Five years ago
While Lena and other people from college disappeared from my radar after grad, Zack did not.
He still lived in his parents' house, ten minutes from mine, and we both found work in Makati a few months out of school. He took a car to work, and I rode with him when I woke up early enough.
If I had changed after four years of college, so did he. Especially since he got a job at a big company that distributed food and soap and stuff. He was suddenly required to wear a nice shirt and tie every day, and he needed a car because he had to visit supermarkets in different areas of the city.
I, on the other hand, became the HR girl people submitted résumés to. I didn't mind working from the ground up. My day mostly consisted of sifting through emails and screening walk-in applicants, scheduling tests and interviews, and ushering people to and from waiting rooms.
At the pharma company, I had my own little group. We HR assistants (three girls and a guy) sort of banded together because we disliked our boss so much. We had lunch together, and maybe even caught a movie after work. But I still had my morning and early evening car rides with Zack.
I looked forward to them. I was proud of Zack. He was looking more professional and grown-up every day.
"I'm proud of you too," he said, quickly deflecting any extra attention. "And I think as soon as you get a good offer, you should leave your office."
"I've only been there a few months!"
"I mean, learn as much as you can, and then find another place where your boss won't keep you down doing photocopying and stuff. You have a talent for... for reading people, and you should become a more important part of the hiring process."
What he said was true, but that was the difference between his industry and mine. He was with a batch of ambitious people, all his age, all wanting better opportunities. I was pretty much a part of an assembly line. How long would it take for me to actually influence how a company hired people?
That might take forever. But I liked what I was doing, so I didn't mind if I wasn't on a fast track.
I studied psychology in college, but that only gave an academic background to what I really liked: analyzing people. I thought that I'd have to be a guidance counselor in a high school or something to practice it as a career, but then I ended up in an interesting place, Human Resources. And I've been fascinated by what I've seen so far. It's all about studying people and their behavior. Why do certain people work well together, and some don't? Why do some people who make horrible decisions in their personal lives make excellent executives? Why do some people think that being timid in an interview will get them hired?
I looked at these people who passed through my desk. From names on résumés, they became employees, and eventually I started seeing the effects of their personalities on the workplace. Some were good decisions, others not so. But Zack was right. I liked to read people. Whether or not that would lead to a high-powered career, I wasn't sure yet. Not in my first year on the job anyway.
This nice little carpool routine of ours continued for a few months. Zack's work schedule became a little more erratic, and then he got assigned to visit supermarkets in Laguna, and for a few weeks I didn't see him at all.
That was when I ran into an old friend in Glorietta. Ramon, Zack's friend and my PE ballroom dancing partner.
"Hi!" I beamed, genuinely happy to see him.
"How are you? You work with Zack right?"
"Yeah, Batch Four," Ramon said. He probably meant the fourth batch of their office's management trainee program, as if that meant anything to me.
"Zack got Laguna duty this time. We don't see him anymore."
"Yeah, neither do I."
Ramon remembered the girl he was standing next to and introduced me to her. "Jasmine Salazar, Marjorie Pineda. I went to college with Jasmine. Marjorie is from Batch Four too."
I shook her hand. Marjorie's handshake felt very...official. Add that to her smart corporate ensemble and she looked every inch the career girl that I should have been. My handshake felt flimsy in comparison, and I was a little insecure about it.
"Oh!" Ramon's eyes widened as he remembered an interesting detail about me. "Jasmine is Zack's ex."
I recoiled unconsciously. I hadn't been referred to as Zack's ex in a long time, and the stress of having to maintain the lie returned. "Ramon, that was ages ago..."
Marjorie definitely looked interested and wasn't going to let it go. "Wow. Is she?"
"Why don't you ask her about the thing? It's okay for you to talk about Zack, right, Jasmine?" Ramon asked me.
Did I have a choice? "Uh, sure."
Marjorie hesitated, but Ramon prodded her to continue anyway. "It's just that...I kind of want to ask Zack to our Christmas party."
Déjà vu. Marjorie apparently liked Zack. Of course, because he was great.
However, word had gone around that Zack was unfortunately still hung up on his ex, and had not dated anybody since breaking up with her years ago.
"What does this have to do with me?" I asked.
Marjorie turned to Ramon for support, and then back to me. "Is it you? Are you the ex he isn't over yet?"
"No," I said emphatically. "You probably mean Lena. They broke up in third year."
Ramon was confused. "I thought you two got back together in college?"
"No we did not," I groaned.
"Still, you're probably closer to him than any of us. If there's anyone Marjorie should ask about this, it's you," he said.
True to form, Zack never talked to many people—not even to Ramon—about deeply personal stuff. So what Ramon wanted me to do was to talk to Zack, and sort of bring up the idea of going to the Christmas party with Marjorie. Just to see what he thought.
"You want me to ask him out for you?" I couldn't believe this.
"I just want to see if he's open to it. If he isn't, then I won't ask him, no harm done. I don't want to rush him if he's heartbroken or something," Marjorie explained. "Ramon says you two are really close. It would be easier if you mentioned it first, right?"
I shook my head at Ramon. "And you can't do this yourself?"
"I wouldn't know how, Jas."
"And I wouldn't trust him to do it right," Marjorie added.
* * *
Zack finally got out of Laguna duty a week later, so on the first day back on his regular schedule, he picked me up at home.
"Yay!" I said happily, sliding into the passenger seat. "I have a car again! How was Laguna?"
"Interesting. I hope they reimburse my gas money soon."
"I saw Ramon in Glorietta, by the way."
"Cool. It's been a while since you've seen him, right?"
"Graduation probably. Zack...have you been...I don't know, have you seen Lena lately?"
"Lena?" He seemed surprised that I brought her up. "No."
"I was wondering if you were thinking of finally dating other people. It's been years since Lena."
"You think I don't think about that?" He was amused. "I think about it all the time."
"Hello, it's not obvious. The only date you have is your monthly visit to the comic book store." That was true, by the way. "Why don't you ask someone out?"
"Jasmine, what is this really about?"
I turned to him and smiled, hoping that even with his peripheral vision (his eyes were on the road) he would still see that I was only saying this because I cared about him. "I mean, I think you should start dating again. No more excuses."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm serious, Zack. You can't still be sad over Lena."
"I'm not. I'm really not."
"In that case..." I sucked in my breath and hoped this would work, "how do you feel about Marjorie?"
"Marjorie?"
"Marjorie Pineda. Your officemate."
"She's... she's okay."
"I think you should ask her out, on a friendly date or something. Like to your office Christmas party."
"How do you even know Marjorie?"
"When I bumped into Ramon, I met Marjorie. She's pretty and smart. I think you should ask her out."
"Did Ramon put you up to this?" he asked, his hands tightening around the steering wheel for a second. Suddenly I got worried. Zack had a strange relationship with his friends. Like he said, no single person knew that much about him. I didn't want him angry at Ramon over this.
"No he didn't," I said. Which wasn't a complete lie. "I happened to meet them, that's all. So why not Marjorie?"
He couldn't answer that, of course. There was no reason, really, and he didn't give any. He exhaled—sounded like a sigh of exhaustion—and I wondered if a Monday morning was the wrong time to bring this up.
"So this is what you're saying," he said. "You want me to start dating other people again and you think this new person you met is right for me? This person you don't even know."
"But you know her. Why not her?"
There was a really long pause. I hoped he wasn't getting mad at me, and I suddenly wished I had been more subtle. Why did I have to be the only person who could talk to him like this? Ugh.
"You're right," he said, finally. "I've been making excuses not to date. Yeah, the Christmas party would be a safe time to start."
* * *
As Zack's relationship with Marjorie went from Christmas party date to more than that, I saw less of him. But he still tried to offer me a ride to work once a week. That was sweet. Those car rides felt remarkably short too. The more time we spent apart, the more stories we tried to cram in that forty minute drive.
And then my love life started getting interesting.
I met Tim Gonzales at the pharma company. He was applying for a position in the marketing department, and I knew right away that he was going to get it. Few people sauntered into the HR waiting room like he did. Applicants were usually nervous, but not him.
On that first meeting, he found out we went to rival colleges—and he promptly invited me to the next big basketball game.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "What if you guys lose?"
"Doesn't matter. Best team always wins anyway," he said, cockily.
He walked out of there with a date—and eventually, the job. Type A personalities tended to do that.