The Aubergine Autobiographies An Excerpt Jamie Uy
Later, after I was photographed in the parade by The New York Times, wearing a translucent pineapple fiber blouse and no bra, clutching
a rainbow Maria Clara fan and waving a holographic sign—PILIPINX
PRIDE—my ninangs and ninongs back in Baguio all shook their heads, saying that they knew this would happen. Each of my relatives had a different explanation of where my parents went wrong. It was all
those Charice Pempengco CDs. The fact that I hadn’t competed in the
barangay’s beauty pageant like the rest of my batchmates. Or all those afternoons spent placing bets for my Lolo on cockfighting. My favorite
explanation was that I was cursed by my father’s disappearance—why
else would I be born with a birthmark the shape of an enormous eggplant on my face? That’s how my second cousin found the photo, after all.
He frequented internet cafes to get decent WiFi, this time for a school
report on American democracy, and after clicking on The New York Times homepage, he spotted my side profile. He turned to the cafe owner and innocently asked, Hey, isn’t that Ate Aubergine?
My mother told me all of this over a Viber call, one hand stirring Spam
fried rice while the other loosened her curlers. There was no mistaking
that it was me. She was preparing for a neighbor’s christening party and dreading the inevitable comparison of everyone’s daughters. I threw my
head back and laughed, watching her nostrils flare in exasperation. In the pixelated video, my celebrity mark looked less like a bruise and more like a fun Instagram filter.
***
99
