by Selena Kitt
“It is not a good story when it inspires a woman to look for a rich benefactor!” Principal Childress shot to her feet, a look of affronted disbelief on her face. “It is not a good story when adults use it as a way of encouraging a child to whore herself---”
I shot to my feet too, and this time I knew exactly what was causing me to shake once more. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Then what was that first entry you wrote about? You started it with a tip on how to target Greek billionaires---”
“There’s nothing wrong about those stories, about my aunts, and there’s nothing wrong about wanting to marry a Greek billionaire!”
Both of us froze.
“You are appalling,” she spat.
I couldn’t answer. Oh dear God, I had shouted! I was still appalled myself, unable to believe how I had become totally violent in a few hours. First, I got into a freaking fist fight and now I was involved in a shouting match with my Principal Childress.
This was wrong, but…I couldn’t help it. She made me so mad! Trying to get a grip on my emotions, I said unevenly, “I was orphaned when I was eight. My aunts were career women and suddenly they had an eight year old to take care of. I was insatiable for bedtime stories because it was my way of clinging to my parents’ memories, and they knew that. When they ran out of stories, they just switched to simplifying Harlequin romances. Surely you can understand that? Surely you don’t see anything wrong?” I looked at her pleadingly. “You know those books---”
“No. I’m sorry. I do not know those books because I don’t read anything that’s sold in Walmart.”
I gaped at her answer. “But---”
She shut me up with a glare, pointing at me like she was branding me a witch in the Salem Trials. “You have more or less admitted that your aunts had raised you to believe it is fine to use the holy sacrament of matrimony as a stepping stone for improving your financial and social status in life.”
Was she basically saying I was a gold-digger?
“Holy Angels is a well-respected Catholic school, Ms. Tanner. If you wish to remain enrolled here, then tomorrow you must admit that the entries you have written in your blog---”
“But it isn’t my blog!”
Principal Childress ignored that. “---are based on false and malicious beliefs.”
My head started to hurt, enough to have me close my eyes. If I understood her perfectly, she was basically asking me to call my aunts liars and turn my back on my happy childhood.
“Well?” Principal Childress demanded.
I opened my eyes and gave her the answer she asked for.
Fuck you.
* * * *
“You’re only eating salad?” Aunt Norah asked that night as she hung her lab coat on the back of the chair before taking the seat at the head of the table. She had on her trademark pearl necklace, and matched with her silk sheath dress, Aunt Norah looked more like a socialite than a doctor on call.
I adjusted the dark glasses on my nose. “I’m on a diet.”
Aunt Vilma took the seat across from me. She was also dressed in her typical power suit, pink, form-fitting, and covering her from head to toe. She had once told me that “looking sexy while kicking ass” was her way of discouraging the big boys in courtrooms from messing with her.
When Aunt Norah asked me about what new movie we could watch over the weekend, I began to relax. My appetite gradually came back and I happily moved on to the next course, a creamy mushroom soup that was my aunt’s only masterpiece in the kitchen.
As Aunt Vilma took another helping of Caesar salad, she asked in a disarmingly casual voice, “And what about school, Mairi? Do you think we’ve given you ample time to have the guts to tell us what really happened?”
Pweh! That was the sound of my last spoonful of soup spitting out of my mouth, but even after that horrifying display I still kept on choking.
I heard Aunt Norah snapping, “Couldn’t you have been more subtle than that?”
“I gave her more than five minutes,” Aunt Vilma retorted in the same tone. “In my experience, when a person doesn’t talk in five minutes, it means she never will.”
Aunt Norah started pounding me on the back. “She’s not one of your defendants! She’s your niece!”
“I know,” Aunt Vilma said as she also started pounding me on the back. “That’s why I gave her seven minutes!”
“Oh for God’s sake!”
“What?”
“STOP!” I didn’t mean to scream, but if I let them continue arguing I’d likely end up black and blue. With a little wince, I inched away from their hands. “I’m, umm, okay now.” Not. I suddenly felt like I had let an elephant massage my back with its hooves.
Aunt Norah’s gaze widened when she saw me wince again. “Oh, dear. I’m sorry. We didn’t realize---”
“Are you okay?” Aunt Vilma cut her off, concern lining her voice.
She tried reaching for me but I quickly pushed my chair a few inches back again. “I’m okay now,” I said hastily. Seeing them still gazing at me worriedly, knowing what I had to tell them, I decided to play it safe and moved my chair farther away until its back hit the wall.
To my aunts’ credit, they didn’t lose their tempers or even thought I was to blame.
“Does your expulsion have to do something with your shiner?” Aunt Vilma asked.
I was stunned. “You know?”
Aunt Vilma sighed. “Honey, it’s only in the movies that people can get away hiding the fact they’ve gotten punched with sunglasses.”
Before I could answer that, dishonestly but defensively and purely out of pride, Aunt Norah said gently, “Your principal stated in her fax that you’re no longer eligible for admission in their school. I called to know the exact reason but she says it’s classified.”
So Principal Childress had kept her side of the agreement, I thought with cold satisfaction. After flipping the bird at the old witch the way she deserved to, I had told Principal Childress she could expel me and I wouldn’t contest it – but only if she didn’t breathe a single word of her stupid accusations to my aunts or anyone else. If she did, then I was going to have Aunt Vilma sue her for discrimination and slander – and we both knew who would win that case.
“Do you have anything to say about that, Mairi?”
I shrugged, keeping my sunglasses on because it was easier to lie that way. “I got into a fight with another girl in school. A really violent fight. So they expelled me.”
“That’s it?” Aunt Norah sounded doubtful.
“Yup.” I slowly resumed eating, just to convince them I was totally okay with what happened.
“Just tell it to me straight,” Aunt Vilma pleaded. “It’s not because you’re pregnant, is it?”
I spit out another spoonful again.
Aunt Norah added uneasily, “Or on drugs?”
My spoon dropped to my plate. “Aunt Norah! Aunt Vilma!” Were they seriously asking me those questions?
“Well, you can’t blame us! We didn’t raise you to be a hooligan,” Aunt Norah answered defensively.
Silence.
And then Aunt Vilma coughed, and when she did I had to cough, too.
Aunt Norah’s gaze narrowed.
I’m not going to laugh. This is not the time for laughter. Oh my God, Aunt Vilma is so unfair! Why are her shoulders shaking?
Aunt Norah burst out, “Oh, for God’s sake! My old-fashioned English is not the main point here.”
Aunt Vilma lost it and I started to giggle. “Hooligan, Aunt Vi. Did you hear her say it?”
Aunt Vilma chortled, “I so did!”
It was a reprieve, a temporary one, and we all knew and allowed it. Maybe later tonight, when it was time for us to settle down with our own copies of our group bedtime story, we would talk about it again.
But for now, we were going to enjoy some harmless, adorable bit of normalcy.
Aunt Vilma and Aunt Norah were still trading insults and I stayed in my seat, enjoying my
dinner as I listened to them one-up each other with the wittiest barbs. How, I wondered sadly, could those narrow-minded idiots ever think that these two wonderful women were whores and gold diggers?
They had made me believe in true love in the form of Greek billionaires.
Was that so wrong?
“Are you okay, Mairi?”
I started, realizing that both my aunts had ill-concealed looks of worry in their gazes. The sight of it made my stomach queasy because I didn’t like seeing them like that. I wanted them to be happy – to stay happy because that was what they had succeeded in making me feel all these years, even if I had lost my parents too early.
Forcing a smile, I lied, “I was just wondering what book we’d be reading tonight.”
“Lynne Graham’s new one of course,” Aunt Vilma replied promptly.
“Oh, please. Not another one. Can we please switch to Sharon Kendrick for tonight?”
“Betty Neels would be good,” I piped in, just for the fun of it. I personally loved the author’s books, but my aunts found her work too “sweet”.
“There isn’t even a Greek billionaire in any of her books,” Aunt Vilma countered with a sniff. “She only writes about doctors and she’s not even part of Harlequin’s Medical Romance.”
“Plus, those men are too nice for my liking,” Aunt Norah grumbled. “They never act like jerks!”
Closing my eyes with a genuine smile this time, I let my mind drift once more while listening with half an ear to my aunts passionately enumerating the many reasons why they just weren’t the kind of women to fall in love with handsome, wealthy, and intelligent Dutch surgeons.
One day, I thought hazily. One day I was going to prove everyone wrong about my aunts. One day, I’d show the whole world that it was perfectly fine to dream about falling in love with a Greek billionaire because it could and would come true if you wanted it badly enough.
And I wanted it. Badly.
Lesson 1
To catch a Greek billionaire, you must first find a way to get in his line of sight.
She said: Find a way to stand beside him (model, actress, lottery winner)…or behind him (nanny, secretary, or just bump into him).
He said: You are making it too complicated, matakia mou. It is this simple - do you want to be on top or under me?
8 Years Later
Mairi’s heart started beating like crazy as the ornate gates of the Grecian Academy for Young Ladies finally opened. This was what she had been waiting for all her life – her very first possible encounter with Greek billionaires.
She opened her mouth to talk about how excited she was about today, felt her friends’ knowing gazes on her, and instead decided to shut up. She was not going to take the bait. She was a mature twenty-something woman with good self-control. She would totally show them she could act like an adult if she wanted to.
Mandy and Velvet crowded around her. They were her closest friends, the only ones whom Mairi knew right from the start that she could trust with her secret. Of course, being trustworthy did not mean they were above teasing her about it. They were not.
“Come on,” Mandy teased. She was a slim dark-haired woman with a practical streak that bordered on obsessive, a trait that served her well when teaching Economics. But as a friend to a dreamer like Mairi? Not fun were the first words that came to mind.
“Look at all those sports cars and limousines driving our way,” Velvet whispered enticingly. Tall and auburn-haired, she looked more like an exotic model than the Chemistry teacher with the rather acerbic wit that she was. “One of them could be the man you’ve been dreaming of meeting all your life. Isn’t this something worth celebrating?”
Don’t take the bait, don’t take---
“Come on, Mair. You know you want to say it. What if the first man who steps out of the car is tall, dark, and handsome with the most spectacular Greek accent---”
Her eyes glazed over as Mairi started to fantasize about how her first encounter with her future Greek billionaire husband would play out. A happy-crazy grin flitted over her lips as she exclaimed excitedly without thinking, “Yay me!”
Mandy and Velvet burst into laughter.
Oh, drat. She had taken the bait. Again!
Clutching her sides, Mandy gasped, “You are way too cute!”
Velvet waved imaginary pom-poms in the air. “Yay for Mairi finally getting to meet her first Greek billionaire!”
“Ha-ha. I know you guys are just making fun of me,” Mairi grumbled even though she couldn’t help sighing dreamily. She was that happy. And excited. And nervous. Today was the day she had been waiting for most of her life. The thought of meeting him was more than enough to have her silently gasping for breath.
Mandy snapped her fingers in front of Mairi’s face. “Your head’s in the clouds again!”
She answered almost proudly, “Yes.”
Velvet groaned. “You are the silliest gold digger I’ve ever met!”
Mairi didn’t bother answering, being used to Velvet’s rather twisted sense of humor. The worse her insults were, the more deeply she cared about that person.
“How do I look?” Mairi nervously smoothed out non-existent creases on the ankle length skirt of her daisy yellow dress. It was loose and high-waisted, just the way she needed it to hide her dreadfully generous curves.
“Sexy enough to eat.” Velvet snickered.
The answer had her gasping. “Velvet!”
“Oh, hush! Greek guys are very passionate. You should know that by now. So if you’re serious about nabbing yourself a Greek billionaire, you should be ready to let go of more than a few of your sexual inhibitions.”
Mairi couldn’t help but snort. “Like I’m going to take an advice from another virgin.”
“At least I already had my first kiss,” Mandy retorted.
She opened and closed her mouth. Mandy had a point, darn it.
“Sssh,” Velvet suddenly said under her breath. “Mairi’s bitchy supervisor is heading this way.”
Following Velvet’s gaze, Mairi realized with a sinking heart that Charity Fallon, the English rose who headed the school’s language department, was indeed walking towards her. What had she done this time, Mairi wondered uneasily. In the almost seven weeks that she had been teaching in GAYL, there wasn’t ever a day that the older woman hadn’t found something to sweetly berate her for.
Rose Thorn, the school’s headmistress, suddenly rushed past them, calling out, “Places, everyone!”
Mairi caught sight of Charity freezing at Rose’s words. Since she was one of the department heads, Charity was supposed to be in the frontlines and yet here she was, almost at the very back.
Rose clapped her hands twice. “Music!” On cue, the live orchestra inside the school started playing Beethoven in the background.
Charity recovered and hurriedly squeezed herself in between Mairi and Velvet.
Velvet leaned back far enough for Charity not to see her and rolled her eyes at Mairi as she mouthed, ‘I hate this little shit’.
Mairi choked. She was not going to laugh. Oh Greek gods, wherever you are, please do not let her laugh.
Around her, the silence had deepened while blank and professional expressions settled on the other teachers’ faces. Rose had divided the faculty into two groups, with the academic staff lined on one side while the extracurricular and administrative staff was at the opposite side. Each of them occupied every step of the majestic staircase leading to the school’s entrance.
To an outsider, they probably looked like stage cast members doing their best to set up a la-di-dah party scene. Unfortunately, the reason was a lot more mundane than that.
Today was Parent Teacher Consultation Day, and in GAYL it meant having to prove to parents that the school’s six-digit tuition charges were not for nothing.
“Are you nervous?” Charity whispered to Mairi.
She had to think really hard how to answer that one. The right answer should be no, but Charity sounded like
she would rather hear Mairi say ‘yes’.
Don’t say yes. Velvet shook her head with a warning glare. She was always after Mairi to be more assertive.
But Mairi still heard herself saying, “A little?” She just couldn’t make herself start a fight – even if it was warranted.
“Awww.” Charity sounded terribly sad, but there was a gleam of unholy glee in her eyes.
Behind Charity, Velvet made a circular motion next to her ear. Psycho, her friend mouthed.
Mairi choked.
“Oh! Are you okay?”
“I’m, umm---”
Charity shut her down sweetly. “I hope you’re not coming down with anything, Mairi.”
Darn it. Charity’s oxymoron ways were just too confusing. She said weakly, “I’m not?” At Charity’s scowl, Mairi said hastily, “I mean, I might be?”
“Aww.” This time, Charity smiled.
The sight of it just made her head hurt worse. Charity’s smile had always been like this, half-friendly and half-nasty. Mairi had tried several times to replicate it without any success, tempting her to write to the Guinness Book of Records to report the phenomenon. And if Guinness didn’t want it, well, there was always Ripley’s.
“I know this is your first PTC so I totally understand if you’re nervous.”
Oh, how sweet. Charity seemed honestly concerned about her this time. Mairi began, “I’m actually---”
Again, the other woman cut her off with a pretty smile. “That’s why I thought you should stick to taking care of the girls in Class E and I’ll take care of those in Class A. I’m just concerned you won’t be able to cope with it. Class A parents can be so demanding.”
Velvet was exhaling loudly. Sucker, she mouthed when Mairi looked at her.
Mairi sighed. Drat it, Velvet was right. She had played the sucker. Again.
There she was, thinking Charity had finally discovered her nice streak. But instead all Charity cared about was making herself look good in the parents’ eyes. Class A girls had the highest marks in English while most of the students in Class E, which Mairi had taken over when another teacher quit mid-semester, had some of the lowest grades in their year.
