Tongue? Tied.

I think I'm losing my touch.

Many times in the past week or so, I have been admonished and sometimes plain ol' spanked for the "tone" of an e-mail or post. And I don't get it. I'm a writer, after all. If there were a "tone," I think I'd know it. Anyways, it looks like the newest member of my all-star blog kickball team, Shin Yu Pai, knows what (not to mention who) I'm talking about.

So to counteract any ugly that I've (accidentally? on purpose? I don't even know anymore) sent out into the world, here's a reminder that I can talk pretty, too. From a longer, in-progress piece:

Manny de Jesus arrived promptly at the Delgado house wearing a hand-me-down barong tagalog and carrying a corsage comprised of a single, heartbreaking gardenia. His hair was parted neatly down the left side and slicked back with a pomade that accentuated the wave over his right eyebrow. He was shown into the living room by Anna the maid who--intoxicated by the scent of the young man’s cologne--would dream of him that night and awake blushing, her bed sheets strewn on the floor.

Upstairs, Baby scowled at her reflection and quietly cursed as her mother twisted her hair into an elaborate celebration of the feminine. Hairpins stabbed Baby in the head hard enough to make her bleed, and though she eagerly agreed with the idea that beauty is pain, she had not counted on this. She saw Corazon in the mirror, laying on her stomach on their parents’ bed with her chin cupped in her hands and her feet stuck in the air, watching. Baby stared at her for a moment and felt her own face grow red. “Stop it!”

“Stop what?” Corazon said, scrunching up her eyebrows. She noted, with alarm, that her sister was very near tears. Baby wailed.

“Hija,” their mother said to Corazon, “please go downstairs now and see if Emanuel is here.”

“Oh, he’s here,” Corazon said, her chin still in her hands.

“How do you know?” Baby turned to look at her.

“I can tell. Can’t you just tell? Come on, come on, come on. Let’s go.”

Baby stood up and spun around; her pale blue satin skirt remained perfectly still.

“Very prety, hija,” her mothered murmured.

At the top of the staircase, there was a scuffle. Baby refused to walk down first and stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head slowly so as not to loosen any of the pins. She resolved to be the last one down the stairs because that way Manny would not be able to allow his gaze to linger on the lovely Mrs. Oscar Delgado or the perfect Corazon without appearing very rude. “You go, Mommy. Then Corazon.”

“Me? Why me?” Maria Delgado harbored a secret fear that her husband, seeing the women of the family all in a row, would pity his wife’s disappearing beauty and bemoan the loss of her once slender hips.

So the task fell to Corazon who felt, as the others did, that first position did not suit her own particular goals. But the night belongs to Baby, she silently reasoned, and I am much too young to be in love with anyone but my own father. With that, she walked down the stairs.

***

Good weekend, all.