Chapter 31 - Prospect

January 2, 2011 2pm

Tayaw arrived back in Ouigab with a clear heart and mind. During his picnic with his family, he was glad that he was able convince his parents to accept his help. He wished to stay longer but Northwestern resume classes on January 3. He did not immediately go home to his house and bought some gifts for Jenna and Nelly Lei.

Jenna's gift, like Tayaw decided is a pair of high top Converse sneakers with some insoles. Nelly's gift, on the other hand, Tayaw had a hard time figuring. In the end, he just bought three bottles of wine housed in a nicely crafted wooden box.

Jenna has for the entire semester, always helped Tayaw every time he skipped classes in two subjects. She fills in Tayaw's name in the attendance sheet, and shares her notes for Tayaw to read the next time he attended class. Nelly too, despite the small matter she helped with, contributed to Tayaw's fortune. Chala, on the other hand refused at any instance when Tayaw raised the subject of giving him a gift, like now.

"Mr. Rotala. What's up? What do you want for a late Christmas gift?" Tayaw phoned Chala. "Nothing you should be the one receiving one from me." Chala replied. "I don't want anything for now that you can give me though." Tayaw chuckled in reply. "Right.. Oh by the way. Are you back in Ouigab? Buy yourself a second phone for business purposes, and give me the number." Chala recommended. "That's a good idea. I'll do that then." Tayaw replied. After a few chatting a few more minutes, Tayaw ended the call and went to the nearest electronic store.

He decided to buy another IPhone 4. His personal phone is black, so he decided to buy a white one. He took out his personal sim card from the black iPhone and transferred inserted it to the new iPhone. He will now use the new white iPhone as his personal phone while his old black one will be his business phone. He then bought a new sim card and registered it for a plan and texted Chala his business number.

After having a late lunch, Tayaw decided to window shop for furniture and electronics. After his lease is over in his studio apartment, he is planning on renting a house and moving there by the end of the month. While talking to a clerk in a furniture store, Tayaw's business phone rang from the call of an unknown number. "Hello?" Tayaw answered the call. "Mr. Grimmauld? Is it you?" a female voice came from the other side of the call. "Yes. What can I do for you?" Tayaw asked in his accommodating phone voice but inside his head, he was thinking 'Chala, you cunning f*ck'. "Good afternoon Mr. Grimmauld. I'm Ophelia Cadali from The Nabla Observer. Are you available to sit down with me for an interview?" Ophelia asked. "I'm sorry. I'm not giving an interview for the mean time. I will, however contact you once I'm ready." Tayaw replied politely. One thing he learned about journalists is either they're good people doing God's work, or they're hyenas hungry for headlines. He read Nabla Observer once in a while and he knows that they are a trusted newspaper. Despite his good impression of the newspaper, he does not know if Ophelia really is Ophelia from Nabla Observer or just a tabloid journalist posing as Ophelia. "I understand. Oh. Instead of a sit-down interview, are you free having a phone interview instead?" Ophelia insisted. "I'm sorry, not today. You can send me a photo of your employee ID to my agent's e-mail, and I'll think about it." Tayaw refused the idea. Tayaw then excused himself and ended the call.

He pulled out his personal phone and called Chala again. "Hey! What was that? You could have at least warned me." Tayaw complained. "I'm sorry. Come on. It's just one journalist, and someone I know and trust at that. There are more who are bothering me." Chala said. "Why are you even doing this? It's not a part of your job." Tayaw said. "I have to at least work for the shares I'm receiving from you. Your books are basically selling themselves so I have nothing else to do. Oh, by the way, there are already people asking for rights to make your book into children's picture books and cartoons. Some are even from overseas. What do you think? " Chala asked. "Don't give it to them. I am writing down the second volume currently. Six months after we publish it, we can sell the rights of making picture books to Topaz. Let's consider it a sign of gratitude that they did not demand all rights to my books when we made the deal. The cartoon people, I'll think about it." Tayaw said. "True. Maybe because they're an educational books publisher, but if they were your regular publisher, they would have tried." Chala said.

After the phone call, Tayaw called Jenna next. "Hey baby girl. How was your Christmas break?" Tayaw said. "It was alright. What's with the call?" Jenna asked who was confused by the phone call. "Are you backing in Ouigab yet?" Tayaw answered. "I'm actually on my way. The bus will probably arrive in an hour. Why?" "I will give you your gift of course. Are you with any of your home town friends?" Tayaw asked. He wants to give the gift without anyone else knowing. "I thought you weren't serious with the shoe lifts. Well. I'm actually alone. Some of them arrived earlier already. Some have their classes resume later in the week." Jenna replied. "What? I thought your high school sweetheart will at least accompany you." Tayaw said. Jenna and her boyfriend often call each other between classes so he figured they would be inseparable if they are with each other in person. "He had to leave for San Prudencia earlier. His classes also start tomorrow." Jenna explained. "Where's your bus station, I'll come pick you up." Tayaw proposed. After the call, Tayaw drove his pick-up truck to pick up Jenna.

"Damn. Why do you have a huge luggage? It's probably bigger than you." Tayaw said as he loaded Jenna's trolley back in the back seat. Jenna has already gotten used to Tayaw always picking at her size. "I wanted to expand my wardrobe so I picked up more clothes this time. How about you? Your parents must be rich. How do you have a car already?" Jenna asked surprised at Tayaw's vehicle. "My parents are not rich. I saved this up working as an online tutor and as a musician." Tayaw said in half-truth as they started their way to Jenna's dorm. "Bull! I thought your work there was done? Musician too? You can't possible earn much from that." Jenna was not buying it. She asked Tayaw once why his English is good and Tayaw informed her of his job at the Online teaching company. "It was. But I'm a competent musician. A gig at a wedding here, a gig at a bar there, they pay well and when acc.u.mulated, I saved enough for the down payment of my car." Tayaw explained. Recently, he's been getting better at hiding his identity as an author even if he didn't have to.

"Huh. Good for you. I also played the violin as a child but I got tired of practicing." Jenna also confessed her violin experience. This sparked Tayaw's interest. "What pieces are you playing? Classical?" Tayaw asked. "Not really. I learned classical at first but I'm bad at reading music sheets so I mostly played by ear if I hear a tune that I like. I forgot now how to read music." Tayaw's heart is starting to beat faster. "So, are you good at picking up the tunes?" Tayaw inquired further. "I think so. If I hear the melody of a chorus of a song, it will take me a few minutes to feel out the notes in the violin, and then I would practice how to play it. After a few hours, I can play it." Tayaw is excited of a prospect of a fiddler in Jenna. "Do you sing?" Tayaw asked. "I did when I was in middle school in the school choir. Why?" Jenna asked. Tayaw, who is hiding hard his excitement, answered "Oh. Nothing. I'm just thinking if I you're good enough to be a musician." "Oh. I'm probably not." Jenna answered according to her own assessment.

Finding out about Jenna's violin skill gave Tayaw an idea of forming a duo with her. She also said she sang in a choir so it gave Tayaw an image of them singing in harmony. "By the way, you're 18 now, right?" Tayaw asked. "Yep, I just turned 18 during the Christmas break." Jenna replied. If Tayaw can gig with her at the bar, he can no longer worry about curfew, which is IF Jenna agrees to play with him. "Good for you. How is school by the way?" Tayaw asked again. If Jenna finds school easy, then she can spare the time to practice for gigs. "It's alright. Although my scores are not as good as yours, I think I'm gonna have a B+ bordering A- average at least." Jenna replied, to Tayaw's satisfaction. "Are you still tutoring math?" "Sometimes. Do you have a client to recommend?" Jenna answered as they continued talking in the car.

Reaching Jenna's dorm, Tayaw unloaded Jenna's luggage for her. "Here's the gift. My attendance would have probably affected my grades if it weren't for you. So thank you." Tayaw said as he handed her the shopping bag with the sneakers in it. "OH! I always wanted one of these! I can see it matching well with the clothes I brought. Thank you." Jenna said, not shy of accepting the shoes. "You really weren't kidding about the shoe lifts…" Jenna's excitement was dampened a little when she saw a few pairs of insoles under the shoe box.

Parting with Jenna, Tayaw looked at the time and it was still 4pm. deciding it's still early, he went to the nearest real estate broker. "Good afternoon sir, how may I help you?" A receptionist greeted Tayaw when he entered the broker's office. "I'm looking to rent a house." Tayaw replied. Tayaw's confidence somehow made the receptionist's ignore Tayaw's age. "You can talk to one of our agents there. He's free." She replied and pointed at the table of a real estate agent.

"Hello. I'm looking for a house for rent." Tayaw said to the agent. "Before that, may I know how old you are?" the agent asked noticing how young Tayaw is. Tayaw figured it's unavoidable. "I'm 17, turning 18 this coming September." Tayaw replied honestly. "I see. It would be difficult." The agent said as he rubbed his chin. Tayaw knew it would be difficult for a minor to rent a property. In Teungeb, minors who enter lease agreements without their legal guardian presenet are not legally bound. So if they break the rules of the agreement, they will not be held responsible and the minor can just void the contract without consequences. This is why the agent is hesitating to talk to Tayaw. With this, Tayaw had no choice but to print a copy of his income tax return to add reassurance. "I don't think it will be for me. Take a look at this." Tayaw took out the copy of his tax return and his Tax ID and put it on the agent's table.

The agent was surprised when he read the massive tax payment Tayaw made last December. With this, he took a deep breath and finally looked more accommodating. "My name is Galad. What house are you looking to rent?"