Interim Goddess of Love

by Mina V. Esguerra

  He scanned the room, found me, and instantly saved me from having to think about more conversation topics. Quin was my deus ex machina.

  His expression changed the tiniest bit, and I wondered if he heard my last thought. Arg.

  "Ready to go?" he asked, as if I totally knew he was going to show up and provide a perfect cue to exit.

  "Sorry, yeah, I really do have to go, Ian."

  "Maybe you shouldn't tell Kathy that I was talking about her," Ian said, and thought, at the same time.

  I gave his wrist a reassuring squeeze. "I can keep secrets."

  Things that were surprisingly easy now that I was the (interim) goddess of love: introductions, white lies, and pretending that walking out of the room with the most popular guy in school was normal.

  "I met Vida, by the way."

  "I'm done with practice. Do you want a ride home?"

  "I have dinner with Sol. She's giving me a ride home." We stopped at the curved driveway, the common pickup and drop-off point for cars. "Vida gave me a book to read."

  He made a sound that was similar to laughing, but without the joy. "She's hung up on things that happened a long time ago."

  "So the two of you fought."

  "It's a children's book."

  I wish you would say stuff I actually want to hear. I tried to fish a little more. "I just didn't think you were the violent type."

  Quin was so ready to move on though. "It's a children's book. You shouldn't believe everything about it."

  "So she is one of you?"

  "She's here for her own reasons, but you shouldn't be concerned about them. How was your talk with the guy?"

  "Ian's not her secret admirer either."

  "You know that for sure?"

  "Oh he definitely likes her, but he's stopping short of actually doing anything. It's a bit sad."

  Sad for Ian, who was resigned to the next few years of blah just so he wouldn't get hurt. But not sad for Kathy, who was turning out to be quite the charmer. She thought she was a wallflower? With the right push she had at least two guys ready to fall for her -- and a third one obviously already there.

  Envious. That was what I was.

  Chapter 10

  Personality Test Result for Joaquin Apolinario:

  You are analytical, rather than emotional. You prefer to work alone, and are more comfortable in social situations with people of similar convictions. The way to get the best out of you is to present facts, argue logically, and prioritize efficiency. To others you may seem cold or unresponsive, but you do open up to certain people over time. Often the lack of warmth is a coping mechanism, and those who deal with you must be patient about it.

  I didn't have to feel helpless about this. I saw from my mom's marriage that waiting didn't really do a girl any good, so whenever I started to like a guy, I did things. The first thing was to look him up. (a.k.a. mild stalking.) In high school, this meant I looked up a crush in old yearbooks, tried to find common friends, read up on whatever they happened to be interested in. Not that this all worked, by the way -- I did say that I'd never had a boyfriend.

  Some girls can't stand to be around the guy they like. They get really nervous, and rather than make fools of themselves, they just stay away. I was the opposite; the more I liked a guy, the more I wanted to be around him. I was the type who'd join the same org, or pick the same elective. Sure I was probably looking like a fool five times a day over a bunch of things, but I liked being close to someone I admired.

  The act of doing something about the feelings, no matter how futile the exercise, was still way better than sitting around just hoping they'd notice the girl who never said anything.

  Looking someone up was easier because of the Internet, except Googling "Joaquin Apolinario" didn't lead anywhere interesting. That was why I was hunting for a mythology book in the library, but even that wasn't so successful.

  I guess if a god didn't want to be found, he could, you know, hide a library book about himself. Or scrub the Internet of any juicy info.

  I had one other source of insight though.

  Student personality tests weren't strictly confidential, by the way. I mean, you couldn't just walk into the Guidance Office and ask for the results of some other person, but they didn't keep those things under lock and key. And if I happened to, while encoding a survey, click open another database with the Annual Personality Test results, search for Quin's entry, and print the result page, I wouldn't get into trouble for it, even if anybody else found out.

  Farrah Flores, Ms. Farrah was what I called her, was an actual psychologist. She worked with the school two days a week as a guidance counselor. She was a Ford River graduate, also an SK, and decided to work in the Guidance Office for a few years to "give back" to the school. She was young, couldn't have been more than ten years older than me. She still looked like she belonged on campus, and every so often a college guy would speak to me hoping they'd get to ask her out.

  Anyway, I liked Ms. Farrah.

  "We do this yearly so we can figure out if the student population in general has a common personality," she explained to me. "Like, how many students are introverted? I have a theory that we can get their grades up if we offer modules that'll let some students catch up on class alone, instead of in a group. But that's just a potential application that we never really have time for, so we just keep doing the test. Unless the results show something extreme that we need to be concerned about, and then maybe we'll get that person some help, but that hasn't really happened yet."

  I was biting my lip at this, figuring how to get my feelings out in question form.

  She shrugged. "Is that what you needed?"

  "I guess I wanted to know if this test should be taken seriously. I mean, why take it every year?"

  "Sometimes people change," Ms. Farrah said. "Not that the person has changed dramatically, but sometimes if they were in a certain mood while taking the test, it'll affect their results. Sometimes people don't take the test seriously and don't answer truthfully. It's better really to just take the test over a few years and see if it's consistent with their behavior, and maybe any life circumstances. Why do you want to know this, Hannah?"

  "I'm just curious," I said, trying to downplay the whole thing.

  Quin's results were the same, for all four years that he had taken the test. Talk about someone who was set in his ways.

  Did this tell me anything new about him? Only that I had gotten as close to him as I was ever going to get. And that if I wanted anything to happen I had to wait, had to hope he would change his mind.

  A phone beeped -- Ms. Farrah received a text message. She read it and reacted with an annoyed sigh.

  "Can I just tell you about what Ben did again?" she asked. Ben, her boyfriend, was annoying her lately. I had met him briefly the week before, when he came over to pick her up, and got the distinct sense that he was going to propose marriage soon. But I was not going to tell Ms. Farrah that.

  I had papers to file, but they can wait. Love apparently had to come first.

  "I bought turon for us too," Ms. Farrah said. "Just to save you a trip to the caf."

  Love and snacks. This wasn't so bad sometimes.

  Chapter 11

  The poster said that we should attend the First Quarter Bash to "celebrate our sports supremacy!"

  It was nice to see that even the Bash organizers, usually students who would rather party than be in school (hence joining the club that organized parties), had a sense of irony. Ford River was not big on sports. They tried, but it just wasn't that fun. Technically the school wasn't based in Manila, and didn't compete with other metro colleges in their sports leagues. Our games -- when there were games -- weren't televised, and it required some effort to actually see them. And yet (as if there was a memo) the jocks of the basketball team still ruled the school, even though they'd never even won a championship.

  They were the most good-looking team there, though, usually. I had to give them that.

&nb
sp; But none of this mattered, because any excuse for a party was embraced by the Ford River crowd. The Bash was usually held somewhere off campus after a big basketball game, never mind if we won or lost. I only knew this because of post-Bash gossip, by the way. I hadn't gone to one yet.

  "Ouch," someone said, from somewhere just off to my right.

  It was Robbie, Quin's friend, another basketball player.

  "Sorry?" I automatically asked.

  He pointed to the exact phrase that I was fixating on. "The Bash people are making fun of me."

  "I'm sure they don't mean you."

  "They just mean the guys who play basketball. They kind of mean me."

  I always liked Robbie. Not that way, but you know what I mean. In this popular-guy "boy band," Quin was the leader, Diego the rebel, and Robbie the cute one. He just seemed to be the most approachable, and he actually had a sense of humor. Whenever I saw him wearing his basketball uniform on campus, I had the impression he was at practice but forgot something at his locker. Not like the other guys who wore the jersey to show off.

  "It ends at nine-thirty?" I said, pointing to that detail on the poster. "I don't go to parties, and I know that's lame."

  "You've never been to a Bash?"

  "No."

  "They say it ends early to get the school to approve putting up the poster. It doesn't end at nine-thirty."

  "They lie?" That sounded much more likely then. "Wow. I… totally expected that."

  I thought about what would happen if this big party actually did end at nine-thirty. Robbie laughed a little, probably because I was too, and he wasn't like Quin who never laughed with me on anything.

  "So are you going?" he asked, a beat later.

  "Huh?"

  "Are you going to the Bash?"

  And then I saw it, a memory of Robbie's, and it was weird. I saw me.

  …I was wearing the pink top with my dark jeans and white sandals --- an ensemble I threw on for the first time just last week. Apparently it was a good hair day -- soft waves ran down my back. A good skin day too, no breakouts, and from that particular distance, the afternoon sun was actually flattering. I had my usual afternoon snack combo: buko juice (coconut water only, no sugar) in one hand, turon (fried banana roll) in the other. I was on my way from the cafeteria to probably the guidance office and I just started biting into the turon. It was nice and crunchy.

  Robbie was on the second floor of the East building, and he had looked at me just as a breeze blew a lock of my hair over one shoulder.

  It was very fabulous, if I may say so myself.

  In that moment, he experienced another memory of me, and I felt pulled into a memory within a memory.

  It was at the basketball court in school. He had just gotten into basketball varsity and it was his second day at practice. I was standing at the other end of the court, in my uniform, and the hairstyle I had in freshman year (bangs, bob) and I waved in his direction. He thought for a second that I had waved to him and almost smiled back when a movement next to him caught his eye -- and it was Quin, running past him to meet me.

  He watched us talk. He was wondering if I was Quin's girlfriend. He noticed that we didn't kiss and didn't hold hands. A minute later, Quin started jogging back to the middle of the court, and I sat down on the ground and pulled out a textbook.

  "Who's that?" Robbie asked Quin, trying to be casual.

  "Hannah. She doesn't have a boyfriend," Quin said.

  Embarrassed, Robbie wanted to say that he wasn't going to ask that, but Quin was already talking to Diego about something else.

  So now there we were, in front of the poster advertising the Bash, and Robbie was asking me if I was going. I had never gone. I did want to go. What would happen if I said I did? What would that lead to?

  "I don't know yet," I squeaked, probably blinking furiously. "I… I think I'm watching something on TV that night."

  "TV?" Even he didn't buy that, I could tell.

  "Are you going?" I asked instead.

  "I'm sure it'll be fun," Robbie said. "I got your number from Quin. Maybe I'll call you next week to ask if you're going."

  "Okay."

  "Just in case you want to skip that thing you want to watch on TV."

  "Okay."

  Dammit. I had never not known what to say to Robbie before. This was Robbie! Quin's friend Robbie!

  And Quin was nowhere in sight to save me from this super awkward moment.

  "Hannah!"

  Oh thank God. It was Kathy, and I had never been this happy to see her. I didn't even know what she wanted but I excused myself from the talk with Robbie and grabbed her like I was saving her life. And promptly dragged her in the direction of the Guidance Office.

  She didn't mind the urgency. She kind of looked a bit shell-shocked, but it wasn't my fault.

  "Another gift?" I asked.

  Kathy showed me the thing that she had been holding up to her chest. It was a picture frame, nice and heavy, and behind the glass was a black and white photo of an old house.

  "It's an old house," I said.

  "Label says it's an ancestral house in Silay, Negros Occidental," Kathy said. "Probably belonged to a family with a sugar plantation, although I haven't looked it up yet."

  Silay, I would find out later, is near Bacolod. It's in the province of Negros Occidental, and it was known for sugar plantations that went way back to the Spanish period. Today I guess they still grew sugar, but the grand old houses that the plantation owners once lived in are now heritage sites and museums.

  It didn't explain why a secret admirer would take a photo of one and give it as a gift.

  "Is it your family's house?" I asked.

  Kathy looked confused too, but not in the same way I did. "No it's not. But, Hannah, this is something I do. I collect photos of ancestral homes like this one. I started when I was a kid, when I was given my first camera, that summer when I visited my grandfather's childhood home. But my photos are not as good as this. This is… amazing."

  'Who knows that you collect this, Kathy?"

  She was still looking at the picture, somewhat entranced by it. "I can't even… I don't think I've ever told anybody. It's a weird hobby, and I was pretty sure no one would really be interested…"

  "Have you looked at the card?"

  "What?"

  "It's taped to the back."

  She hadn't even noticed it, and had to peel it off with shaking fingers. "It's…an invitation to go to the Bash next week."

  "Is it signed?"

  "No."

  She was so scared. Excited and scared. I wanted to be happy for her but couldn't because my own belly was doing sympathy flip-flops.

  "You should go," I said.

  "It's weird. This is too… it's too intimate. I don't even know who he is!"

  As she spoke I felt it, felt her walls coming up. This guy had just revealed how much he knew her and it was equal parts creepy and impressive. The creepy bit was leaving her vulnerable, and the instinct to protect herself was kicking in.

  She was making up her mind as she spoke, talking to herself more than me. "I shouldn't go to the Bash with him. This is probably just a stalker."

  How would I have advised her, as a friend?

  I would have said, this is creepy. Report him to the admin now.

  But I wasn't just a friend. I was the goddess of love and I felt that this guy was sincere. We just had to find him, because Kathy was going to shut down from fear.

  "Kathy," I said, "Your secret admirer guy. Who do you wish he could be?"

  "What?"

  "You know what I said. Tell me."

  "It doesn't matter who I want it to be. It's not like it'll change anything."

  "Humor me."

  "He doesn't like me."

  "How do you know for sure?"

  "I know for sure."

  "Tell me."

  Kathy sighed. "It's not possible. He's popular and… he probably doesn't know I exist, anyway."

  Chapt
er 12

  By the time I actually saw Quin face to face, hours later, I had run a dozen versions of my speech in my head.

  I conveniently found him eating a burger alone in the McDonald's that I had decided to have dinner at that night. So I walked up to him with purpose.

  "I can't believe you knew and never told me."

  No look of surprise or guilt, of course. He was probably expecting me to do this any day now. "You're hungry. Why don't you get something to eat first?"

  "I can't believe you knew Robbie liked me all this time."

  "How did you find out?"

  "He asked me out to the Bash."

  "He's been planning to do that for a while."

  "I know. He inadvertently gave me a flashback tour earlier, when he talked to me. How come you never said anything?"

  "Did you know that Robbie wasn't one of us?"

  "What?"

  Quin was not at all bothered by my drama. He picked up a french fry and lazily dipped it in ketchup. "Did you notice already how you can tell if someone you encounter is or is not a god in human form?"

  Seriously, you take this moment to quiz me?

  "I saw into his feelings, memories of me," I said, realizing it right then.

  "Right. You've noticed that you can't do that to me, or Vida, or Diego."

  "I just thought it was because I'm new and haven't learned everything yet."

  Quin motioned for me to sit, but I stubbornly refused. "It's not a thing you learn; it just is. When I met you, you were part of the youngest generation of Bathala's family. When you took the place of the goddess of love, you joined the third generation. You only have power over those who are younger."

  "Can you… do your powers work on Vida and Diego?"

  He shook his head. "No. They're my equals."

  "But Vida competes with you for things."

  "She stubbornly thinks she can upset the balance and take more than what our father has given her. She can't."