Bunso

Valerie Sotto is sugar and spice and everything nice just like her confections.

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Then my sister Valerie, the fourth girl in a row for my parents Frank and Sonia Mayor (after Joanne Rae, Mary Mae and Geraldine), was born via Cesarean section; one of my parents’ friends seemed disappointed. “Hopia na naman,” he referred to the blowout he promised if the baby was a girl. I think it would have been lechon if the baby were the much-awaited boy.

But anything but a disappointment the baby girl turned out to be. She had big round eyes with irises as big as singko coins, and thick, long lashes that framed them. They said she looked like Shirley Temple, except that her wavy locks weren’t blonde. She was a bundle of joy when she wasn’t colicky, which was every afternoon.

As a little girl, Valerie was my mom’s tail, but we would always shoo her away from the kitchen because as a kitchen helper, she was a mess. My paternal grandfather Grandpa Zario called her kiti-kiti (a wriggler). It was probably sweet revenge for Valerie that of all four of us, she was the one who made baking more than a hobby, as the legions of fans of her Valerie’s Kitchen can attest to now.

She also didn’t care much about doing her homework, much to the anxiety of her classmate and our first cousin Aimee Loleng (now Ferrer). Valerie passed all her tests, worry-free. Today, she says she never sleeps without doing her “homework,” so to speak. She’s a Martha Stewart and, proof that miracles do happen—she’s a diva in organizing documents, inventories, and yes, parties!