When Love Did Come

CHAPTER ONE

What would you say? If I tell you I love a girl? And she liked writing poems? And watching movies? And the Beatles? And she loves ice cream? And potatoes? And me? What could be the words leaving your mouth?

How did it all begin? Hmmm... that's an interesting reply. You answered my question with another one. How does it all begin? Who knows. And why? Well, let me think.

The old Big Bang theory, I guess. Something primal, something way back then. Something whispering deep in my heart and soul, "She's the one."

So it happened: a kitchen door in Makati opened and likewise did Rayel Capistrano when Jenny Pineda walked through it and into his life once again in her thirty-fourth year.

The dean's acquaintance party for new faculty in 1983, that's when it was. Just back from Davao after speaking for the recent National Secondary Schools' Press Conference and still jet-lagged, Rayel slouched against the dean's refrigerator, tugging on his second Budweiser of the afternoon and a stick of Marlboro in his left hand. He looked past faces looking at him and answered obvious questions about Davao, suffering from the white noise of academic chatter in the spaces around him.

An architect's wife had taken over the Davao interrogation. Rayel gave her 29.8 percent of his attention, planning escape routes and taking a long, slow swallow of beer while she spoke.

"So, you're also a writer besides being an engineer?"

"What's wrong about that?" he quickly batted-back. She reminded him of his niece who wouldn't stop telling him that he was too selfish for having two careers at the same time. Of course, his niece wasn't being rude. She's a cute little girl. And she's just being real.

"It's not what I meant," she said. "What I meant was... aren't you getting overworked or fatigued with so many things in mind?"

"No. Being a professor is my full-time job. I write only on my spare time. I don't work for anybody's bullshit. I'm a freelance writer, if you know what I mean. I write for myself. I enjoy it, I'm good at it, and I'm not pressured." She jumped a little when he said "bullshit," as if it was a word she hadn't heard before or maybe didn't like to think about.

"What kinds of stuff do you write?"

"I'm a columnist for the Manila Times. I also write novels, short stories, and sometimes when I'm inspired --- which I wasn't for a long time now --- I write poems."

"Jenny Pineda's also writing poems, you know." His female co-faculty leapfrogged the architect's wife and had Rayel's attention. "She's been showing me some of her works. It's good."

"Who?"

"Manny Pineda's wife. He's the new guy in our department they hired all the way from California." Rayel heard a car door shutting in the driveway. His co-faculty turned and looked out the window. "Oh, here they come now. They're a delightful couple."

Pineda? Pineda... Pineda... Pineda? Ah, yes, Manny Pineda. He'd interviewed him a month ago before going to Davao. Never met his wife, Jenny, though. He remembers the Jenny he knew liked writing poems. Rayel felt like writing "The normal thing, lesser than or equal to mundane and boring" on the evaluation form. But he didn't and wrote instead, "Manny Pineda is a perfect fit," which amounted to the same thing.

Manuel Pineda III came into the dean's kitchen, smiling, shaking hands, being introduced. Jenny Pineda smiled, too, in her pale blue blouse with a thin jacket that came to just over her hips and a skirt reaching to midcalf, medium-heeled black shoes below the hem. Subtle Jenny Pineda.

But not subtle enough. It was all there. The sweet Amerasian face coming only from an upper-shelf gene pool, the light brown hair, and good, fair skin. Brown eyes coming at you like an arrow in flight and a confidence in men indicating she knew what they could and could not do.