Before Sunrise: the Victory Liner edition (aka Whatever, Grace.)

I've been travelling to and from Baguio for as long as I can remember. I must say though, my more than 10-hour bus ride from Pasay the day before Christmas eve is by far the most interesting commute I have ever had.

I've met a ton of interesting people on my semi-regular commute to the city I still call home. A couple of old lawyers, the granddaughter of Dexter of Dexter's Catering, a couple of old ladies, a funny nurse from the Supreme Court clinic (who I met again when I started working for the SC, and who I still talk to every so often), and most recently, this guy named Ryan. Well, I suppose that's his real name. (Projection lang. My I-don't-want-to-talk-to-strangers fake name is Rachel Dela Cruz.)

I got to the station half an hour before my day-before-Christmas-Eve trip to Baguio, sat down on one of the many black plastic chairs (whose backrests are placed so far back you never actually use them), and followed the loooooooooong queue of people at the ticket booth. I seriously wondered, as I still do, why people still did not bother to book their tickets in advance. I whipped out my Kindle and started on the first first few pages of Lisa Kleypas' Suddenly You. (Yeah, the one with 40 pages of foreplay. Lol.)

A few minutes later, the 3:00pm bus positioned itself in its designated slot, and I got up to hand over my luggage (a medium-sized suitcase and a huuuuuge plastic bag of Christmas gifts) to the bus conductor. There was another girl with a maroon Longchamp travelling tote (Yeah, I noticed. It was really cute.) and this guy in a leather jacket, sort of a taller, bulkier version of Noel, my mom's former student at the SLU Boys' High School back in the early 90's, bar topnotcher and my former officemate. Small world. But back to my story. I thought, oh, he's headed for Baguio, maybe they're related. Maybe he's Noel's brother or something. I put on my staring-blankly-into-space face while we were waiting for the conductor to get off the phone and open the luggage compartment. I snickered to myself when this old guy carrying a VERY BIG backpack passed in front of the doppelganger and he sort of cringed with disbelief. It was like looking in the mirror. I would have reacted the same way.

A short while later, the conductor came back to stash our luggage. When I boarded the bus, the doppelganger was standing in the aisle, looking for the seat numbers. The nice person that I am, I asked him what seat number he was looking for. He said he was in seat 6, so I pointed out the seat next to where I was going to sit. Once he got out of the way, that is. (Okay, so maybe being nice wasn't my intention, it was more that I was annoyed that he was in my way and I couldn't get to my seat. I hate it when people do that, hanging out in the aisle, corridor or whatever, blocking my path. Another pet peeve, when people walk the same way most people in this city drive, i.e. without direction, swerving every which way. Seriously, if you want to gawk at something, get out of the way.)

We settled in for the long ride. He took out his inflatable neck pillow, which kept on falling down. (Annoying.) At some point, it fell right at my feet, and I refused to pick it up. More specifically, I looked at the pillow on the floor, moved my foot away, and went back to bonding with my Kindle. I thought, Hey leather jacket dude, your pillow’s at my feet. Go pick it up. He stuck the pillow behind his neck and alternately tinkered with his iPhone and his iPad. Hmmmm… Not bad, leather jacket boy. But your jeans are still ripped. Ewwww.

A while later, he fell asleep, and I focused my full attention on reading my trashy novel. Because we all know how much brain work that entails. Haha!

An hour into our trip, my ungrateful tummy started growling, and not in the hungry way. I shouldn’t have had that last slice of pizza… I prayed to all the saints and all the deities to calm my churning insides. I did NOT want to go in any of the restrooms at the designated bus stops, and we were a loooooooong way from Baguio. Yes, God, I get it, I’m a bad person. I should have picked up his pillow. The pain came in nauseating waves, but gradually subsided into a little uncomfortable lull. I decided to sleep through it. When I woke up two hours later, we were thankfully along NLEX. Yep, 3 hours from Pasay to NLEX. When really, sans traffic, we should have been in Tarlac by then.

By the time we got to Pampanga, we still weren’t talking. I have to admit, I was a teeny bit miffed at that. Not that I wanted to talk to him. But I wanted to have the option to say no. Teeheehee. Come on, it's a normal thing. Plus my legs were starting to feel cramped. My tummy had by then settled into a simmering sort of murmur, but I decided not to eat anything yet. Ah, yes, the laws of matter.

A couple of hours later, we got to Tarlac. He got off first, and then I headed for the washroom. The doppelganger was busy eating at one of the tables. I decided I deserved a cigarette, so I walked over to the convenience store. Luckily, they had Marlboro Menthols. I started walking around the store looking for tissue, but I didn’t see any. I went back to check if they had any behind the counter, and ended up there at the same time as the doppelganger. He let me go first (Well that was nice.), but since they didn’t have any tissue or lighters, I just said thank you, and went to inflict some damage on my lungs.

Outside, I positioned myself strategically right smack in front of the bus. No danger of forgetting which bus I was supposed to board. I borrowed a light from one of the men at the wooden bench. The doppelganger arrived a minute later and asked if he could borrow a light. (Oh goodie, he smokes. No judgment there. Btw, I’ve actually sort of semi-quit, but since it’s Christmas, I decided to spoil myself.) So anyway, since I didn’t have a lighter, he asked if he could light it with the tip of my cigarette, which I reluctantly handed over. (Huh. Errrr, close tayo?)

He began our little chitchat by asking me if I was coming from Manila. I learned over the course of the conversation that Ryan he was (well, is) a civil engineer from La Trinidad working for an Austrian construction company in Japan. (Can’t remember what city though.) Smalltalk button switched on. Really? Both my parents are engineers. We talked about the earthquake and the tsunami, and how long it had been since he last went home. He hadn’t had Christmas here in six years, and hadn’t been home in two.

We boarded the bus, and continued our little chitchat about life in Baguio before there were so many people there. He told me he graduated from Boys’ High in 1993, but apparently had never been my mom’s student. I told him about the new places to go and where to eat in Baguio. He told me about his life alone in Japan.

By the time we got to Sison, it dawned on me that we were nearing Baguio. Good, considering we’d been on the road for hours, but a little sad, because I’d be saying goodbye to a new acquaintance-slash-friend (whose name I did not know up until that point). Yes, the conversation was that good. I so seldom meet people who are actually fun to talk to, and are worth talking to, that it’s a serious treat when I do. (The pathetic-ness of this statement has since dawned on me. - ed.) And I thought he was kinda cute, in that indescribably unique Baguio boy way.

And so, instead of going back to sleep, we just talked and talked and talked and talked some more for the last hour and a half of our trip. I should have slipped him my number or my email address at some point, but I was conflicted. Yes, according to Anna, natabunan na daw ang inner landi. (Facepalm. Toink.) I’ve been on a hiatus from this whole thing for so long, and I was just getting my sea legs back. (I used to be good at the whole subtle flirting (aka SF) thing. Ask Chi. I think I need more practice. Now to look for a willing victim...) On top of all that, I wasn’t even sure if I was just reading too much into the whole thing than I should have been. Maybe he was (is) married, or in a relationship. No ring though. (I think. I've never been good at checking. I usually just assume everyone's married, attached, or not worth my time. Which, given the fact that I work for the Supreme Court and live in Ermita, is a very wise and practical strategy.) Or maybe he was (is) gay. Very unlikely. Seriously.

When we got to Baguio, he helped me carry my things to the cab. We said goodbye, and Merry Christmas. A rather nondescript, unmelodramatic, and extremely anticlimactic end to my little Before Sunrise, Victory Liner edition.

P.S.

I thought I saw him in Baguio last night, driving a white sedan, but it was just a quick glimpse. I would have loved to talk to him a little more, or maybe keep in touch, exchange stories or something. But if he didn’t ask for my number, or at least my email address or twitter id, I guess that means something, right? I mean, I’m not that difficult to look up on the internet if he really wanted to get in touch with me. Oh wells. In any case, it was a very interesting ride to have been on. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into him in Baguio or on my way back to Manila after New Year’s. If I do, I am so definitely giving him my number. What he does with it is his call.  

P.S.P.S.

Okay, so I finally figured out the scientific explanation for this whole thing. It's hormonal. Hahaha! Happy New Year, everyone!