There is no other way to tell it, other than to tell it as is. No embellishments. Nothing fancy. Our first four years of marriage was a honeymoon. We loved each other purely.
It was still drizzling in the morning, as with the night before. When a drizzle turns into rain, he always remembers a Kerima Polotan story, “The Sounds of Sunday.” There’s a line that goes, (and I’m paraphrasing) rain falling on tin roofs like a thousand I-love-yous. Our music played on the empty, pothole-free Skyway to Tagaytay. We were married there four years ago. Running on 100 km/h on our inexpensive car, remembrances flash before our eyes but slowly. It’s as if we are in a space ship, feeling more fortunate than the millionaires in chartered planes. An iPhone connected to the radio played Sigur Ros.
Brosandi
Hendumst í hringi
Höldumst í hendur
(smiling
spinning in circles
holding hands)
We chose Hoppipolla for our wedding video song.
At the back of the car, the little one sleeps soundly. He wakes up to the sight of Taal Volcano. Around here, the rain has cleared and he sees the volcano in full view. “A volcano, like in Little Einsteins,” he says. He forms his memories, and discovers himself both through an inherent, curious fascination of the world around him and by imitation. He says things like he really means it: “You’re very pretty, mommy.” “Thanks for cooking, mommy.” Children his age may not always be intelligible, but they are spotlessly sincere.
We stop at a place called Cliff House by the highway. For a Friday, it was desirably empty save for a small Korean tour group, some Europeans with their girlfriends, then another family or two. The little one runs around but he sits with us to have margheritta pizza and salmon asparagus risotto.
We hang out a little bit more before we head to our hotel. We read a little, sit down to rocking chairs, run around some more and have fruits in ice cream for dessert in this perfect, crisp weather.
“You have the lake-view suite,” the concierge announces to us, handing out the key card, breakfast and drink stubs. We notice high school kids in suits and prom dresses at barely four in the afternoon. We learned later on that it was La Salle Canlubang’s junior senior prom night.
The suite was spacious. The little one jumps up and down the king-size bed. They go for a long bubble bath while I go out for beer, cigarettes, chicken pies, beef turnovers, and multi-grain pringles. It's raining cats and dogs outside, which will make it even more cozy inside. Back in Manila, we heard that Edsa on this rainy Friday a night was a huge parking lot.
By the time I'm back they are ready for the playroom. I go for a 10k on a treadmill. Walking around the hotel, we saw the halls and the prom is in full swing, crowning their kings and queens. The fellow who operated the machine let us wear the silly hats and we took souvenir pictures in the prom photo booth.
We order some more room service for dinner, eat the pies while watching baby TV on a 42" LED. We were also instagramming just a few photos from this perfect life. Nowadays, you have to make sure that the pictures were few enough to preserve the spontaneity.
By the time the little one sleeps, D. and I drink our Super Dry lagers on the terrace. The rain has passed, the skies cleared, the lights of stars and the houses below dance in the distance. That's one of the reasons why people come up here: to feel this cold, to be clouded int his fog. We had to wear jackets. I let cigarette smoke drag through my lungs.
Up on the terrace, we saw some of the prom folks far out in the lawn. We suspected and laughed at our assumptions, this is the night they finally became "them" as we saw a couple wrapped in an embrace while staring at the dark horizon. More I love-yous tonight, I'm sure. But it was really cold and I wanted to call out to the guy and tell him to give his girl that coat he's wearing. She'll be a pneumonia victim in that prom dress.
We drink some more. I smoke and we sleep in those thick white sheets. It feels like a thousand threads. The hugs are warm and tight as they could be. We have a perfect life tonight, and you can never instagram this, no.
We wake up and open the curtains to a sunny day with this view.
I read the last few chapters of a Kazuo Ishiguro in the terrace. Golden weather. The sun lands on the perforated, creamy pages of the hard-bound.
This hotel is among the first ones in Tagaytay, and some of the spots look old but it's big enough to take walks with excellent views. Especially after a heavy, buffet breakfast with tapa that's cooked with barako coffee, paninis, fruits and pretty much everything you can think of for breakfast.
Mommy and the little one dip a little in the pool. By the poolside, there's a young couple. The girl is crying, and we suppose it's probably due to an incident in the prom last night. If were that guy, I'd probably quote something from Kerouac's On the Road, "This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." Mommy remembers the crying she did in her teens, and I'm just glad she won't have to cry like that again.
We'll check out and drive around some more, eat again somewhere.
