One late night at Fuente

I am no lip-reader, but I know, as do probably most people, when my name is being uttered by another. And so, based on that assumption, let me proceed with this tale, which I find both funny and revealing.

One night last week I was with my eldest daughter Carmel Jamaica, 19, at a fastfood diner at Fuente, having a late dinner from the office where she dropped by after school, a habit she occasionally engages in.

Anyway, while waiting for our order to be served, I noticed several tables away from us a friend I have not seen in years. He was with whom I presumed was his wife. The last time I saw him, we both were still probably teenagers.

My friend (we actually belonged to the same club, now defunct, in my hometown of Mandaue City) looked somewhat different now, probably because of the creeping white hair that has taken over his head, relentlessly, if I may add.

But there was no mistaking him. He was still as good-looking as he was in our younger days. And his height gave him away. He was tall. This man has got to be the friend I thought him to be.

Then I saw him cast a (for lack of a better term) furtive glance at me and said my name in a whisper to his wife across the table. I am positive it was my name he whispered. As I said at the outset, somehow you just know it, even without any formal training in lip-reading.

His wife, whom I have never met, much less know, but who must have, somehow in her lifetime, come across my name (I have been a journalist for 26 years), must have recognized the name her husband whispered. It must have rang a bell or registered a thought. Whatever.

It all happened very quickly, in rapid succession, so rapid in fact that it took perhaps no more than 10 seconds for the series of barely discernible gestures to occur, subtle messages that passed from husband to wife, and back, quickly understood, and then filed for reference.

I will never know precisely what those messages were. But on hindsight I think I have a fairly good idea of what they were. Why hindsight, you may ask? Because I never got to go and meet my long lost friend.

Actually, the moment I knew it was my name that my friend uttered to his wife, I was about to do either or both of two things, wave and/or go over to say hi. But the furtiveness with which my name was said, and received and understood by the wife, made me do neither.

I stopped looking at them directly. They themselves never got to doing that. What happened next was like a dance, with me joining them. The dance entailed a lot of stolen, okay, furtive, glances. Why are they rejecting my acquaintance, I asked myself.

Finally, their own take-home order arrived (they were not dining in, after all) and they left the table quietly after paying, and just as quietly went out of the establishment. Except for my name, they never exchanged words with one another.

That left me thinking for quite sometime. And then it occurred to me. Boy, did it occur to me. My friend, who has not seen me since we were single, clearly did not know my daughter, did not know any member of my family, for that matter.

To be seen having some later dinner with a chick ( young and pretty as my daughter is, naks ) at the "unholy" hour of close to midnight must have conjured quite an array of thoughts in the mind of my friend.

Now I know why the furtiveness. My friend and his wife were embarrassed for me. They did not want to intrude. More importantly, they did not want to place me on the spot. Acknowledging me would mean my getting caught with what they assumed was the hot potato.

And that leaves me wondering too if, had we acknowledged one another, they would have believed me if I introduced my daughter to them as, well, my daughter. After all, the Filipino mind has been conditioned, in such situations, to believe otherwise, frankly with good reason.

There is actually a footnote to this tale. When I told my daughter what had just happened, beyond the pale of her youthful understanding, she got mad at me. No, not really mad, but the kind which only daughters can do to put their fathers in place.