. I bet!”
Eros nudged him on the side.
“Sssh! She might hear you!” Then turned to Ira again with a smile on his face. “Sooo, Ira…”
“One more bluff and I’m gonna cut your tongue.” The 25-year old third child sturdily stabbed the knife she was holding on the chopping board and blew her messy hair rigidly off her face. Ira’s mood worsened when she saw the facial mask on Orion’s face. “Wh-- will you take the mask off your face! It’s annoying!”
But Orion rebelled.
“NO! NOT YET! It’s a waste to throw it away. There’s still moisture in it!”
“I SAID ‘TAKE IT OFF! NOW!”
Though pissed, Orion obeyed his sister. He took off the mask, crumpled it, and threw it on the floor. “Why are you so annoying, Ira? If I know, you’re just insecure because beauty products don’t work on your charcoal face!”
“What the hell???”
Eros, worried with Orion’s remark, elbowed his brother again. This time harder. Then, he whispered. “Rion!!! Shut up!”
“Did you just call me charcoal face?”
“Yup! I JUST DID!” he answered teasingly. Orion flashed a mocking face towards his sister, while Eros was trembling in anxiousness.
“Rion! Don’t provoke her!” Eros called out holding his brother by the elbow.
“I’m gonna kill you! I swear!” hot air blew from Ira’s nostrils while furiously staring at her brother.
“Not if you can catch me!” Before Orion could even make a step to run for his life, Ira had already grabbed him by the collar of his sleepwear and pulled his curly hair. Orion screamed in pain. “Oooow! Let me go, Black Panther!!!”
That remark made Ira pulled Orion’s hair harder.
“Ira!!! Enough!” Eros yelled grabbing Ira by the waist to stop her.
“What’s going on here?” Ares, the 30-year old firstborn, butterfly hair, fair-skinned, very tall and fit, compulsively clean and neat, and everyone’s favorite sibling, calmly walked into the kitchen watching the commotion. He just arrived home from the hospital.
At the sight of her big brother, Ira immediately let go of Orion.
“Thank God, you’re here, Ares!” Eros weaved a sigh of relief. “Ira’s having her temper tantrums again!”
Ares pushed his eyeglasses back up to his nose bridge. “What’s the problem this time, Ira?”
“He called me charcoal face and Black Panther! He’s making fun of my skin color again!” Ira explained with an enraged face. Then, she stared at Orion with piercing eyes. “FYI! My color isn’t black. It’s Morena, you brainless colorist!”
In a family, there’s always that one kid who looks adopted and gets teased all the time. For the Pardilla siblings, Ira is that kid because she has a different skin complexion. Everyone in the Pardilla family is fair-skinned except her. She got her color from her grandmother who was born with dark skin. Since she was a kid, she was always laughed at and mocked for being different.
“Hey! You’re already grumpy when we got here. Don’t blame it on me, frog-face!” Orion tried to clean his name.
“Enough teasing, Rion!” There was a command in Ares's voice when he reprimanded his brother. Then he turned to Ira, folding his arms in front of his chest, asking for an explanation.
Ira pursed her lips and looked down. She hid her hands behind her back and looked like a kid who just broke a glass. But Ares was very gentle with his sister.
“What is it this time?”
“You know how I hate when the kitchen’s a mess, right? Look at the place!” True! The kitchen was a lot of mess. Eggshells on the kitchen sink. Flour all over the table. Cartons of milk improperly thrown in the trash. And scattered pieces of garbage on the floor. “And look at the trash bag! The garbage truck’s schedule was yesterday! This should’ve been taken out last night. Now, what? We have to keep this for another week and it’s going to stink a lot!”
Eros looked at Orion with a reproachful face. “Hey! It was your task to wash the plates last night, AAAND… it was your turn to take out the trash!”
“Heeey! I’m pretty sure I threw out the trash last night. I even cut my finger from the can lid when I tried to tie the bag properly. Look!” Orion presented his pointer finger wrapped with a band-aid to show proof.
“There’s the culprit, gentlemen!!!” Ira exclaimed.
“Hey! I said I threw out the trash! Weren’t you listening?”
“So do you suppose the trash bag walked his way back to the kitchen? What is this? Magic?”
“Ares! Believe me! I really cleaned up this place last night!” Orion appealed to convince his brother.
The doctor fixed his eyeglasses thinking about how to resolve the conflict fairly to both of his siblings. In the middle of their argument, an old man carrying a 3-year old toddler barged in from the backdoor. He was panting and sweating, yet he was beaming a smile.
“I-ira, you okay? I heard you scream from the bakeshop, so I rushed here to check if everything’s alright.”
“Sorry if we troubled you, Pops!” Eros stepped in to explain. “Everything’s fine. Ira and Rion were just having a little argument about the mess in the kitchen.”
Mr. Pardilla lowered down the baby and scratched his curly hair while facing Ira with lowered eyebrows and gritted teeth. “Oh! I’m sorry, Ira Bear! I made this mess. It was actually squeaky clean this morning. But the oven in the bakeshop was broken so I have to bake all the pastries here. I didn’t have time to clean up because customers were already lining up for the pandesal. But don’t worry! I’ll clean up, okay?”
Mr. Pardilla grabbed one of the rags neatly piled on the counter and started wiping the flour off their wooden table.
Ira felt guilty for her humbly apologetic dad. She gently snatched the rag from his hands. “Oh no, Pops! I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll clean it up for you, okay? Don’t worry!”
“Ahem! Excuse me?” Orion coughed, leaning on the table, facing Ira. “Aren’t you gonna apologize to me too?”
But Ira acted like she didn’t hear him nor see him. She left him standing there and went to the sink to gather the eggshells.
“By the way, Pops…” Ares noticing his little brother, Usher, munching some muffins, picked him up and let him sit on the high chair. “Did you bake a lot? You’re gonna close the bakeshop by noon because we have to prepare for the reunion.”
The moment Ares mentioned the word, the boys looked at Ira who suddenly froze while picking up the trash on the sink. She slowly turned her back only to find everyone’s eyes fixed on her.
“What? Why are you guys looking at me like that?”
“We’re attending your favorite event, Ira!” Eros teased.
“Pops! Ares! Can I…” Ira moaned.
“No, you can’t! You have to be there!” Ares was firm.
Ira crinkled her eyebrows at her brother’s immediate refusal. “You haven’t heard my explanation yet!”
“I’m not hearing you out!” Ares’s firm voice echoed in the kitchen.
Ira turned away from her brother with ire and shot a pleading look at her father. But Mr. Pardilla just grinned at her.
“I need to go back to the bakeshop!” then he left, escaping the scene.
Frustrated, she turned to Ares again who was already walking away from the kitchen.
“Ares! Pleaaase!”
“Here we go again!” Orion and Eros sighed synchronously.
They both grabbed some cleaning materials and started cleaning up the kitchen knowing that another round of argument is about to begin between Ares and Ira. Every year, every reunion to be exact, Ira always makes excuses not to go to the reunion but Ares won’t let her miss it.
“Come on! Just this year. Please!”
“Ira! Enough with this, okay? Just bear with it!” Ares bellowed taking off his tie.
Ira followed him into the living room. “Ugh! You don’t understand me! You don’t know how strangling it is to be surrounded and asked with questions you don’t wanna answer. I’m sick and tired of these reunions!”
“You have to be there, Ira, because I’m announcing important news.”
“Just tell me now, right here, so I won’t miss it.” Ira stubbornly insists.
“We’re done talking! You’re going whether you like it or not!” Then Ares walked away and went up the stairs leaving Ira with heavy shoulders.
She just never wins against her brother.