Orange

The parking lot was empty on a Saturday; all the office folk weren’t at work. She had this ‘on-the-job-training’ interview at the Orient Square in Ortigas, Manila, and I was picking her up. Her interview was done—thank god; I’d been waiting since forever—and we were making our way across the sandy, rock-strewn parking lot.

She was whining all over the place about the interview, telling me how the lady she talked to was ridiculously formal. “Hello? Just hire me?” she wanted to tell her. “You’ll just make me gofer this and gofer that, make you coffee, and dump me away in some long-forgotten cubicle, just so I’d pass my practicum.” 

And then, she went on about this sale at the Shangri-La Mall. “It is awesome, honey! They’re cleaning out their old footwear stock, so the prices are so cheap! We really, really have to go!”

Sure, it was a good deal—if you considered eight thousand bucks for these things you’d just step on as cheap. Not to mention that whopping fifteen percent discount, of course.

I was okay with hanging around the mall. But about that particular sale? Jesus, give me a break! That shop’s been on sale for months! Clear the inventory whatever. I swear, my girlfriend was as gullible with all these sale stints like some kid who believed in some midnight fairy giving you money for all your dead teeth.

So we were walking across the parking lot when strong winds suddenly blew, making all the dirt around us fly into the air for several moments. When the whirlwind died, I put an arm around her waist and said, “That was pretty cool, huh?”

She straightened out her hair. “Cool? You mean, getting dirt in your face? That is so not cool, honey.”

“No, I meant the whirlwind.”

“What whirlwind?”

I rolled my eyes. “The one that just passed? All that stuff flying all over the place? Anyway, that got me thinking about love stories.”

“Love stories? Like a whirlwind romance thing?”

“Well, yeah, but I have my own interpretation.” I reached into my pocket for a cigarette. “You see, before you fall in love, you’re like the leaves around this parking lot, worlds apart and all. And then, love happens, the whirlwind, and you’re swept up from where you were. You’re all caught up in the moment, your thoughts and emotions spinning around like mad! And when it ends, you settle back down to the real world. After that, you’ve got the memory of that whirlwind in your head. If you were a leaf in this parking lot, you’ll remember that short span of time when you were—even for just a few seconds—closer to the skies.”

What I said was totally poetic.

“But honey,” she said, “short love’s nothing but a fling-thing.”

I frowned. “What about Romeo and Juliet? You’d call what they had some kind of one-night stand?”

She beamed. “You are so correct! They get married, and Romeo has sex with Juliet for just one night! The next day, she dies on him. So Romeo kills himself. And then, Juliet like, you know, dies again—this time for real…” She thought to herself. “That is so tragic, honey.”

Well… I guess the way her brain worked was tragic, too?

We then reached the car.

“Cris?” she said as I cleared the alarm.

“What.” I lit my cigarette.

“A sale is like a love story, too.”

I looked at her and said nothing.

“Because it’s short and everything, and people like me get really caught up in it, right?”

Jesus. “Cher? Just get in the damned car.”