Anne comes to terms with her past

MANILA, Philippines - What a difference nine months make! September last year, Anne Curtis was smarting from her break-up with Sam Milby. Tears threatened to fall as she avoided questions related to the break-up.

Today, mention Sam and Anne’s face lights up. Gone is the long face and the evasive answers. Instead, Anne can’t stop singing her ex’s praise.

“He’s my ideal man,” Anne gushes. “Sam will make a good husband.”

What does that make of her other exes — Richard Gutierrez and Oyo Sotto?

Anne is quick on the draw.

“We were very young when Richard and Oyo got together,” she says. Read: Like caterpillars waiting to morph into butterflies, they had not yet come of age.

Sam, on the other hand, already reached that stage when he can look more clearly into the future. This, Anne found irresistible.

Don’t get her wrong, though. Anne is not holding on. While she insists “my love for Sam will always be there,” Anne swears she has moved on. She herself notes that “some good things are not meant to last.”

Anne can talk that way because she no longer feels her heart ache and her pulse race when she thinks of Sam. She’s dating again, but has yet to single out someone special.

She bumps into Sam in the ABS-CBN hallway and greets him as if nothing heart-breaking happened between them almost a year ago.

“I can’t be plastic with Sam. I’m always transparent with him,” she explains.

Speaking of bygones, Anne admits she has also placed the Derek Ramsey part of her life behind her. Theirs was a short, mutual understanding type of relationship. Anne and Derek call it ‘hanging out.’

After a month, both agreed things wouldn’t work out as expected.

“You know it’s just not there. But that’s okay. No hard feelings,” relates Anne.

She and Angelica Panganiban, Derek’s girlfriend, are even friends. And they go out together, with Anne as the self-confessed ‘third wheel’.

The threesome discuss anything under the sun, except the Anne chapter in Derek’s life.

“Matagal na ’yon,” Anne and Derek dismiss speculations of a renewed romance.

What matters most is the here and now. By that, Anne means having Derek as her leading man (with Zanjoe Marudo) in The Wedding, ABS-CBN’s new romance-series to premiere tonight on Primetime Bida.

Anne plays Candice, a rich girl who dreams of having the perfect wedding with her dream guy Warren (Derek). But he had to leave for the US. Candice never gave up on this dream. But when she found out her parents’ (Michael de Mesa and Eula Valdez) marriage was falling apart, she hatched a plan to keep them together. She gets engaged to Marlon (Zanjoe), a construction worker in the family firm. It goes without saying that the couple frowns on the relationship.

Anne says she and Candice are poles apart. While Candice clings to tradition, Anne takes the liberal point of view.

Anne says she will respect her parents’ decision to part ways if that will make them happy.

She won’t be that lax when it’s her marriage that at stake, though. Anne vows she will move heaven and earth to preserve her union. After all, she will not give up her carefree bachelorette days just like that. Anne promised herself she will only settle down with a guy who is “loyal and honest, someone I can talk to everyday without running out of things to say.”

And so Anne is opening her heart once more, hoping Mr. Right is just around the corner, waiting for her. She need not meet him now. At 24, Anne would rather go with the flow. No use hurrying up love.

“Mine will be a sunset wedding. And I want it to happen when I’m 30 years old,” she declares. That’s a good six years from now.

Meanwhile, Anne is smiling again. Not a single cloud hangs over her horizon these days. Not when another big project is coming her way.

“My movie with Richard (Gutierrez) will push through next year, in time for Valentine’s,” she reveals.

Is this a sign she’s moving over to GMA 7?

“I leave that decision to my manager,” she replies. “But I have no complaints with ABS-CBN. I’m happy here.”

There you have it. Straight from the horse’s mouth.