Wander Girl

by Tweet Sering

  I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly Matthieu and I were holding hands. OK, that’s not entirely true—I did know how it happened.

  He would tease me for being hypothermic (“Because you have zero body fat,” he said, openly running his eyes down my body), especially when the rest of them, except Lulu, would be in light clothes, and I would be all bundled up, complete with a scarf and a bonnet.

  When we were standing around—outside a cafe, for instance—deciding where to go next, he would step closer to me and rub my arms vigorously to generate heat. Then he’d make a face at me (he loooved making faces!) and tweak my nose, which in the cold, resembled the reindeer’s.

  “What’s up with that?” Lulu would whisper as we’d huddle together, walking ahead of the boys.

  I would be so kilig. I’d only laugh and push her, then she’d push me back, and we would be laughing and pushing each other all the way back to our cottage.

  On our third and last night in Sagada, I met Matthieu coming out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth and washing his face. It was my turn.

  “Toothpaste?” he asked, preparing to squeeze some onto my toothbrush.

  I held out my toothbrush. “Thanks,” I smiled and went in.

  But he leaned against the open door, watching me.

  “I will be brushing my teeth,” I said, chuckling. “I can assure you, you will not be entertained.”

  I knew I was making pa-cute like anything, but it had been such a long time since I had flirted with anyone (and I only flirted with guys I really liked). I missed the rush.

  “I can assure you,” he countered with that soft look leading men give their leading ladies in the movies. “I will be.”

  Putasiyehhhhht!

  I turned around and began brushing and grinning and squeezing my eyes shut, stifling a cry of kakiligan with great effort. It was a good thing the bathroom lacked a mirror above the sink, otherwise I wouldn’t have known how to expend my joyful energy without looking like Jim Carrey in full facial contortion. I was sure such a grotesque expression would prompt Matthieu to change his mind and lunge out the door. I wondered what he was staring at... my head? My back? My ass?

  When I was done brushing, I turned back to face him.

  “Ready for bed?” he joked.

  Landi!

  I rolled my eyes like my stomach didn’t just turn over and play dead.

  “Take a Sagada shower,” I said as I passed him.

  He laughed out loud, and I knew, as I calmly walked back to the bedroom (resisting the urge to look back at him), that somethin’ was goin’ down, baby!

  After that, it seemed ridiculous to pretend we weren’t attracted to each other. The next morning, Matthieu took my hand very matter-of-factly as we all walked with our bags to the bus depot. In the minibus, he took the seat beside me (Lulu widened her eyes and flared her nostrils before taking the seat behind us—shorthand for, “Way to go!”) and wrapped his arms around me as a shield against the cold.

  Helen was going to leave her apartment key in her pigeon hole at the lobby, she said. I didn’t know what Matthieu told Philippe but all of a sudden his friend wanted to stay at the Malate Pensionne instead of “my” apartment. Facial codes flew wildly between Lulu and Vince.

  During the last stretch of our trip home—the bus ride from Baguio to Manila then the cab ride from the bus station to Helen’s apartment—I was too nervous to think. The tension between Matthieu and I had grown steadily as we neared home. Was he expecting something to happen tonight? Ang bilis naman.

  It will be different this time, I thought. I’m the woman, I decide. I set the pace, I set the rules...

  We were kissing just barely inside “my”/Helen’s apartment, our bags at our feet, and somehow my gut told me that, well, we were just going to have to get it over with tonight. Why prolong it? But before that, we had to get us some “protection.” I pulled back.

  “Um, Matthieu, I know this is the most unromantic thing to ask, but...”

  He reached into his pocket and with a slow smile, produced a condom.

  (No. 12. “Someone who looks after my welfare.” Check!)

  After seeing I was reassured, we went back to business. Then it got pretty wild and before I knew it I was in my tank top (the shirt, the sweater, and the cargo pants were scattered all over the apartment) and underpants. I glanced down at my panties and did a double take.

  Ngyurf! Big, white lola panties—my comfort panties. I had gone to Sagada not expecting something like this to happen. If this scene should teach the reader a lesson, it’s this: Make like a boy scout and always be prepared with sexy undies; you never know when the possibility of sex will strike.

  With lightning-speed deftness that would shame Superman, I tore off my underpants and tossed them as far away from us as possible (it landed on the stove, but never mind). My priorities were clear: better to be thought of as a brazen hussy than owner of ugly panty. With my top still on, the image of a wailing snot-stained child along the riles, walking around with a shirt but no panties, flashed before me, so I tore off my top, too. Let’s kick it!

  Two hours later, after we had napped, Matthieu was ready again. He kissed me on the lips, smiled and turned me over so I was lying face down on the bed. Uy nice...

  He ran his large hand on me, from my hair to my neck, down to my back, between my shoulder blades, slowly caressing and...

  “Ow, ow, ow!” I yelped.

  I twisted my neck to look back at him.

  “It is, ehh... how you say ahh... head... small?... head?”

  “White head,” I supplied flatly, feeling the smarting on my back. Was it possible that Matthieu was an IT specialist slash dermatologist?

  “White head, yes!” He slapped his hands together as though he had guessed the right answer at a TV game show.

  OK, new investment priorities: sexy underwear and exfoliating scrub.

  If he was going to spend the rest of the night squeezing out the white heads on my back, then I might as well just catch some sleep before work tomorrow.

  “Matthieu, can we just go to bed now?” I asked heavily, my voice hoarse with drowsiness.

  “Of course,” he said, leaning towards me.

  And, of course, he meant something else.

  (No. 23: “Loves to make love and looks for new ways to spice up the sex act.” Check. Check. Tangena...Chehhhhhhhhk!!!)

  I woke up to the ringing of my cellphone. The digital clock registered 12:20 a.m. Who could be calling me past midnight—Helen? Problem in paradise again and now she wanted her apartment back? I knocked twice on her wooden night stand.

  An unfamiliar number flashed onscreen. I stared at it for a few seconds, and slowly rose from the bed so as not to disturb a sleeping Matthieu. I walked the few paces to the kitchen then pressed the answer button.

  The loud ambient sounds of a music bar issued from my phone. Voices in the background were singing along to live guitar acoustic music.

  “Puno ang langit ng bituin... at kay lamig pa ng hangin...

  Only one person could be calling. “Gabe?” I asked.

  No answer. “Ako’y nababaliw... giliw... at sa awitin kong ito...”

  “Gabe?” I repeated, looking toward the bed at a still, half-naked Matthieu.

  “Sana’y maibigan mo... isang munting harana... para sa yo...”

  I pictured him holding a beer in one hand and with the other, holding his cellphone up towards the stage. Who could he be with, his officemates? His college friends? I wished he was with a good friend, someone he trusted. Someone who could assure him that, despite his heartache, everything was going to be alright.

  Because all I could do for him was lock myself in my sister’s bathroom and cry silently long after the song—and the call—ended.

  I had no time to linger on Gabe and our failed relationship. Since Matthieu was the first man to be subjected to The List, I was too preoccupied with tracking his progress towards fitting the mold of my ideal man.


  Based on our Sagada trip, I had established that he was a shoo-in for no. 5 (“Sweet and malambing—loves to touch and hold me all the time.”); no. 10 (“Loves to travel and see the world”); no.16 (“Smells good!”); no. 19 (“Dresses well—knows what looks good on him.”); no. 24 (“Outdoorsy and athletic.”); and no. 25 (“Has wonderful, expressive eyes.”)

  He was on a winning streak until, a few days before his flight home, he hit a wall.

  I had told my mom I was house-sitting for Helen for two weeks because she had taken on extra flying assignments to, uh, Dubai... right, and, uh, Bahrain, I think was it. And she needed someone... to be at the apartment... for the, uh, pest control spraying in the building. Otherwise, all the cockroaches in the building would flock to her apartment.

  Every morning, Matthieu and I would take a cab from the apartment to Malate—me, for work, and him, to meet up with Philippe. They’d tour the city together and at six o’clock I would meet them at the cafe outside the Malate Pensionne. We’d have dinner at one of the restaurants we still hadn’t tried, then hang out at a bar.

  I had briefed Matthieu and Philippe on my situation— that is, the one with my parents not keen on me being with non-Filipino boys. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I didn’t actually know what my parents’ opinion was of their daughters’ hooking up with foreigners, but since none of us had dated any before (at least, not to their knowledge), the issue never came up.

  The boys had fun shielding me from people I might know as we walked from the restaurant to the bar and back to the pension house. It was a game to them.

  “Hilda?” Philippe would holler to Malate in general as I followed close behind him with my head bent. “Has anyone seen Hilda Gallares?”

  During our second week together—Matthieu’s last in the Philippines—Bea called me at the travel agency with good news: their airline was looking for a sales representative who could work under her.

  “This might be what we have been praying for, Hil!” Bea’s excitement traveled clear down the phone line. “Because I told them you were a journalism graduate and they said, why not let you head the new project, as well? We’re coming out with a newsletter, but none of us here are writers. We’re all just dilettantes and I’m sure it would be so much better with you on board. Of course, I know it’s not a real newspaper, dear, but it’s a start! What do you think?”

  I laughed. Bea was beyond recognition. I had never heard her sound as excited about anything before.

  “Of course, I’d love that!” I said, her excitement rubbing off on me. I just wasn’t sure how this would sit with mom. She needed me at the agency.

  “Great! I’ll call you soon for the interview with my boss. Her name’s Millet Arambulo.”

  Matthieu and I had planned to go to Puerto Galera on Friday (“Mom, this is the only schedule for the pest control, and I don’t know what time it will be exactly. Better safe than have a cockroach-infested apartment”) and Saturday (“Then I have to do the grocery for Helen so when she gets back she’ll have a stocked fridge. Sometimes she just skips meals because she has no food in her apartment, grabe!”) so we could be back by Sunday; he and Philippe were booked for the first flight out Monday.

  Then the fateful phone call took place.

  “Please make yourself available Friday afternoon,” Bea said. “Millet has been very busy, but I was able to squeeze this schedule for you. As in, I twisted her arm, ha ha ha! Good luck, Hilda! I know you’ll make it.”

  “But it’s our last trip together,” Matthieu said, when I broke the news to him at the restaurant below the pensionne. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”

  “I know, honey,” I said, miserable at being torn this way. “But I’ve waited for this kind of job for a long time.”

  He took my hand and looked at me with his intense blue eyes. “I’ve waited for you my whole life.”

  (No. 14. “A hopeless romantic.” Check.)

  But at the same time, his statement, his whole reaction to my news also meant his resounding failure of no. 3. “The biggest supporter of my dreams—my own rah-rah boy.” Despite the other wonderful attributes he possessed, this wasn’t something I could close my eyes to—it was one of my absolute non-negotiables.

  Je suis desolee, Matthieu. Au revoir.

  Other Foreign Involvement

  It was a rush I’d never experienced before. Me, Hilda Gallares... I had turned down a gorgeous, eligible, fabulous French guy who had—what were his words?—waited for me his whole life because I had a job interview.

  Shehhhhhht! Ang tanga kohhhhhhhh!

  Using Helen’s landline (I didn’t go to work because I was, after all, supposedly waiting for the pest control guy) I called operator service for the number of the Malate Pensionne, hoping Matthieu and Philippe hadn’t left for Galera yet. But before I could punch out the numbers, my cellphone rang. It was Bea.

  “Hi, Hilda,” she sang. “Are you ready for later? I just called to say good luck again and that I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

  Yeah, but now I have no boyfriend! I wanted to yell into the receiver. Matthieu was gone. My French boy—gone. Forever!

  I was going to camp out at the pension house on Sunday so when they arrived, I would be there to welcome him, and to ask him back. To say I made a huge mistake, I wasn’t in my right mind—it could’ve been the chicken sandwich I had for lunch, in which case we had to file a formal complaint so the restaurant’s management could look into it. That’s right, I said. That’s what I’ll do. Now to get this damn job interview over and done with.

  Millet Arambulo was a petite, pixie-haired woman whose aura of confidence and self-assurance made her seem as tall and overpowering as basketball players. She liked me instantly.

  “I know your mom,” she said, as she walked around to her desk and sat down. We were in her thoroughly modern, glass, chrome and wood office with stark black and white photos of still life. “She’s such a doll! We were together in Paris for a fam tour that I totally manipulated. Siya kasi, eh, kinukulit ako—O, kelan na tayo magpa-Paris?’ Sabi ko, malapit na. Ako’ng bahala, we will go.” She laughed at the recollection. “Ang mga gaga talaga! We had so much fun, grabe!”

  After that, she didn’t care if I was a mass murderer or an illiterate member of some obscure hill tribe—I was hired. All because I was the daughter of a woman she had a great time in Paris with. In fact, I already had an assignment due Monday: to write a tribute to an Indian expat who was moving to the company’s Singapore office. Oh, and while I was at it, could I also please think of a name for their newsletter?

  “Pasensiya ka na, hija, ha?”she said, apologetically. “It’s medyo weird na wala ka pa ngang company ID, sinasabak ka na. Bea kasi tells me you’re an excellent writer. Eh, lahat kami dito kulelat sa ganyan. Nakakahiya naman kung basta-basta lang ang tribute.”

  Excellent writer? Why did Bea say that? She hadn’t even seen a piece of writing from me! I was so stressed about getting to, at least, walking distance of that perception the whole weekend that I forgot I had a French boy to stalk. As soon as Bea supplied me with the information on the expat Rajkumar Roy, I set to work on my award-winning tribute.

  Using Helen’s desktop computer, which she used only for e-mailing and net surfing, I revised over and over the piece like the future of my children depended on it. Raj, I addressed the computer screen as I typed away, why are you doing this to me, Raj?

  Finally, at 4 a.m. Sunday, I shut off Helen’s computer and collapsed on her bed.

  I hope you die, Raj.

  My next source of stress was wondering how to tell my mom I was now an employee of an airline. With my head still throbbing from my lack of sleep, I agonized over what to say to her on the bus ride home. It turned out, I had worried for nothing.

  When I arrived home, my mom rushed to greet me at the door.

  “Sweetie!” my mom exclaimed, taking a hold of my elbows. “Millet Arambulo called me. You’re working with them n
a daw? Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t mind naman.”

  Millet had called, she said, asking whether I was done with the tribute. I had shut off my phone to get undisturbed hours of sleep, so she must have called my mom when she couldn’t reach me. And so my mom thought I had made up that pest control thing for a job interview. Aba, nakalusot, ah.

  I should’ve known my new airline employee status would please my mom. It meant, among other things, travel benefits for my family and myself, not to mention access to first-hand information on airline rates and other product offers that were invaluable to a travel agency.

  Not only was my piece (titled “Even Gandhi Would Be Proud”) roundly praised, Mr. Roy himself approached me during his despedida and said that if I ever wanted to work in Singapore or anywhere, he was going to help me.

  “You made me look like a fantastic man,” he said, beaming. He held up his cocktail in a toast. “I said, ‘Is this me?”’ he continued, chuckling. “Then I sent it to my mother.”

  My suggested name for the newsletter—The Wandering “I”—got a vigorous thumbs up from Millet.

  “Napakagaling ng batang ito,” she declared to anyone who’d listen. “Anak ni Nena Gallares, yung may-ari ng True North Travel.”

  In an effort to relive my wonderful memories with Matthieu, I went to the bookstore to look for a copy of his guidebook and whooped in delight when I saw one. As it turned out, there were rows and rows of guidebooks to other places from the same publishers. I pulled it from the shelf, inspected it, felt its weight, and turned it over to see the price. Close to a thousand pesos. I nearly dropped the book. Ang mahal pala nito! No wonder I’d never seen Pinoy tourists with it. That would mean spending our Third World money for First World-priced products that we didn’t really need, given that their itineraries were pre-planned by travel agencies such as True North Travel.

  I flipped through the book, read the story of its founders, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, and how the whole enterprise started with them planning a Southeast Asian trip and not finding a book anywhere that could give them the kind of information they needed. Wow, I thought, gano’n lang? Now I know there’s a great way to earn a living—traveling and telling people all about it! Asteeeeg!