by Marian Tee
“How was your date with Vic-Vic?” Her voice was slurred, but her eyes were intensely bright, and I knew she had started using again.
My heart broke the second time, but this one was worse because the wound was older and deeper.
Before I could answer her, Magnolia continued sadly, “Roland left me. He told me I’m an old hag.”
Goddamn you, Roland. Granted, he was twenty years my mom’s junior, but he didn’t have to say that to her face.
Magnolia looked up at me. “Do you think so, too?”
I gazed at her, and I saw who she had been. The world’s most successful model turned entrepreneur, someone who had used her inheritance to build a fashion empire.
I gazed at her, and I saw who she was now. A woman the whole world laughed at for the way she kept kissing younger frogs in search of true love. None of them seemed to remember how beautiful my mom was, inside and out, when she thought my father had still been a prince and he hadn’t turned into the biggest frog on earth by leaving her for my own babysitter.
The world might never remember who my mother was, but I did. She was the greatest mom, then and now, and I would never hold her need for true love against her. Pushing her hair away from her face, I shook my head. “I’ll never think that, Mom.” All the hurt that I felt from Victor’s betrayal faded in the face of my mother’s pain. My heartbreak could wait. It was Magnolia who mattered.
My mother stirred in my arms with a sigh. “You have it so lucky, baby.”
The slur in her voice was more pronounced now, and it was accompanied by a deliriously singsong note. She was no longer herself, and knowing it hurt. I looked around and saw the empty bottle of whisky on the center table as well as the stuff she used for taking drugs. The sight of it hurt even more, and it made me want to cry. The pain of having Victor – the boy I loved – slap me was nothing compared to this.
Magnolia’s eyes drifted shut. “You have it so lucky, baby. You’re still so young. No one’s going to think you’re an old hag.”
No, Mom, I thought fiercely. I’m lucky because I have you.
Her voice turned into a sob. “I just want someone to love.”
And you do.
I’m here for you, Mom.
I love you.
But I didn’t say the words because I knew that Magnolia wanted a different kind of love, and it wasn’t wrong for her to want it. It wasn’t.
Fighting to hold back my tears, wanting to be strong for her the way she was once strong for me, I started stroking her hair again. “You’ll find him sooner or later, Mom,” I whispered.
And as long as Magnolia kept kissing frogs, I’d do the same thing, too. I’d prove to the world that kissing frogs didn’t make me – or my mom – a slut.
It was just one way of finding a prince.
Eight Years Ago
Nik Alexandropoulos’ handsome face remained impassive throughout the twenty-minute footage that revealed Beth Lewis’ duplicity. His posture was just as unrevealing, Nik’s straight back and elegantly crossed legs merely painting the same picture of formality that he had always displayed.
No one inside the private conference room would ever guess that deep inside, the twenty-year-old heir to one of Greece’s most powerful billion-dollar empires was reeling. Why was he even surprised, Nik found himself wondering tautly. Why did he even foolishly think she would be different?
Beth was not the first one to betray his trust, wasn’t even the second. She was just one in a long line of foster parents assigned by the law to take him in until he reached his age of majority and was able to take full control of his fortune. Like all her predecessors, she had found herself unable to resist the temptation of cashing in on his name.
When they reached the end of the footage, Antonis Grivas, the head of the legal team appointed to oversee the Alexandropoulos’ billion-dollar trust, turned to Nik deferentially. “Your decision, sir?” He might be a decade older than Nik, but Antonis was no fool. Nik was his father’s son, and it meant that even now, Nik’s intelligence or ability to wield power should never be underestimated.
“Have her arrested.”
Everyone in the room stiffened in shock. Antonis was just as taken aback by the ruthlessness displayed by Nik, even though he could understand where the younger man was coming from. Beth was Nik’s seventh foster mother, and the one who had lasted the longest at five years. Most had lasted mere months before trying to either steal control of the Alexandropoulos fortune or sell photos of Nik to the press, which could easily fetch thousands of dollars each. Such was the world’s fascination with Nik, with the media painting him as the quintessential poor little rich boy.
Antonis had thought with Beth, Nik had finally secured himself a proper family environment to grow up in. There had been no red flags in the woman’s history, and he and his team had scrutinized everything and everyone in Beth Lewis’ life thoroughly. She was a widow who had a high-paying job and a loving family in the background. Repeated miscarriages had made Beth unable to have any children, and Antonis thought that would have clinched it, would have ensured the woman would love Nik unconditionally.
In a perfect world, that would have happened.
But as Antonis knew and as Nik Alexandropoulos kept finding out for himself, the world they lived in was not perfect.
“Are you sure, Nik?” Antonis asked carefully. “Perhaps you’d like some more time to think about it—” The younger man shook his head, silencing him.
“I will not change my mind.” He lowered his gaze to the table, watching sightlessly as he played with his gold-plated pen, twirling it effortlessly with his fingers. The spinning motion reminded him of his life and how it had come full circle. He had started out alone, and now he was alone again. It was truly how it should be, and it was time Nik accepted that.
All the signs had been there to see for months, but Nik had stubbornly denied them, telling himself that Beth would prove different. It had started when his foster mother had fallen for the new American doctor from the local hospital. In hindsight, he could see how the man had slowly but steadily poisoned her mind. Beth had never asked Nik about how much he was worth until that man had come into her life. Beth had never made Nik feel like he was someone she was obliged to care for, had never made Nik feel he was not the son of her heart until she had found someone else to care for.
He thought about the years he had spent under Beth’s care. He made himself relive each incident, from the time she had bought his tux for the prom with her own money to the time she had tears in her eyes when she found out Nik had received another special award in college.
Every memory he relived, Nik methodically sought to destroy by making himself remember those last few minutes of the footage, where Beth Lewis had completely turned her back on being his mother.
How much are you willing to pay for his photos?
He’s been a drain on my finances, like a parasite living off me, and he’s never felt guilty about it. It’s just right I earn back what I’ve spent on him.
When the younger man raised his gaze to meet his, Antonis sucked his breath in. There was so much emptiness, so much coldness, that the lawyer was gravely tempted to call for a doctor. Physically, Nik might be in peak condition, but those emotionless eyes told Antonis that something had completely changed inside the younger man, and it was not for the better.
“Have her arrested,” Nik repeated, and the way the Alexandropoulos heir said it told Antonis there was no way he would ever dissuade Nik from his decision. “I want the story of her arrest as well as the reason behind it to make its rounds in all the local papers.”
Antonis frowned at the harshness of the repercussions Beth Lewis was to face, but all he asked was, “What if the global media picks up on it? Do you want us to kill the story?”
“It doesn’t matter either way,” Nik answered. “The world will soon know it doesn’t have any power to hurt me.”
Present Time
At six in the morning,
only the sound of lapping waves and the faint murmurs of early morning hikers intruded on the idyllic silence enveloping Teleios. Other than that, everything else was quiet, with most of the island’s transient residents still lost in the oblivion induced by liquor and drugs.
Alone in her corner of the beach, Daria tucked her knees close under her chin and simply…breathed.
She closed her eyes, enjoying the tranquility around her, knowing that she probably had less than an hour before the party island would again wake from its few hours of slumber.
It was Day 5 of her weeklong vacation, and what she sought still managed to elude her.
She was so, so tired of falling in love.
Her vacation was supposed to be her own version of Eat, Pray, and Love, but so far all Daria had been able to do were the first two.
She had eaten. Oh boy, she had eaten. Fern salad with a refreshing mix of calamansi vinaigrette dressing and olive oil, freshly caught tiger prawns with mango salsa, and panna cotta with lemongrass-vanilla infused syrup. And that was just her first meal on the island.
And Daria had prayed, too. She recited the rosary every day, completed a meditation walk in a nearby retreat house, and had fasted on Day 4.
But love?
It refused to make sense to her this time. In fact, she only had to make herself remember the last time she had fallen in love, and her skin would crawl at the mere memory of it.
Love was supposed to be a good thing, but she just didn’t know how to make it work.
How did others get it so easily? Daria wondered. Other girls only had to take one look at a guy and they knew right away if that guy was the one. Why couldn’t it be the same for her?
Staring absently at the way her toes curled and uncurled in the white, powder-fine sand, Daria tried, for the nth time, to figure out where she always went wrong.
Was it because she always happened to fall in love with beautiful-looking guys? But…what else could she do? They were beautiful, and they did make her heart beat faster. Was she supposed to ignore that and purposely date someone who made her heart skip a beat for all the wrong reasons?
Or perhaps it was because most of the guys she dated were obviously richer than her? Daria supposed that made her seem like a gold-digger, but it wasn’t that. She was attracted to successful guys because her dad had been an unapologetic bum his entire life, and he still had the gall to dump Magnolia for a teenage babysitter. Guys who were nice but without ambition just weren’t sexy enough for her.
Were those the reasons why she couldn’t find Mr. Right?
The question played over and over in her mind as she tried to assess her qualities as a prospective girlfriend. Maybe it was all her, not them. But she wasn’t clingy or demanding, was neither an idiot nor a know-it-all. So what had made all those men dump her?
Could it all boil down to the fact that she wasn’t able to give away her V-card so easily?
Daria was already shaking her head even before the thought was complete.
No.
She didn’t give a damn if all the guys she dated believed she had led them on. Fuck them, Daria thought. She had loved them – had genuinely, foolishly fallen in love with each one of them – and yet all of them had only wanted her body.
She had the right to not want to have sex right away, and if the men she dated couldn’t appreciate that, then that only meant none of them were truly right for her.
Right?
Right?
Right?
Daria wanted to say ‘right’ back to herself, but memories of the twenty-eight men who had dated and dumped her since she was fifteen made it impossible. The memories made her question herself, made her question why she was making such a big deal out of sex, and she hated that.
Why can’t I find a guy who would truly love me?
She wished she could ask the question out loud, but the last time she had, most people had jumped down her throat for it. They had made her feel shallow, stupid, and greedy for wanting to be in love.
As Magnolia Everest’s daughter, she had inherited her mother’s looks and fortune. As far as most people were concerned, it was just right she didn’t have everything going for her, just right that she had her heart broken every time she fell in love.
Or at least that was what most of the supposedly well-meaning people in her life made Daria feel.
If only Yanna and Alyx were with her, Daria thought. Maybe she wouldn’t feel so depressed and pessimistic. But both her friends were tied down with eight-to-five jobs, and neither had been able to ask for a leave of absence to accompany her to Teleios.
Frustration turned into restlessness, and Daria got to her feet determinedly. Patting the sand off her shorts, she stalked towards the closest vending machine. An idea had occurred to her, more fanciful than practical, but since she had tried everything to get out of her romantic slump, Daria decided she might as well try it as a last resort.
After slipping a one-dollar bill into the machine, Daria grabbed the bottle of Gatorade that fell out of the machine’s dispenser. Uncapping it, she drank the entire thing in one gulp. Step one done, she thought while heading back to her isolated spot on the shore.
There were more people out and about now, mostly families heading off to snorkel or to join one of the island-hopping tours offered by the locals. Heads turned as Daria walked past them, with men mostly gaping while the women with them scowled. The extreme contrast in people’s reaction to her wasn’t new, and Daria paid it no heed.
Sinking back down to the sand in a sitting position, Daria placed the empty bottle next to her and pulled out her notepad and pen from the back pocket of her shorts. Flipping to the first blank page, Daria began to draw.
After finishing high school, she had chosen to sign up for a one-year drawing course in Japan and had been working freelance as a kawaii artist since then. Her first illustration was of a curly-haired girl with a thought bubble over her head.
Dear God,
Please help me find the right person for me. I no longer care if he’s butt-ugly or homeless. I just need help to find the man who’s meant for me.
If it meets Your plans, I only ask that he be the following:
She flipped the page and drew the second illustration on its back.
1. He must love me as me. He may want me to change, but it’s only so I can reach my best potential.
2. He must love and respect my mother or learn to do so.
Daria bit the end of her pen as she studied her requests with its accompanying drawings. Those weren’t too much, right? At the end of the day, those were the only ones that mattered. Everything else was superficial. Nodding to herself, she moved to the next page and started drawing again. This time, she drew a princess surrounded by frogs, with a strip of text above.
Since I have a really bad track record for mistaking princes as frogs, I only ask that You give me a sign. Could you please have this man show up in my life with a—
She paused again. She had to think of a symbol that wouldn’t be so ubiquitous or that would defeat the entire purpose of her experiment. She looked down absent-mindedly, and the character design painted on her pen caught her gaze.
Oh.
That was it. That was another sign, actually. She drew several circles and colored several of them black.
Could you please have this man show up in my life with a PANDA?
She flipped to another page, and this time she drew a piece of paper, containing the continuation of her letter to God, floating in the wind.
Thank You, God. That’s all I ask. This time, I’ll stop kissing frogs and simply let things happen the way they’re meant to happen.
Also, as my personal sacrifice, I will promise never to—
Daria’s pen stilled mid-air. What could she offer as a personal sacrifice that she had a chance of keeping? She thought about it real hard, and only one answer came to her. She began to draw again, placing various symbols on top of the girl’s head before ending the series of
characters with several exclamation points.
I promise never to curse again (Oh my God not included).
Amen.
Tearing off the illustrated pages from her notepad with a flourish, Daria carefully folded them several times until they were reduced into tiny square pieces. Her heart was beating so hard and fast right now, and the fact made her smile, giddily and sheepishly, but also it made her smile in relief.
She had hated being so depressed about love. It was her greatest fear because if she lost hope, she was terrified Magnolia would feel the same thing, and Daria didn’t want that. She didn’t ever want that, not when the last time Magnolia was depressed, she had almost overdosed on sleeping pills.
Her hands shook as she reached for the bottle, and she felt her stomach drop the same time she let the last piece of paper fall inside.
God be with you, Gatorade bottle, Daria thought as she twisted the cap back in place.
Standing up, she took a deep breath, wanting to use all her strength to toss the bottle.
She lifted her arm up in a mighty swing—
The bottle flew out of her hold in the opposite direction.
SHIII—
Wait, she couldn’t curse.
Curse it!
Why couldn’t have she inherited Magnolia’s athleticism as well?
Curse it, why?
Instead of flinging the bottle into the sea, Daria had ended up throwing the bottle back to the island’s beachfront path.
A moment later and she heard someone curse.
