Summit Books

by Vince O. Teves

Publication Date: December 2004
Price: P150.00
Available at your favorite magazine stands

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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."

There's Something About Andrea

"So why Andrea?" Spider asked me. "I mean, aside from the obvious."

Spider was playing devil's advocate, as always. He took a giant gulp from his beer - his third since lunch began - then a giant bite from the chicken in front of him. Beer and grease trickled down his chin and seeped into three days' worth of stubble. My best friend was never much to look at when he was eating. Despite this, girls went crazy over him. I always assumed it was his bad-boy appeal. Besides, most of them had never seen him eat.

I was stumped, and it was driving me absolutely crazy. It was always the most obvious things that were the most difficult to explain. I liked Andrea. I was crazy about her, mad about her, positively kookoo. It was so obvious I felt like I was wearing a neon sign on my head. A thousand reasons tried to get from my brain, my gut and my heart and then get out of my mouth, but nothing came out. Undoubtedly they had all gotten stuck in traffic.

"She completes me," I almost said, complete with sign language. But no, I didn't want any comparisons with Jerry Maguire, or Austin Powers' Dr. Evil for that matter. Even if she did do that completing business.

"Because she makes me want to be a better man," I wanted to say. But no Jack Nicholson for me. The line seemed to come up short somehow. As killer one-liners go, that just couldn't be as good as it gets.

The silence on my end of the conversation dragged on. My mouth was hanging open as I tried to force the words I wanted to say to come out. You want the truth, Spider? You can't handle the truth!

"When I first saw her," I told Spider without the aid of snappy lines, "I was floored. Because she's beautiful. Everyone knows she's beautiful. And I dismissed her as just another pretty face. You know, one of those nice girls with nothing special about them whatsoever. Of course, I wanted her. That's the easy part.

"Then one afternoon, I made up some flimsy excuse to talk to her, hiding behind the pretense of school work. I found myself enchanted by the way she bites her lip, and the way she touches you when she talks, small things like that. By the time we finished talking it was evening already, and I still wanted to go on talking to her. That's when I realized that this girl was something special, that she was like no one else I knew... that she was simply wonderful. She was smart and funny, and that turns me on more than anything about her. I like her because she's a little kooky. I like her because she's stubborn. I like her because she can be such a bitch. I like her because she laughs too loud.

"After that I'd go out of my way every day to 'bump into her by accident.' I was practically stalking her, Spider! I made more excuses to talk to her, and the excuses just got flimsier and flimsier. Now I feel like I'll die if I don't talk to her every day - me, Mr. I-Don't-Need-Anyone. I don't know what it is, she just flows in kindness and beauty, overflows, and fills me. She's a part of me."

Spider stared at me for a full five seconds without saying anything. Was he going to laugh? Was he going to throw his food at me? Finally, he put his spoon and fork down with an amused smile playing across his face, and said, "I don't believe this! You don't like her, man. You love her already. I don't believe this."

I figured it was the neon sign on my head that gave me away again.