My One and Only Fan

I was on TV! Yes, on camera,  not behind it.

In my first act (imagery for a career completed and gone), I must have shot over 2,000 TV ads and never appeared on any of them. This time, while facing the glare of lights on Talim Island, I felt like a movie star, imagining a legion of fans from Aparri to Jolo who'll be watching me on the show with goggle eyes.

"This segment of 'At Your Service' will be aired on QTV, Sunday, Chinese New Year," the producer informed me.

I made a mental note to alter my Sunday schedule: go home immediately after the morning service instead of joining the family for lunch. Or maybe my boys (husband and two sons) would forgo the lunch out and watch the show with me.

As soon as I got home, after the taping of the show on an island I never knew was inhabited, my househelp of an aggregate of 27 years couldn't get enough of the highlights of my day of fame and glory.

Her name is Ate Vi, and she is a Noranian from the tip of her graying hair to the tip of her arthritic toes.  

She became a part of our family when I was pregnant with my first son, JC. After all three sons had been born and big enough to be turned over to younger apprentices, she left for a few years to tend to her farm which she bought with her savings.

She came back as promised and has no plans of leaving again, or at all.

Since she is at home 24/7, my children consult her more than they consult their own mother. Ah, but I digress. Let me continue . . .

"Yes, Ate Vi, Paul Salas and I are together in one episode," I replied for the nth time. She knows the eight-year-old child star very well; she knows every TV star very well.

"Yes, Ate Vi, I met him at GMA 7 at dawn. Then together we rode a van for three hours to Binangonan, Rizal, then another hour on a motor boat to Talim Island. We came back together on the same boat and the same van.”

"Yes, Ate Vi, the whole place came to a halt and watched the taping and followed Paul Salas around."

"Yes, Ate Vi, Paul Salas is the host of the show and for my segment, we both shot scenes in a Day Care Center. My publisher OMF donated . . ."

At this point her eyes turned shifty and she tuned me off, but the essence of my one brief, shining moment had to be told. "OMF donated books to the Day Care Center and I was invited to read my book 'No lipstick for Mother' to the children. I was also interviewed about how I felt traveling long hours to this far-flung place sharing my books . . ."

"Wow, you were really with Paul Salas?! How does he look like in person? As gwapo as on TV, I'm sure! Can't wait to watch the show!"

Later, I told my boys, all Filipiniana enthusiasts, the same story.

"Paul . . .?"

They quickly jumped to discussing the history of Binangonan and the life at Talim Island.

"Chinese New Year, QTV, 12 noon to 1 PM," I reminded them.

Chinese New Year, Sunday, dawned brightly. We went to church, pondered the Word, worshiped and prayed with fellow believers. After which I joined the boys for lunch and for grocery shopping, and  finally made it home at 3 PM.

While unloading the groceries, Ate Vi announced, “Paul Salas was very gwapo as usual on TV!”

“Paul Salas . . . Paul Salas . . ."  the name sounded familiar. “Oh, no! My TV show!” I yelled. I missed it. We all missed it. “What about me? How did I look?”

“Fat,” she replied.

“Fat?!” I repeated, wishing I got it wrong the first time.

“Fat. Especially when you were reading your book. Your face almost didn’t fit the screen,” she added.

I heard a chorus of male laughter.

“QTV is an excellent channel,” said she, a passionate GMA 7 advocate and an avid celebrity watcher. They help poor people. This time they gave the Day Care Center a DVD player, a TV set, and books.”

“My books . . .”

“You should have seen the face of the volunteer teacher, Ma’am Lita—very, very happy! The children were so cute. Paul Salas was . . .” she went on and on.

“And I am fat?!” I called out as she stowed the groceries in the pantry.

My imagination did me in as usual. There was no legion of fans from Aparri to Jolo. Just Ate Vi. And that ended my TV career before it could start.

For months now I’ve been trying to finish a storybook set in a Day Care Center. It's gathering dust. Although Ate Vi has been filling me in on the details—how the Day Care Center in her own place is being run by a volunteer teacher—I am not very confident about her data.

How uncanny that her description is the exact, same description I have of the Day Care Center on Talim Island. Ate Vi has done it again. She's always been a most important resource for my “Oh Mateo!” books set in rural Umingan, my hometown and hers.

“Of course eight-year-old children in the province can cook! Of course mothers leave their toddlers in a Day Care Center! They have to help their husbands in the rice field!” she would stress, accurate to the last detail.

Thanks to Talim Island and QTV, now at last, I can finish my story. But . . . “fat?!”

Well, ‘fat’ is not the only word in Ate Vi’s treasury of wisdom. There had been others:

"When people say, you look so young, you don't."

"When people say you haven't changed, you have."

I asked her, "You mean people lie about these things?”

"No. They just don't know what they're saying," she said, with malice towards none.

God's infinite grace includes a divine sense of humor. Just when my ego begins to swell, He allows Ate Vi to speak.