Happily single

Twice, Jean Garcia fell deeply in love. Twice, she could have married the fathers of her children (Jennica, 13 and Kotaro, one year old), but she did not. Is Madame Klaudia (in the defunct Pangako Sa Yo) among those liberated women who’d rather stay happily single?

"It’s not that," Jean answers. "I believe in marriage. But I have to think of Jennica, who is now as tall as I am (5’6"). Kotaro’s father (a Japanese whom Jean met while working in the Land of the Rising Sun) wants us to stay in Japan if we get married. There’s no problem with Kotaro. But will Jennica be able to adjust?"

The girl, a first year high school student at OB Montessori, is growing up the way Jean wants her to. Deprived of a father’s presence (Jean has long lost touch with her dad, Jigo Garcia), Jennica is growing up just fine, thank you.

"Like me, she has learned how to entertain herself. She’d cut pictures and put them on the wall. Her dream, would you believe, is to be in the military," Jean could rattle on and on about her little Miss Universe.

She herself couldn’t have it any better. Jean glows as if she has nary a care in the world. She doesn’t. "I make it a point to find time for myself," the star of Noon at Ngayon… Pagsasamang Kayganda says.

Time for herself includes saying a little prayer wherever she is – in the car, while looking for a parking space (very important, especially when you’re in congested malls), etc. Result: Jean doesn’t find any reason to fret.

"What, me worry?" she says, tossing her curly locks defiantly. "I will weather everything with Him beside me. I proved it in Japan, where I won friends who supported me. I am proving it again."

In her darkest hour, faced with a daughter to support and a career she had to cut short because of teenage pregnancy, Jean flew to Japan to work. There, in a club at Roppongi district, she sang and danced to make ends meet.

Her showbiz background came in handy. It enabled her to keep on smiling through fatigue and homesickness. The happy front brought in international clients, some of whom became her friends.

"I learned how to deal with all sorts of people," the conversant Jean goes on. And of course, she met the father of her son. They put up a restaurant business, Eros, but this had to close down because Jean couldn’t find time for it anymore when she was heavy with Kotaro. "The clients got used seeing me there. When they didn’t, I guess that’s when they lost interest," explains Jean.

Despite that, and other kinks in her life (all duly ironed out by now), Jean has no regrets. She may have loved and lost, but having Jennica makes everything worthwhile.

Jean would love to change the course of her life by having a complete family, diffferent from the one she had as a little girl, since her parents split up when she was only five years old (Garcia is her stepdad’s surname).

But if things don’t happen her way, Jean won’t cry over spilled milk.

Like the ever-effervescent Kathy, whom she portrays in Noon at Ngayon, Star Cinema’s 10th anniversary film, Jean would rather hold her chin up and move on.

This time, she is more definite about what she wants. Jean will not, for instance, fling herself on love scenes just for the heck of it. If ever there is one — and that’s a big if —it must have a purpose, rhyme and reason. It must propel the story forward.

As it is though, the mere thought of accepting an offer to do a love scene makes Jean cringe.

Up next for the star of Kay Tagal Kitang Hinintay is another soap, this time casting her in a role that is the complete antithesis of her scheming TV persona. This time, Jean will play goody two shoes; the oppressed, not the oppressor.

She welcomes the prospect of doing a show ala Sex and the City with her Noon at Ngayon co-stars Cherry Pie Picache, Dina Bonnevie and Eula Valdez, who have become her friends off-camera.

"That would really be nice," Jean says, beaming. "Besides, the camaraderie we shared on the set calls for a follow up."

Looking at the four women seated beside each other — cracking jokes, laughing their heads off, trading knowing glances — one can’t help but agree.