Early in May that summer in Manila, the Pinedas invited the dean and his faculty for dinner. The couple rented a two-storey brick house somewhere along A. H. Lacson in Sampaloc, just five blocks away from Rayel's condo unit at the K. B. Arizona Tower in P. Campa. They'd only been in town for three months, but Manny's set to get the attention of everyone and say in inaudible words "Hello people! I'm here, Manny, and I'm friendly!" Jenny protested, saying they didn't know many people here in Manila and that doing dinner for people who were not sure to attend is not at all a good idea. Her parents were coming from Olongapo, that was probably enough. But Manny made a list, looked at it, and said if two-thirds of them came, it would be a respectable showing.

Manny's list was predictable, safe. He said, "I thought about inviting Rayel Capistrano, but I doubt if he'd come. He doesn't seem the type for social gatherings. Then again, Rayel's single and so is your friend, Carolyn Diaz, from programming. They're both kind of different, so I thought maybe we can do a little match-making over dinner."

Jenny thought about it. She imagined Rayel sitting at their dining room table. Surreal Rayel Capistrano, big-shouldered and dark brown-eyed with black hair longer than the approved length for an engineering school faculty member. A little something out of the ordinary. Cool and charming whose emotions, they said, were locked away in some faraway castle, except in writing where he truly came to life.

A week before, she and Manny were going home from a dinner date and the movies. Jenny was a certified cinema addict. She quite liked the movies, and goes there from time to time even by her lonesome. She loved a good story, something a bit romantic and funny, preferably with Meg Ryan laughing in it. The night streets were wet from a rare summer rain, and suddenly there was Rayel beside them when they stopped for a red light. He sat on the Crow, stroking its pedal. She remembered the car radio was playing a song by the Goo goo dolls, "Name," while Manny was telling her to find the am radio station devoting an entire evening to jazz instrumental music. It stuck in her mind, the song playing at that moment. From that time on, she could be anywhere and hear "Name" and instantly she was back at España Avenue, looking at Rayel on the Crow.

Manny leaned out of the window of the Lancer and said, "Hi, Rayel."

Rayel --- in basketball shorts, yellow shirt with Polo Sport printed on its left breast pocket, and slippers --- turned and waved to the Pinedas without smiling, then looked straight ahead as if nothing happened. When the light changed Rayel flew with the Crow and was gone, straddling that smooth black bike of his and disappearing into the corner.

Manny said, "I think it's a bit chilly and wet to be riding a bicycle, don't you?"

But Jenny didn't hear him. She watched the Crow's taillight as it moved away from her. And she wanted to be riding it with Rayel Capistrano, to be going out there where she haven't gone before. She wanted to climb on it and feel the wind in her ears.

However, let's face it. That kind of thing happening is next to impossible. She's already married. But something inside her wanted to be with Rayel at that moment. There was just some magic between her and Rayel that Jenny couldn't understand. He was the one she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with.

But Manny Pineda came along. She was in a situation where she needed to get things organized, to get her future stable and secured, fatigued from the emotional roll and toss she'd dealt with all those years. Manny looked stable, and he was. Manny looked comfortable, and he was. Jenny needed peace and quiet, and Manny had them. When he proposed, she said yes for reasons she wasn't sure of, but they had something to do with stability and comfort and peace and quiet and security.

These past few weeks, Jenny fought hard against her feelings for Rayel coming back again; still, it wouldn't leave her alone. Being with him again, seeing him again, touching him again. Inside the good faculty wife with a degree in broadcasting was a girl who wanted to put her arms around Rayel Capistrano and never let him go. She wanted to kiss his face, his cheeks, his mouth, and breathe with him.

When Manny showed her his list of invitees for the dinner, she hesitated. Her first inclination was to go for comfort and stability. But Mrs. Jullie Simmons-Tablante talked to her on the phone and said, "I think that's a good idea. I want to see Rayel there and know how he's been these days. Ask him and see what he says," as Jenny scratched "R. Capistrano" at the bottom of the yellow paper. Jenny decided at that moment to wear her red tube dress with a black silk jacket on if he accepted their invitation.

***

Rayel Capistrano didn't go to gatherings --- any of them --- but the dinner at the Pinedas was a chance to be around Jenny, and he couldn't pass it up. Manny had said there would be a few other people, but he and Jenny especially hoped Rayel would come, and oh, by the way, you may bring someone if you want.

He came in from his daily early morning ride with the Crow, got his dog walked and fed, then read for a while. At about fifteen minutes before noon, he ate his lunch and sat before his pc, wrote quiz number five of his electromagnetics class.

Around five o'clock in the afternoon he stood before his bedroom closet and pulled out his checkered red-blue long-sleeves. Most of his ties had fallen onto the closet floor a hundred years or so and looked like it, all wrinkled and dusty. He picked up a blue one decorated with a red No Fear label, which looked like a candidate for resuscitation with the help of a good brushing. He then pulled out a pair of wrinkled black slacks and held them up. Penny, the large German Shepard who was named after Rayel's favorite NBA player, Anfernee Hardaway, put his head on his paws and made small, whining sounds. "Not nice, huh, Penny?" Rayel turned, then showed the long-sleeves to Penny again and asked, "Whaddya think about this?" Penny blinked, yawned and headed for the living room. With that kind of reaction, he shoved hangers around, located a pair of Levi's jeans, short-sleeved button-down-collar navy blue Polo polo shirt, and finished off this process in hesitant elegance with pink socks and his old reliable Hush Puppies.

Rayel picked up the bottle of Justerini and Brooks he'd bought for the occasion and tucked out his shirt. He walked the five blocks to the house of the Pinedas. Two cars and a Ford pick-up were parked outside, including the Pineda's Lancer. Manny answered the door, impeccable --- perfect as it gets in a white collar-barred starched shirt with a midnight blue tuxedo and a polka-dotted tie. At the bottom were black lightweight Armani's. Crisp white hanky in his breast pocket. Rayel wanted to laugh when Manny smiled and delivered his almost scripted welcoming line.

"Welcome, Rayel. Jenny and I are pleased you could come. Say, that's quite a shirt!"

Rayel hated entrance scenes. He especially hated it when he's paraded to rooms full of people, and he'd get sort of stupid and uncomfortable. His growing years didn't provide him with much experience in entrances, that's all.

A motley little crowd awaited him in the small living room: Carolyn Diaz (female, unpartnered, acquaintance of Jenny), architect and wife ("So, you're also a writer besides being an engineer?"), the overweight accountant with an equally heavy wife and a crushing handshake (volleyball blob). Dorothy Villanueva was in the middle of the sofa, seated next to a guy she dated from the architecture department. Jenny's dad sat on Dothy's other side. It was cool, with the air-conditioning system in full throttle, everybody's looking at Rayel standing in the doorway of the living room. He took a deep breath and wished he could light things up, but there wasn't a chance in hell of that.

Manny took him by the elbow. "I think everybody here knows Rayel Capistrano from my department." The voices reached toward Rayel in ragged unison. He gave them a slight wave and handed the bottle of whisky to Manny.

"Jenny and her mother are in the kitchen. Oh how clumsy of me, I nearly forgot, you've met Jenny's father, Mr. Tablante, have you?"

Mr. Tablante just grinned at them. He wanted to tell Manny he already knew Rayel since he was ten years old and there's no need for introductions. Rayel grinned back as if reading Mr. Tablante's mind and shook his hand. Mr. Tablante was somewhere over sixty, with bright eyes and a firm hand. Rayel knew him to be all right, as long as you didn't cross him.

Through an open door and down the hall he could see Jenny in the kitchen. She looked up, smiled and waved, "Hi, Rayel, come meet mom!"

He went to the kitchen while the living room went back to whatever conversations he'd interrupted. Jenny wiped her hands on a white apron that had BABY! and a cartoon of Tweety bird printed on it. She kissed him on the cheek, whispering, "I'm so glad you came," then held Rayel's left arm into hers and turned him to the gray-haired woman who was doing something over the sink. The kiss and the whisper surprised him, but he chalked it up to hospitality.

"Mom, it's Rayel."

Jenny got his looks from her American mother. Mrs. Tablante was a knock-'em-dead lady about the same age as her husband and with the same brown eyes as Jenny's. "Nice to see you again, Rayel. How have you been?"

"Never better." He shrugged his shoulders.

Mrs. Tablante turned to Jenny. "Rayel's writing for the Manila Times, right?" Jenny nodded. "What do you write there, Rayel?"

"Oh, I write a column in their science and technology page. Just some opinion and trivia about technology. That's all."

"Do you enjoy it?" Mrs. Tablante asked. Jenny was stirring gravy, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Well, it's better than stirring gravy sauce."

Jenny laughed. Jullie Tablante smiled and asked again, "And why on earth wouldn't you want to stir gravy sauce?"

"Because it makes me fart."

Both of them are laughing now. Rayel was grinning, appreciating the groove of Lenny Kravitz on the speakers. He could see they were busy so he excused himself and went back to the living room.

He looked back at Jenny once, who was still fretting over the gravy, and tried to figure out in his mind what he'd seen on her face. A blend, maybe, of contentment and weariness, of being happy where she was and yet wishing she was somewhere else.

"Come over here, Rayel." Dothy Villanueva reached out for his hand. He'd always liked Dothy. She'd joined the faculty three years after him. They'd done a couple of papers together and ended up naked and laughing and drinking tequilas on her bed when they finished one. They'd gone out a few times after that, then let go of it by mutual, but unspoken, consent. The mathematics of data communications evidently was not enough on which to sustain a loving relationship.

She introduced him to her friend, the archi faculty member. Rayel knew the guy because they had a light argument in one of the university's general meetings way back last semester. He shook Rayel's hand and said, "I remember you. You're the one who was in favor of expelling students who are caught writing on walls. What was it you said?... I used to tell everybody about you as an example of the kind of approach that just doesn't work with today's students."

Rayel sighed, then thought about sticking the sweet fellow's head up his ass or in the air-conditioner, depending on whether he decided the pea-sized brain ought to be quick-frozen or hard-boiled, but let it go and leaned toward him, whispering, "I remember almost exactly what I said. It went something like this: 'We're running a university, not a city jail or one hump-hump asylum in Mandaluyong. Destructive teenage drunks are just that, and we ought to throw the fucking little bastards all the way back down their mothers' vaginas and let'em suck on it.' That's what I said. I also said I couldn't stand all the sweet and cute bullshit you people seem to believe in. And I don't like the people in your department and you."

Sweet fellow turned red while Dothy laid back against the sofa cushions, trying to suppress her laughter and failing, and that cooled him down. Rayel was glad she was there. He'd shot his mouth off at a neophyte instructor who didn't know what it was like in the ravines of the world, and it could have ruined dinner at the Pinedas, which was the last thing he'd wanted to happen.

"Oh, Rayel, will you never be tamed?" Dothy was still laughing, holding her stomach.

At that moment, Manny Pineda came out of the kitchen, pleasingly announcing dinner. "Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served."

The crowd hurried off toward the dining room. Rayel stayed behind, wondering what the seating arrangements would be and whether there'll be such thing so he could look at Jenny every now and then, preferably often. After all, that's what he'd come for, not to deal with smart-ass little brats from architecture.

Place cards were on the table, but he decided to let everyone else find their seats and then sort through the residual. The seat assignments gave the appearance of having come out of random. But he knew Jenny too well to know there was an overall plan designed to get certain people away from their wives and dates and husbands and next to certain other people. Rayel watched them seat themselves, the chairs dwindling down to a precious few. Jenny caught his eye and lip-pointed to the second seat down from the head of the table, near the kitchen. He walked over and looked at the name card, which had Superman printed on it in Jenny's handwriting. The card at the place next to his read Jenny.

Manuel Pineda III sat on the head of the table at the opposite end, Jenny's mother poured wine, Jenny ran back and forth to the kitchen, and everyone else talked nonsense. Rayel sat there watching Jenny move, feeling, again after a long time, something beyond his chest wanting to explode, thinking maybe the old Big Bang theory was coming off again. The physical attraction that was always there was somehow being molded with again deeper and gentler feelings of a higher order, a turn of events he didn't want to happen. And he becomes a little sad it was slowly happening. Sad for her, for him, for Manny, and for where all this might lead or probably wouldn't. His prayers were beginning to weaken, the mantra sounded less certain. Some things were better left alone, he thought. He, and perhaps Jenny, if he was reading her correctly, were fooling around in dangerous grounds where they had no business going, a place that wasn't as harmless as it first appeared. And, for a moment, he wanted to run, to ride the Crow somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere that had a nice view and a hot soup.

The dinner went on for nearly two hours. Wine, whisky, brandy, and beer. Food and more food. Jullie Tablante told a funny story about Jenny's growing years, and sometimes mentioned Rayel. Everybody laughed, especially Jenny.

Carolyn Diaz on his right rattled on about her life, touching his arm occasionally when she made what she considered a significant point. That left him feeling confined and a little nauseated, since he was bound to be polite and couldn't look at Jenny out of the corner of his eye while he was talking to Carolyn.

Somebody mentioned the afternoon NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knickerbockers. The sports fanatic from the admission's office moved forward and began citing three-point shots made and attempted by the shooting guards of LA, along with other related junk serving only to confuse people's minds and keep them from thinking about anything that really matters. Jenny's mother was filling her in on the latest episode of Oprah.

Manny was smiling --- he never ceased smiling, it was his way of life. Jenny's father was talking to Dothy Villanueva's date about car engines and valves. And Carolyn on Rayel's right was asking him if he ever attended seminars on information technology, saying she always seemed to go alone and didn't like going alone. He said he didn't go because, as far as he could tell, his knowledge about computers and the web is fair enough despite being a communications expert. Carolyn was all right, though disappointed in the way most of us would feel, and Rayel continued to fake interest in seminars, computers, and going out, once or twice feeling Jenny's hip against his shoulder when she got up to make a run to the kitchen.

The accountant blob was still talking about the game coming on in less than thirty minutes and said he hoped nobody would mind if he watched it. Several men agreed. Carolyn straightened her glasses and said quietly to Rayel, "All this attention given to basketball is just an ego trip for males who think they are macho, don't you think?"

He really didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to talk to her or think about anything except the next touch of Jenny's hip against his shoulder. But he nodded and said, "You're probably right. On the other hand, it beats having your men playing games of cards and video games and looking clumsy and geeky when they are in the prime of their lives." She turned her attention to the architect's wife a moment later.

During a pause while the so-called fatty basketball expert was wetting his throat and summoning up more good Sports Atlas wisdom to tell everyone, Manny Pineda said, "Rayel, you used to be a basketball player yourself, didn't you? That's what Jenny told me."

Jenny followed. "That's true. Will you tell them all about it, Superman?" she smiled.

Trapped and tongue-tied, he hoped the topic would pass, but it didn't. Jenny's father pushed it along, proud that he knew the topic. "What year was it then when you played in the NCAA, Rayel? I forgot." The accountant-blob, who wouldn't know how to dribble a basketball if it was required of him, had a chunk of lechon halfway into his mouth and was obviously in a state of complete surprise, since Rayel seldom, no, never mentioned his athletic history.

Everyone was looking at him, particularly Carolyn, as if she'd suddenly discovered the real Rayel Capistrano, and why he doesn't care about seminars and seemed a little barbarous overall. He would have continued to look for a way out, but Jenny said, "Tell us about it, Rayel. Please. I miss watching you play. Really." She seemed genuinely sincere, and he couldn't refuse Jenny.

He took a shot of Budweiser and began. "The short version is this: as you all know from Mrs. Tablante, I grew up in Olongapo ---"

The architect's wife interrupted him, "Where was that again?"

"In Zambales... near Subic where we had our summer outing last week."

"It's pretty out there isn't it?" With a mind that you already know, she was now into travelogues.

Carolyn came out of her corner and sarcastically uttered: "Okay, then..."

"Yes, it's very pretty," Rayel smiled, looking at the architect's wife. "Jenny and her parents lived three blocks down from ours so we were friends since grade school." He waited a moment for additional questions about Olongapo. There were none.

"By the time I got to third year high, I was totally bored with school and small-town life in general. So I started shooting baskets in the city's park. Then my grandfather helped me put up a hoop in our backyard. He took a real interest in the whole affair thinking that I may be good enough to play in college and installed a yard light so I could practice in the evenings. I seemed to have a knack for the jump shot and got pretty good at it. My high school coach had graduated from Mapua Institute of Technology and sent them films of two or three of my better games. They offered me a scholarship, which was about the only way I was going to get to college. I played there for three and a half years until I banged up my knee pretty bad. That's it." He took a gulp of beer. Jenny held Rayel's hand under the table and squeezed it, as she remembered how he got his knee injured. He waited for the topic to move on to matters of greater importance, but they wouldn't let go.

"What position did you play, Rayel?"

"Point guard."

"What are you, about five seven?"

"Five six, in my socks."

"Were you a member of the Mythical Team of anything?"

"I was in the Mythical Five all those three years and won the Most Valuable Player award on my second year when we got our championship." He almost didn't want to tell them the information, but they were pushing him.

Jenny put her left arm over his shoulders and leaned on him. "Rayel's a star then." She said softly, proudly.

He couldn't tell if she was being sincere or mildly sarcastic, but he hoped it was the latter and decided to believe it was, with just a little bit of the former mixed in. "I never thought of it that way. I was just earning room and board. Books and tuition."

"I bet your parents were very proud of you. Ever thought about turning pro?" The accountant had found a real live veteran of wars right at the dinner table.

"My dad died when I was thirteen so he didn't get to see me play." Jenny wrapped her arms around his. She knew that this topic about his deceased father would be brought up, and she knew he didn't want that to happen. "All I had was my mom, my grandfather, and Jenny supporting me while I played. Jenny's with me when I tore my knee. She came with me to the hospital. She was the one who stayed beside me and took care of me because my mother had to work for long hours." Rayel still looked casually calm and continued. Everybody else were in silence. "My mother was more concerned about my grades. She always thought athletics was a pretty dumb way for people to spend their time."

The accountant apologized for his query and was troubled by that. Rayel said it was all right and there's no need to worry. "So, you and Jenny go way back then?" Manny squinted as he asked, this time not smiling. "Yes we do." Jenny answered.

Rayel cut them, "As for becoming a professional, I had no real interest, plus my first step wasn't quick enough for the big leagues. The phone from the pros never rang, probably because of my busted knee. But I wouldn't have answered it if it had."

"Don't you miss playing, Rayel?" Jenny's mother was looking at him.

"God knows how I miss it, Mrs. Tablante. I truly do. But from where I am now, it makes me feel already satisfied with my life. Somewhere during my third year in college I discovered that I didn't love basketball that much. I just like it a lot. And I just like fooling around with the art and physics of the long-range jump shot. It was a boy's tool for a boy's game. When you're all grown up and become a man you'll realize that. But I still shoot some hoops once in a while all by myself for the pure pleasure of it."

Jenny said, "That's an interesting point of view... the art and physics of the long-range jump shot is all that really mattered. Rayel, you ought to do an article on that some time."

Jenny's mom quickly batted, "Rayel's writing for the Manila Times." smiling.

"Let's just talk about that some other time." Rayel smiled and everybody laughed.

Jenny saw the smile, watched it steadily, and savored it. It was still the same hypnotic smile, one that makes her think of the Crow along España Avenue and rainy days.

As for Rayel, if Jenny had put her arm back on his shoulders at that moment, he'd have written a short story about the now-fading jump shots on the linen tablecloth that evening with a chicken bone. But she didn't and changed the topic by listing the selection of desserts available. Both of him and Jenny had ice cream. She loved ice cream, especially the ube flavored one. He loves cheese flavored ice cream, so when they went out before and snatched some, they would order halu-halo all the time, which is a combination of ube and cheese.

The accountant and a few basketball addicts went for the living room after dessert and watched the game. Carolyn Diaz had papers to attend to, Dothy Villanueva and her date decided on a walk. Jenny and her mother were cleaning up in the kitchen. Rayel went outside for a smoke, and when he returned, the rest of them except Jenny and her parents, were watching the game. Rayel sat at the dining room table with Roberto Tablante and asked about car engines and valves, saying he used to help out at his uncle's machine shop in Olongapo. Mr. Tablante knew how to talk about what interested him, giving Rayel the right amount of information without getting boring. He would have been a good professor if only he would, Rayel thought. He liked Roberto Tablante.

Later, Jenny and her mother joined them at the table, Jenny sitting across from Rayel. This is what he'd come for, the chance to simply look at Jennifer Tablante Pineda on a warm summer night in 1983. He was careful, though, because once or twice her mother caught him staring at Jenny in a way not related to the conversation. And mothers know about the secret thoughts of men, particularly when those thoughts concern their daughters.

About one and a half months ago, Rayel could only tolerate being in Jenny's general vicinity for relatively short periods of time. But now, his feelings toward her were just too overpowering, escalating in intensity minute by minute, and he was afraid he'd blurt something obvious and stupid about the way he felt. He didn't know his fear of being obvious was just what's making him such. He couldn't look straight at her when she was looking, and could only do so if she's looking somewhere else. He's having difficulty in finding words to say when talking to her, making him look, well, stupid. "Here I go again," he said to himself. He wanted to be able to see her, be around her as often as he could, without feeling any more surreptitious than he already did. So about nine o 'clock he excused himself under the facade of going home to feed his dog.

Jenny wrapped her arms around herself and shivered on the front steps when she said goodbye to him. "Thank you for coming, Rayel. I know these get-togethers aren't your style, but I wanted my parents to see you again. They like you so much, especially mom. My dad said to me a few minutes ago, 'I really like Rayel; he's got some fiber in him'. I always knew he liked you."

Rayel understood what she meant. "I like them, too, Jenny. Thanks for inviting me, I had a nice time." He couldn't help looking hard at her once more before leaving. He just couldn't help it, wanting to put his arms around her and say, "Don't go back in the house. Come with me, I'll kiss your mouth and all of you, and tear you to pieces and put you back together again. Afterwards, we'll go down the road, faraway, doesn't matter where."

Jenny set her brown eyes on Rayel's for maybe ten seconds, confronted his stare. A look he remembered she gave him that time before, as if she was half-seeing into his thoughts. As if she heard what he had said in his mind. They said nothing, just looked at each other's eyes. After a few moments, she then dropped her eyes and smiled a little. Rayel smiled back and she watched him walk away. He glanced back after one block and waved. She waved back and watched Rayel until she couldn't see him anymore.

I stood

at the pavement

reminiscing how

he used to

always

look back at me

as he reached

that tree at the corner.

Images swirling,

dancing

in my mind,

as I now recall

blissful moments

spent with him.

I sigh heavily

though my face

is painted

with a smile.

Seems like decades,

yet not quite so.

The years have

breezed by

like the wild wind

that rustled the grass

lining the

dimly lit streets.

Darkness slowly swallowed

his silhouette

as he walked away,

away from me.

Then suddenly,

he turned around,

and looked at me

like he used to

as he reached

that tree at the corner.