Unspoken

Unspoken

By

Ami Granada

Copyright © Ami Granada, 2013

Smashwords Edition

Photograph and art by Astrud Granada

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book, and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Blog Entry: Under Parisian Skies

Cher Ami,

I am now reading a book under Parisian skies. It looks like rain. People are hurrying past me. But it matters not. I’m here, that’s what matters…

That would be me writing in my diary of a romantic interlude with Paris.

This long distance romance with the City of Lights was set in motion ever since I had watched a movie starring Louis Jordan and Leslie Caron, and listened to my Mamu’s stories of how she and grandpa met at the Versailles. Both were lost in the middle of the labyrinth and then it started raining…

Woody Allen once said, As long as you haven’t been kissed during any of those rainy Parisian afternoons, you haven’t been kissed at all.

Here and Now

Georgina, you need a boyfriend, Becca said in her matter of fact tone. Her voice did not falter nor did her eyes look away.

She could have said Georgina, pass the butter, and the effect would have been the same. Just by looking into my eyes she could tell when I last had a meal, when I needed a haircut, or if I needed a man.

It hadn’t occurred to her that to me it could be like a slap in the face, as in not having someone was already bad you would still rub it in. But as she was my all time best friend, I didn’t really mind.

A boyfriend? My voice echoed my friend’s idea as if the meaning was so archaic it wouldn’t register in my mind.

Luckily, there was only a smattering of people inside the Marygrace Café at High Street. My voice which was a tad higher than a hyena’s went unnoticed.

The two of us were at our special nook, face to face, both caressing our drinks with our lonesome hands.

It was a countrified café, the table with thick glasses under which there were endearing notes (loved your lemon pie, peach tea was awesome), and hanging above us were rectangular lanterns that must glow in the evening.

I brushed my bangs from my forehead and scanned the menu, This is a trifle heavy on the sweet side. I turned to the other page, I’ll order light pasta to pair up with my bottled water.

Ever so careful to balance my caloric intake, when I eat salad with mayonnaise, I drink coke zero. Or, I forego with the oil and go with vinaigrette, things like that. Anything to keep my thighs from ballooning and triggering a manic depressive state.

Wouldn’t hurt, would it? she asked.

You mean someone I need to worry about, when I am free as a bird? Anyway, that’s easier said than done. All the self made men I know who are the least bit attractive are either married or prefer their own sex, I said hoping that my voice didn’t have the same desperation I felt.

That is really not on top of my list right now, I continued. I have a dream. I want to go to Paris. I want to go there on my own. Just me. I’ve been saving up for that.

But Becca kept on going about it like I never said the word Paris.

There are many ways to hook a guy. Reconnoiter. You can even try surfing the internet, she said while she deftly texted on her cell phone and drank peach iced tea at the same time.

My pupils must have dilated. No,no,no,no,no, I‘d rather die first than submit myself to male scrutiny in dating websites.

A mocking grin spread all over her face.

I meant look up in the internet for articles on how to meet men, not look for dating websites.

Zoom. Close up of Becca’s face with green muck (cucumber magic, good for the skin) and eyes red rimmed with sleeplessness looking for dating websites at one o’clock in the morning. I say nothing.

"Excuse me. I don’t have to. I write those articles myself. In fact my article

Is He Mr. Right or Mr. Flight? just came out of Fash magazine. You make dating sound so cold and calculating" I said.

All theories but no action. Maybe you have to read other peoples’ points of view, I’m just saying, she said. "You’re the most hopelessly romantic person I know. You have a poster of Casablanca on your wall, for Pete’s sake."

And why are we talking about this anyway. I’m 26 not 46. I still have a few years up my belt, I said.

I knew why. It was because it’s that time of the month when I become temporarily nutty and my eyes would be wistful and my voice whiny.

Becca would find me with a tub of Chef Tony’s popcorn infront of the TV watching You’ve Got Mail, Dear John or even the Twilight trilogy.

Becca, aside from my granny Mamu, would insist that a part of me wished there was someone out there for me. Although I have said that I was happy being single, they would prescribe a batch of remedies as though the incantations and visits to the voodoo queen a.k.a. author of horoscopes called Madame Alijah were not enough. They treated being single as an ailment.

I had been championing feminism ever since I can remember, but truth to tell, I was a living, breathing, example of a typical Filipina who believed that women should wait for a guy to express the three most important words, Wanna have coffee?

Technically, a Pinay has to wait for a guy to say something first. If the girl makes the first move, the feeling somehow loses some of its soundness. And the girl has fallen out of grace.

I don’t know if I should blame myself or the world, or the Catholic Church, but that’s how it is.

A picture of me and my co workers during our recent jaunt in Palawan served as a reminder that I was unencumbered.

They all brought their significant others while I brought my Macbook. At twenty six, a seemingly confident young professional urbanite, unbeknownst to many, unkissed (well, not really)and untouched.

When my colleagues prattled about their latest exploits, I laughed at the right places, hooted at the sexual intimations, and carried on as if I knew firsthand what they were talking about.

All I knew about sex was what I have read for the past nine years in Cosmo magazine, my brother’s FHM collection which he hid under his bed, the Story of O and now the Shades of Grey series.

It’s a war out there, you have to be ruthless. There’s no such thing as perfect relationships or perfect people, Becca said.

I could swear there was a hiss in her voice. This was the same voice she gave out to her patients upon handing them a prescription. Rx, one valium and lots of sex an hour before sleeping.

She stirred her watery iced tea and her eyes turned glassy. The world could be toppling over but one can always count on her to be composed, almost detached.

Do you remember Allan? she turned to me as if she just had an epiphany.

Yes, what about Allan? Your gym instructor slash boyfriend? Who everybody knew was gay until he was the last remaining individual in his department who was clueless of his gender.

Well, he texted me and said he was getting married -

Good for him.

–to a guy.

Really? Whoa. At last. I was wondering when that will ever happen.

They’ll get married abroad, of course.

What do you feel?

I’m relieved . That it’s not because of me we broke up.

I remembered her two-year relationship with her gym instructor, Allan. Their on-and-off relationship lasted that long for it took that long for Allan to finally accept his true identity.

The two-hour weekly lunch with my friend Becca was one of my escapes in the busy schedule that I had as assistant editor at the Elite Travel Magazine. My usual outpourings were not new to my friend. Especially when