When Casina set her mind on something, it stayed set. Within 24hrs, Augusta was packed and shipped off to Silay so fast that she wasn’t even sure why she was going.
“Your Tito Ferio has a fishing boat, you can go out with him and paint the white sands over there. It will be good for you to get out of the city. Silay is big enough so that you won’t feel out of place but just small enouh to be a fresh new experience” And small enough so that everybody will know what you do before you do it. Casina was so bright and cheery, the made Augusta suspicious. She thought she’d spend a few days there and then return.
The bus ride was uncomfortable, there were times when the road was nothing but deep ruts in mud and the bus lurched like a carnival ride. But Augusta felt none of it. She day dreamed of Jack, the man of her dreams, her one and only. She would marry him and have lots of babies, all beautiful and smart, all with his lovely green eyes.
As Casina had wrapped Augusta in a cocoon of protective love, it insulated Augusta from the trials and tribulations of bright-eyed, dewy love. But some things just come instinctively to us all. Casina couldn’t keep her away from all the television, all the movies, magazines and all the love songs that surrounded them. Samburans are by distinction, incurable romantics. The sappier the song, the bigger the hit and everyone knew the words. Girls grew up knowing that when they flicked their eyes this way or tossed their hair that way, they could get things. It started with how they wrap their fathers around their little fingers when they are born. Every Samburan girl was daddy’s little girl. Every Samburan boy, adored and feared their mothers. It was just the way things were.
Augusta saw the love stories, with their implications and sighed along with a million other girls. Casina had forgotten what it was like to be a young girl wrapped in the throes of first love. That the object of her affection was a tall, foreign stranger, led to mythic proportions in Augusta’s sodden heart.
But Augusta was one of those very special girls, who had never had her heart broken. As she rode the bus that day, she felt a tug, a heaviness inside her, buried deep but threatening to burst. She didn’t understand it, she only knew it surged when she thought of Jack. It made her feel alive, the trees were greener, the flowers brighter they sky was a crystal blue that she hadn’t noticed before.
She arrived in Silay with her Tito Ferio and his son, Ton-Ton, waiting for her in their family, motorbike and sidecar. Ton-Ton rode on the motor behind Ferio and Augusta rode in the passenger seat with her arms wrapped around her paint supplies and her rolled canvas. She didn’t even know what she had in her bags. Casina had packed it for her. Augusta’s only concern was the painting, for Jack.
When she arrived at the house, during dinner, Augusta was told that she was going to stay a full three weeks with them because by then, her mother would have enough money for her return ticket. Augusta was seething, her eyes grew big, but she didn’t say a word. A young lady never displayed fits of anger, it was unseemly. But she was furious. She wouldn’t get to see Jack.
She spent her first night tossing and turning in her bed consumed with an ache she couldn’t understand. She dreamed of Jack and she dreamed that he kissed her. And it was in that magic kiss that Jack gave Augusta her magic green-eyed babies.
The next morning, she was led to the beach by her cousin Ton-Ton, who met his girlfriend, Chita, there. Ton-Ton took the two girls out on the bangka, a local and usually smaller version of an outrigger boat. Silay had was a thriving fishing town. People around the area come to the Silay wet market to trade their fruits and vegetables for the fish caught off the abundant shore. Fishermen who controlled these waters were similar to the landed gentry. They had massive fish farms right off the shore. Nets slid down all the way to the bottom and there were small thatched huts that stood on stilts as guard shacks. Some of the larger farms would have multiple bahay isda (fish hut) to guard the larger acreage. Ton-Ton worked for his best-friend’s family farm. So he was a familiar site on the bay.