Carpooling Loonies
By Jinki Beldia

One wedding and a funeral

My drama crony flew in from Zamboanga City a couple of weeks ago to attend the wake of his uncle, the late Mr. Angel Gonzales Sunaz. My condolences to the Sunaz family.

If dissociation was painted all over my face at the wake, it was only because that look is one of the constant things about me. Well, about my face, anyway. Whether in the grocery, in restos, at the office, in the bath...I mean anywhere. More than just being born with a muddled look, I always find something that indubitably confuses me. In wakes for instance, to this day I am not sure whether to offer a prayer before condoling the members of the family, or the other way around. So I did what I would usually do—silently introduce myself to the dead and explain why I was at his wake even if he has not seen me in the entire living years of life. That was when I saw Mr. Sunaz was a good-looking man. The photo above his casket supported what I thought of him, and by my alter ego who stood behind me and said, “Everyone in my family is good-looking, girl.”

The last time Chelit and I saw each other was nine years ago, when he was finishing his degree and I was attempting to get somewhere with mine. Ours is the kind of relationship that is not based on shared coffee breaks or nightly yakking on the phone. After all, we live seas away from each other. Neither does it feed on useless clack. But drama, we have plenty. All prepared and mostly left undocumented. Like the rising of the sun and the graceful floating of the moon every night, I, one day realized that when they say “some good things never last,” you can always answer with an unstinting “and some do”. I can at least vouch huaraches do. My two pairs are still in good shape after 14 years and through a thousand bumpy rides.

So finally, after years and years of waiting, Chelit and I finally put our unedited stories together in one table over some spicy dish at Zageca. Lifeless, seemed to be a fair and realistic recollection of what Iloilo was when we were still in college. Since fate threw us together in a UP campus far from the city, it made things even worse for him. His complaints were endless and he would go back to Zambo every chance he got. I had nowhere to go back to, especially since my family became instant day-trippers when I moved to UP Miag-ao. They were like crazy traveling approximately 288 kilometers back and forth to visit me every weekend. Now you see why weeknight parties were a lot safer for freshies like me acting like eddies after school? I was hopping from one college party to another. Admitting this, red-faced and all, my fiancé has a crystal clear memory of me climbing up the fire exit on so many nights when I would go back to the dorm after curfew. He would be in his room sipping coffee, watching me from his window while I was pivoting in intoxication, yet gracefully pulling myself up the fire exit. It must have been such a sight for him he came back to Iloilo years later to tell me he wanted so much to help me up the fire exit back then, but quickly took it back by saying I should have tried harder with the ‘damsel in distress' look. I guess my sanity was a huge scare for any guy at that time. Or this time. When I finally retired from my thoughtless ascensions in the college dormitory, that was when I found out what Xander had been meaning to say all those years. My bestfriend had been wanting to marry me since we were 16. I'm glad I was too busy back then because I would have said yes. At 16? I could have been the epitome of the wife from hell. At least at this point in my life I can guarantee becoming the wife hanging in suspension between heaven and hell. My conscience tells me that is good enough.

I said yes. Chelit almost freaked out. Well, just almost. He and Xander have known each other all their lives, and a bestfriend marrying a bestfriend is terrifying enough for a doting friend. And, if he reacted otherwise, it would have denied us of the drama that we love oh so much. To simply give his blessing and say he is happy for us is so …flat, so unMadonna. I bet he is scared for Xander more than he is for me. He knows damn well marrying me would mean 365 days of fastfood and a lifetime of suffering from my obsessive-compulsive disorder, among others.

Parting isn't such a pretty thing. We were in some way in denial, so when we had to do it, we both said, “This is not goodbye.” Distance has never caused our friendship any damage. The first thing he said to me when he saw me was, “I want a shirt. Help me choose one.” So much for lengthy hellos. That's what you get when you feel you live next door to each other.

E-mail the author at jinki_young@yahoo.com