“Is someone meeting me?” Juan Diego repeated. (How is it possible he doesn’t know? the young mother must have been thinking.) Juan Diego was unzipping a compartment of his carry-on bag where he’d put his itinerary; next would come the requisite fumbling in the pocket of his jacket for his reading glasses — as he’d been doing in the first-class lounge of British Airways, back at JFK, when Miriam had snatched the itinerary out of his hands. Here he was again, looking like a novice traveler. It was a wonder he didn’t say to the Filipino woman (as he’d said to Miriam), “I thought it was a long way to bring my laptop.” What a ridiculous thing to have said, he now thought — as if long distances mattered to a laptop!
His most assertive former student, Clark French, had made the arrangements in the Philippines for him; without consulting his itinerary, Juan Diego couldn’t remember what his plans were — except that Miriam had found fault with where he was staying in Manila. Naturally, Miriam had made some suggestions regarding where he should stay—“the second time,” she’d said. As for this time, what Juan Diego remembered was the all-knowing way Miriam had used the trust me expression. (“But, trust me, you won’t like where you’re staying”—that was how she’d put it.) As he searched his itinerary for the Manila arrangements, Juan Diego tried to account for the fact that he didn’t trust Miriam; yet he desired her.
He saw he was staying at the Makati Shangri-La in Makati City; he was alarmed, at first, because Juan Diego didn’t know that Makati City was considered part of metropolitan Manila. And because he was leaving Manila the next day for Bohol, no one he knew was meeting his plane — not even one of Clark French’s relatives. Juan Diego’s itinerary informed him that he was to be met at the airport by a professional driver. “Just a driver” was the way Clark had written it on the itinerary.
“Just a driver is meeting me,” Juan Diego finally answered the young Filipino woman.
The mother said something in Tagalog to her children. She pointed to a large, unwieldy-looking piece of luggage on the carousel; the big bag rounded a corner on the moving belt, pushing other bags off the carousel. The children laughed at the bloated bag. You could have packed two Labrador retrievers in that stupid bag, Juan Diego was thinking; it was his bag, of course — he was embarrassed by it. A bag that huge and ugly also marked him as a novice traveler. It was orange — the unnatural orange that hunters wear, so they won’t be mistaken for anything resembling an animal; the eye-catching orange of those traffic cones indicating road construction. The saleswoman who’d sold Juan Diego the bag had persuaded him by saying that his fellow travelers would never mistake his bag for theirs. No one else had a bag like it.
And just then — as the realization was dawning on the Filipino mother and her laughing kids that the garish albatross of all luggage belonged to the crippled man — Juan Diego thought of Señor Eduardo: how his Lab had been shot when he was at such a formative age. Tears came to Juan Diego’s eyes at the awful idea of his hideous bag being big enough to contain two of Edward Bonshaw’s beloved Beatrices.
It often happens with grown-ups that their tears are misunderstood. (Who can know which time in their lives they are reliving?) The well-meaning mother and her children must have imagined that the limping man was crying because they’d made fun of his checked bag. The confusion wouldn’t end there. It was chaos in that area of the airport where friends and family members and professional drivers waited to meet arriving passengers. The young Filipino mother rolled Juan Diego’s coffin for two dogs; he struggled with her bag and his carry-on; the children wore backpacks and toted their mom’s carry-on between them. Of course it was necessary for Juan Diego to tell the helpful young woman his name; that way, they could both look for the right driver — the one holding up the sign with the Juan Diego Guerrero name. But the sign said SEÑOR GUERRERO. Juan Diego was confused; the young Filipino mother knew it was his driver right away.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” the patient young woman asked him.
There was no easy answer regarding why he’d been confused by his own name — only a story — but Juan Diego did comprehend the context of the moment: he’d not been born Señor Guerrero, but he was now the Guerrero the driver was looking for. “You’re the writer—you’re that Juan Diego Guerrero, right?” the handsome young driver had asked him.
“Yes, I am,” Juan Diego told him. He didn’t want the young Filipino mother to feel the least bit bad about not knowing who he was (the writer), but when Juan Diego looked for her, she and her kids were gone; she had slipped away, never knowing he was that Juan Diego Guerrero. Just as well — she’d done her good deed for the year, Juan Diego imagined.
“I was named for a writer,” the young driver was saying; he strained to lift the gross orange bag into the trunk of his limo. “Bienvenido Santos — have you ever read him?” the driver asked.
“No, but I’ve heard of him,” Juan Diego answered. (I would hate to hear anyone say that about me! Juan Diego was thinking.)
“You can call me Ben,” the driver said. “Some people are puzzled by the Bienvenido.”
“I like Bienvenido,” Juan Diego told the young man.
“I’ll be your driver everywhere you go in Manila — not just this trip,” Bienvenido said. “Your former student asked for me — that’s the person who said you were a writer,” the driver explained. “I’m sorry I haven’t read your books. I don’t know if you’re famous—”
“I’m not famous,” Juan Diego quickly said.
“Bienvenido Santos is famous — he was famous here, anyway,” the driver said. “He’s dead now. I’ve read all his books. They’re pretty good. But I think it’s a mistake to name your kid after a writer. I grew up knowing I had to read Mr. Santos’s books; there were a lot of them. What if I’d hated them? What if I didn’t like to read? There’s a burden attached to it — that’s all I’m saying,” Bienvenido said.
“I understand you,” Juan Diego told him.
“Do you have any kids?” the driver asked.
“No, I don’t,” Juan Diego said, but there was no easy answer to this question — that was another story, and Juan Diego didn’t like to think about it. “If I do have any children, I won’t name them after writers,” was all he said.
“I already know one of your destinations while you’re here,” his driver was saying. “I understand you want to go to the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial—”
“Not this trip,” Juan Diego interrupted him. “My time in Manila is too short this trip, but when I come back—”
“Whenever you want to go there, it’s fine with me, Señor Guerrero,” Bienvenido quickly said.
“Please call me Juan Diego—”
“Sure, if that’s what you like,” the driver rejoined. “My point is, Juan Diego, everything’s been taken care of — it’s all been arranged. Whatever you want, at whatever time—”
“I may change hotels — not this time, but when I come back,” Juan Diego blurted out.
“Whatever you say,” Bienvenido told him.
“I’ve heard bad things about this hotel,” Juan Diego said.
“In my job, I hear lots of bad things. About every hotel!” the young driver said.
“What have you heard about the Makati Shangri-La?” Juan Diego asked him.