I
ONE HOT SUMMER
The temperature is rising. Summer heat made her feel nauseating as if any moment she might just have a heat stroke. However, since it's the peak season, she has no choice but to be up early because guests are expected to check in to the secluded inn she has been managing for a year now.
Anne, (in her early forties); flipped through the list of items she needed to approve for the inn's kitchen requirements. The part in evaluating each item is actually sickening to her. Numbers and computations are the ones she dreaded the most even back when she was still younger. This was the reason why she pursued a course that only required her artistic inclinations and that being said, she both excelled in singing and acting.
From afar, Jon, a natural charmer in his late thirties has been scrutinizing Anne--the woman he has come to like as the days went on since she worked for him. There's something about her that intrigues him. There's something that draws him toward her each day, which he can't explain and resist at the same time.
Anne came to the inn just at the right timing when his former operations manager, Angie got lucky to join a cruise ship after she got hired in Manila.
It was in February when his inn got fully-booked due to the 'romantic dates' they accommodate along with the province's famous firefly watching. Because of such attractions, more and more foreign and local tourists flock to Palawan, which is known as a City within a Forest.
Apart from the popular destination in the city--the Underground River, considered as one of the world's seven wonders because of the remarkable rock formations of stalagmite and stalactites; the evening tour with the fireflies was successful venture that Angie turned it into a romantic getaway and a popular wedding proposal setting. It was the Inn's unique selling point.
One evening in December, a man asked Anne if how romantic it is to propose during a firefly watching. As if she was caught off guard with the question and was struggling for words, which was unusual for her. It brought her back to her own experience when Angelo proposed to her in a candlelit dinner by the poolside on a hotel roofdeack with floating, flickering candles above the water.
The answer she gave to the man who asked her about how romantic it is to propose at a firefly watching was: "I also dreamt of seeing myself getting a proposal in the same setting."
Though she knew it wasn't the best answer she could think of at the time, but it seemed to have convinced the guy and proceeded with the reservation. And it did happen. The male client did propose to his girlfriend and now they are tying the knot in May.
*****
That evening, Jon was closely studying Anne. He knew that she was a few years senior of him, but there's this certain 'force' that pulls him toward the kind of elusive female that Anne is. She was different from all the women he dated and interacted in the past. He dated a flight stewardess, which he thought she was already the one he would be settling and build a family with. Yet, he still opted to say 'goodbye' to the woman named Selena.
As soon as the male client left, he approached Anne, who was busy going over the paperwork pertaining to the recent client she just attended to and closed the deal with.
"How many wedding proposals for this month?" he inquired casually.
Anne looked up to him for a second.
"What?" he got puzzled with her reaction.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she quickly snapped back. "Would you believe in just a week's time, we're almost fully-booked?"
