Love in All the Right Places (Chick Lit bundle) (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

GIO DIDN’T follow her to the airport. That would have been so dramatic. Neither was there any last-minute phone call or text message. He tried to throw himself into his work, hoping it would provide a good distraction.

But he kept looking at his watch. Besides, looking at Nay Caring’s Boracay paintings made him think of Min Hee. Even the event poster that she had made seemed to taunt him from its stand across his desk. He felt the incredible urge to tear them down.

He Googled her when she left. He felt less guilty about doing it now. Finding out about the affair through the harsh gossip articles gave him some kind of assurance that he had done the right thing. That it was better to blame her. That it was easier to accept that they weren’t meant to be, and just let her go.

And then he would come across an older article about Min Hee the young actress, Min Hee the trainee trying to rise from the ranks and he’d remember all those conversations they would have. He felt a little twist inside, longing for the Min Hee who was trusting and open, hurt from the Min Hee who had lied. But he steeled his heart just a little bit more. There were bitter days ahead.

* * * *

“You’re stupid to let her go,” Toni berated him a few days later. “I could have told you she was the real deal.”

But Gio remained stubborn. “Don’t you think I believe that she’s an actress now? But she was seeing someone else when we were together. That made us casual. And you don’t really hold on to someone who wants things casual.”

“She was here! He was in Korea! I read all the articles. Her new drama’s making her famous—or infamous?—in the fan forums. Didn’t she say she was breaking up with him?” Toni exclaimed exasperatedly.

“And then what? When she returned she’d take one look at this guy and decide to be with him. What could I have done? She needed to go back to Korea. She had a life there. And I have responsibilities here.”

“You could have asked her to stay.”

“What is this, some Koreanovela? In the real world, people have to live with the choices they make.” He laughed, but he was unable to keep the sharpness out of his voice. Things had already been decided. “Besides, if you weren’t listening, I was just some way to pass the time. Why don’t you go and focus on your work, Toni, and leave me to mine.”

“Somebody ought to talk some sense into you, Kuya,” Toni warned. “You can’t just keep on deciding things by yourself. You like doing that to us, you did just the same to Min Hee. So maybe I like thinking that things can have a happy ending. But I also know you have to work for that. You can’t keep on resenting life for not giving you what you want when you don’t do anything to fight for it. You should have trusted her some more. Or you could have just let her explain. You guys needed closure.”

Gio shook his head. “You can’t be
that
naïve, Toni. Closure is overrated.”

* * * *

But Toni was only the first one to give him a piece of her mind. Harold was next, but it was in a more roundabout manner, asking if he had talked to Min Hee since she left. “No,” he snapped at his friend. Even Sir Frank had mentioned that he was slipping up, and could it be because he was distracted? Gio couldn’t believe it. He had work to do and all anyone seemed to care about was Jang Min Hee.

The last straw was when his grandmother asked about that ‘girl who never stopped talking.’ “She went back to Korea, Lola,” he said in frustration.

“Touchy, touchy!” Lola Lising sniffed. “I was just asking.” They were in the middle of Monday lunch when she brought it up. She let the meal continue in peace, but only for a few seconds. “So when did she leave?”

“Last week,” he replied. “Did I tell you that the Melchors visited the museum the other day?”

“You seemed to have mentioned it,” she said. “So when is she coming back?”

“Who?”

“The girl who never stopped talking!” Lola Lising huffed. “Really,
hijo
, try to keep up. I don’t know why you keep on changing the subject.”

It bothered Gio that everyone seemed to think that he was having problems getting over Min Hee. He was just fine. Couldn’t be happier, really. Work had picked up and he was suddenly excited about heading to the museum every morning. He was getting along with people at the resort. He had volunteered for a group that helped promote the protection of Boracay bats. He had tried out skin diving and discovered that he had the spare time for it now. He had begun saving up for a motorcycle so he didn’t have to commute all the time. He stubbornly refused to believe that this was all because of her.

Life was just fine. He repeated this over and over before he went to sleep.

* * * *

“Package for you, Gio,” Harold said one afternoon. “Postmarked Seoul.”

Gio couldn’t deny the brief anticipation that leapt up within him. But he tried to school his features. There was no reason for Min Hee to write to him. It would never have worked between them. They were just too different, and now that they were back in their own worlds, the disparity was even more apparent.

Instead, he thanked Harold and took the envelope. He was right; the return address was that of Da Kyong’s, not Min Hee’s. Inside was a Korean entertainment magazine. There were sticky notes on certain pages, and when he turned to them, he saw an article on Min Hee.

She looked beautiful in her photos. Some looked like publicity shots; others seemed taken at an industry event. The article was written in Korean so he couldn’t really tell what they were about. But given the other photos in it, he assumed it was about the affair. One inset showed photos of Min Hee with an older man. In one of them, a red circle even called attention to their linked hands. Gio was about to crumple the magazine, when he caught the other insets.

One of them showed Min Hee at the museum, in that manufactured shoot she had done the first day they met. Another seemed like a candid shot of Min Hee having dinner by the beach, and Gio thought he recognized himself seated opposite her. The last photo in that set was unmistakable: it was of him at the museum, on the day that the reporter had arrived.

The sticky note right next to it was in a large, feminine print.
I can’t believe you could do that to her.

Do what?
Gio frowned. He didn’t understand a single word that the article said. If anything, he had the right to be mad, because it was obviously about her getting back together with her now single boyfriend. It was just like he had expected to be treated in her life: a footnote to her Philippine vacation.

He set the magazine aside angrily.

* * * *

It was days later when he remembered the article, and only because Ki Woo brought another group of tourists to the museum. They hadn’t seen each other in a while but Gio didn’t hold any ill feelings towards the translator.

“Hello,” Ki Woo greeted, after Gio had given the tourists a guided tour and was now letting them wander off on their own. “How are you doing?”

“Could be better,” Gio admitted.

“I was really surprised about what happened last time,” Ki Woo said. “I didn’t know about Min Hee until the reporter came. I haven’t really been following the gossip. But you, you’re a big shot now. You landed yourself in the magazines!”

“You mean, for the exhibit?” Gio asked. It would be good publicity for the museum to get featured. The two new collections had already attracted a bit of local media attention.

Ki Woo shook his head. “No, Korean magazine.”

“What magazine—oh,” Gio said, recalling the one that Da Kyong had sent. His jaw clenched at the memory and he tried to push his hurt aside. “Well, I guess things like that happen.”

“Ah, well, poor Min Hee,” he said. “Whenever I saw the two of you, I thought you made a good pair. If I had known that was what you thought of her, I wouldn’t have let that reporter ask all those questions.”

Poor
Min Hee?
Wasn’t he the one who got discarded like used Kleenex here? “What do you mean?” Gio asked suspiciously.

“Have you read it?” Ki Woo asked. “I can translate it for you. Free of charge, of course.”

“I don’t need to,” Gio declined firmly. “We’ve both moved on. That part of my life is over.”

Ki Woo looked disappointed. “But I really think you should read what Min Hee had to say…”

Gio carefully considered it. Did he really want to subject himself to a world of pain? But the magazine was still tucked in his desk and he found himself handing it to Ki Woo, who promised to have it back soon.

A few days later, the magazine was back on his desk, along with the translations. The affair seemed carefully chronicled, through unnamed sources and industry insiders. Gio tried to remind himself that Min Hee was right. This had been way before they met. But he also couldn’t deny how betrayed he still felt. He was played, plain and simple.

It was the sidebar that caught Gio’s eye:

Jang Min Hee: In love again?

If sightings are to be believed, actress Jang Min Hee (24) has already moved on from her rumored relationship with Mega Broadcasting executive Park Han Kyul during her recent vacation at Boracay Island in the Philippines. Jang Min Hee was photographed in the company of a young and tall Filipino.

A source close to the actress claims that ‘the two of them are inseparable. She’s even met his family. This can be the start of something new.’

But is it just an island fling? The man in the photographs is museum curator JiYo Torres (26). When pressed for a comment, he said that they are just seeing each other casually. “She’s not serious about me. I’m not serious about her.”

Gio winced. That didn’t come out right. However wounded he was feeling now, he could still understand how reading an article like that would have hurt her right back. But an eye for an eye, right? Hurt for every hurt.

Only to have all this played out before a national audience, even one that he didn’t see on a daily basis, must be devastating.

And what if she had been telling the truth? The last time she did, he hadn’t believed her. Did he really leave her to fend the wolves off by herself, because he wasn’t brave enough to? If that were true, then what a coward he turned out to be. He felt disgusted with himself.

He put the article and translation away. He didn’t need a constant reminder of how things had gone from bad to worse between them. He emptied the museum of signs of her. He rolled up the poster that she did out of guilt.

That’s when he noticed her painting, the one she had always spent extra time on. Now the dreamlike colors seemed sad and muted. But off to one side of the crowd was a couple. The girl was wearing a sundress much like the one she had on the first day that they met. Meanwhile, the guy had on an oversized shirt with rolled-up sleeves and an unmistakable 25 across his chest.

They were holding hands.

He flipped through all the sketches that she had drawn, all the postcards. They were all there in the background: seated on the beach, eating ice cream, and in one image that made him laugh, on twin parachutes, his 25
th
reunion shirt flapping in the wind. They looked happy. They looked real.

This was Min Hee telling him that they were worth something.

Suddenly he remembered something Nay Caring had mentioned.
‘But we had a misunderstanding and we never really resolved it. And that was that,’
she had said. Was he going to regret it the way the old woman had? Had he been too quick to give up a good thing, or worse, too weak to stand by the best thing that had happened to him?

He felt the knot in his stomach tighten. There was only one thing left to do. He reached for his phone and dialed. “Hello, Da Kyong?”

Chapter Eighteen

“SO. YOU READ the article. Well, she doesn’t want to talk to you,” Da Kyong said firmly. Suddenly there was no question in her tone. “And neither do I.”

“I know. I was a jerk,” Gio said. “But I want to apologize for that. Can I
please
talk to Min Hee?”

“No.”

“Da Kyong, please,” he begged.

“I mean, no,” she repeated. “She’s filming today. That’s what’s been keeping her busy?”

But Gio wasn’t about to give up. “Can you tell her to call me? Or let me know what time her work ends and I’ll call her then.”

“They shoot a lot in the evening?” Da Kyong replied. “They pack up at around six or seven in the morning and she goes straight home? She’s… really tired.”

“What about before she goes to the shoot?” Gio insisted. “I can call her when she’s in the car or before she has dinner. When she’s waiting ”

“Min Hee is back to training now?” Da Kyong answered. “She has workout and lessons and interviews to go to? I’m afraid it is too late to do anything?”

Gio clenched his hand into a fist. “Will you tell her I called, at least? I’ll try again tomorrow.”

“You know, Gio… I’ve known her for a long time?” Da Kyong said. “When she was with you, she seemed really happy? When we returned to Seoul, she couldn’t even focus right away. She was thinking about what happened to you? Then when the interview came out… I couldn’t believe you could do that to her?”

He closed his eyes. “I couldn’t either,” he admitted hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to and I know I did and I’m really sorry.”

He heard Da Kyong sigh. “I need to go? But… call again tomorrow? Maybe?”

* * * *

He called that evening. And the next one. And the one after that. Sometimes, Da Kyong would answer Min Hee’s phone. Sometimes, she’d let it go to voice mail and he’d leave her a message. He even tried to send texts through the Korean messaging app that Min Hee herself had installed into his phone. At first he would always try to apologize, but lately his messages have begun to include things that they would have talked about if they had been together. Harold’s new motorcycle. The latest restaurant at D’Mall. The daytime bat flyout that he managed to catch. But there was still no reply. Other times, he’d call Da Kyong to check if Min Hee had mentioned him. Her manager would just sigh and tell him no.

“She’s not taking my calls. She’s not answering my texts. I don’t even know if she’s sat through my messages and listened to them,” Gio sighed. “I bet you if she saw me she’d probably slap my cheek. And right now, I’m fool enough to turn and give her the other.”

“Does this mean that you’re giving up?” Da Kyong asked.

“No,” he answered slowly. An idea was forming in his head. “I think this means I’m ready to be slapped.”

“Huh?”

“Da Kyong, can you give me Min Hee’s schedule for this week?” Gio asked. “I’d like to try apologizing in person.”

Obviously, there was no plan. If there had been one, he would have gone home, researched the cheapest flights and the best times. He would have checked his calendar before deciding when to file for a vacation. He would have written the proper letters to request for documents he would need to secure a visa. Instead, he told Da Kyong to help get him a room closest to where Min Hee was. Then he called Sir Frank and asked for a two-week leave.

It was only when he had gotten off at their street corner and walking to their house did Gio begin to remember that he couldn’t leave his mother and grandmother. But with every step, he strengthened his resolve. If there was anything that the past few weeks with Min Hee have taught him, it was that the rest of the world wasn’t waiting for him. Life went on, whether he wanted it to or not. Now he only had to convince his mother.

As he expected, Mama didn’t take to the idea quite well. “Korea! Next week! But, Gio, why so soon? Is something wrong? Aren’t you happy here?”

“Lourdes, let him go.” Lola Lising’s strong voice carried from the bedroom into the living room. A few minutes after, she hobbled into view. “Haven’t you seen your son lately?”

“Nanay, it’s just so sudden! He doesn’t know anyone in Korea,” his mother protested.

“Lourdes, you saw the two of them together. And you know how he’s been like after that girl left. He’s been miserable!” Lola Lising exclaimed. “You and I both know that he needs to do this. It’s time he did.”

Gio gave his grandmother a grateful look. Then he turned to his mother. “Ma, I’ll only be gone for a little more than a week, and half that time I’ll be in Manila with Toni, waiting for a visa. If I get lucky and I do go to Seoul, then I promise I’ll be very careful. If you want me to, I’ll call every day. But Lola Lising is right. I need to do this.”

“Oh, Gio,” Mama sighed. “It’s just that I feel scared when you’re not here,” she admitted.

“You don’t mind that I’m using my savings? I know we’re setting things aside for Toni, but Ma—” he began.

“It’s not about the money,” his mother interrupted gently. “It was never that. That’s yours. You’ve done enough for all of us. I’m more worried about you not being around.”

He leaned over and gave her an assuring kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

On his way to his room, he stopped to embrace his grandmother. She felt frail and bony in his arms but she also felt as strong as ever. “
Saeamat
, Lola.”

“What, you think you take care of us?” Lola Lising teased. “Men. You have such an inflated sense of self-worth. We take care of you! Your mother and I will be fine by ourselves.”

Gio grinned. “Does that mean I can come back in two months?”

She tsk-tsked. “Instead of warning you against using love spells, I should have warned you against falling for one.”

He nodded solemnly. “I would have listened.”

“You might have, but I doubt if you could have resisted,” she said. “Go and chase her,
hijo
. If she makes you happy, then go and chase her.”

* * * *

It was Ki Woo who found him a travel agency that could help process his papers. He sent his documents ahead so that he didn’t wait too long upon arriving in Manila to receive his visa.

There was a flight that left Manila at 4 in the afternoon and would arrive at Incheon by 9 that evening. At least that guaranteed that Min Hee would be awake by the time he got there. With Da Kyong’s help, he was able to get her schedule and book a hotel that was near her apartment. He felt it was akin to getting a vote of approval from Min Hee’s best friend. He wasn’t about to screw it up.

Surprisingly, it was Toni who looked somewhat doubtful of all his plans. “So you get there,” she said, walking into their room—he had asked to share her Manila room and she responded by giving him a mattress—just as he was packing his things into a carry-on backpack. “And then what?”

“I talk to her,” Gio said simply.

“Kuya, you don’t get it,” Toni said. “You can’t just show up. You have to be prepared to grovel. You were the jerk here who didn’t even give her a chance to explain. You have to do something to win her over.”

See, this was what happened when he didn’t think things through. “Go on, I’m listening,” he said.

Toni sat down on her bed. “The really unimaginative ones would probably go with flowers and chocolates and balloons.” She paused, as if to imply that he was one of those and that she didn’t think much of his ability to woo someone. “At least that’s better than showing up with nothing.”

She peered at his bag. “What, no favorite stuffed animal for her, no apologetic signboard, no Bon Jovi love song?”

“I’m going to Korea for her,” he pointed out. “Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“You’re the one at fault here,” Toni said. “Surely you don’t think that all you need to do is show up and she’ll fall into your arms? That only worked for Jerry Maguire. Your Min Hee is probably going to need more than just ‘Hello.’”

“I’ve got my whole apology speech ready,” Gio defended. “Do you think that’s enough?”

She actually laughed. “Good luck with that! You guys and your egos. What makes you think that will win her over?”

“Thanks for the vote of support, Toni,” he said, deadpan.

“Fine, fine, what do you want me to say? Yeah, she’ll probably see the effort,” his sister mused. “Guess you could do much worse.”

“I want you to lie and tell me I have a chance to win her back,” Gio said seriously.

“You have a chance to win her back,” Toni told him, staring straight into his eyes. “Don’t mess it up, Kuya.”