Love in the Time of Vanity Fair

Chapter 6: Savoir Faire

A glass half empty and a glass half full.

We have all met that phrase somehow and have juggled between the implications of which. Optimism and Pessimism have got their own way of rearing themselves in our lives when faced with highly stressful situations. Should we react positively towards the hurdle the universe has thrown our way? Or will the negative reaction prevail? In certain instances, the choice is not exactly ours to make.

Sometimes, learned helplessness or the feeling that nothing we do will ever be able to change something clouds our psyche and the proverbial glass, instead of being half empty or half full, overflows with our emotional baggage. And we tend to project our frustration to someone else.

I did exactly just that and there was nothing that I regret more. Especially when he never did anything wrong.

That was how i found myself seated beside Martina in their private chopper with a swiss roll cradled on my lap, praying earnestly that her cousin would finally talk to me after I unintentionally drove him away.

...

The Zobel Gala flooded the news during the subsequent weeks having acquired quite a huge amount of funding from their auction for their charities. But beyond that, the gossip mills have begun turning especially when a gossip blog started speculating on the date of the Zobel Heir, whose identity was not revealed. The official media coverage of the event was particularly vigilant with what they released to the public, lest they incur a lawsuit bigger than their heads. And with what I learned from Ian, the identities of the third generation of the Zobel family was highly hidden from the public eye due to security reasons, which explained why there was a media blackout where Ian was concerned. The people invited to the gala were from established families and operate in the same manner when addressing concerns about their privacy so everybody was pretty tight-lipped.

But not the same courtesy was apparently extended to the mysterious date. Someone spilled that the said date was from Ateneo and it just blew into a frenzy. Everybody had been guessing who she could possibly be and how exactly she caught the attention of this particular heir.

I could only try to pretend to not hear because it was like listening to an old, rusty, broken vinyl and it was annoying. Kathleen, the ever chismosa, of course laughed over the predicament I had landed myself into.

"Not a boyfriend pa," Kathleen muttered quietly that had me rolling my eyes.

"Do you think we know who this date is?"

We overheard students talking while we were walking to the AV Hall for the monthly program updating.

"Girls you have no idea," Kathleen murmured beside me causing me to pinch her.

"Shut up," I said between my teeth while sporting a very pretentious smile and shot her a glare. But instead of getting intimated, she burst into a fit of laughter.

"Do you think she got a gold invite?"

"But how could that be when that's reserved for very high profiled people?"

The students continued bickering with themselves. I got confused though. Why would they even argue about invitation color when it was clearly black?

I shook my head and pulled Kathleen to walk swiftly so we'd reach the destination before all the comfortable seats were taken. We occupied the seats on the inner side of the third row, near the microphone stand so if ever there were questions or feedback, the microphone was accessible to us.

The usual flow of the program took place. The conference was going well until a person we never expected to come stood on the lectern. Murmurs were heard all over. Why is the Director for Scholarships here? She had no business here.