Then I forgot about her. It was February 14, and what the heck. I’d just received my payslip. I could just stay in my rented space in Roxas District, read another Leon Uris or John Grisham book, or treat myself with a bowl of simmering bulalo in a sidewalk bulalohan along Aurora Blvd. in Cubao.
It was past 5 and most employees had left the office. And over the glass wall that separated our editorial office and the circulation department where she stayed, I could see her still absorbed in paper works, and I didn’t think she was raring for a date. But I won’t ask her again.
I was the only one left in our department, because, unlike my officemates, my official daily time would end at 6 (the company allowed me to extend additional hours from Monday to Friday so that I can have the whole Saturday for my post-grad studies).
It was 6 when I asked her again. She said she wasn’t sure about her date, and she must stay for an hour to finish some job. I went back to my table, closed the manuscript, looked up the wall clock, again and again, and then lost my thought watching a column of little red ants marching to the flower vase atop my cubicle. They were gathering tiny crumbs from the crackers I had for my 3 p.m. snack.
I left the room, locked the glass door and off I went to the circulation department. I told her, if she’s really going on a date, I could stay with her in the room for the meantime, and then we could just go out the office together and part ways at a street corner. She said it’s OK. So I stayed on, and between our conversations I skimmed through back issues of the company’s publications—showbiz, sports, and music magazines.
She was introduced to me only in August, or six months earlier, by her best friend, a classmate in college, who asked her to join her in the company. She was shy, slim, a little above five feet, with an attractive face, observant eyes and long tresses.
I came to know her more closely one Sunday afternoon, days after the first meeting. She was alone in the office. Her best friend wasn’t able to join her that day. Meanwhile, the magazine editor who called me for a press work that day, also changed his mind and cancelled our work schedule at the last minute. I went straight to her office, said “hello” and stayed on for the next two hours talking with her. It was then that I learned we finished college at the same year, her family is Ilocano, and her late father, a brother and a sister, share the same birthday, September 21, which is also MY birthday!
That night, I invited her for a dinner in a sizzling joint cum bakeshop near the office, just across Sto. Domingo church. While eating, we talked more about our college days, some wacky officemates, Eraserheads’ songs, and her goals in life.
More dinnertimes together followed after that. And in a fastfood near Welcome Rotunda, I paid her three 100-peso bills as payment of my loan from her petty cash. The bills contained the three words I wanted to say to her. She counted the money, looked at me in disbelief, and then put the bills in her purse. She said she is on a relationship.
That must be her date now, I thought.
We left the office at 7. So you’re not having a date, I said. She nodded. Then I offered myself to just bring her home, which I would usually do when we leave the office at the same time. So we hurried out of the office, and flagged down the first Malate-bound jeep that we saw from the street corner along Quezon Ave.
Almost everybody around us seemed in a romantic mood, from two or three young pairs who made goo-goo eyes at each other inside the jeep, to PDA couples squeezing each other's hand while roaming the streets, some girls holding a flower, and to couples in glass-walled fastfoods. And for sure there could be more lovebirds inside cinemas and motels, of course, and in some bushy spot of a public park. We just smiled with our observations, and would rather talk about everything but love matters.
We alighted in front of the Malate church. We walked on towards Remedios Street. The night was clear and starry, and the cool breeze coming from the Manila Bay wafted like sweet caress. I suggested a dinner, she said it was okay, so I brought her to a burger stand near their place.
I had been wildly delighted at the prospect of going out on a V-day with her, and that was it, though unplanned and not necessary. I finally had a date with you on this day, I said. She laughed, and she said not a word to validate it. We just enjoyed our company together. She knew the real me. I need not be the right guy for her, but I just allowed myself to be a real friend to her. And it was the same way that I came to know her more. I was so comfortable with the setup that I stopped thinking about my feelings for her and simply enjoyed being with her.
And before she knew it, a long-lasting friendship loomed large before us. Until she was nudged into love territory I marked my own.
That, I must say, was our first date—a friendly date—in a Valentine’s Day. But it was a date and our best ever. And our last, because on December that same year, I married her.
