She and I

SHE AND I

Some translations:
Alay Ni Ignacio or ANI, for short, means "The Gift of St.Ignatius,"
Para Kay Kiko means "For Kiko,"
Kuya means "older brother,"
Ate means "older sister."

          It was the summer of 2007 when a group of volunteers from the Ateneo de Manila University and I taught public high school students who were preparing for their college entrance exams. I have always found joy and fulfillment in helping others, so joining Alay Ni Ignacio (ANI) as an English teacher excited me. Seeing the raised hands and wide smiles of my students, I could not help but smile myself, nor could my partner in service, Shereen.

          Shereen and I first met during the first day of ANI. I was eager to meet her before class began. I arrived at the faculty workroom thirty minutes earlier than when we had agreed to the night before, through a phone conversation. Before that, we had communicated through text messages. As I waited, I began to wonder about what she would look like. According to my good friend, Karyl, Shereen was someone I was sure to get along with and I was sure to ‘like.’

          The image of a long-haired Chinese girl with a fair complexion and petite build automatically took shape in my mind. I stared at the front and back doors alternately as I expected her to pop into view at any moment. My heart skipped a beat every time a shadow or silhouette of a woman passed by. This repeated over and over until I felt like I was suffering from a heart attack. And just as my heart was about to explode, a head peeped into view.

          The head was that of a woman, with the slender eyes and luminous skin I envisioned— now real. She disappeared for a second then looked in again, further this time, exposing her slender arms as they wrapped around the door frame. Her straight black hair curved slightly upwards as they rested on her shoulders. The spell was almost shattered; she did not have the long hair I preferred.

          But then she smiled. I noticed how the shape of her eyes followed that of her lips. Her prominent round cheeks flushed pink against the sunlight, adding a contrast of color to her pale complexion. A second look at her hair revealed how her bangs covered her ear on one side of her face, but was tucked neatly behind her earlobe on the other. To me, these qualities only added to her charm.

          “Hi, Uncle Anty! Do you know who Verne is?” she asked my friend whose real first name was Anthony. He also was the principal of ANI. “I’m supposed to meet him now, but I don’t know how he looks like, coz’ I’ve never seen him before,” she continued.

          “Verne?” Anty called.

          “Over here,” I replied.

          “Oh, there he is,” he said. “Let me introduce you two.”

          That is how she and I first met.

* * *

          When I was a child my contact with females was limited to those among my family, extended family, and close family friends. In high school, this expanded towards those I met during the summer of 2001. I joined Para Kay Kiko, which was a program similar to ANI, except that it was composed of high school students from Xavier School and its sister school, the Immaculate Conception Academy. We helped fifth and sixth grade public school students preparing for their high school entrance exams.

          Before the start of summer class, volunteers had to go through an orientation on how to teach well. I met who was then the love of my life, the first girl on whom I had an insatiable crush. Back then, there was no nearly shattered spell— her long dark hair flowed down her back like that of a model from a shampoo advertisement.

          During the last day of orientation a few pairs of volunteers were randomly chosen to teach in mock classes. Instruction to the remaining volunteers was simple: act like the worst students in the history of formal education. As we attempted to teach the difference between figures of speech, my partner and I stood our ground against the onslaught of paper balls and airplanes, the talking, laughing, yelling, screaming, singing, dancing of students, and the occasional incriminating question.

          “Excuse me, Kuya Verne?” my crush asked with her hand raised.

          “Yes?” I acknowledged her.

          “Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.

          “W-what?” I replied, taken aback by the question. Did she know I liked her?

          “I was just wondering if you think I’m pretty,” she explained. “I mean, you guys think I’m pretty, right?” she asked pointing a male classmate, then another, then a third. All of them nodded in affirmation. “So I was wondering if you like me too?”

          Unable to come up with a quick answer to the question, I froze.

          She stared at me with her round Little Bo Peep eyes longingly waiting for an answer.

          “Um…err…I think you’re really pretty, and I like you. But…umm…maybe we can talk about this after class,” I
replied.

          She and the rest of the class looked like they were choking on something as they tried to hold back their laughter.

          “Having romantic relations with your teacher is not good. This is not proper for a classroom setting. You and I can talk alone, one-on-one, after class,” I said in panic.

          That did it. The roar of laughter they were trying desperately to quell emerged and rocked the room like an earthquake.

* * *

          My body froze like an iceberg yet my cheeks burned red as tomatoes whenever I was near Shereen. These were similar to other uncontrollable body functions such the quickening heart palpitations and the dilating sweat glands that I learned about in Biology class. It was no wonder that our students saw how attracted I was to her since we first set foot in the classroom. From then on, they teased us, but mostly me, mercilessly.

          During the first day of class, we asked our students to fill up a one-fourth sheet of paper with basic information about themselves such as their favorite television shows, and the like. Most of them wrote the names of their English teachers on the sheets of paper they submitted.

          Shereen and I amused ourselves over the various ways our names were spelled: Ate “Shireen,” “Sheryn,” and “Sherin,” Kuya “Bern,” “Burn,” and “Verry.”

          We stared at the last variation of my name.

          “How in the world did she end up spelling my name that way?” I asked.

          “Kuya Verry. There’s no way I’m going to let you get away with this,” she replied between laughs.

          From then on, whether in text messages, e-mails, or actual conversations, she addressed me by that name.

          As the days passed, Shereen and I made a habit of going to the library after teaching in class, so we could check essays and prepare lesson plans. On Friday, April 20, she and I were on our way there when one of her friends— whose name, “La,” sounded more like “Love” to me at the time— wished her an early Happy Birthday. Apparently, it was only three days away.

          I could not concentrate on the essays she and I were checking. She asked my opinion on the structure of this sentence or the coherence of that paragraph and I just nodded in agreement. All my brain could process was what I should do for her birthday. The processing finally succeeded when I concocted a plan to surprise her with a birthday cake and card in class.

          By then, the nerves of planning a surprise when I was right beside her became too much for me to handle. Thus, I volunteered to check the rest of the essays at home, and made up an excuse that I needed to leave early. I then proceeded to the bookstore in a school building nearby to buy colored paper for the birthday card before rushing back to the classroom where we held class.

          My students were about to have their next class by the time I arrived, so I asked permission from my friend to borrow ten minutes of class time, so they could write birthday messages for Shereen. As the students cheered me on, he agreed.

* * *

          It was the morning of April 23: Shereen’s birthday. I drove to Red Ribbon to buy her cake. I had a gut feeling that it might have been the Honey Crunch cake because her favorite color was yellow, same as mine. But I decided to buy the Choco-caramel Mousse cake instead, remembering how yummy it looked on a billboard along EDSA.

          I went to school early, and walked to the classroom in order to hide the cake. I entered and saw two girls who introduced themselves as Shereen’s English blockmates. They brought a Honey Crunch cake, a bouquet of flowers, and a birthday card for her.

          I felt completely upstaged. Nevertheless, I held on to the hope that she would still see merit in the fact that her friends and I planned separately. Secretly though, I was also glad they came because I had forgotten to bring a lighter or box of matches to light the candles with.

          The bell signaled the start of our class. Shereen and I stood outside the classroom. I was pleasantly surprised to see the glass portion of the door covered with Manila paper.

          “Verne, why is the class so quiet today?” Shereen asked.

          I looked at her and shrugged my shoulders.

          “And why are the doors closed?” she continued.

          I opened the door just enough for her to fit, and she entered the classroom.

          SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ATE SHEREEN!

          “Oh my God! Ve-erne!” Shereen said as she cupped her hands over her mouth. She proceeded slowly towards the teacher’s table where the two cakes were placed as our students sang the birthday song.

          “Kuya Verne and Ate Shereen, picture naman kayo together oh (Kuya Verne and Ate Shereen, let's have a picture of the both of you together)," one of our students requested after Shereen had blown the candles on both cakes.

          “Hug, Kuya Verne! Hug!” said another. “Hindi, wag! Kiss!” ("No, Kiss!") added one more.

          I gave Shereen a look of despair as if expecting her to decide on what to do. To my surprise, she walked beside me and wrapped her arm over my shoulder.

          “Wooooh!” the class said in unison as they snapped away with their camera phones.

          “See, Verne and I are friends. And this is what good friends do,” she explained.

* * *

          Shereen was about to join her mother on a trip to Thailand a few days before the ANI graduation, so the day we gave our students their final marks was also the last time we saw each other that summer. One of our students gave her a red beaded bracelet as a parting gift. As usual, the class was in the habit of teasing us, so they asked me to latch the bracelet around her wrist.

          My hands trembled from nervousness. I was never a touchy-feely person. And just standing next to her made me feel like I was made of gelatin. It was taking me so long to lock the bracelet together that she began to blush in embarrassment. The class on the other hand, was busy taking photographs. A few more tries and I finally locked it in place, right before her driver arrived, and we said our quick goodbyes. I wanted to say something meaningful before we she left, but I could not come up with anything while our students were there.

          I woke up early, at around six the next morning and saw a text message from her in my cellular phone’s inbox. The message was a reply to the one I sent informing her that all our students had gotten home safely the night before, and that I missed her, and I hoped she would have a safe trip. It read: “Thanks for the updates, Verry. No actually, thanks for everything. :) couldn’t have asked for a better partner.”

          My entire ANI experience came to a close during the graduation day of my students. Hundreds of smiles flashed for the thousands of photographs taken that day. Every teacher and student seemed to have his or her own camera or camera-phone. Of course, I joined in the merriment. But behind my smile, was a hidden frown as I realized the day could have been more than wonderful— it could have been perfect if Shereen was by my side.

* * *

          Summer was over, and the first semester of a new school year began. Shereen and I had not seen each other since the day she left for Thailand. I was walking along the hallway on my way to the study hall when I saw her arranging things in her locker. She looked up and recognized me. We met each other’s gaze, and once again her beauty enthralled me. We were finally right next to each other, but all we did was exchange hellos before we went our separate ways.