Midnights in Bali Read online

  Spark Books is an imprint of Anvil Publishing, Inc.

  Midnights in Bali

  Copyright to this digital edition © 2017 by

  Carla de Guzman

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

  Published and exclusively distributed by

  ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC.

  7th Floor Quad Alpha Centrum

  125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City

  1550 Philippines

  Trunk Lines: (+632) 477-4752, 477-4755 to 57

  Sales and Marketing: [email protected]

  Fax No.: (+632) 747-162

  www.anvilpublishing.com

  Book design by Miles Tan (cover) and Marielle Tayona (interior)

  ISBN 9786214201594 (e-book)

  Version 1.0.1

  *deep breath*

  To Ate Celine, Ram, Rom, Michelle, Gabbie, Roselle,

  Frances, Gijo, Rowell, Tito Roy, Dad, and Mom.

  Did I miss anyone?

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: All About Ava

  CHAPTER TWO: Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

  CHAPTER THREE: Midnights in Bali

  CHAPTER FOUR: You Drive Me Bonkers

  CHAPTER FOUR: Always Be My Bebek

  CHAPTER FIVE: Super Cool Party, People

  CHAPTER SIX: We’ll Always Have Bali

  An excerpt

  Acknowledgments

  Guide Questions

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  All About Ava

  AVA WAS BORN on the same day her father learned that he had passed the Bar exam. He was waiting in the hospital, pacing the floor, when his father called him through the nurses’ station telephone to tell him the good news. At that very moment, a nurse burst in from the delivery room and announced that he was now a father to a little girl.

  They named her Ava Athena Bonifacio. Ava was a nod to her father’s law school and to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, for her father’s new profession. Baby Ava was her father’s good luck charm and his darling girl. She grew up peeking at his depositions and case files, even typing up notes for him when she was old enough. She spent her summers accompanying him to client meetings, sitting still and pretty while the adults talked business. One thing the clients liked asking her was if she wanted to be a lawyer like her father. She always, always said yes.

  Ava and her baby sister Bee came up with The Plan when Ava was ten years old. It was for a school project, and they were tasked to draw themselves twenty years from then. Bee, artistic even at age seven, was only too happy to pretty up the project for her older sister. She drew flowers all over the illustration board and wrote her Ate’s name in pretty pink letters. It said:

  My name is Ava Athena C. Bonifacio and when I grow up, I will . . .

  Be a lawyer like Papa

  Join the Spice Girls

  Marry Nick from the Backstreet Boys

  Be the best student

  Be the best Ate

  The project was marked with a perfect score, and still hung behind the door to Ava’s bedroom as the template for her life. Over the years, some of these dreams changed (she’d long abandoned joining the Spice Girls), but the first statement was always going to be true.

  Following in her father’s footsteps, Ava chose a business course in college, added a minor in Literature for the law school requirement, and graduated Cum Laude. Most of her batchmates who wanted to go to law school took their entrance exams right after graduation. But it wasn’t what Ava’s father had done. He had gone to work for a year, and Ava knew that she wanted first-hand experience before diving into the rigors of law school. So she made sure to beef up her résumé by working as a paralegal at the best law firm in the country, where she has worked since graduation.

  It’s been a year, and she had just sent in her applications to the top two law schools in the country. She planned to pass the bar at thirty years old. She wanted to practice law, marry her boyfriend Matteo at thirty-one (who, like Nick, was gorgeous and loved to sing), and have two kids while working at Escudero, Angeles and Partners before making junior partner by 35 and senior partner soon after.

  So for the last years, The Plan was Ava’s constant companion. It’s worked well for her so far. She was one of the few paralegals in Angeles, Escudero and Partners that they could trust in client meetings without the supervision of a partner or an associate.

  Like today, for example. She was sitting in the lobby lounge at Makati Shangri-La Hotel, staring down the person who wanted to sue her client. Ava always chose to have meetings at the lobby lounge of the hotel. It was a short walk from her office and it used to be her Dad’s go-to place to meet his clients. Ava could point at the set of seats he used to jokingly call his office, and the staff who had worked at the hotel for so long they knew Ava by name. She needed the familiarity of the space so she could fill it when she needed to make clients squirm. Plus they served really yummy scones.

  “—not completely fair to me at all,” Mr. K continued. Ava always gave the people she met nicknames. They were much easier to remember that way.

  She took a quick look at the floor-to-ceiling windows when thunder rolled ominously across the grey Makati sky. It had been threatening to rain all day, and she really wished that the weather would just make its decision. Beside her, a group of young women were telling each other about going to Bali for the long weekend. They all seemed excited.

  “—which is why your arrogant, son-of-a-bitch client, owes me the full amount, or nothing at all,” Mr. K said in an irate voice. He was threatening her client, even if he knew that he was the one in the wrong. Ava had to admire Mr. K’s determination, although she didn’t really appreciate it. Lawyers weren’t evil beings seeking to take everything you owned. When you speak to a lawyer, you seek advice, try to find the best way out of a crap situation. In Ava’s opinion, lawyers weren’t consulted enough.

  She started picking up the intricacies of her father’s job when she was seventeen. Back then, whenever her Dad would tell her a particularly vexing story about a client, she wouldn’t be able to hide her frustration. But her father taught her a very valuable lesson of: “less talk, fewer mistakes.” Talking revealed too much and made you vulnerable. So she learned to keep her mouth shut. Always.

  “Sir,” she said, trying to sound gentle and above this whole ordeal. She noticed that her iced tea glass was just a bit off-center on the coaster, and adjusted it slightly with the tips of her fingers. “I’d like to clear up a couple of things. First, the initial contract was considered valid.”

  “AHA. I knew it—”

  “However,” Ava added, looking right up at him and taking him aback with the intensity of her withering glare. She loved using it against people who didn’t take her seriously, and this guy wasn’t taking her seriously. “That first contract became void when you agreed that they pay you sixty percent on cancellation. Second, they have no legal obligation to you, and only asked me to come here out of respect for your working relationship.”

  “Respect my ass!” Mr. K roared, ready to throw her neatly arranged notebook, pen, and iced tea glass off the table. She interrupted him again before he could make a spectacle of himself.

  “We are offering you sixty percent or nothing at all,” Ava said firmly, crossing one leg over the other to hide her irritation. She glanced at her phone to check the time. She had to leave now if she wanted to get to
Maginhawa by 7P.M. for her date with Matteo. The rain finally decided to make an appearance, and now with the Metro traffic, she was already late.

  She smoothed her hands over her crisp, blue work dress, the epitome of calm. The plaintiff flinched at the way she said his words back to him. He reared his body back and sprang forward, slamming his hands on the tabletop. Ava’s only reaction was a blink.

  “God damn you,” he spat, the syllables sharp and snappy as they trickled out of his mouth. Each word seemed delicious for him to say. “It’s true what they all say about lawyers then. Heartless, heartless assholes all of you.”

  Ava’s back stiffened at his words, willing herself not to react any more than that. She should be flattered that he thought she was a lawyer. The cases that the firm passed to her were always simple and amicable, the kind where both parties knew when it was time to bow out for the sake of saving face. Nobody had ever spoken to her that way.

  She didn’t flinch, but something inside her gut twisted with the way he said those words. She wanted to take a deep breath, tell herself that this was exactly the mistake she was avoiding by not talking. But Ava also knew that she couldn’t let this guy see her crack. No way.

  “Here’s a check for 60%,” she said, coolly sliding the check across the table and hoping that he didn’t notice her shaking hands. “Cash it or not, it’s your choice.”

  She stood up and gathered her things as Mr. K glared down at the slip of paper in front of him. She kept her face straight and walked out of the hotel, allowing herself only one deep, calming breath as she got into her car. The skies opened up with rain as Ava drove to Maginhawa, ignoring the voice in the back of her head telling her that something was wrong.

  “It’s not you, Ava,” Matteo said, holding her hand reassuringly. It took all of Ava’s strength not to reach over and smack her boyfriend across the face for being condescending. She couldn’t believe that he was doing this. She stared into her boyfriend’s pleading, puppy-dog face and scowled. “We both know you’re too good for me.”

  Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, her brain chanted. Ava pushed the thought aside quickly.

  “That’s true, but that’s not why you’re breaking up with me,” she snapped, even if she knew that this was a lost cause. Matteo made his choice, and she wasn’t the type of girl to beg.

  She met Matteo Gonzales in college two years ago, when he was her biggest competition in their course. They were the top two of their class, competing with each other until graduation day, when he finally admitted that he was in love with her. Matteo went on to become an assistant private banker for a big international bank, and she went to Escudero, Angeles and Partners. They were supposed to be the perfect match. They were supposed to be Elizabeth and Darcy. They added up. They made sense. Breaking up wasn’t part of her Plan.

  “Of course it is,” Matteo said, rubbing the back of Ava’s hand with his thumb. She yanked it away before she read too much into it. I need to be in control of this situation, she told herself, crossing her legs again. She straightened her knife on the table with her free hand. “You know I love you—”

  “If you loved me, you wouldn’t—”

  “But,” he said firmly, interrupting her this time. “It freaks me out that you have this … Plan. I can’t live by that kind of deadline.” He looked at her with so much sadness and concern that it made Ava wonder if he pitied her. Her face remained firm. She was in control, but inside, she wanted to cry and beg him to stay.

  “You knew that I had The Plan coming in,” she pointed out. Ava could argue like the best of them, but once Matteo had his mind set on something, there was nothing she could do to talk him out of it. She’s tried before. “I’m not going to apologize for wanting it all, and you know that.”

  “I thought I could take it,” he told her. “I’m really sorry. I’m still your friend, Ava.”

  That’s a lie, and I need to get out of here, she told herself. She needed this horrible breakup to be over and done with so she could move on. She just wanted this to go away.

  Matteo must have seen it on her face, because he stood up like a gentleman and offered his hand to help her up from her seat. Ava stood up without his help and directed her withering glare at him, leaving the two of them studying each other like they had never met. He stepped forward and boldly kissed Ava’s cheek. She didn’t move a muscle. Then she gave him a clenched, practiced smile.

  “You and I were never friends, Matteo,” she said. She gave him a stiff nod, walking briskly to the car with the last word and not a tear in sight. She was halfway out the door when her heart clenched, and she stopped in her tracks. She wanted to go back. She wanted to go back and fight for Matteo, because she knew she should. Her mind protested, yelling at her to stop, to just walk away as her heart made her turn back the table.

  I can’t let it end like this, she thought, steeling herself for the fight. She walked back to her table, jostling a waiter as he offered a couple of patrons some Balinese coffee. She made her way back to Matteo, who had his back turned to her, and was on the phone. He looked tired, but not defeated.

  “It’s done,” he said, his hand placed casually over the chair beside him like he hadn’t just broken her heart. To be fair, Ava was standing here and acting like she wasn’t hurting. “No, I don’t think she cared. Ouch. Yeah. I know. She really is a heartless bitch.”

  She found herself stumbling a bit, that last word hitting her more than anything else Matteo had told her that night. Leave, leave, leave now.

  Ava hopped in her car and sped off toward home. Her dignity was intact, but her heart was in pieces. She managed to make it home, sliding her car against the curb when her phone rang. It was the third call from Bee in the span of an hour. Ava was so out of it that she hadn’t even realized that her phone was ringing. She wondered vaguely why Bee was calling her so late in the evening—her little sister was usually asleep by now.

  “Bee,” Ava said, turning off the engine but not quite ready to leave the safety of her car. “Did you need something? I’m almost—”

  “Ate!” Bee exclaimed, relief flooding her voice after Ava picked up the call. “Oh my God, are you okay? Where are you?”

  How did she hear about the breakup so fast? Ava wondered, furrowing her brows. Matteo was so out of depth regarding social media he didn’t even have a profile picture until she uploaded one for him. He couldn’t have called Bee, he didn’t even know her number.

  “I’m … just in the car,” Ava said, slightly confused. “Who told you?”

  “What do you mean, I looked it up myself,” Bee said like the answer was obvious. “I know you had your heart set on it, Ate, I’m really sorry.”

  In a moment of weakness, Ava gave in to the gasp that rose up in her throat. Her heart tightened in her chest, and her hands and knees wobbled, her toes cold.

  Suddenly she knew exactly what her little sister was talking about.

  She was so busy trying not to think about her failed relationship and this settlement that she’d forgotten. The biggest moment of her life, and she put it aside for her own drama. The entrance result for UP Law, arguably the best law school in the country, had come out today. It came out today and she forgot.

  She didn’t get in.

  Ava hung up and did a quick search on her phone. She felt her breath hitch in her chest, as if a massive hand had squeezed her lungs. Her fingers were shaking as she tried looking for her name in the list, tears finally spilling from her cheeks when she realized it wasn’t there.

  I didn’t get in to UP Law.

  It wasn’t her first choice. Her father had gone to school somewhere else, and naturally, Ava wanted to go there too. But to find out that she didn’t make it to her second choice … it made her wobble. And Ava never, ever wobbled.

  She started crying, bawling into her hands as the tears and all the disappointments of the day took over. She couldn’t stand this. She was so far off from The Plan that she couldn’t even see it anymore. She was alon
e, she was terrified of going back to work, and she didn’t get into her dream school. Her phone chimed again with a text message.

  Di Bali na yan! Book your tickets now on our exclusive 50% off deal!

  Ava Bonifacio knew that she was going to become a lawyer. It was just a fact of her life. She never believed in signs or destiny, and she knew that her life was under her own control. But as the song went, where do broken hearts go? She tapped the link to the airline’s website and booked herself a ticket to Bali without a second thought.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

  HER MOTHER HAD been hesitant about letting Ava go off to a foreign country on her own. But Bee, wise beyond her years, insisted that it was something that her Ate needed to do. So, Ava exhausted her sick leaves (which up until that time, she had never used), packed her bags, and got on a plane.

  It was a day after her disastrous day, and Ava was still crying.

  By the time they landed in Hong Kong for her layover, she felt awful. Her head was throbbing thanks to the triple whammy of cabin pressure, dry heaving, and blowing snot out through her nostrils. Her eyes were swollen and horribly dry. Her long black hair was a greasy mess and her bag was full of tissue paper.

  She pulled her big, soft cardigan closer to her body, wiping clear snot on her skirt as she walked off the runway and into Hong Kong International Airport. Her fellow passengers sensed her distress and narrowly dodged her like the plague as they walked past. She stumbled once or twice on her flat ballet shoes and followed the crowd out through the airport. Her life had become a sad, directionless blur. She had no idea how she managed to make it to Hong Kong in one piece, or why her mother even allow her go. They weren’t exactly flush with cash for her to go to Bali on a whim.

  “Is everything alright, miss?” an airline ground staff member asked her with a cheery Hong Kong accent. The last time someone asked Ava this, she had actually sobbed louder, causing the stewardess to give her a tub of ice cream even if she had been sitting in economy class.