Pretty Clothes

I can't believe these clothes really belong to me. How could I have forgotten all these pretty clothes? It's like a whole new wardrobe!

This purple coat is too big. I will have to ask Juliet to do something to it to make it fit.

This pleated black skirt is something I used to wear when I first taught at St Scho.

This white blouse is too girly. I don't wear these things anymore.

Wait, wait! I remember owning a rust trench coat. Where did I put that? I have to find that!

But all these pretty, pretty prints! How could you have been mine all this time? How could I have forgotten I ever owned such beautiful clothes?

Wow, TL, you're here! Perfect timing. I know this sala looks kind of strange but we're in the sala of my old house and I haven't lived here in a while. Thanks for teaching me how to make my own skirts. Look at all these clothes I discovered I had! So much beautiful clothes!

Donna

UP is on fire. Along with the others, I try to put out the fire. But it's huge. The whole main avenue is blazing.

There's a war. That's what caused the fire.

A professor escapes to a small village. In one house her lover is waiting for her. When she leaves, her daughter visits the same man.

***
Donna. It's you. Detention again but never mind that. Here you can read one beauty magazine but after that you'll have to read a serious book.

I'm not going to give you a failing grade, Donna. I refuse to believe someone so funny is dumb. Goodness, you're better at math than I am. Are we too dumb for you? Is that it?

I don't show it of course but everytime you roll your eyes at something dumb a classmate of yours I saying, I want to laugh.

Remember when our class was on the way to Metropolitan Museum and we sang, "You and me baby we ain't nothing but mammals..." We surprised each other by knowing the song and no one else knew what we were talking about.

Oh, Donna. A girl after my own heart.

Old House

I agree to accompany Nyanne to do some research and she takes me to UST where her boss is my Tita Madre.

I call Moe. "Guess where I am? UST! Isn't that Unbelievable?"

"What's so unbelievable about that? What are you doing there? How dare you! That's my school!"

"No, wait! I can explain! Nyanne brought me here! I didn't know! I didn't know!"

That conversation just confusses and depresses me.

While waiting for Nyanne I walk around the campus and end up outside the campus where there's nothing but chaos and I can't find my way back.

***

I love my old house. That they turned it into an inn is perfect. The annex is where we live and the main house is where the guests stay. It's beautiful. Everything is in tip-top shape. There's even a butler to take care of things.

Guess who should be staying there but Shane. I'm so happy. It's just like the old days.

"Shawn is inside. I'll just get him."

"He's here too! Wow!"

Shane brings out a host of Americans and introduces me to them. None of them is Shawn. I shake their hands and smile but I'm so bewildered and distracted from looking for Shawn behind them that I forget their names.

Chai, Bathrooms, Blood

Oh my God it's Chai! Everyone is walking towards a theater to watch a show and here's Chai and it's been years since I last saw her! I make my way towards her and hope to sit beside her but she rebuffs me and I wonder why. I think, "Does she blame me for the way details of her lovelife leaked?" I find a seat beside Arron who's still forlorn about Sassy.

I hate the bathrooms in this place.

It's an American pep squad. On the top of the pyramid is the perkiest, most lithe dancer. She dismounts again and again and we all love it. But on her last pyramid, she falls and no one catches her. I turn away not wanting to see blood.

John Ashbery

Fatima Nacaytuna is talking to me about John Ashbury and I can't believe it. She even reads me some of his most complicated work. Amor looks on. I'm thinking, "These people don't know what they're talking about." I turn my back to them and go back to checking papers on my desk with the drawers that are falling apart. I don't understand why I returned to that awful hole.

Embassy

I will make it to Embassy with Shane after all. I'm driving to our meeting place and the Pasig has twinkly lights and I see Rockwell silhouetted against the sky.

There is a girl beside me. Most of the time she's Jill.

Our meeting place is at an LRT station. A stranger from the train leaves me a toddler. "She's your daughter now," she says.

My daughter, the girl (not Jill anymore but someone I don't know) and I look around for Shane.

When I finally see him he's talking to lots and lots of people from Amber, inviting them to join us. This is when I see Moe. I'm so happy and surprised. I smile at him but he doesn't smile back.

There's a fuss as we all try to get into a coaster that will bring us to Embassy. Shawn is driving.

Everyone finds somewhere to sit but me. There's an empty seat beside Moe but he won't even look at me.

Luciano is seated behind Moe and sees me just standing there so he says, "Camille, sit beside me." So I do. I wonder what Moe is even doing with us. He hates clubs.

On our way, I remember the daughter that was given to me.

I turn to the girl (my unknown companion) and ask, "Where's my daughter?"

She says, "I left her. Someone will find her."

It makes perfect sense to me and I remember wondering why I don't feel any guilt at all.