Summit Books

by Abi Aquino

Publication Date: April 2003
Price: P150.00
Available at your favorite magazine stands

---

EXCERPT

People ask me why I went into acting (except my aunt, who screamed the question at me five years ago at a family reunion) and I always offer different answers. Saw Cyrano de Bergerac when I was ten and cried. Have secret dreams of eventually starring in my own bold flick just to be in a sexy scene with Albert Martinez. Saw a senator and his starlet mistress in the mall one day and envied the dozens of shopping bags she towed. Heard an actor's costume rustling as he ran past me, down the aisle and towards the stage, and thought, "I could be fabulous."

They're all true. But I have my favorites.

In high school and college, I joined every play I could find and juggled rehearsal schedules and schoolwork. My parents were, by nature, against anything that required me to scream, preen and wear loud clothes, and so forbade me to join any theater troupe. But they even-tually gave up when they called up the registrar's office to complain about my class schedules and learned that no, no, business taxation classes don't start at ten p.m., no, no ma'am, we've never had ten p.m. classes actually, that's way too late, whoever gave you that idea?

They conceded defeat on one condition. I had to maintain a certain grade point average and finish my studies within a decent number of years. And this is something only Jorge and Nats know, because it takes too much effort to explain: I have a business degree, a 93 percent grade point average, and I hide this fact very well.

Right after my college commencement exercises, my dad walked up beside me, slapping the thin glossy program against his left hand thoughtfully. "You'll never let go of this acting thing, will you?"

"Nope," I said. He sighed and slipped the program under his left arm.

"Well," he said. "If it doesn't pan out, your mom and I are entitled to say 'we told you so' in a loud and annoying manner, for the rest of your waking life."

"It's your constitutional right," I agreed.

He sighed again. "Your great-grand-uncle Josef Elias was pretty good at tarot cards. And I think one of your mother's cousins was a choir singer." It was as if he was trying to trace whose genes had slept on duty and let a deviant strain of DNA through. Like diabetes, or falling hair.

I put a black polyester toga-clad arm around my father's shoulder.

"I'm good at it," I said.

"Oh, sweetheart. That's why I worry," he said. I can still remember his voice when he said it, as if he was just about to laugh but then decided against it.

On Sunday I was the second to arrive at rehearsals. Ernest's house was in Parañaque, an area I had been to only a few times. I always thought of it as a kind of province, and each time I went there I had to resist the urge to buy espasol.

Contrary to popular thought, professional theater is very much like high school theater-you practice during your free hours at someone's house, and the orange juice is almost always lukewarm. Rehearsals are almost always at night during weekdays, and on weekend afternoons, because everyone else has a day job - teachers, business professionals, models.

The garage door was open, so I went right in. It was one of those houses that looked too new and too right. The kind that if you opened a drawer or a kitchen cabinet, you'd still get a faint whiff of paint. Pretty and new and rich. Once I reached the garden, Sanchez was already there, sitting at a glass table, giving his script the once-over. I could see Ernest and the stage manager, Raquel, inside the house, fixing the refreshments. Orange juice, I supposed. Ernest glanced over his shoulder and called out, "Scripts are on the table, get one, whoever you are," and so I grabbed one.

I sat on a pretty rock, balancing the script on my knees as I lit a cigarette and squinted my eyes to take a good look at Sanchez. He looked lean and angry. His left hand was somewhat tangled in his hair as he read his script. Ay, cute.

I texted Nats: "May guwapo sa rehearsals."

In less than a minute, Nats replied: "You go, girl. I'm at a family lunch with screaming nieces and nephews." I shoved my phone into the back pocket of my cutoffs and smiled, making sure my smile didn't quiver at the cheeks.

"Memorizing already?" I said. Sanchez looked up from his script and took a few seconds to locate me.

"Elena," he said.

"Katrina, actually. Pero, yes, I'm playing Elena." I smiled. "Call me Kach."

"Catch 22?"

"Yes." I grinned and he grinned back.

"Interesting nickname. I'm Sanchez."

"I know. You were cute in New Yorker in Tondo, the Musical." I stood up and we shook hands. He had lovely, dry, hard hands.

"Wow. I thought only students saw that," Sanchez said. His words seemed to stroll out of his mouth, as if he was constantly stretching. A new play title flashed through my mind: Surfer Dude in Parañaque.

"Yes, well, you caught me. I'm a fan."

"Are you? I ought to take advantage of that sometime," he replied. We stared at each other.

"Katrina! How prompt of you!" Ernest came out with a tray of small glasses that tinkled against each other.

"Have some juice. The others will be here any mo." Raquel stepped out from behind him and handed me a perfectly sharpened pencil for any scribbling I would need to do on my script.

I only had Sanchez to myself for a few minutes before Andy and Tony arrived. Andy in a tight white tee, and Tony in a corresponding tight grey tee. I had seen Tony as part of the chorus in a few musicals. He was adorable, almost coltish in his beauty, and gifted with a wonderful voice. I give him half a year before some television network would notice him, and pretty soon I'm sure he'll be hosting a noontime show. Or maybe a record deal, a self-titled debut album with a photograph of himself wearing a carelessly buttoned white linen polo, showing off his gym-made chest.

Coreen and Pinky arrived soon after. Those two I'd seen in a few workshops. Both are cute and petite and if they hugged each other just right, they could probably sell a million panty liners or tons of face powder. Lila was last to arrive, looking pale and clean, as if sweat had never known her. Her skin looked thin and cool to the touch, her hair pulled back in a bun. She had the look of a woman who was using a most precise regimen to maintain a beauty that was almost beginning to fade.

"Hi, Ernest. Sanchez." She nodded. She permitted a small smile as she glanced at us. "I'm sorry, I don't know the rest of you. But I'm so excited to be here."

Coreen and I looked at each other. "Bitch," she mouthed silently.

I smiled. I had a new friend. The reading began, with Ernest assigning the roles as if we didn't know which part we had gotten, and Raquel silently scribbling away. Ernest had his mouth half-open when Andy started reading his part. "I just love his voice," he whispered to me, as Andy was reading.

"Hmmm," was my reply.

Then it was Lila's cue to come in, and she started reading perfectly. Some actors read like second graders during a play's first reading. They usually have that annoying up-down intonation, the same way seven year-olds would recite "The Three Little Kittens."

Lila read her lines as if she weren't reading at all. Listening to her was like sitting inside a jeepney and striking up a conversation with the woman beside you. A very pleasant conversation about the heat, the cost of commuting, and maybe politely asking if she had a family, a husband and children. Lila threw her lines effortlessly, as if she had thought of them herself.

Then Sanchez came in, and he matched Lila line for line. It was verbal tennis and we were watching the Wimbledon Cup finals. Ernest had a smug look on his face-I could almost see him counting his ticket sales. This promised to be a fabulous play.

When we had reached the end of the second act, Ernest called a ten-minute break. I went to the bathroom. Before I could close the door, Sanchez knocked and stepped in. He closed it behind him.

"Hi."

"Hey."

"You were pretty cute there during the reading," he said and grinned. "I need to ask you something - that cologne you use. Can I smell it?"

It was such a corny line, I guess he couldn't think of anything else to say. He leaned in towards me before I could even reply - did I want to say no? How do you say no to someone asking to smell you? He leaned in close, his breath hot on my neck, and lingered there.

"It's uh...it's just Johnson's," I said.

"Really?" Sniff, sniff, his breath went on my neck. I leaned back and swooped down to his lips. We staggered further into the bathroom, our lips locked together. We kissed wildly for a couple of minutes before he reached down and started to unzip my cutoffs. He slipped one hand inside and I started to moan. His fingers were incredible. Part of my mind was trying to calculate if we could do everything in ten minutes and still have time to get a glass of cold water after, before - Plop.

"Shit," I said. I stopped squirming against his fingers. "What what?" We were panting heavily but had stopped moving, as if we had crossed a landmine. His fingers were still caressing me though, and I couldn't resist bucking against him one more time.

I licked my lips and rested my head on his shoulder. "My phone fell into the toilet."