I was already sitting pretty at the left window seat at the back row of the bus at the terminal on my way home last night when a lovely couple came up and took the right twin seats immediately next to my row.
Since elegantly elevated was the back row, this sweet couple was in my eyes’ full view. I studied their actions and reactions and absorbed myself in their joyful but romantic conversations. I rummaged through the woman’s face and facial expressions.
The sparkling eyes behind the glowing glasses, long straight hair of a Greek goddess, and the splendidly fresh makeup-less face were her primary features any examining eyes would firstly notice.
Since my vision was regularly turning lately into 3D, I beheld her for more than two minutes and not to take a glance only. Suddenly I confirmed what I suspected minutes ago, that face was undoubtedly familiar to me too. Someone who appeared in sight during special times in my life, someone I knew for years whether I was at peace or in strife.
It was “Demi Moore” once more.
I could still vividly remember the location and the occasion the first time I saw “Demi”. Summer league in Guimbal, summer of ’93. With a friend Robert from Cainta in tow, we cheered for Miagao team while “Demi” and friends chanted “Guimbal!” beside the court’s front row.
Robert was then fond of chasing skirts, thus, his eyes easily caught “Demi’s” alluring smirks. He requested me to accompany him after the game to approach her group. I would oblige, I told myself, but I had to know first which one among them would be Robert’s “prospect” to choose.
My eyes quickly scanned each and every member of that group’s outstanding core. That was the time I saw a resembling beauty in full that I secretly named her “The Young Demi Moore.”
I was so sure of what to do next when Robert confirmed his “chosen one” to me. While the game was in progress, I devised a plan to deviate Robert’s fiddling attention, or fatal attraction, to “Demi.”
In almost a month of Robert’s stay in our old house, he never had a chance to go back to Guimbal to see “Demi” again, much less her house.
My devious design to “save” “Demi” from Robert, I begrudgingly admit, was for my own probable gain. Which was to prevent both of us in knowing about her personal circumstances as well. I had never known anything of her, her why’s and wherefore’s, nor even her name.
When Robert went back to Cainta, “Demi’s” and my paths never did cross again. Until I met Lovely Lassie from a saintly, not barbaric, southern town in ’93 second sem.
One time on my way to Lassie’s house, my both hands full of flow’rs and chocs, I happened to see in the city pretty “Demi” still in her finest form. This time, she was more wonderful and elegant in her Doctor’s Nursing uniform.
My mind shouted at her, “Behold, the then apple of my eye!”
And added, “I’ve found the grapes now, so I bid you goodbye!”
But as ‘fate’ would have it, if you think Lassie and I ended up together, no, it’s otherwise! For despite toiling and worshipping her for two years plus, she dumped and busted me, not just once but twice.
A week after that last gallows experience, I happened to see at Guimbal plaza the smiling “Demi” again. But she didn’t ride on the jeepney where I was still riding then in pain.
When I eventually learned to rise from the ashes and started another love once more, I saw a laughing “Demi” in a restaurant celebrating an unknown occasion with several others more.
When I suffered another setback anew, I saw in a jeepney stop a restless “Demi” bringing books for nursing board exams review.
The last time I spotted her, locking arms around the waist of a handsome guy, was two weeks before I’d stand before a magistrate to recite a marital vow of peace. And last night, with that same handsome guy-husband, I saw a very happy though health-gained “Demi Moore,” whom till now, never knew that I ever exist.
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