Free Love in All the Right Places (Chick Lit bundle) by Chris Mariano, Agay Llanera, Chrissie Peria Page A

bursting from the ground. Gio kept up the commentary as Min Hee took some photos.
    “You know, I pegged you for someone who’d take a lot of selfies, not nature shots,” Gio mentioned, watching her straighten up from taking a photo of a plant up close.
    “Selfie?” Min Hee looked confused.
    “Pictures of yourself on your camera phone,” he explained. He instantly regretted how judgmental that sounded. “I’ve heard my sister and her friends use it.”
    Min Hee laughed. “We call it selca. And no, sorry to burst your bubble, but I don’t really do that much. I think I like being behind the camera for a change. Being the center of attention can be more tiring than you think.”
    “Watch your step there,” Gio said. They moved to a shed where the farmer demonstrated how they extracted fiber from the leaves. In quick strokes, he scraped off one side of the pineapple leaf using a ceramic shard, revealing greenish-yellow strands.
    Min Hee touched it gently. “That’s so few! How can this be woven into any kind of cloth?”
    Gio grinned. “It takes about a hundred of these leaves to make one bundle.” He pointed to a house near the road. “Let’s head there. There’s a weaver there who can show you how they do it.”
    This was something that Gio had seen hundreds of times before, but watching Min Hee experience piña weaving for the first time made it seem new to him. She looked amazed at how the fibers from the leaves would be washed and dried, then eventually strung together. When they formed long strands, they would be fitted onto large wooden looms. It was also the first time he saw her refuse something. When the weaver offered Min Hee the chance to weave a bit, she balked, saying she didn’t want to break the delicate fibers. Later when she was shown an actual piña shawl, she touched it with a gentle hand. They munched on pineapple slices (another variety) and sweet mangoes after, cool treats under the harsh tropical sun.
    “Why are they wrapping that stone with fibers?” Min Hee asked, pointing.
    “ Talimad-on ,” the farmer replied then turned to Gio for help.
    “You could call it a planting superstition,” Gio translated. “Folks believe that if you put a stone with piña fibers in the planting hole before planting a pineapple on it, then the plant will grow to have smooth and rich fibers. Or that anything planted during the high tide will grow healthy and strong.”
    Min Hee turned to the farmer. “Can I do it?”
    The farmer shrugged and led them back out to the field. In Aklanon, he told Gio that they really weren’t planting yet and it would be a while before they planted anything on that spot.
    Gio smiled. “It’s okay. She doesn’t need to know.”
    “It’s hard to say no to your girlfriend,” the farmer laughed.
    “Oh, she’s not my girlfriend,” Gio protested.
    But the farmer just patted his shoulder, almost sympathetically. Then he pointed Min Hee to a spot on the ground. He scraped the ground a bit then instructed Min Hee to put the stone in the shallow hole. Min Hee patted some soil over the rock, looking proud of herself.
    “I’ve never done anything like this before,” she confessed to Gio with a shy smile. She patted the ground again. “Grow well. Grow strong and healthy,” she murmured. “I’ll come back soon.” Gio was surprised that part of him wished that she would.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    SOMETIMES THROUGHOUT the day, Gio would catch her scribbling into a small notebook. Other times, she would be staring intently at one scene, as if committing it to memory. She didn’t seem to be in her hiding or diving phase out here, which made her seem very relaxed. She even started talking about her family, which as far as Gio could tell, did not involve hoteliers or gambling debts.
    After lunch, he took her to see a pottery village that produced red clay earthenware and one of the oldest churches in the province, whose limestone and coral façade still bore the year 1889