I never thought he'd be my regular lunch mate. In fact, I've never even dreamed that we'd end up as, ugh, pals. It was June 9, 1992 - a day before I bade goodbye to the double two. Anxious to get in the teaching program, I observed Ruby, a giggly girl being given the third degree.
"What's your grade point average?"
"Are you sure?"
"Why do you want to be a teacher?"
"Is it because you failed in your chosen field?"
"Describe yourself."
"Any teaching experience?"
As Mrs. Domanais was busy making Ruby and the rest break out in cold sweat, I tried initiating small talk with this lanky guy wearing horn-rimmed glasses.
"What's your number?" asked the arnivorous.
"Number 27", said Googly Eyes.
How friendly can you get? That's hardly a sentence. Obviously, my effervescent charm failed (or was it something that I imagined I had?). Okay, if that's the way he wants it, fine. I'd just compute my grade point average quietly.
He-hey, what's this I'm seeing from the corner of my left eye? The guy's peeping at my transcript! Well, read it and weep, buster! If my charm failed to catch his attention earlier, my transcript surely made his eyes dilate. Bulge out? Tsk-tsk. So, he thinks he's the only voyeur, eh? Let's see. Now, move your right hand to the right … no to the left, you idiot! Hey, what do we have here? A runaway from San Carlos Seminary? Sure fits him to a T. Ooops, that's my number. Later, dude.
I hardly thought of him after that. It was two weeks after school had started that we got to talk to each other for real. One Saturday morning, he startled me by dragging me to his seat and begging to see my answers to our second learning task. (Okay, so I exaggerated a little about the begging part.)
"Sige na! Ikaw kasi ang standard ko eh.", said the dude while winking.
Uh, well, duh, okay. Sheez, I'm such a sucker for compliments. I allowed him to peruse my not-exactly-one-of-the-best works and discussed with him things in the hand-outs which were clear as mud. Nothing mildly exciting happened after that.
The week that followed started it all. I became over-excited with their group report that I made an outline of it. I dunno what attracted me to sit next to him and show him my effort. I guess, I amazed him so he borrowed my outline since their group had no visual aids. Second-time sucker, arnimal! Everything went smoothly in their report, thanks daw to me. My reward? Free lunch which amounted to P10 but hey, it paved the way for more than small talks. After that Saturday, we arrived at an unwritten and an unspoken agreement: we'd be lunchmates till the end of the semester.
We played hookey once. We scoured the pier, stayed somewhere similar to a Navy Country Club, traded stories from my college days and his seminary years and binged on junk food. (Quick, why did he get out of the hollowed halls? He wanted to imitate his Dad - have a son who would one day be a priest!) We headed back to PNU, ate a hearty lunch and exchanged philosophical tidbits kuno. Before we finally parted after the first "tryst", he started teaching me Greek. I didn't have the chance to wonder if he'd all of a sudden chant in Latin 'cause the one o'clock bell rang … or did I imagine it? No bells in this university but classes start and end.
Then came The Doomsday (read: finals in Educ. 1). I changed seats -- from the third row to the front row -- under the guise of poor vision so that I could obtain better visibility of the ex-man of God. Our prexy, who was seated on my left, moved to a less conspicuous location to snooze. Seeing that the seat next to me was vacant, he plopped down noisily as if bored to death with all the reports of the members of Group 6. He started a barrage of queries, oblivious to the baleful looks Domanais was throwing at us.
"What's your NCEE score?"
"Why did you leave UP?"
"Can I apply at St. Paul?"
"Won't I create pandemonium among the girls?"
"Do you have any idea how underpaid and overworked I am?"
He nonchalantly asked all these questions while casually holding my hands and touching my arms. Forty-nine pairs of eyes observed the show. I was soooo embarrassed.
Time for the F word … finals I mean. I couldn't concentrate that well because he didn't return to his original seat. He was glued next to me till the end of the period. He finished first and pestered me to hurry up. (I'm talking about finishing the test and not finishing a quickie, okay?) I got annoyed for the first time with the guy. I mean really, just because he's got a cute pair of teasing eyes, a nice profile, soft and kissable lips, a spiky head and a penchant for Neil Simon witticisms and Woody Allen non-sequiturs, did not give him the right to mess up my "academic curve."
Naturally, I forgave him. Boy, I'm in too deep.
THE CONTINUATION
It's been almost three months since I've been subtly angling for a date from the erstwhile seminarian and perennial Saturday lunch mate of mine. Finals week in Educ. 3 was just around the bend and I was getting desperate. I sought the counsel of a married classmate who advised me to take the initiative and ask the guy out somewhere. I approached a daring friend who handed me a Cosmopolitan feature article, the thesis statement of which went something like, "If you don't ask, you don't get." But hey, wait a minute here! Nice girls don't ask men out. Nice girls wait to be asked. But then, whoever said I was nice? Not even my Chairperson would nod in approval. Then I thought, if I don't ask him out, at the age of 70, I'd probably be speculating still on what might have been -- whether there had ever been a chance of a relationship developing.
One October afternoon, I nervously picked up the nearby pay phone and dialled The Guy's number. My plan was to remind him to bring my Up The Down Staircase and easily slip the question, "Will you marry me?", er, I mean, "Care to go out with a bespectacled midget?" :D Do you know what he did? He turned the tables on me before I could even pull out a chair and sit. He popped the question and saved me from embarrassment! "Will I marry him?", er, I mean, "Would I like to go to the much-raved-about Malabon Zoo?" Heck, I'd go with him anywhere, but naturally, I didn't tell him that. I got so flustered when he unconsciously reversed my well-laid plans that I blurted out something vague about going and not going. We ended the phone conversation with me reminding him to bring my book and he telling me that he found my voice cute. I already know that. Sheez, why hasn't anyone told me that my voice was husky or sexy or bedroom-voice-like? He-he. :D Dream on, girl. His sister even thought that I was one of his infatuated students pretending to be his classmate! After analyzing my mediocre performance as a modern woman of the world, I called back one Friday afternoon and asked if he was still free to accompany me to the animal sanctuary to visit his relatives. Affirmative so off to the zoo we went after wrestling with our Educ. 3 finals.
At the zoo, we had a great time watching two exotic birds bark instead of chirp and a lion cub named Luningning tear an Abante tabloid to bits. (Got disgusted with Xerex probably.) The ex-man of God was fascinated as I observed him look intently at two tigers doing the X-rated thing in public. A myna bird almost decapitated his fingers because he kept poking the poor fowl and forcing it to say "hello" even if it was busy with an afternoon snack.
Then we went to Pizza Hut and had a heady conversation about anything under the sun -- films, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, my former job, his students, parents and (Gasp!) masturbation. The guy was riveting! There was never a dull moment with him. He's definitely got brains and not maggots in between his ears.
Of course, I didn't like the day to end, but we eventually had to part. I was prepared to go on a Dutch Treat but he insisted on paying for everything. We wouldn't be seeing each other anymore, he said but he'd keep in touch. That I still have to see.
I'm really gonna miss everything about him. His admirable guts in dozing off even beside a prof, his booming voice when he recites or reports in class, his attempts at mimicking Doc and that faggot Chris and even the way he laughs when he catches me slapping my face three times when I get sleepy in the afternoon sessions.
He's no longer interested in enrolling this coming semester. I tried changing his mind for weeks but to no avail. He said he couldn't handle teaching eight sections and still be saddled with a study load of nine units. Instead, he's going into body building to avoid being branded as a deadringer of Woody Allen. Frankly, I think it's an insult to compare him with the nebbish genius. The ex-sem's mug is much, much cuter.
It's time to swallow the bitter pill. Enough of this seemingly short-lived one-sided never-had-a-chance-to-take-off love affair with another myopic. Ahihihi.
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