Monstress by Lysley Tenorio Page B

months when we were paid with eggs and sacks of rice. “Even the peasants are ripping us off,” Papa Felix griped. And then two years ago, his old rival Chitz Gomez began performing surgeries on Filipinos abroad in Guam and Saudi Arabia, and returned a far wealthier man than before. “We can do better,” Papa Felix said. He called on old connections to help him build a client list in California, then scheduled our trip to San Francisco, where there were plenty of Filipinos in need of healing. It was true: our first patient, a middle-aged sales clerk with stomach tumors and a fear of doctors, fell to his knees when he stepped into our hotel room. “You’re here,” he said, taking Papa Felix’s hand and pressing it against his forehead, “finally.” It was amazing that there were people who remembered Felix Starro—and even more amazing that they still believed in him.
    At the end of our first week Papa Felix said, “How I pity them, these Filipinos in America. So many sick without knowing why.” He was standing at the hotel window looking down at the crowds in the street, as if they were his people. “Can you imagine, waiting and waiting, just for someone to bring you hope?”
    I lied and said no.
    â€œB uy roses” was a code from a woman named Flora Ramirez; 1525 South Van Ness was the address of her flower shop, which was squeezed between a Mexican bakery and a liquor store. On the storefront window, yellow curly letters spelled out BUHAY BULAKLAK , which translated strangely from Tagalog—it meant “life flowers” in English. I took a deep breath, but just as I reached for the doorknob I glimpsed a streak of dried blood over the ridge of my knuckles. I licked my thumb and rubbed it away, checked my other hand. It was clean. I went inside.
    The store was barely bigger than our hotel room, lined with flower-filled shelves and humming refrigerators; everywhere you moved, it seemed, flowers would touch you. A woman was standing at a wooden table behind the cash register. She had a pair of scissors in one hand, white flowers in the other, and one by one she snipped them in half, letting stems fall to the floor. She was not tall, but her tailored blazer and the tight bun of her hair made her seem like a serious businessperson, someone who could get things done. Though I had never seen Flora Ramirez’s picture, I knew it was her. It had to be.
    She greeted me in English, like I was any ordinary American customer. I meant to identify myself but was unsure if it was safe to speak: there was one other customer, an old, bent-over woman in a dirty ski jacket with a scarf on her head, moving from bouquet to bouquet, rubbing petals between her fingers.
    Flora Ramirez looked at me and said, “You want to buy roses.”
    I nodded.
    â€œRoses are on sale. Seven for seven dollars. Red, pink, yellow, white. What is your preference?” She put down her scissors, stepped around the register, and slid open the refrigerator door. Cold, rose-scented air floated toward me, and suddenly I feared her text message was no code at all, that our meeting truly was about flowers and nothing else.
    â€œRed, pink, yellow, white,” she said again.
    â€œYellow,” I said.
    â€œYellow means friendship.” She took seven yellow roses from the refrigerator and carried them to the register. She wrapped them in cellophane and rung them up, then handwrote a bill on a small pad of paper. She tore it off, handed it to me. It said $25000 —the initial payment.
    â€œEverything is fine.” She smiled, and something about her perfect teeth let me know that I was right to seek her out. For twenty-five thousand dollars, Flora Ramirez could help illegal Filipinos stay in America—months or years, forever if they wished. I didn’t know how she did it, only that she could: two years before, she had given TonyBoy Llamas, my girlfriend Charma’s