Chapter 1
It was a humid and viscid day in early June, and students sipped a hot cup of coffee.
I remember my dad used to say that Knowledge is power. Informed citizens were vital to creating a sustainable society. I wanted to champion journalistic freedom and liberal values. That’s why I was here.
My best friend since high-school, Emily Wood blinked owlishly at her phone. Her long slender fingers scrolled through the university app to find out where the first class of the morning was. She gestured with a thumb and pulled me into a classroom in the Arts and Sciences building: a modern-looking cinder block with a long, winding sidewalk, all surrounded by a cluster of trees.
I froze, suddenly nervous and unsure on my first day of college. I was often too nervous to make friends in a new social circle especially with other foreign students, but Emily was unshakably confident to dive into conversations with strangers. Finding out how Emily was my best friend was complicated. We met in 5th grade as classmates but we weren’t that close. We had some conversations here and there but they were never serious. We would call each other to have a meal together or watch a movie, or something simple that lasted about an hour or two. We fell out of contact by 6th grade as I spent most of my time with my friends at the Newspaper Club. By the time I was in my first-year high school, we belonged to the same section and our friendship was rekindled. This was going to sound weird, but horror movies brought us together.
Emily had her swooping, eagle-like gaze on the new crowd. “Everyone looks so different.”
“Do you think we’ll ever fit in?” I asked, frowning.
“We’ll never know unless we try,” Emily said slowly as if lost in thought. “I’ll ask someone who’ll lecture us. Couldn’t find it in the app.”
“Okay. I’ll find us some seats.”
I found two empty aisle seats and then felt a tap on my shoulder. My head turns around to a tall, slim woman with shiny black hair and amazing eyebrows.
“Excuse me,” She said. “Is this the PRS 441 class?”
She showed me a printout of a different course in Public Relations Practices.
“Nope. This is Investigative Journalism. Are you lost?”
“Probably.” She glanced at Emily, who laughed out loud a bit hysterically among the foreign crowd, and focused her stare on me. “I guess I’m not the only one new here.”
I laughed a little at that. I found it funny we were now foreigners in our homeland.
“I’m Michelle,” she said, offering me her hand.
I hadn’t shaken a hand in a long time. I had always greeted with a nod and raised eyebrows and a smile. I took her hand, uncertainly, and shook it twice, hoping I didn’t squeeze too hard or not hard enough.
“Aya,” I said.
“Do you think the actual practices of investigative journalism are dead?” Michelle raised an eyebrow at me. “The privileged few don’t want the truth out.”
I don’t agree with her. Investigative journalism’s practices are far from dead.
“It isn’t,” I said, glancing at her. “People like us want the truth out and that story is gonna put them behind bars when it’s an abuse of power.”
“You sound like a female Robin Hood.” Michelle chuckled. I forced a laugh and after a few seconds, it came naturally. It felt good to laugh.
“What are you up to after class?” Michelle asked.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded. She said that her cousin just left for another city and gave her free unused tickets to a museum nearby. She invited me to come with her.
“Just the two of us?”
Michelle shifted out of the way as the rest of the students came clattering into the room to find seats. Some had already settled, having opened their notebooks for the lecture.
“Bring a friend if you want,” she continued above the scrape of chairs. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
She turned to go, book bag bouncing against her shoulder. Then she turned and looked over her shoulder. “I’ll find you.”
Emily slumped into a chair beside me as if she hadn’t sat down in days. She tapped her phone with her pastel pink oval-shaped talons and the app refreshed, and it showed me a timetable. It was Professor Frederick Lumiere’s lecture. At my home, mom would bring home newspapers from her work. She read them. I took one too. From the Manila Tribune, I learned that Frederick Lumiere was renowned for uncovering how Banco de Filipinas had laundered at least 881 million pesos from the drug cartels.
Just then Professor Frederick Lumiere himself strode into the room, took up his position behind a lectern and stared us into silence. Wearing a black turtleneck and with a huge satchel in his hands, he looked handsome in an understated way; his smooth skin and toned body speaking of a raw kind of strength under his calm mien.
I’d seen a documentary about him on television and I swear I could barely contain the bliss threatening to scream its way out of me but I made an honest attempt at smiling at him instead.
When the whole class was seated, Professor Lumiere cleared his throat loudly and began a short discussion on the basic investigative principles such as understanding news value and protecting confidential sources.
He lectured us while walking back and forth across the stage.
He spoke slowly and deliberately in a baritone voice.
“Expect to write long-form, in-depth stories for my course. I also want you to identify a local person, problem or issue that merits investigation for your project, which must be submitted before the end of this semester.”
****
By the end of the day, we were back at the dormitory, a pebble-dashed building off-campus along the grassy quad. I heard the flutter of wings as birds squawked, and the air was thick with the smell of fresh blossoms. Emily squealed when she saw the tall, ivy-covered metal gate and wide green leaves pressing against the red brick walls just like in those horror flicks she liked so much.
To me, the building was mediocre. Vines climbing on well-built, solid masonry walls weren’t classic and beautiful to me, but I kept quiet, as always.
We walked into our flat, and it was vast and partitioned with three en suite rooms and a shared monochromatic kitchen. The scent of lavender hit me. I knew lavender as my mom kept jars of lavender sticks throughout our house to promote tranquility. The lavender filled my nostrils. It helped calm me as I thought about my final project, something truly extraordinary, something with a potential for greatness.
“UGH!” Emily threw her books on the wooden table, slumped into the nearest chair, and kicked off her shoes. “I never thought university life would be this exhausting!”
“Well, we made an effort in classes because the subject was engaging.” I said excitedly with a wide grin, savoring the moment.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve expressed enthusiasm at Frederick Lumiere’s class?”
“Aren’t we supposed to learn from the best?”
A slow smile built on Emily’s face. “You like him. You always have.”
My heart rate picked up slightly. “Like? Yes. But only because I admire his work.”
“Fine. Anyway, I saw that you were quick to make a friend today.”
“Her name’s Michelle and she invited me to the museum with her. You can come too.”
The main door unlocked and crashed open without a warning. For a split second, we sat framed in the doorway. Emily straightened her posture with her eyes bulging.
“Oh my God!”
Even I feel quite shocked. I mean, who would come at this hour? Most of the students arrived a week earlier, way before class commenced.
“Who is it?” I leaned forward for a closer glimpse.
Emily raised her eyebrows. “I dunno.”
It was our new roommate, Kim. She was pretty in her own way— she wore a blue silk blouse, and her auburn hair tied into a ponytail. She was trendy, and there was grit to her too. Kim carried a box with a taping sign that read KIM WARREN over it, chanting monotonously along with Island on the Sun on her Bluetooth headset.
Emily pushed her chair back and dived at her with a perfunctory smile. Kim turned into a surprised mime, dropping the box and its contents before taking off her headset.
“That look on your face is Instagram-worthy.” Emily joked.
“Oh, wow,” She said in surprise. “I didn’t know.”
“Have you considered a modelling career?” I asked.
“Modeling? No, my dear, I’ll be graduating soon from Swynford University to become a Diplomat, not a model. What about you?”
“An aspiring Investigative Journalist,” I said.
Kim took a deep breath. “Oh… I’ve heard the famous Frederick Lumiere teaches your class.”
“Can I borrow this?” Emily asked as she held a metallic pink Sharpie.
I raised my eyebrows at her. “What do you need that for?”
“I’d like to try lettering with it,” Emily said. “
“Of course,” Kim said.
From that day on, we’d drop by each other’s rooms wanting to borrow stuff. In the long days that stretched between even longer nights, we ate midnight snacks together while sharing personal stories. Sometimes, Kim would stream a movie from her laptop when we did not have much homework. One evening while we were snacking over hummus and Greek yogurt, we decided to talk about our plans after graduation. Kim said she’d have to endure a grueling government exam, while Emily thought about traveling to San Francisco before getting an internship.
“I doubt it, to be honest,” said Emily slowly. “You see, we got such ambitious plans, but right now, we’re little fishes in a big sea. How the heck do we build strong relationships with people who’d help us navigate university life and the job market?”
I tried not to give too much weight to the thing about being the little fish, but after a while it made my heart pound. I truly believed in the power of connections, but knowing how to start wasn’t easy.
“Um… what about career services?” I said. “Perhaps we can begin from there?”
Emily raised an eyebrow at me. “You serious? The career services suck. They even let go of four page resumes, even though recruiters have required only a single page.”
Kim laughed. “I have a better solution.”
