Toto and the Boys I: Jackie

Chapter 1

“No, not really,” Dannie answered. “You should just talk to him and tell him you’re not interested, Jackie.”

“I did! I did many times and he won’t even budge!”

“How about the police? You can always go to the police,” George suggested. “He almost broke the door last night.”

Ah, so they were talking about Brian, Jackie’s stalker. I hated that guy. He covered my windshield with a large cardboard that said, ‘I love you, Jackie!” once and didn’t like it. I spent the whole day in the parking lot with the other cars playing jokes on me.

“I can talk to Kevin about it,” Jackie said as she stepped on my break. Huh! Kevin? Did she really expect her boyfriend to do something about that guy? I didn’t think that because I didn’t like the guy. I knew the guy well and he didn’t care about Jackie at all--well, apart from her makeup and her dress, he didn’t. I was certain, from the bottom of my engine and from the first time he sat on my passenger seat that he was gay. If I could just do what Bumblebee could do, I would scan the radio and play This Guy’s in Love with You, Pare over and over again.

And I was very certain until this day that George and Dannie thought the same because none of them commented as Jackie mentioned her boyfriend. George unclasped my seatbelt, the one hugging her feminine, yet muscular body, and took her large bag from Dannie.

“I suggest you talk to your boss about it. Or the police. I’m telling you, Jackie, one more attempt to break our door and that guy will find himself in an ambulance and I will not make any move to save his life,” George warned. She climbed off me. Dannie easily squeezed herself between the driver and passenger seats. When she finally settled herself on the seat George vacated, she looked at Jackie.

“What?” Jackie asked, sipping her coffee.

“Nothing, let’s just go. I’m going to be late for my class,” she uttered. They waved at George before she entered the headquarters in her pants, hiking shoes and loose Red Cross shirt.

 *****

We dropped Dannie off outside Kumon where she worked.

If I could just speak, I would, now that I was alone with Jackie. She had been double parking for a few minutes now because of one thing: she was doing her makeup. It was one of the things I didn’t like about her. She would be very late and she wouldn’t care at all as long as she arrived--every time--with grace and makeup. But she had always been like that. And because I loved her company, I got used to her little whims.

When five or more cars honked at her, she finally closed her vanity kit and started driving.

“You’ve got to get up every morning, with a smile on your face and show the world,” Jackie started singing and I felt white smoke come out of my exhaust. I had always loved it when she sang, you know. She had this cool voice that any guy would fall over for--even cars. “…that you’re beautiful as you feel…” she continued singing as she maneuvered me to her office building.

Jackie worked as an events planner in one of the biggest advertising company in the country. And by big, it meant an international one that decided to build another headquarters in the city ever since the news got out that Bacolod was one of the top sites for big companies in the archipelago. She once went to Manila where she worked the same job, but she decided to go back after she decided she couldn’t wake up every four in the morning to avoid the traffic and then go home late because her work demanded it.

Ever since she got back three years ago, she had been living with Dannie. And then George joined them when she finally had enough of her domineering family. Since they had always been friends back in high school and college, it was only natural that they lived together, they thought. Ever since, Jackie had had the same job at Collins Corporations.