Chapter 29: Nothing but dust and shadow.

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Color Label:
Patricia Roque
Lia Almonte
Kathy Guinto
Ashley Chavez
Trina Ramiro


She doesn’t have what it takes… She’s terrible at this sport… She sucks at volleyball… Oh, if only those were true!


“We have to pick her. We really do,” Patricia said, or rather ordered, when Pamela’s turn was over.


“There are only two people I know who can pull off that kind of powerful spike: you and her.”


“We can’t decide on that until the tryouts is over,” I frostily told them.


“Wends, you saw how good she was. She practically outdid the other team on her own!”


“But she’s a transferee!” I know that was probably the lamest excuse I could ever come up with but that’s the initial thought that popped inside my stupid head.


“So?” Trina chuckled. “Is there a written law in our handbook that we can’t recruit newcomers?”


“Don’t worry, Captain, she’ll never steal your thunder,” Ashley teased.


By getting engaged with my ex-boyfriend, I think she just did.




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Color Label:
Miggy Suarez
Jasmine Kwok
Mindy Olivar
Socrates Asuncion
Yona Gregorio


I decided to drop by the Student Council meeting at school before heading to my mom’s office in Makati with Gerard.


“Great, everyone is here,” Miggy Suarez, our Student Council president, kicked off to mark our impromptu meeting. “I only need thirty minutes of your time so please listen carefully. First of all, allow me to present the agenda of our meeting today: the financial report for the month of January and the financial proposal for the month of February. But before we move on to that, allow me to introduce the newly elected committee members.”


“We have new officers?” I whispered to Jasmine Kwok, the vice-president, and she nodded.


“Miggy said we need new auxiliaries now that more projects are accumulating under our term,” said Mindy Olivar, the secretary for internal affairs. She works hand-in-hand, even romantically speaking, with Socrates Asuncion, the secretary for external affairs.


“Like we don’t have enough secretaries already,” I taunted.


“Trust me, Miss Auditor, you and Yona” — the Student Council treasurer, Yona Gregorio — “are so going to need a lot of help with what Miguel is planning for this month,” Jasmine caviled with self-evident dismay.


“Another set of sleepless nights for the SAT,” Soc grunted. SAT is what we conveniently call ourselves, an acronym for Secretaries, Auditor and Treasurer since we are the ones usually faced with tons of paper works whenever a new trial balloon is offered on the table.


“Sponsor the coffee, okay, Wendy?” Yona ribbed. I usually ask Dad to brew gallons of coffee for us to make sure no one dozes off in the middle of our travail.


Miggy returned to the room after he had summoned our new, and I quote, clerical assistants from outside.“Everyone, meet our new CAs. Dean Marquez, Samantha Bello, Harmie Santos, Jenna Reyes, and Pamela Alonzo.”


Good grief, did I hear it right?!


And just when I thought that I was only suffering from a bad case of auditory hallucination, there she was. Standing behind our pea-brained president, who I am so going to kill after this meeting. I groaned and buried my face on my hands. Why, oh, why did the world have to be this small?!




“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her for the nth time that day.


“I am,” she sighed despondently, which betrayed the consonance of her words. Wendy has been lost in her thoughts since this morning and one thing that I’ve learned from my sister about girls is: There is always something behind the word nothing.


I pulled up outside the foyer of the Enriquez building, which is owned by the maternal side of her family, and handed my keys to the valet. “Come on, Chi, tell me what’s wrong,” I said while opening the door for her.


“I’m just having a bad week, Ardie, that’s all.” We’re calling each other by our nicknames now to try a new level of familiarity.


“Anything I can do to help?”


We boarded the first elevator from our right and she pressed the button for the 15th floor. “Promise me you’re not going to freak out once my relatives started swarming around you,” she importuned.


I laughed and put a friendly arm around her shoulders. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not going to be a runaway escort?” I kidded, but she only managed to smile faintly.


We got off the elevator upon reaching her mom’s office floor and her mood only turned sourer when the floor concierge asked us to proceed to Conference Room Two. Wendy already warned me of the possible flow of today’s events. I will be introduced to her mom’s siblings and her grandfather, interrogated with both conventional and personal questions, and finally, will be invited for Sunday golf with the other Enriquez men: her grandfather, her four uncles, her two uncles-in-law, a few of her cousins and Wesley, and her dad.


“But I can get you out of the Sunday golf, I just have to tell—”


“It’s okay, I think that might be fun actually,” I smiled.


“Are you serious?” she raised a brow at me, unable to pin her faith on my statement.


“Yes, I am. Who knows? I might even get invited for another game,” I joked but she clearly didn’t see the funny side of it.


“Just bear with my family for a few minutes of kookiness,” she grumbled and rolled her eyes. I gave her a reassuring smile before opening the door.


Everyone was decorously seated around the oval table but her mom was the only person I recognized among the crowd of seven. “I’m so glad you two could join us.”


The man closest from the door stood up and offered his hand to me. Much to my surprise, he was almost a spitting image of Tita Wilma. “Pleasure to meet the man of the hour.”


“Gerard, I’d like you to meet my uncle, and Mom’s fraternal twin brother, William Enriquez.” That definitely answered my question, I thought while taking his hand. And one by one, Wendy introduced me to her two aunts, Maita Enriquez-Ortega and Patricia Enriquez-Sison, her two other uncles, Alejandro Enriquez and Fidel Enriquez, and her grandfather, Wilfredo Enriquez, who asked Wendy and me to occupy the seats beside him.




AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Wilfredo Enriquez and Angela Ledesma-Enriquez are Wendy’s maternal grandparents. The Enriquez brood of seven, from the oldest to youngest, are as follows: Alejandro, Maita, Patricia, Fidel, fraternal twins William and Wilma, and Father Ramon.




“So, hijo, tell me, what are your thoughts about our country’s economic growth?” My grandfather, Apai Fred as we — his grandchildren — fondly call him, pelted the minute Ardie flopped down into the armchair.


“Apai,” I chimed in. “Stop making him feel uncomfortable.” He simply dissolved into laughter and playfully patted Ardie’s shoulder.


He does this to every guy that he sees us, his granddaughters, with. May it be a friend, a colleague, or a potential suitor or boyfriend, Apai always tries to unnerve the guys by throwing difficult or sensitive queries. There was one time that he asked my cousin Nikola’s boyfriend to name ten Latin loanwords and he was only able to answer four. The guy couldn’t sleep for days just thinking about the extra six just to prove that he can impress Apai.


“Should I still answer that?” Ardie whispered anxiously when Apai wasn’t looking. I told him that Apai was just being silly and probably the weirdest jokester ever known to mankind.


“I had a chance to meet Luisito Sanciongco in a business convention held in Shangri-La last week. Calling him wise would be an understatement,” Tito Edong raved on.


“Thank you, Sir. He would always remind me that experiences are better teachers and nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”


“Oscar Wilde,” Tito Fidel agreed and laughed heartily. “If you’re not doing anything next Sunday, you should join us for a little game of golf at the country club, Gerard.”


Ardie threw me a friendly glance before he answered. “I would be delighted.”


“Bueno, I was just telling everyone before you got here that I’ve spoken to Hera van der Braun this morning like what your mother asked me,” Tita Maita apprised for my benefit and Gerard’s. “She said it would be her pleasure to design everything you and Gerard will be wearing for the evening of your debutante ball, including those of your cotillion de honor.”


“I guess five ball gowns for Wendy and three tuxedos for Gerard are enough, si?”


“Five gowns and three tuxes?” I couldn’t help but blurt out. “Don’t you think that’s a bit too much, Tita?”


“There’s no such thing as too much in a party, hija,” Tita Passy brushed off and chortled gracefully. “Only too little or too few.”


“Mom, what ever happened to letting me plan this once I find an escort?” I groused next to her.


But my mom merely shushed me and replied, “Don’t be complacent, Isabelle. You should be grateful that your aunties are trying to help us.”


Wow, I seriously cannot believe that I’m the complacent one here. Psh.


“The first fitting is scheduled next Tuesday in Hera’s dress shop. If everything goes well, you can have the pre-pictorial immediately after in the studio.”


“Pablo Milan will be your photographer. He has the greatest portfolio and credentials, trust me,” Tita Passy gushed like a girl crushing on a guy. Her reaction definitely threw me off since I hardly see her show much enthusiasm over anything. She is always so refined she can push Maria Clara out of her throne.


“It’ll be held at Tagaytay, right, Wilma?”


“Claro se que, Papá,” Mom agreed. “I’ve had the place reserved two years ago just to be sure.”


“Based on the current estimates, around seven hundred guests are invited. Members of the press are still excluded,” Tito William proudly announced.


“S-seven hundred?!” I almost exclaimed. “Please tell me that we wouldn’t go beyond that number.”


“Isabelle, you will be formally introduced to the society. This is a fair number as far as we’re concerned.”


“Again, Tito. This is too much,” I bleated almost incoherently because I know my attempt on objecting would end futile.


“Surely they won’t go so far to do that, right?” Ardie whispered, the only person in this room who’d noticed my disgruntlement.


“You don’t them well enough,” I sighed for the umpteenth time.


Haven’t they heard of the idiom ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’? Because they are seriously becoming the epitome of it.


“I presume you two are already looking for rings, yes?”


Oh, sh*t. I was worried that this topic would come up. Dear God, please, no. Don’t let my aunt to say the dreaded word. Sacre bleu!


“I’m sorry po, but rings? For what?” Ardie was obviously clueless, and I know what was bound to happen once they answered him.


“For the engagement, hijo, what else?”


“E-engagement?!”




He was pacing the room back and forth, still flipped out from the conversation with my relatives. “Please tell me,” he finally spoke, “that my interpretation over the whole thing is completely wrong.”


“Gerard, let me explain,” I said, trying to soothe him. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about it and that you had to find it out the hard way.”


“They’re expecting us to get engaged, Wendy. Don’t you think I deserve to know that part of the tradition?” he muttered as he ran his hand through his hair. “Were you at least planning to tell me, somewhere in the near future perhaps, if I hadn’t learned about it earlier?”


“Uh… yes? I guess?” I didn’t intend to enunciate it with an interrogative tone but him freaking out is making me tense. “I mean, yes! Yes, I am,” I immediately added.


He breathed a deep, long sigh of torment. “I agreed to be your escort, Wendy, but I don’t remember signing up for something major like this.”


“It’s just a stupid tradition, Ardie, believe me,” I insisted.


“Well, obviously not to them,” he countered evenly despite his apprehensive state.


“You know how it was during their time,” I explained. “They assume that the debutante will marry her escort, but even tradition changes in the long run. Two of my female cousins didn’t end up marrying their consort if that will make you feel any better.”


I walked up to him gloomily when he didn’t respond. “Ardie, come on…”


He sighed once more before he gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’ll just call you tomorrow.”


“Ardie,” I muttered, almost begging, but he continued to walk away.




I asked Patricia to post the new line-up for our volleyball team on the Varsity Bulletin Board that Monday. As much as I wanted to strike Pamela’s name out of the list, she really deserved the spot and the team needs her.


I was heading to the main library when I accidentally, and literally, bumped into (speaking of the ghost) Pamela across the hallway. “Sorry,” I muttered while picking my notes that fell on the floor.


“No, it was my fault. I wasn’t looking at where I was going,” she replied as she helped gather my photocopies. “I’m actually trying to study the campus map, hoping I won’t get lost again.”


“Thanks,” I said when she handed the last of my tabs. I was about to walk off when she called my name.


“Do you have a minute to spare?”


I still have an hour before my Modern Architecture class starts so I answered, sounding nonplussed I realized a second too late, “Yeah, I guess.”


We took a seat on one of the benches along the lobby of the College of Arts building. “I wanted to apologize to you yesterday but you immediately left after the meeting was over,” she began.


“Apologize for what?” I asked, even though I do have a very slight hint of what she was talking about.


“I’m sorry if this whole thing is starting to freak you out. I mean I’m not exactly happy myself in transferring to another school where I don’t anyone except for Ralph, and now you. Even though all my subjects were credited, it still feels like I’m starting over as a freshman.”


I learned that she was previously from Sedbergh’s, same school as Ardie’s. He still hasn’t spoken to me since he left Mom’s office last Saturday so I’m not sure if he’s already aware about Pam’s transfer.


“And I know I’m putting your nose out of joint by suddenly barging into your personal space. The varsity and the student council to be particular. But I only wanted to do something that’ll make me look forward to going to school again,” she shyly admitted. “My parents think that this would make things more convenient for me and Ralph, but who are they kidding, right? It’s a fixed marriage. There’s nothing they could do to make this easier.”


I just sat there and quietly listened. I don’t know how to tell the difference between a truth and a lie but seeing her right now pouring her heart out to someone like me, who is practically a stranger to her despite the peculiar connection of our lives, I began to feel guilty for all the negative opinions that I have against her.


“If it makes you uncomfortable, I will resign from the student council and give up my spot in the team,” she sincerely offered.


“I guess I don’t need to lie to you, Pam,” I spoke softly. “I know you’re a really nice person, Gerard and Ralph don’t need to tell me that. But you don’t have to quit on anything for me, really.”


“Are you sure?”


I nodded. “But I hope you’re not expecting us to be friends. Because to tell you the truth, I’m still trying to get over Ralph and that would just be too much for me.”


“I understand,” she said, but there was a faint trace of disappointment in her voice.


I took a glimpse at my watch and began to collect my stuff and stood up. “My class starts in ten minutes so I guess I’ll just see you around, okay?”


“Yeah, see you around,” she said with a blank smile and a small wave.


As I was leaving the building, I couldn’t erase the Pam’s crestfallen expression from my mind. Did she really want us to be friends? But did I do the right thing by rejecting that? Jeez, I’m beginning to feel like a villain here.


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