Prologue II
Chie
It’s 1976.
It is no longer clear to me how I met Chie.
A year before, I immigrated to Guam, a lush tropical island with an American way of life that I have only read in illustrated books at a much younger age.
It’s also an island. The beach is white. Though our house is only a block from the Agno River back in the Philippines , it is only now that I experience a certain happiness being in the water.
I jog along the beach regularly and frequent the bars in the hotels lining the stretch of beach on Tumon Bay . It’s my way of relaxing on rare day offs from my two jobs. I waited on tables that allows me to meet people; mostly tourists from Japan .
And talk to strangers I do at work in the Garden Terrace at Guam Reef Hotel. It must be during one of those slow nights that I meet Chie. When I realize what was going on, we were exchanging addresses.
She is cute and beautiful. She has that innocent look of a teenager. She’s only 18 years old.
We got to know each other when she spent most of her vacation with me on the beach. We played tennis though she did not know how. As one who just got out of teenage years, I obliged to her pleads for me to teach her.
Teaching her is no longer in my mind. I think I am falling in love. I just wanted to be with her. I wanted to hold her hand; to guide her backhand strokes. Words can no longer describe how I felt. It’s one of those moments worth remembering.
She wanted to know more about me. She was fascinated with a Filipino living in America , as Guam to Japanese is also America . And so we went places in the island. I even took her home to meet my parents. That is how our friendship has become.
She must have felt what I felt then. Sometimes we just exchange looks. And we will be happy.
When she bid goodbye to go back to Kobe , she shed a tear and promised to be back. I said, “I’ll be waiting” knowing then that we will never see each other again.
A day passed. Two days passed.
On the third day after she left, I received her first letter; two days later, her second letter. We communicated frequently for the next three months until suddenly she stopped writing without any explanation. I must have written five more letters but still no answer. I realized then that long distance courtship just does not work. It only happens in the movies.
I promised myself, never to fall into long distance courtship again.
A promise that was meant to be broken as a few years later in 1980, I fall in love again.
And again it’s long distance courtship. And a whirlwind!
PBB/07-25-08
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment