Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

I went straight to the club room and spent the next hour going over my tweets, slapping my forehead every time I found something embarrassing. I marvelled at how differently I felt now, seeing all my past tweets just weeks ago about Prefect Brat and the club.

Gosh. Cholo was right about him being there in my replies all the time and I could not help but feel silly. I mean, I should have known it was him—his handle was @swordcholo , which referenced the group fandom name (Swords). I chose @vinniexcalibur because, well, I was the best sword of all.

Charot. NOT.

“Vinnie!” someone yelled. Kristine, one of the Ephemere kids, had taken the seat beside me, followed by Seth who sat on the adjacent couch.

I also saw Summer, who was frowning as she took the seat on the opposite side of the table.

“Hi,” I said, looking at my watch. It was nearly time for the meeting.

“Okay, good news or best news first?” Kristine said, hardly able to contain herself.

I exchanged glances with Seth who looked like he was about to laugh. “Okay, save the best for last, I guess. What’s the good news?” I said, humoring Kristine.

“We showed your teaser video during today’s General Assembly,” she said. “And everyone LOVED it! You should have been there.”

I found myself smiling, too, as her energy was contagious.

“You’re really good at this hype thing, Vinnie,” Seth said. “Where did you even learn this?”

“Uh, online,” I said, thinking of how I started editing videos for my entertainment and then posting them on Flitter. Five thousand followers later, here we were.

“You should be in Multimedia or something. That’s skill!” Kristine mused. “Give me a tutorial some time, won’t you?”

“Sure. I’ll send you the links I learned the stuff from. So what’s the best news?” I said, keen to get off the topic.

“Marketing Team Head, can you please do the honors?” Seth told Kristine.

I turned to face her.

“I had been bursting to tell you since last week but I didn’t want to blab without making it official first,” Kristine said, excitedly squeezing my arm. “We have two co-presentors now!”

“WHAT?” I asked, my eyes nearly popping out. Co-presentors were sponsors who pledged seventy-five thousand pesos and up. Having two of them meant we could now afford the venue.

“I’m just about to tell the team now but I had to tell you and Seth first. Cholo said it was your strategy to embed the sample package videos in the sponsorship letters. It worked!”

My jaw dropped. Sure, I pitched the idea because it would have worked according to the theory taught in Miss Co’s class but hearing it worked in real life made me feel all kilig.

“Well, like we kept saying, it’s the club and event name that spoke for itself. The embedding was probably an add-on,” I said.

Kristine shook her head.

“Look, okay, the assistant brand manager for this new men’s care line just spoke to me about it. She said it caught her and her boss’s eye and it was a big deal because they used to be DMC members, too. They pledged a hundred thousand pesos, Vinnie,” she told me in a quick stream. “She also asked if she could have a word with the Creatives team who put it together because they were asking for a sort of collab. Would you be okay with that?”

“Well, I?—”

“Hold on,” Summer interrupted from where she was seated, looking at her laptop. “This isn’t the template for the sponsorship letter. When did we send these out?”

“Weeks ago,” Kristine said, her smile fading.

“External Relations would never have let us send this. Why did you bypass the procedure?” Summer asked, her eyes flashing with danger.

“We didn’t bypass anything. External Relations approved this. Cholo had ExeCom across on this decision too,” I said, unable to stop myself as Kristine went from looking like she won the lottery to being on the verge of tears. “You would have known this had you not missed five consecutive Ephemere meetings in a row.”

“Vinnie,” Kristine said, looking both alarmed and grateful that I was standing up for her.

“I wasn’t talking to you, Creative,” Summer snapped at me. “This is a Marketing sub-team task. Stick to your job.”

I raised an eyebrow and let out a mirthless laugh. “You don’t get to tell me how to do my job when you don’t have a single clue how to do yours, Chairperson .”

“Kristine Andal, you’re Team Head of Marketing,” Summer said, refusing to acknowledge me and instead addressing Kristine. “Did it not occur to you that there were two chairpersons and you were bypassing one of them? I would have expected a heads-up at the very least. Ephemere is an event of both Dresden Marketing Club and the Student Council. I don’t appreciate being blindsided.”

“This was discussed in the following meetings, Summer. We expected you to be there and you would have known this if you attended?—”

“I’m a busy person. Maybe an email or two would have worked, no?” Summer cut Kristine off. I hated how disrespectful she was being. It was one thing to be useless, but power-tripping in this day and age did not sit right with me.

“We have a group chat where this was discussed and you were even commenting here and there,” I jumped in. “You can’t call this bypassing. It wasn’t like this was being kept from you. I mean, did you want to be asked for a written approval every time? Fair enough, this is an SC event, too, but DMC has been doing well for years without SC’s help.”

Summer finally looked at me, her face radiating pure loathing. “Oh, how cute. Look at you standing up and being all bibo for DMC now,” she said, smirking. “Considering how you’ve only been active, what, weeks ago?”

“Someone had to do so, considering the tight timelines we were left with after your SC buddy left.”

Summer’s smirk vanished. Seth and Kristine were both looking at me nervously.

“What are your motivations for this, anyway?” Summer retorted, one eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you just here to make up for that big mess you made?”

Oh, she did not just go there.

“Mess?” I repeated, all the blood rushing to my head in anger. “Disciplinary office trips aside, don’t you think that the mess I’m cleaning up now isn’t mine but council’s?”

“Vinnie’s right. My team would never have made it in time had she not helped out,” Kristine jumped in.

The tension was thick. The rest of the club seemed to be listening in.

“Besides, punishment or not, Vinnie’s doing the job really well. I don’t think it’s fair to question that. She’s done a lot for the team,” said Seth.

Summer looked at both of them with an expression of dislike but saved her best one for me. “Congrats, then,” she said and I gave her my withering glare in return. She folded her arms and stared at me from head to toe. “Looks like you’ve got fans, Lavinia. Careful, though, because the last time I checked, it’s not these two who would be reporting to Miss Co about you.”

Dread filled my stomach like lead. How did I forget that? I felt reckless talking back to Summer now. She was still chairperson. Useless and power-tripping as she was, she still had a say in whether I would pass 170 or not.

It still did not make me want to apologize or take anything I said back, though.

“Sure, you have Cholo and these two on your side now, but you have yet to impress me,” she continued, taking out a piece of paper from her file case. I recognized it as a poster draft Seth and I had been working on the past two weeks, which I uploaded on the shared Drive. She had printed it out with plain paper and substandard ink. “I won’t be so mean not to agree that your video was good, but you need to work on our still ones, too.”

She lightly threw the piece of paper on the table in front of me.

“Please do it over,” she said with her campaign poster smile. “I find it unfit for public viewing.”

Then she gave me a last smirk and walked away.

“Vinnie, don’t mind her,” Seth said, shaking his head. “Epal lang ‘yun.”

“Yeah, Summer’s just mad that she can’t smile her way into getting credit and titles with DMC. She’s had a spat with the Promo team, too, because she took too long to reply to something and it cost us a radio show guesting.”

“That…cockroach! What was even wrong with our poster?” I demanded, crumpling the paper.

Seth gave out a small laugh, scratching his head. “Well, for starters, it’s that now,” he told me, gesturing towards my hand. “But thank you for standing up for us, Vinnie. That took a lot of guts.”

“Yes, thank you. But can we not worry about Summer anymore?” said Kristine, patting my shoulder to calm me. “Our team’s got your back on this one. Tara, merienda?”

“Onga, you got top 3 on the 115.1 exam! Treat us naman,” Seth joked.

I couldn’t help but just smile. I was glad to have these brats as friends now.

“Fine. But siomai lang, ha,” I said, following suit as Kristine stood up. I picked up the crumpled poster as I did and threw it in the bin, not wanting to be scolded by the cleaners, then went along with them.

As much as Kristine and Seth reassured me, I felt like I had not defended myself. The thought ate at me and refused to go away. I knew from the moment I met Summer that she would not be easy to deal with. As usual, my first impression had been on point.

“So,” someone said behind me as I was waiting for the jeepney to the MRT. “May sinumbong sa akin si Seth.”

I turned to face Cholo, who was stuffing his laptop inside his bag.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked, getting to the point.

“After your idea secured us a hundred thousand bucks? No.”

“I talked back to her Highness,” I said. “She put me in my place. She reminded me that she had a say in my report to Miss Co, too.”

Cholo inched closer to me as people started to line up behind him.

“She’s right but, no, you’re not in trouble at all,” he replied, smiling.

I shrugged and stared at the end of the street.

“I just wanted to check up on you.”

That made me raise an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’m not quitting the team over that.”

Cholo cracked a smile. “Great. One less thing for me to worry about.”

“Why are you waiting for a jeep? You usually drive around, right?”

“Kuya Chan needed the car today. I just borrow it most of the time.”

I shrugged and felt my phone vibrate.

Dad

I attended this last-minute thing in our Quezon City office. Let me know when you’re done with classes so I can pick you up.

“I’m going back home to Las Pinas today, too. Sayang, I could have driven us both.”

“Huh?” I said, distracted.

I was supposed to just meet Dad in Makati this afternoon. He had a project managers’ conference in Singapore tomorrow and he had asked me if I could take the car home after we drop him off at the airport tonight. I had been worried about delaying him as I heard the train was only running up to Shaw Boulevard station today but this just made it easier.

Ok. Class is finished, we can meet @ BA building.

Thank you po

“My Dad just texted saying he’s picking me up. Do you want to catch a ride with us?”

“Huh?”

“You also live in CG Homes, right?” I said, looking up at him, and the expression on his face jolted me back into reality, reminding me that I had spent the past three years pretending I did not recognize him.

The cheeky brat looked so smug.

“ Now you remember me.”

“Do you want a ride or not?” I asked, making a face and getting out of the queue as the MRT-bound jeep had arrived.

“I’m just messing around. Ito naman.”

“Hindi tayo close. Know your place, Prefect Brat.”

“Okay,” he said zipping his mouth shut and throwing away an invisible key as he followed me to the BA building.

“Dad, this is Cholo, Cholo, this is Dad,” I deadpanned as I opened the passenger seat door, completely forgetting my manners and realizing Cholo was just standing there in front of a closed car door. “Sorry. Let me get that.”

I opened the car door for him and signalled him to get in. Dad offered a small smile at both of us and if he found any of this strange, he did not let it show.

“Good afternoon po,” Cholo said, his club president smile plastered on his face. “I’m Vinnie’s classmate.”

“He lives in our village,” I told Dad. “I thought he could use a ride given the MRT’s not working. ”

“That’s ok. Make yourself comfortable, Cholo,” my dad said. “And this is good, Vinnie. You won’t be driving alone.”

I put on my seatbelt and stayed quiet for the rest of the drive. Cholo was all shy at first, but, thirty minutes in, he and my dad started talking about NBA. I tuned most of it out as I had nothing to contribute to the conversation and I thought it was good that Dad had someone to talk to while driving so he would not get sleepy.

By some miracle, we made it in time to the airport with three hours to spare before my dad’s flight.

Dad got out of the car and I followed suit, so I could go over to the driver’s side. I was surprised to see Cholo do the same but it would have been rude for him to stay in the back seat while I drove so I figured he was going to take the passenger seat. When I got to the driver’s side, however, I saw him at the back of the car instead, helping my dad with his luggage.

“Thanks, hijo, you didn’t have to,” my dad was saying.

Embarrassed that I had not thought of that, I went over to them. “Everything there? Your phone? Passport?” I said, trying to be helpful.

Cholo closed the latch and told us to watch our heads as my dad turned to me.

“Yes, anak. Thank you. You kids take care, okay?”

“Ingat po,” I said and then awkwardly stood there and averted my eyes.

Cholo raised an eyebrow at me like he was asking me what I was doing and then I remembered to pull my dad’s hand towards my forehead. I walked to the driver’s side and watched till my dad disappeared inside the gates.

“Your dad’s cool,” Cholo commented as we approached our village.

He had thankfully not said a thing about my driving and had been helpful whenever I switched lanes. He was also relaxed, though at times I was braking too quickly I would see his fists taut on the grab handle above his head.

“He is. Thanks by the way for not being weird.”

“You thought I was going to be annoying you in front of your dad?”

“You never miss a chance to annoy me, so…”

“Well, I owe you. I thought I’d be on a UV express but here I am with ample legroom. Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome. What street are you again?”

“Conde Nast. Just off Carnival Lane.”

“Ang lapit mo pala?” I commented, going past my street towards Carnival Lane.

“Yes, so you can come over anytime you need help with Finance. If I’m not in Ortigas, that is.”

“Come over? Close ‘yon?” I joked and I saw myself in the rearview mirror smiling. I didn’t know why but I found the idea of me going over to his house hilarious.

I turned the car to his street and he pointed towards a huge cream-colored house with a slightly overgrown garden. I parked the car in front and unlocked all the doors.

“We’re still not close, then? Even after you drove me home?” Cholo said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

I made a face at him. “The meter’s running. Labas.”

“Sweet mo talaga,” Cholo said, shaking his head. “Thanks again. Text me when you’re home.”

“Will do.”

“The offer stands,” he said. “I’m here to help you with Finance if you need it.”

He opened the door, got out, and then turned to face me before closing it. I didn’t know what to say to that so I just gave my best attempt at a smile.

“Have a good night,” I just said.

“You too, Lavinia.”

Cholo closed the car, and I waited for him to get inside the house before driving off.