Gate Crashing

While looking, for the nth time, at the pictures of the stately white house in Tagaytay (a cool, high-altitude city south of Manila) and recapturing the magic of the day we spent in it, I pondered the freebies of friendship.

Friendship is a visa to a world of wonders. It gives you the liberty to say anything you want or to ask for anything you need. You may be censured for what you said or may not be granted your wish, but it does not matter. The relationship stands. And the stately white house proved me right.

We’d known for months that Boy P had been spending his free time in Tagaytay, supervising the construction of his weekend house. (I’ve always said that Boy P missed his calling; he should have been an architect.) We, Boy P’s friends from a workplace now non-existent, had been dreaming to spend a day there once it is ready. We knew it was going to be as awesome as everything Boy P puts his hands on. So we kept asking him, “Well, is your house finished yet?”

He couldn’t lie, could he?

Next we asked him point-blank, brooking nothing that faintly resembles a refusal. “Can we come?”

He couldn’t say no, could he?

“Okay.”

Cotcha! “When?” we pushed.

“This weekend?”

All of us (ten gate crashers) who invited ourselves took our word for it and drove to Tagaytay. Boy P has impeccable taste, but with the stately white house he outdid himself!

Still meters away from the gate, while navigating our way through a narrow road flanked by pineapple plantations, our eyes popped. I wouldn’t attempt to describe it so I took photos from three different angles.

It isn’t so much the look but the feelings it evokes. The interior was even more magnifique—but I must have been drooling too much I forgot to click my camera.

For lunch, Boy P prepared a healthy menu for our perilous ages. “This is all you’re eating,” he said. Just fruits and vegetables.

But we grumbled (some silently and some noisily), aching for rice and meat. Unable to control ourselves, we raided the fridge and voila! There were adobo and caldereta and lechon and lengua (dream dishes or nightmares, depending on whose point of view), and in minutes, after a quick microwave heat, they were washed down.

Boy P shook his head, tut-tutted and tsk-tsked, but between friends, who listens?

The Tagaytay breeze chilled our skin even inside the commodious house and the conversation warmed our hearts even out in the rolling garden. We recycled well-worn jokes and anecdotes, and there was much nostalgia, but the laughter was new and fresh.

The stately white house regally stood on its sprawling lawn, mutely listening to the sounds of friendship.