PART 84 - Candace's P.O.V.
At my condo, Richard finished changing the oil in my car in about thirty minutes. When he stepped out on my sun deck and said he was already done, that both surprised and impressed me. It seemed like every time I went to a mechanic's shop for an oil change, it took them at least half a day.
My photo albums were up in my living room portion of the condo, so while I finished getting everything together, he browsed through the pictures of my life. He saw me with various hairstyles, braces, high school, prom night, and other times.
He brought the albums down and sat by the kitchen table. He said, "In most of these you look like dressed as a catalog model."
I responded, "Are you calling me a geek?"
He said, "No. You look so wholesome. USA. Australia. Canada. Great Britain. I see you and your folks have been to a lot of places."
"What about you? Have you ever been away from the Philippines?"
He answered, "Well I've been to the outer islands of the Philippines. If that is considered 'out of Philippines' if you know what I mean."
We chowed down on a snack of tuna sandwiches and chattered like buddies. I told him that my mother used to be an events coordinator for one of the big corporations in Makati, but she quit so she could trot the globe with Daddy. "I pretty much grew up in dinner parties."
He asked, "So, you like dinner parties."
"Yeah. I haven't been to one in a while though."
"Do you want to go? There's a place I want to go check out."
"A dinner party?" I asked.
He said, "Not exactly a party, more like a dinner."
We drove for dinner.
We went to a restaurant whose theme and ambience was about movies and museums. There were a lot of Rennaisance art copies on the walls on one end. Painters of different Italian and French names.
I asked Richard, "Have you heard of these people?"
"I've never heard of them except perhaps on history class back in school I guess."
I said, "Me too. Kelly knows about stuff like this."
Richard said, "I thought Juan Luna was the first painter to do this kind of stuff."
I said, "He wasn't in the Rennaisance."
We both laughed. We were both living on Joke City right now.
He was so warm. So easy to talk to. So polite. Those almond eyes, thick brows, curly lashes, those strong features that sang of intellect and love had me staring at him like he was the best piece of art in the whole building.
I loved wit and sarcasm. Conversations that flowed as easy as any free flowing river.
We were maneuvering around a crowd to go to our table when somehows our hands ended up side by side, then it intertwined as we stopped by our table.
I asked him, "What is your favorite sport?"
He responded, "Kissing."
That caught me off guard. So I answered him, "What position?"
He answered, "Sixty-eight plus one. What's yours?"
He caught me off guard again, so I came back, "Eighty minus eleven."
We both laughed again. We sat down at our table having fun, slipping in double entendres, indulging in intellectual conversation that masked erotic desire made me feel like Venus and he was my Roman god of war, Mars, wanting him to carry me to the island of Crete and do the freaky-deaky things.
Richard looked at his watch. "I need to stop by just outside of Metro Manila for a quick stopover later if you don't mind."
I asked him, "What's there?"
"My mom. If I came out this way, and didn't bother to drop by and say hello, she complains and whines."
"So, Richard, you have parents."
He said, "A mother. A stepfather. A brother. Two half-brothers. And a half-sister. Me and my oldest brother, our dad died a long time ago."
We finished out middle of the afternoon lunch. Then we drove off from the restaurant and headed to his mom's home. As we approached her home, I was left thinking, how will I come across. Or better yet, how will Richard introduce me to his parents and family? After all, it's not like he's my boyfriend and vice versa."
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@ devil_jazmin - You're right. The story has been in existence for a couple of years now. Something big is going to happen again. I'm leading it to a buildup right now. It's just too bad I am so busy with work, otherwise I would have finished the story a while ago. But I just keep enjoying the process though. Enjoy the update.
