Short Story | Gowns and Books

By Eddlynn Jennifer Mangaoang

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    The silence resonates within the empty house after the best friend left hurriedly with the blue carry-on luggage. The best friend is on her way to a three-day conference in the capital and she asked the woman she's known for almost two decades to housesit her cozy condo until while she's away.

    The woman, twenty-four and single but definitely not ready to mingle, has straight black hair, black eyes, and brown skin. Typical of an Asian of Filipino descent. She stands four-eleven barefoot, about five-two in her three-inch killer heels. Right at the moment, she's barefoot, having taken off her gray-pink easy-to-slip Skechers by the bulky door. She saunters toward the wooden shelf divider partitioning the small kitchen-slash-dining room and the living room and she finds a chipped wooden frame with a faded picture of two young girls in fancy puffy red gowns and pearls and flowers hooked behind their ears. The girls have wide smiles, teeth showing and eyes creasing from laughter, like crescent moons in the blue sky, silver and hidden behind the sun's bright rays, forgotten and dimmed.

    The woman shifts her gaze onto the next picture, framed in metal with a silver plating and fancy flower design, and sees two adolescent girls in their long gowns, one blinding yellow and the other glum midnight blue. The girl on the right has her hair hanging down like heavy curtains after a recital, curled to give it a volume; the other in a strategically made messy bun with few baby hairs framing her small lovely face. She had a wide smile and friendly aura; the other pulled her cheek upwards in a forced smile.

    The woman pushes the frames down with a slight bang and turns her back to see the blue couch where she sat and the glass coffee table where she placed her handbag earlier. There's an oval tray made of wood in the middle, one cactus surrounded by three succulents is on it. Cosmopolitan and Vogue magazines neatly piled beneath the tabletop. By the number of magazines in the pile, she concludes that the best friend is a subscriber. Four different shades of orange throw pillows adorn the couch. Two rectangles, two circles. There's a small Persian rug that accentuates the coziness of the room.

    On the other side of the divider is a thick glass wall where sunshine enters and gives warmth. No curtains needed because it is opaque; she can see the busy street 26-story below, but the neighboring skyscraper can't see her.

    She carries her duffle bag and handbag to the lone room. The best friend told her to use it while she's away/ She halts in front of the closed door and exhales. After she turns the door handle and pushes her way in, she inhales apple and cinnamon. It comforts her. 

    The queen bed is made well. Fresh yellow bed sheets, soft, but heavy, purple blanket with tiaras and ball gowns embroidered all over, and two foam pillows with yellow, ruffled pillowcases enhances the owner's taste of high class and expensive materials - yet still able to maintain her childhood.

    A T.V. suspends on the wall opposite the bed. A reading lamp on the nightstand, an armchair by the glass wall and a small bookshelf next to it, and a taller lamp hanging above the armchair. A soft carpet comforts a person's feet. She sits there, on that corner, and leans in to read titles such as Marketing and Corporate, looking new as the day they are made and distributed in the bookstores. She looks away and unfolds her tattered book, Bird by Bird, which she places in her lap.