This is a re-post from my old blog.
Penny* was the only girl
in the family. She was the princess and everybody waits on her. She had the
most beatiful toys and dresses. Her hair was adorned with colorful ribbons and
glittering hair clips. She was, for her family, a living doll.
I met her in high
school. Though not as pretty as her family claimed her to be, she really was
glamorously dressed. Her parents spent 'big money' on her whims and caprices.
Her 18th birthday probably was one of the grandest occasions the town has ever
witnessed, so I heard. I was not invited.
It was therefore one of
the biggest and juiciest news when Penny, a few months after her debut, ran
away with a local farmer's son who was then an engineering student under
scholarship grant. Her parents, incredulous of their daughter's choice of
husband tried to get her back and even filed a kidnapping case against her
boyfriend. But the night they got Penny home, she fled.
Denounced by her own
parents, Penny married her boyfriend and lived just like the rest of us, poor
but striving. My sister, Liz and I saw her with her husband in Isetann Plaza,
Manila about 20 years ago. They ordered a plate of spaghetti and a tall glass
of halo-halo down in the food court. Gossips as we were, we watched as they
exchanged food when they thought no one was looking..
If that is not love, then I don't know what it is..
*not real name
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