A five-star love story

I am making a memory box for Paul and Lita Bueno-Potassy, dear friends who are based in Palma de Mallorca in sunny Spain. Lita’s favorite photos line the box, each capturing a special time in her life. There is one of her wedding day, now faded like sepia, and their silver wedding anniversary, celebrated with family and friends.

Twenty five years? Why, they’ve been married all their lives! Paul and Lita belong to a unique group who have, in a charmed way, found each other in the midst of glamour and glitz. They are the living proof of hotel romances.

Being an ex-hotel staff, I didn’t see it that way, of course. Lita was the highly focused and efficient executive secretary of the first general manager of the Manila Hilton Hotel. She was branded as serious, straight-laced, no-nonsense and never coquettish. She had no time for romantic entanglements. But, she has a great sense of humor, and privately, she’s warm and gregarious.

Paul was the magician and I hasten to add, not of the hocus-pocus, abracadabra league. Paul perfected the art of magic as a career, worthy of the clamor and admiration from royalties and dignitaries in Europe and the Americas. He was recognized far and wide as a master of his craft.

They met when the hotel was busily positioning itself as the hub of leisure and entertainment to enthrall the upper crust. He charmed her. She enchanted him. She was whisked away before we knew what hit us. Their romance took all of three weeks – a blitz that had no evening dates, because Paul had his nightly shows, but they did spend Lita’s one-hour lunch break together, talking and laughing.

Once, they took a day trip to Pagsanjan Falls to shoot the "rabbits," (rapids!) as Paul thought! When he left to finish his Asian tour, he frantically sent telexes, telegrams, letters, flowers, cards and gifts, aside from long-distance calls.

Tired of this across-the-miles courtship, Paul, in desperation, asked Lita to marry him. Sharing a piece of their wedding cake at the reception held in Hong Kong, Paul whispered, "Whew! This is cheaper, too!"

Paul built a home for Lita where she could be in her full element. Truly his charming better-half and partner in his magic act (Lita stays mute on the magic and illusions they cleverly use to this very day!) and his beloved lady of their sun-bathed house and garden.

Franz was a sous chef at a time when Manila did not yet consider cooking as a profession. He looked like a clown in his tall and starched hat, checkered pants and Dutch clogs, but he was a wizard in the kitchen.

Edith was our receptionist, well-groomed and neat, who greeted each guest with a genuine smile and a slight, polite nod. He used to go down to the lobby to catch her attention, until a chemistry sparked that went past the blending of exotic spices. He, too, made a home for her in Europe.

If you like story-book romances or the stuff that could make you tingle or kilig to the bones, I could write a whole book about them.

We had this junior food and beverage manager, who wooed and won our classy, chic and clever lady department head with his naive and rustic demeanor. He was the Pygmalion who blossomed under her wings and right before our startled eyes. Clearly, he picked himself a plum, and she gave up her profession to set up home abroad.

Blame it on the crystal chandeliers, the troubadour music, or maybe the clinking of champagne glasses that churned up one lovey-dovey couple after another. Corporate executives were a daily feature in the hotel, so it was not surprising to lose another classic beauty to a travel executive. They married under a full moon and I remember looking up at a bare, star-less sky. What happened to all the stars? They came down to sparkle in their eyes! She had twins as a result.

How could romance blossom in an environment where luxury is as common as furniture, therefore overexposed? You turn to the basics.

Write and dedicate a sonnet or couplet to her, instead of flowers and gems. That freshly-made and still piping-hot banana cue can tip the scale to your favor instead of rich truffles. Champagne and caviar won’t do the trick, but a compote glass of chilled fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream would.

One suitor sent love birds in a cage, and her heart was immediately captured… I mean caged. To play safe, however, he took the precaution of lining his pocket, just in case she chose to dine in, among her peers, in her territory. A fine dining menu could include roast beef, lemon sherbet, red wine, cheese, nuts and crackers, a wicked dessert and port wine that could set you back a few hundred pesos (now by thousands).

I remember this conversation between two hotel staff: "Come out and check the new management trainee we have at the front desk. He has never repeated a suit and oooh la la! He has the most dee-vine eyelashes this side of town!"

Intrigued by this enthusiastic and candid description, she took a peak. "Where is this Adonis you’re talking about?" she asked.

"He’s right there, in a cream suit."

The two girls went into a huddle. She studied him, fell silent and uttered an inaudible "Hmmm."

"Well, what do you think?"

"Not my type. He’s too short!" she said.

But he persisted. He brought a carton of Swiss chocolates and distributed it to all the female staff at the front desk. It was a subtle and effective move that prompted every girl to ask the same question, "Who is he courting among us?"

More chocolates from the Patisserie followed. Still shy, he could not gather enough nerve to invite her. He decided to work on her best friend.

"Don’t ever send her roses," she advised. "Invite her to piano recitals, the ballet and Broadway musicals, and just be patient. Wait until she thaws."

He was the resident manager, while she owned and operated the first boutique shop that opened in the same hotel. He made it a point to buy something from her stock and occasionally invited her to lunch.

This went on for two more years until the management informed him that he was being transferred to another chain. Moving fast, he invited her to his private apartment.

In his living room, he opened the tall armoire to reveal every item that he ever bought in her shop, neatly folded and stored intact!

To seal his noble intention, he booked her on a round-trip ticket to his Bavarian hometown to meet his mother – further proof that he was indeed a bachelor, but not for long!

Her parents disapproved of him.

"He’s gwilo!" (foreigner), they said, but she remained steadfast. They eloped and were married before he reported to his new posting.

These hotel romances had beautiful beginnings and the couples involved exchanged promises that they will grow old together. But even Charles Schultz in his Charlie Brown character summed up our drenched hope, when he said, "How can we lose when we’re so sincere?"

When the violins stopped playing, the flowers withered and reality set in, some made it, but others did not. There were confusing and difficult times. Some failed to make the story of their relationship turn out the way they once believed it would. There were children from these unions, who had to grapple with the diversity of culture, mores, language and color of skin with many unrecorded years of joy and pain, sorrow and triumph.

But many had also made peace with their own rocky history. Even if there were sad endings, most have given their children a childhood more happy than not. They grew up still believing in love even if their fathers and their mothers were not together anymore. It was plain to see that they once did. Even in the face of hard times, there was also laughter. There were dark moments and light.

Sad but wiser, one of them wrote, "It’s not a story with an ending, yet, or ever. Blank pages remain in my children’s books. All we really did was give them a book to honor where they came from, who we have been, so far. The rest of the pages my children have to fill themselves."

Some hotel romances did end up like most love affairs – with no guarantees and definitely far from a fairy tale ending.

A friend sent me a text message that could well sum up hotel romances: "In the end, only three things matter: how fully you lived, how deeply you loved, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."

And what about that hotel management trainee with the long and curly lashes? Did he win her? Did she finally mellow? Oh, yes! In fact, they lived happily ever after.