PREVIOUSLY: Many cried when they heard of Ildefonsa’s sudden departure from Chicago. Then tears of joy when reports reached them that Rico traveled to Ildefonsa’s small barrio to beg for forgiveness and ask for her hand in marriage. Imagine the jubilation that the news of their eventual wedding brought to those who eagerly followed every twist and turn in their poignant story.

Many of the couple’s friends and relatives from the United States and the Middle East took time out of their work and didn’t mind spending money on airfares to come home and witness the happy ending to a saga that spanned three continents. They were making a pilgrimage to be at one with the couple in the triumphant culmination of their arduous journey.
 
In your typical Filipino wedding where the bride and groom spend many years working abroad before coming home to make a spectacle of their union before their relatives and friends, there is that “sky is the limit” air to the whole festivity. This is because of the enormous buying power of the potent American Dollar so that every caprice could be indulged.

Rico and Ildefonsa did not mean their wedding to fall in this category. Remember that it was extravagance that actually caused the fiasco in Chicago. But there was no stopping to the opulence that was brought about not by access to a hefty fund but from the boundless input whether in money or personal involvement from friends and relatives who were touched by their story.
 
The five hundred plus servings required, for example, was efficiently tackled by twenty-one neighbours who coordinated the cooking of the courses in their own individual kitchens. Tricycles decorated with fresh flowers ferried the finished product to the reception site with military precision and great aplomb.
 
From the reception line the guests were ushered to their tables and offered either a cold cocktail made
from green mangoes, cucumber and carrots or a hot cup of ginger and honey brew.
 
The starter was hot pan-de-sal with carabao’s milk cheese. The second course was a sampling of three omelettes: aubergine with spring onions; anchovies and sweet potatoes; and crab meat with sweet pepper. The perfect patties were arranged on a coconut plate lined with banana leaves.
 
A more filling entrée of chicken in soya, coconut cream, and shrimp paste sauce was next, served with a glass of crushed ice and calamansi (native lime) to cleanse the palate and a dash of Ginebra San Miguel to lubricate the tongue—encourage the guests to talk to each other.
 
The succulent chicken was followed by steamed rice cakes topped with a tangy gravy made of chopped prawns, squid flakes and dried oysters. Gasps of delight from every table when cups of freshly ground coffee and hand beaten chocolates were delivered by waiters in guardia civil uniforms followed by little girls in colorful Filipino traditional costumes struggling with brightly decorated rattan baskets laden with banana leaf parcels containing delicate curls of melon in a honey and lime caramel.
 
Instead of creating an impersonal wire fence to unite the three backyards in one enclosure where the al fresco brunch was enjoyed by almost six hundred seated guests, a local flower garden volunteered to surround the area with all sorts of potted plants. Never mind that every pot was labeled with the address and telephone number of the flower shop with the retail price discreetly printed at the back, the verdant greens induced lively babbles among the guests, the same effect a pet dog would have on complete strangers in a bus stop.
 
But there was really no need for icebreakers in this jovial wedding feast that the whole town celebrated as its own. It was a fitting homage to a love that bloomed not from a chance encounter in some bar in downtown Chicago but from the lonely pens of two exiles who were deprived of the pleasures of the mating dance by a stronger passion—their unconditional love for their families.
 
And so the portly penpal penpal bride who was jilted by her groom within 24- hours of their first meeting was eventually married in lavish ceremonies witnessed by close to a thousand guests and admirers.
 
But did she actually and truly fall in love with the repentant Rico or did she conveniently slip into the facesaving role demanded by the circumstances?
 
 Flashback: The excitement of the grand wedding now over, Rico settled in Pampanga to help Ildefonsa run her fast expanding catering business. The success of her venture was initially due to the meticulous way she prepared her fat-free patties. Remember that she was an over the hill bride who was abandoned midstream by her groom. Not entirely the fault of the meddling amigas with their ostentatious ideas on how a wedding ought to be, an opportunity to showcase a person’s worth, a big enchilada of a velada.
 
In their minds one is not properly married unless a five-tier cake surrounded by miniature carriages made of Capiz shells and twisted wire is sliced by the bride and groom in front of at least a hundred guests wearing their best embroidered gowns made of pineapple fibre. And don’t forget the flower girls and bride’s maids in their Stevie of Hollywood, 100% polyester, one-shoulder bare shocking pink uniforms.
 
Ildefonsa was to blame too for her own humiliation. For many years, she deprived herself of many personal indulgences for the sake of her parents and brothers and sisters so that when the first big opportunity to treat herself came, she went horrendously overboard.
 
When she returned to her hometown, having licked her wounds and settled with her parents who welcomed her warmly, she started her snack business with a strong determination to be in charge and make it work under her own terms.
 
This time she was going to be in complete control of everything, literally talking to the eggplants and the cassavas and the sweet potatoes, telling them every morning to grow in the shapes that would be just right for the organic pancakes that she was perfecting.
At first her parents thought that she had gone mad. Ildefonsa was losing a lot of weight and her worried parents were convinced at some point that their daughter had actually vanished because she was now unrecognizable to them. Most dawns Ildefonsa was sadly observed by her parents as they peeked through their bedroom window curtains hovering on the yam vines and okra shrubs in their large vegetable patch in her off white flowing Wall Mart, buy-onetake- one, Joan Collins dressing gown. They were convinced she was a ghost of the plump Ildefonsa they know.
 
Their daughter would spend her evenings cutting old magazines into rounds, squares and ovals and pasting them on the wall to stare at for hours on ends. She wanted perfect circles, as perfect as the world that she knows must exist somewhere out there. As she thought loudly in her paper-cutting trances, her parents tossed in their bed worried sick that the dreaded loca-de-amor eddy was turning in their daughter’s head.
 
One morning they decided to take Ildefonsa to the arbolario (herbalist, literally but generally a faith healer or quack doctor) to exorcise the demons from their beloved daughter’s troubled mind. But in that same morning they woke up to her singing in front of their giant oven, staring at perfect circles that rose in unison and browned to the exact luscious terra cotta shade she had willed them to be. For the first time in weeks Ildefonsa addressed her parents in the first person.
 
“I have cracked it,” she croaked like a frog that just got kissed by the proverbial prince.
 
“She has now completely cracked up!” her father thought loudly. The mother was about to mutter something as resigned but Ildefonsa ceremoniously opened the giant oven, never been used till now, to reveal a tray of miniburgers that looked as delicious as they smelled. The aroma of minty, golden crusty and very appetizing early-afternoon-after-nap snack filled their kitchen which was otherwise very large but choking in all sorts of brand-new and never been used small appliances from many a warehouse and factory outlet, end of season, post- and pre-Christmas and what-have-you seasonal sales in suburban Chicago.
 
Ildefonsa literally pushed the heads of her mesmerized parents into the cavernous oven to marvel at the steaming parade of bubbly pucks in five neat rows. The eyes of the old couple welled in tears, not from the sudden gust of steam from the aromatic goodies but from a great feeling of relieve now that they have seen the picture. The mystery of the cropped circles was finally solved.
 
Their daughter after all was not going mad. She was just up to something really nice and perfect!
 
They all pointed at the patties and started to giggle. Nervously at first, then like kids who just saw their first circus clown, laughed until they were exhausted. They slumped on the kitchen floor with its American colonial tiles that matched the curtains and dust covers that protect the accumulation of dishwashers, dryers, microwave ovens, mixers, blenders and, ironically, a flaming red electronic nutcracker!
 
The couple stood after they ran out of tears and in gay abandon literally ripped the dust covers off the appliances, unveiling them in their full glory. Their special daughter could now use these special treasures as she pleased.
 
To be continued
 
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Munting Nayon News Magazine