Table of Contents [Report This]
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1. Fall in love.
2. Get married.
3. Have children.
4. Travel.
5. Watch a sunset in Paris.
– – – –
As far as she was concerned, her name was Parker.
She’d had a proper name once. A middle name of Catherine, of her mother’s, and a surname of her father’s. The first name didn’t exist because she’d erased it from her memory by sheer will. It only existed in one place on earth and she knew that was in the head of a man who was in every way still a boy, though perhaps it hadn’t survived there, either.
The Centre, the place where her father worked, had been her play realm for a good three years. She’d said goodbye to the shades of grey and dusty air ducts and thoughts of an elevator and a boy name Jarod, with nothing more than a sad whisper and the crumpling of a photograph in her hand.
She’d said goodbye, and she’d gone away to boarding school.
Parker had always been a bright girl. Friendly, witty and precocious. A life of mild isolation had left her without many friends she could call her own, but she had never been shy. She introduced herself, got to know her classmates.
Got by.
The first few months, she had written to the boy named Jarod. She’d been sick for home and would have given anything to hear of how he was doing, even if it meant remembering the shades of grey and dusty air ducts and an elevator. But he hadn’t replied so she’d pushed her longing for home out of her head, figuring that as she worked hard at math and English and science, the pretender was working hard too, too busy to reply.
At boarding school, she discovered boys on an entirely new level, and Jarod was quickly, though only temporarily, forgotten. Innocent affections and a chaste kiss on the lips paled in comparison to the things that went on behind the teacher’s backs at the establishment, things that were capable of fascinating and disgusting her all at once. Parker had never been the type to crush and to giggle, and her father had made explicitly clear certain behaviours that would not be tolerated. She had, however, reached the age where rebellion was tempting and the pressure to conform and fit in eventually grew too much.
She didn’t respond to teasing or bullying or threats kindly; she was adamant that she would never turn out like her mother, a weakling that would take the coward’s way out, abandoning those who needed her the most just because things got tough.
Early in the semester she’d found herself caught up in the unfortunate thing they called a bitch fight, something that had stemmed from a nasty exchange intended to goad Parker with degrading remarks about her mother whom, despite her obvious resentments towards, Parker would fiercely defend. The other girl had scratched with artificial nails and clawed at hair.
Parker had broken her wrist.
The punishment had been easily sidestepped - she was nothing if not persuasive; the headmistress of the time had taken Parker’s side on the matter, dismissing her act of aggression as an accident instigated by provocation.
The dancing classes and piano lessons had stopped when her mother had died, and Parker vehemently stayed away from them, deliberately adopting new hobbies. She enjoyed swimming and sprinting, but lost interest in sport as her schooling progressed. She decided she simply didn’t have the time, and focused on essays and secret rendezvous at the edge of the grounds instead. After classes finished at four, she kept a diary – a journal in which she talked about the boys who were cute and the girls who were mean. She never worried about anyone finding and reading her diary, because, clever and sly after spending a makeshift childhood sneaking around the Centre unnoticed, she had come up with the perfect hiding place – and that was her bible. She literally wrote her entries on the pages. As most of the students veered far away from the cursed book that they easily grew sick of hearing about, she knew no one would ever think to look there.
Cafeteria food was nothing special, but edible. The dessert was always promising and that left something to look forward to at the end of the day, or so she’d thought as she scribbled Mallory Evans can go copulate with herself – vigorously across Samuel,14:22. The snobby girls soon tired of teasing her and found a new kid to pick on; Parker kept mostly to herself but joined a band of less judgmental females, of which she quickly became the leader.
She’d been suspended two years later; caught making out with a junior in an empty classroom by a bothersome teacher that wore odd socks and shirts of nauseating shades who was not as easy to sweet talk as the earlier headmistress had been. Daddy had been furious and, as he had a habit of doing, dealt with the problem by bundling it up and pretending it didn’t exist; he shipped her off to Italy.
Signed-sealed-delivered-and-handle-with-care-or-my-business-will-make-your-business-bankrupt. You-snooze-you-lose, you-flunk-it-and-I’ll-dunk-you so study hard. You-break-her-heart-I-break-your-nose. Devil-may-care and hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-teenage-daughter-scorned.
She’d packed her bags, muttered a four letter word she’d picked up from Emily Granger whom often badmouthed her parents, kissed Daddy’s cheek and said hel-lo Italy... more specifically, the male population of.
This was the year that Parker discovered her greatest asset; her legs. She found herself shortening the grey pleated school skirts, flashing thigh in order to manipulate boys to do her bidding. She had always been cunning and mischievous, but it was only after her fifteenth birthday that she realised she could use her sexuality in that way, and that the opposite sex was inclined to respond. She quickly took to the idea.
In her geography class she met Alison, another American student who wore her eyes heavy with mascara and had a beauty spot to the right of her top lip. A camaraderie was formed more out of necessity than genial friendship. It was a matter of, oh, you’re American, and that was that - they rarely left each other’s side.
Alison was rude and obnoxious and as sarcastic as anything. She smoked cigarettes in the toilets during lunchtimes and she’d lost her virginity when she was fourteen years old to a guy four years her senior. She never did her homework and she’d tried marijuana. Twice.
If Mr Parker had have been there, he would have forbade the acquaintance. If Catherine had still been alive, she would have frowned with silent disapproval.
Parker and Alison became instant best friends.
She thought of Jarod too much, and yet not often enough. She’d described him to her dorm mates once before and it had not gone down well; they’d either not believed her or treated the notion with disdain, telling her that the boy sounded nothing more than a lab rat, no more important than the servants that worked for the families of the richer girls. Uncomfortable, she’d dropped the subject altogether.
The Centre became nothing more than a distant memory in the back of her mind and she was on a mission to forget. Excuses grew old, even to herself, and deep down, she was hurt by the lack of reply from her childhood friend. She turned bitter and resentful towards the life she had left behind and worked harder in her efforts to become someone she had never been because she was determined to change things, losing the diligent interest in her schoolwork and focusing on having one hell of a social life.
Summer holidays were spent off-campus, watching the beautiful bodies of the basketball players, sleek with sweat, moving around the courts with deadly precision. Giuseppe had been one of them, but he hadn’t caught Parker’s eye until much later. Her point of interest then had been one of his friends; indeed, the bad boy type - devilishly handsome and a rebel in every sense of the word.
His name had been Antonio, Tony for short, and he had been Parker’s first.
Contrary to popular belief, Daddy’s little angel had actually managed to keep her v-card up until her seventeenth birthday, when the girl who had once said she was saving herself until marriage half-willingly gave it up after a good few drinks of beer followed by a steamy make-out session in the back of a car whose registration plates she could still remember.
By the time her first sexual encounter rolled around she’d picked up enough from cheesy romance novels and magazines and the promiscuous girls in her dorm to write a small novel on the matter. Parker had always been a fast learner and she exercised an adept ability to put into play techniques she had only learned by word of mouth, taking on the task with the same cool confidence with which she approached everything in her life. Her early experiences were none too fancy; merely evidence of a temporary loss of control or a desire to cure the deep ache of loneliness that had been seeded within and was steadily growing with each passing day. Experimentation led her to discover she preferred to spit, not swallow, and she kept an empty beer bottle at the bedside. The other was permitted, but she liked on top; the majority of her partners guessed that much anyway because she had a reputation of cold steel control and getting what she wanted.
A rather sordid challenge issued at a late night drunken game of truth or dare erupted into a full blown semester long clandestine affair with one of her lecturers; the handsome, bookish type with caramel come-to-bed eyes who wore glasses and navy sweaters.
He’d been a good screw while it lasted - secret meetings after class and ulterior motives behind excuses for her to stay back and discuss her latest paper, followed by cozy cups of the best Brazilian coffee and talks of literature and art. He’d called her mature and sophisticated and she took small comfort from his approbations, telling herself that it was why she had kept it going so long.
She’d bored of the professor after a semester and her History class had never been the same after that. Punishment for talking (of which she was prone to do) was to stand on her chair and so the boys in the back row got a daily kick out of looking up the short skirts of the particularly defiant.
Winter was spent, for the most part, huddled in groups of wet and shivering mass, encircling the makeshift soccer field in the gym to watch the boys, deliciously tanned with Adonis figures and twinkling eyes.
Tony had been a striker; furious and hotheaded. He kicked with all the rage of a boy whose father was a drunk and whose mother had never really cared about him. He could be cool and placid in the day but the moment he set foot on that court, Parker knew he played the game as if he were fighting the devil himself.
The losing side was that of the school clowns; the ones that knew that they would lose and figured if they were going to be laughed at they might as well make it worth while. This team fashioned daily themes - one Monday they wore brightly coloured wigs and the following Wednesday had been cotton striped shirts.
A change in music would signal the beginning of what was known as the boom goal period - five minutes of non-stop action and ferocious frenzy as the players battled it out for double points. The keeper would make a save and if he stalled in throwing back the ball, the opposition surrounded the goals like lionesses closing in for the kill.
Parker had once fancied a member of the other team, early on in the year. The one that had caught her eye had been the goalie; different to the others as he wore a shirt perhaps five sizes too small that looked ridiculously adorable on a muscled senior with sandy hair and eyes the colour of the ocean. He sported remarkable talent, deflecting the ball effortlessly, allowing shots past only when they caught him off guard as he tired from the other team’s continuous attempts. His voice was much unlike Tony’s, whose timbre was raw and thick with accent, and the allure of difference tugged at her curiosity like a toddler to his mother’s hand in a candy store.
She and Tony remained friends, close and yet not, and the sandy haired boy with eyes the colour of the ocean earned the title of the first notch on the bedpost. The keeper was her first one night stand; a smooth seduction that filled her with an odd sense of pride, though she was not void of the guilt that came with the knowledge that human beings could just use each other so effortlessly.
‘Get used to it,’ Alison had said.
And so she did.
Sex lost its intimate appeal and became a pleasurable hobby, a way to forget. She dated on and off, and, when she felt like it, she took it to the next step. Alison wondered why she was so careful when she had nothing left to preserve. Parker told herself that it was a matter of self respect.
She had three rules. One, sport was fine on the field, but don’t bring it on a date. She didn’t care. Two, she didn’t like games and she wasn’t a show pony, she wasn’t four years old and she wouldn’t stand for possessiveness or protectiveness. Three, look, don’t touch, unless invited. Hands off the merchandise, stay away from what you can’t afford.
Giuseppe got away with one, kept his distance from two and hit number three straight down the middle.
He broke the rule, she broke his finger.
She hit the crisis point of her teenage years the month she started smoking; a letter came from the states telling her not to bother coming home for the holidays.
Alison had shot a pointed look at Parker’s attire the day the letter had arrived; a loose, baggy t-shirt that hardly complimented her figure and a pair of sweatpants that looked like they’d previously belonged to a lower class housewife with two-point-five kids. She’d asked what was wrong and Parker had denied anything.
‘Bullshit. You’re wearing your I-feel-like-shit-so-I’m-going-to-look-like-shit-too-and-mope-around-the-house-all-day outfit.’
She’d denied it again and had been called a liar; this had set her thinking about all the reasons she had to lie. The list was long.
Her father’s command to stay had pissed her off though she loathed to admit it, and she’d grown moodier than usual. She got depressed and intoxicated often. She played Russian roulette with the small revolver from her shooting lessons and could have died but didn’t, and had a minor pregnancy scare after a night of irresponsible drinking that put her off sex for almost a term.
She turned bolder, sharper, and more dangerous. It quickly became known that Parker never refused a dare; she balanced precariously on railings, flirted blatantly with professors twice her age and tried revolting concoctions. She almost slipped and fell, twice, and got the closest to alcohol poisoning her friends had ever seen. She’d damn near broken her neck taking a tumble down a steep mountain side; landing a fraction of an angle away from certain death and mere inches from a sharp rock protruding dangerously close to her skull.
When the sleazy doctor seeking cheap thrills during her check up asked, she’d replied yes, she had broken bones before, though not her own, and had proceeded to tell him about Gillian Vern’s wrist and the unfortunate incident with Giuseppe’s finger. He’d declined when she’d offered him a demonstration, telling her that she was in perfect shape, though she should be more careful, and sent her on her way.
One day in the toilets Alison had produced her secret silver case and a lighter and, other girls watching, offered them to Parker.
‘No,’ she’d said, as she did every other lunchtime.
‘Why not?’
‘Because Daddy would kill me.’
‘Do you always do everything Daddy tells you to do?’
That had been her undoing. She accepted the dares for the thrill of it. She was, in a twisted sense, an adrenaline junkie. She craved action and excitement. But she also hated being called a chicken and she loved proving people wrong. And so the girl who, after an initial meeting with a certain man from the Centre who had blown smoke in her face, had sworn never to adopt such a habit, had her first cigarette.
It definitely wasn’t her last.
That holidays had been spent roaming the streets in barely legal apparel; it was in Italy that Parker had discovered fashion, namely the world of genuine leather, and the laws of rendering the males of species incapable of coherent speech. They wore halternecks and minis in winter, goosebumps and all, and ran through the rainy alleyways like madmen in boots with death defying heels. It was on one of these adventures that Parker and Alison met Rosa.
Rosa had been a kind hearted old lady with too many cats and no hand-eye coordination when it came to make up. Parker had knocked into her with her basket of bread and vegetables, and the sweet little girl in her made her stop and help the woman with her things. Delighted with her manners, Rosa had invited the two girls back to her house for afternoon tea.
Parker, who had always had an excellent memory, learned immediately which cat was which, and knew them all by name; Pietro with the light feet like socks, Gianna with the torn left ear and Giovanni as white as snow. Massimo the fat ginger with the bottlebrush tail, and Luigi the grey who liked to sleep in the pot plants. The girls fed the cats and watered the flowers and earned themselves some extra money that was spent on biscotti on the weekends. They talked about nothing, looked at pictures of grandchildren and identified birds in the garden. This went on for a month or so, both taking up the offer to spend their off-campus breaks in sleeping bags by the television rather than back at the crowded and messy dorms.
Alison often stole, Parker knew. She’d done it herself. Small things, from the markets, not always because they wanted them but just to see if they could. It was different when Alison took the jewellery from Rosa; she disagreed, but went along with it anyway. Alison sold the gold and would have split the cash if Parker hadn’t have stopped speaking to her for a week.
They never visited the sweet old lady with the too many cats again.
The pair made up when Parker decided she was going back to the states anyway when school finished up, because she was going through a stage where she was willing to do something simply because her father had forbade it, and it pleased her to do so. Alison said she’d go too, and so the two of them packed their things and got on the plane.
They didn’t go home but headed straight to Florida; met up with old friends along the way and continued on in the true tradition of the road trip. In Miami Parker uncovered the art of the body shot - half-sober boys under the summer sun with the earth and the sky and a bikini and a feeling like she could do what she wanted because nobody was there to stop her.
Evenings took them to underage bars, swept up like a whirlwind in the world of hardcore teen alcohol consumption and fake IDs. She got drunk often and didn’t care. Boys hit on her and it drove her mad, she hated it, and quickly came up with a way to scare the offenders off.
Irritated by the attention, Parker had grabbed the friend at her side and engaged Alison in a steamy kiss, tongues and all. There were wolf whistles and catcalls but the alpha males quickly gave it up. The act became a practiced routine that she would keep in the back of her mind for the rest of her life as it still, to this day, remained the most effective method for disposing of unwanted company.
Not that she had anyone to pull it off with.
The group split up soon after, each going their separate ways. Parker headed in the direction of Delaware, taking her time because she wasn’t looking forward to the family reunion. Daddy, as he occasionally had a tendency to do, figured out exactly what she’d been doing, dismissed it as a poor keeping of company and had her transferred to Japan with orders to continue her education there. Prior to leaving she ran into Jarod in the halls and thought nothing of it; his curious gaze was met with her token glare and all the pain of rejection bubbled to the surface as she remembered the unanswered letters.
In Tokyo she learned to fight; hours were spent with the gangs of hardy boys, playfully yet determinedly wrestling with the few that hadn’t been discouraged by her glacial manner and had managed to befriend her. She found herself different from the other girls, who had little interest for violence, and ignored the names she was called when she spent all her time with the boys. She got herself a personal mentor, Kopinski Sensei, and spoke the musical language as well as, possibly better than, the locals.
Her father knew a man named Tanaka, whose son she dated for a whole summer - a relationship outdoing her longest by two weeks. She got herself a goldfish, then another when it died, and gave up after the third. Time flew by and, not nearly soon enough, her years in the education system were coming to an end.
College finished and she graduated, with honours, and celebrated her new freedom with a night of sake and sushi, both of which she liked, which was followed by clumsy groping and beer-flavoured kisses and mediocre sex with a man she barely knew. The next day she’d called the airlines, booked a ticket and jumped on the first plane to the Mediterranean without even a word to her father.
She was going back to Italy.
– – – –
1. xxFall in lovexx Have a good sex life.
2.xxGet marriedxx Get a job.
3. xxHave childrenxx Keep a pet for longer than a month.
4. xxTravelxx Find a residence of some permanence.
5. xxWatch a sunset in Parisxx Visit Daddy.
– – – –
Upon arriving back in the boot-shaped country she had grown to love, she rented a nice place outside Rome, decorated it to make it homey as best she could, and set about finding herself a way to earn some cash.
She drunk on odd weekends, when the empty coffee tin on the top of the refrigerator was full enough to allow her the bottle of cheap brandy, and savored the buzz. Some nights she listened to music as she drank, others she invited old acquaintances from school or golden skinned boys from the vineyards.
Most nights, she drank alone.
Straight out of college and chain smoking like the world was coming to an end, by candlelight when she couldn’t pay the electricity bill, she’d fluttered her eyelids feathery and soft and won herself a position at a local cafe, selected because the uniforms were comfortable without being tacky, classy without being nerdy-slutty. In a matter of weeks she became la hostess usa most-ess, and she knew there had been talk of whether it was actually her talents on the floor or in another area that warranted the honour. She left the cafe when the manager hit on her and landed a job in a moonlight taproom called the Twilight Zone, alias TZ, which was run by an American who told her he had come over from Amherst, Massachusetts around five years ago. It was there that she learned the aerodynamics of various bottles of liqueur, and was tutored in mixing drinks called cocktails with funny names like Bloody Mary, Orgasm and Sex on the Beach. She developed a liking for the one known as the Fluffy Duck, had not one too many martinis, then became unemployed after being the cause behind a bloody fist fight that broke out between two burly gentlemen at the bar.
A trip back in April to visit her mother’s grave straightened her out when Daddy summoned her home to stay, so, her days as a defiant youth coming to an end (out of the lack influence of Alison, perhaps), she returned to Rome, packed up her things and bid la dolce vita goodbye.
Ciao-arrivederci-see-you-later-Italy-Delaware-here-I-come and damn was she not happy about it.
Her return to Blue Cove had her back in her father’s sight, and he was quick and effective in ironing her out. She started as an intern, minimum wages, and worked towards the top the good old fashioned way with a lot of hard work and not nearly enough nicotine. Just when she was contemplating accepting a position as a cultural liaison, a perfect prize because of her multilingual abilities, her father grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and deposited her bang smack in the centre of the Centre.
Cleaner to Corporate and she was going places. All business, no-nonsense and the resoluteness, dedication and tenacity of an Olympic athlete. More papers, more smoking, more drinking. Less of a life and a long list of one night stands.
She acquired a taste for all things expensive and classy. Fiercely independent, frosty and increasingly disdainful, she turned her nose up at most - impatient with the bumbling, incapable idiots that worked her father’s staff. She made sarcastic, scathing remarks and snapped at regular intervals; unhappy, though she hadn’t quite realised it.
On two other occasions she had quick encounters with Jarod; on both she was rude and condescending, treating him as if she truly believed what her school mates had once said; that he was but a lab rat, just another servant to those of higher status.
Six years after the latter of the meetings, she had been sitting in her office, reclining in a comfy leather chair – Italian, she’d noted with a strange sense of pride - talking on the phone to another client, when the memo had come out.
Jarod, the Centre’s prize pretender, had broken out. Her childhood companion had actually done it – put his overrated brain into motion and done a runner.
She hadn’t quite been sure how she’d felt about that.
The company had gone haywire – she’d taken advantage of the fuss and used it as an excuse for an early night. She overcame her daily migraine by seven, broke out the bottle of single malt scotch, got a nice buzz going, unplugged the phone, passed out on the couch and slept til nine the next day.
She’d learned in college the art of the overcome hangover – strong coffee, no sugar, salt and vinegar potato crisps and a cold shower. With blurry eyes and a headache she’d experienced a vague sense of déjà vu when she stumbled over a pair of shoes; it had taken her back to her high school days and sleepovers at Rosa’s, when she would get up to go to the bathroom at night and trip when she accidentally stepped on Gianna or Massimo or Luigi. After narrowly avoiding falling flat on her face, she’d jumped in the shower, made herself presentable - flawless and intimidating, breathtaking and deadly – and had boldly dared to show her face late at work.
Daddy hadn’t been impressed but there’d been other matters to attend to. Forget Corporate, he’d said. Her new assignment was to bring Jarod back, no ifs no butts. And so she’d been thrown into a jam jar with a psychologist whom she remembered vividly and whom had not changed one bit, and a stuttering computer technician whom she grew to like but would die before she admitted it.
So, competitive as ever, she’d accepted the task and tried to tell herself she didn’t care. Tried to tell herself she didn’t have some ulterior motive, and tried to tell herself that she was doing the right thing. When she found out the truth about her mother, she gave up trying and opened her eyes, just a little.
Millions of unearthed secrets, twice as many unanswered questions, a dead boyfriend, an ulcer, the knowledge that Daddy may not be her daddy after all, a near-kiss and an island later, she was still there. Still searching for approval, still boldly defiant, still tough-as-nails and still harbouring mixed feelings for a certain pretender. Memories of a lost childhood, frenzied school years and a corrupt career, the taste of lips she had only touched once, a ring and a bunch of voices in her head she only sometimes understood was all she had.
‘Get used to it,’ Alison had once said.
And she had.
– – – –
1. xxFall in lovexxHave a good sex lifexx Kill Raines. Slowly. And painfully.
2.xxGet marriedxxGet a jobxx Cut off Lyle’s other thumb.
3.xxHave childrenxxKeep a pet for longer than a monthxx Stick Jarod back in his cage.
4.xxTravelxxFind a residence of some permanencexx Blow the Centre to smithereens.
5. xxWatch a sunset in ParisxxVisit Daddyxx Apologise to Jarod. xxMaybexx For everything.
– – – –
1. Fall in love.
2. Get married.
3. Have children.
4. Travel.
5. Watch a sunset in Paris.
– – – –
As far as she was concerned, her name was Parker.
She’d had a proper name once. A middle name of Catherine, of her mother’s, and a surname of her father’s. The first name didn’t exist because she’d erased it from her memory by sheer will. It only existed in one place on earth and she knew that was in the head of a man who was in every way still a boy, though perhaps it hadn’t survived there, either.
The Centre, the place where her father worked, had been her play realm for a good three years. She’d said goodbye to the shades of grey and dusty air ducts and thoughts of an elevator and a boy name Jarod, with nothing more than a sad whisper and the crumpling of a photograph in her hand.
She’d said goodbye, and she’d gone away to boarding school.
Parker had always been a bright girl. Friendly, witty and precocious. A life of mild isolation had left her without many friends she could call her own, but she had never been shy. She introduced herself, got to know her classmates.
Got by.
The first few months, she had written to the boy named Jarod. She’d been sick for home and would have given anything to hear of how he was doing, even if it meant remembering the shades of grey and dusty air ducts and an elevator. But he hadn’t replied so she’d pushed her longing for home out of her head, figuring that as she worked hard at math and English and science, the pretender was working hard too, too busy to reply.
At boarding school, she discovered boys on an entirely new level, and Jarod was quickly, though only temporarily, forgotten. Innocent affections and a chaste kiss on the lips paled in comparison to the things that went on behind the teacher’s backs at the establishment, things that were capable of fascinating and disgusting her all at once. Parker had never been the type to crush and to giggle, and her father had made explicitly clear certain behaviours that would not be tolerated. She had, however, reached the age where rebellion was tempting and the pressure to conform and fit in eventually grew too much.
She didn’t respond to teasing or bullying or threats kindly; she was adamant that she would never turn out like her mother, a weakling that would take the coward’s way out, abandoning those who needed her the most just because things got tough.
Early in the semester she’d found herself caught up in the unfortunate thing they called a bitch fight, something that had stemmed from a nasty exchange intended to goad Parker with degrading remarks about her mother whom, despite her obvious resentments towards, Parker would fiercely defend. The other girl had scratched with artificial nails and clawed at hair.
Parker had broken her wrist.
The punishment had been easily sidestepped - she was nothing if not persuasive; the headmistress of the time had taken Parker’s side on the matter, dismissing her act of aggression as an accident instigated by provocation.
The dancing classes and piano lessons had stopped when her mother had died, and Parker vehemently stayed away from them, deliberately adopting new hobbies. She enjoyed swimming and sprinting, but lost interest in sport as her schooling progressed. She decided she simply didn’t have the time, and focused on essays and secret rendezvous at the edge of the grounds instead. After classes finished at four, she kept a diary – a journal in which she talked about the boys who were cute and the girls who were mean. She never worried about anyone finding and reading her diary, because, clever and sly after spending a makeshift childhood sneaking around the Centre unnoticed, she had come up with the perfect hiding place – and that was her bible. She literally wrote her entries on the pages. As most of the students veered far away from the cursed book that they easily grew sick of hearing about, she knew no one would ever think to look there.
Cafeteria food was nothing special, but edible. The dessert was always promising and that left something to look forward to at the end of the day, or so she’d thought as she scribbled Mallory Evans can go copulate with herself – vigorously across Samuel,14:22. The snobby girls soon tired of teasing her and found a new kid to pick on; Parker kept mostly to herself but joined a band of less judgmental females, of which she quickly became the leader.
She’d been suspended two years later; caught making out with a junior in an empty classroom by a bothersome teacher that wore odd socks and shirts of nauseating shades who was not as easy to sweet talk as the earlier headmistress had been. Daddy had been furious and, as he had a habit of doing, dealt with the problem by bundling it up and pretending it didn’t exist; he shipped her off to Italy.
Signed-sealed-delivered-and-handle-with-care-or-my-business-will-make-your-business-bankrupt. You-snooze-you-lose, you-flunk-it-and-I’ll-dunk-you so study hard. You-break-her-heart-I-break-your-nose. Devil-may-care and hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-teenage-daughter-scorned.
She’d packed her bags, muttered a four letter word she’d picked up from Emily Granger whom often badmouthed her parents, kissed Daddy’s cheek and said hel-lo Italy... more specifically, the male population of.
This was the year that Parker discovered her greatest asset; her legs. She found herself shortening the grey pleated school skirts, flashing thigh in order to manipulate boys to do her bidding. She had always been cunning and mischievous, but it was only after her fifteenth birthday that she realised she could use her sexuality in that way, and that the opposite sex was inclined to respond. She quickly took to the idea.
In her geography class she met Alison, another American student who wore her eyes heavy with mascara and had a beauty spot to the right of her top lip. A camaraderie was formed more out of necessity than genial friendship. It was a matter of, oh, you’re American, and that was that - they rarely left each other’s side.
Alison was rude and obnoxious and as sarcastic as anything. She smoked cigarettes in the toilets during lunchtimes and she’d lost her virginity when she was fourteen years old to a guy four years her senior. She never did her homework and she’d tried marijuana. Twice.
If Mr Parker had have been there, he would have forbade the acquaintance. If Catherine had still been alive, she would have frowned with silent disapproval.
Parker and Alison became instant best friends.
She thought of Jarod too much, and yet not often enough. She’d described him to her dorm mates once before and it had not gone down well; they’d either not believed her or treated the notion with disdain, telling her that the boy sounded nothing more than a lab rat, no more important than the servants that worked for the families of the richer girls. Uncomfortable, she’d dropped the subject altogether.
The Centre became nothing more than a distant memory in the back of her mind and she was on a mission to forget. Excuses grew old, even to herself, and deep down, she was hurt by the lack of reply from her childhood friend. She turned bitter and resentful towards the life she had left behind and worked harder in her efforts to become someone she had never been because she was determined to change things, losing the diligent interest in her schoolwork and focusing on having one hell of a social life.
Summer holidays were spent off-campus, watching the beautiful bodies of the basketball players, sleek with sweat, moving around the courts with deadly precision. Giuseppe had been one of them, but he hadn’t caught Parker’s eye until much later. Her point of interest then had been one of his friends; indeed, the bad boy type - devilishly handsome and a rebel in every sense of the word.
His name had been Antonio, Tony for short, and he had been Parker’s first.
Contrary to popular belief, Daddy’s little angel had actually managed to keep her v-card up until her seventeenth birthday, when the girl who had once said she was saving herself until marriage half-willingly gave it up after a good few drinks of beer followed by a steamy make-out session in the back of a car whose registration plates she could still remember.
By the time her first sexual encounter rolled around she’d picked up enough from cheesy romance novels and magazines and the promiscuous girls in her dorm to write a small novel on the matter. Parker had always been a fast learner and she exercised an adept ability to put into play techniques she had only learned by word of mouth, taking on the task with the same cool confidence with which she approached everything in her life. Her early experiences were none too fancy; merely evidence of a temporary loss of control or a desire to cure the deep ache of loneliness that had been seeded within and was steadily growing with each passing day. Experimentation led her to discover she preferred to spit, not swallow, and she kept an empty beer bottle at the bedside. The other was permitted, but she liked on top; the majority of her partners guessed that much anyway because she had a reputation of cold steel control and getting what she wanted.
A rather sordid challenge issued at a late night drunken game of truth or dare erupted into a full blown semester long clandestine affair with one of her lecturers; the handsome, bookish type with caramel come-to-bed eyes who wore glasses and navy sweaters.
He’d been a good screw while it lasted - secret meetings after class and ulterior motives behind excuses for her to stay back and discuss her latest paper, followed by cozy cups of the best Brazilian coffee and talks of literature and art. He’d called her mature and sophisticated and she took small comfort from his approbations, telling herself that it was why she had kept it going so long.
She’d bored of the professor after a semester and her History class had never been the same after that. Punishment for talking (of which she was prone to do) was to stand on her chair and so the boys in the back row got a daily kick out of looking up the short skirts of the particularly defiant.
Winter was spent, for the most part, huddled in groups of wet and shivering mass, encircling the makeshift soccer field in the gym to watch the boys, deliciously tanned with Adonis figures and twinkling eyes.
Tony had been a striker; furious and hotheaded. He kicked with all the rage of a boy whose father was a drunk and whose mother had never really cared about him. He could be cool and placid in the day but the moment he set foot on that court, Parker knew he played the game as if he were fighting the devil himself.
The losing side was that of the school clowns; the ones that knew that they would lose and figured if they were going to be laughed at they might as well make it worth while. This team fashioned daily themes - one Monday they wore brightly coloured wigs and the following Wednesday had been cotton striped shirts.
A change in music would signal the beginning of what was known as the boom goal period - five minutes of non-stop action and ferocious frenzy as the players battled it out for double points. The keeper would make a save and if he stalled in throwing back the ball, the opposition surrounded the goals like lionesses closing in for the kill.
Parker had once fancied a member of the other team, early on in the year. The one that had caught her eye had been the goalie; different to the others as he wore a shirt perhaps five sizes too small that looked ridiculously adorable on a muscled senior with sandy hair and eyes the colour of the ocean. He sported remarkable talent, deflecting the ball effortlessly, allowing shots past only when they caught him off guard as he tired from the other team’s continuous attempts. His voice was much unlike Tony’s, whose timbre was raw and thick with accent, and the allure of difference tugged at her curiosity like a toddler to his mother’s hand in a candy store.
She and Tony remained friends, close and yet not, and the sandy haired boy with eyes the colour of the ocean earned the title of the first notch on the bedpost. The keeper was her first one night stand; a smooth seduction that filled her with an odd sense of pride, though she was not void of the guilt that came with the knowledge that human beings could just use each other so effortlessly.
‘Get used to it,’ Alison had said.
And so she did.
Sex lost its intimate appeal and became a pleasurable hobby, a way to forget. She dated on and off, and, when she felt like it, she took it to the next step. Alison wondered why she was so careful when she had nothing left to preserve. Parker told herself that it was a matter of self respect.
She had three rules. One, sport was fine on the field, but don’t bring it on a date. She didn’t care. Two, she didn’t like games and she wasn’t a show pony, she wasn’t four years old and she wouldn’t stand for possessiveness or protectiveness. Three, look, don’t touch, unless invited. Hands off the merchandise, stay away from what you can’t afford.
Giuseppe got away with one, kept his distance from two and hit number three straight down the middle.
He broke the rule, she broke his finger.
She hit the crisis point of her teenage years the month she started smoking; a letter came from the states telling her not to bother coming home for the holidays.
Alison had shot a pointed look at Parker’s attire the day the letter had arrived; a loose, baggy t-shirt that hardly complimented her figure and a pair of sweatpants that looked like they’d previously belonged to a lower class housewife with two-point-five kids. She’d asked what was wrong and Parker had denied anything.
‘Bullshit. You’re wearing your I-feel-like-shit-so-I’m-going-to-look-like-shit-too-and-mope-around-the-house-all-day outfit.’
She’d denied it again and had been called a liar; this had set her thinking about all the reasons she had to lie. The list was long.
Her father’s command to stay had pissed her off though she loathed to admit it, and she’d grown moodier than usual. She got depressed and intoxicated often. She played Russian roulette with the small revolver from her shooting lessons and could have died but didn’t, and had a minor pregnancy scare after a night of irresponsible drinking that put her off sex for almost a term.
She turned bolder, sharper, and more dangerous. It quickly became known that Parker never refused a dare; she balanced precariously on railings, flirted blatantly with professors twice her age and tried revolting concoctions. She almost slipped and fell, twice, and got the closest to alcohol poisoning her friends had ever seen. She’d damn near broken her neck taking a tumble down a steep mountain side; landing a fraction of an angle away from certain death and mere inches from a sharp rock protruding dangerously close to her skull.
When the sleazy doctor seeking cheap thrills during her check up asked, she’d replied yes, she had broken bones before, though not her own, and had proceeded to tell him about Gillian Vern’s wrist and the unfortunate incident with Giuseppe’s finger. He’d declined when she’d offered him a demonstration, telling her that she was in perfect shape, though she should be more careful, and sent her on her way.
One day in the toilets Alison had produced her secret silver case and a lighter and, other girls watching, offered them to Parker.
‘No,’ she’d said, as she did every other lunchtime.
‘Why not?’
‘Because Daddy would kill me.’
‘Do you always do everything Daddy tells you to do?’
That had been her undoing. She accepted the dares for the thrill of it. She was, in a twisted sense, an adrenaline junkie. She craved action and excitement. But she also hated being called a chicken and she loved proving people wrong. And so the girl who, after an initial meeting with a certain man from the Centre who had blown smoke in her face, had sworn never to adopt such a habit, had her first cigarette.
It definitely wasn’t her last.
That holidays had been spent roaming the streets in barely legal apparel; it was in Italy that Parker had discovered fashion, namely the world of genuine leather, and the laws of rendering the males of species incapable of coherent speech. They wore halternecks and minis in winter, goosebumps and all, and ran through the rainy alleyways like madmen in boots with death defying heels. It was on one of these adventures that Parker and Alison met Rosa.
Rosa had been a kind hearted old lady with too many cats and no hand-eye coordination when it came to make up. Parker had knocked into her with her basket of bread and vegetables, and the sweet little girl in her made her stop and help the woman with her things. Delighted with her manners, Rosa had invited the two girls back to her house for afternoon tea.
Parker, who had always had an excellent memory, learned immediately which cat was which, and knew them all by name; Pietro with the light feet like socks, Gianna with the torn left ear and Giovanni as white as snow. Massimo the fat ginger with the bottlebrush tail, and Luigi the grey who liked to sleep in the pot plants. The girls fed the cats and watered the flowers and earned themselves some extra money that was spent on biscotti on the weekends. They talked about nothing, looked at pictures of grandchildren and identified birds in the garden. This went on for a month or so, both taking up the offer to spend their off-campus breaks in sleeping bags by the television rather than back at the crowded and messy dorms.
Alison often stole, Parker knew. She’d done it herself. Small things, from the markets, not always because they wanted them but just to see if they could. It was different when Alison took the jewellery from Rosa; she disagreed, but went along with it anyway. Alison sold the gold and would have split the cash if Parker hadn’t have stopped speaking to her for a week.
They never visited the sweet old lady with the too many cats again.
The pair made up when Parker decided she was going back to the states anyway when school finished up, because she was going through a stage where she was willing to do something simply because her father had forbade it, and it pleased her to do so. Alison said she’d go too, and so the two of them packed their things and got on the plane.
They didn’t go home but headed straight to Florida; met up with old friends along the way and continued on in the true tradition of the road trip. In Miami Parker uncovered the art of the body shot - half-sober boys under the summer sun with the earth and the sky and a bikini and a feeling like she could do what she wanted because nobody was there to stop her.
Evenings took them to underage bars, swept up like a whirlwind in the world of hardcore teen alcohol consumption and fake IDs. She got drunk often and didn’t care. Boys hit on her and it drove her mad, she hated it, and quickly came up with a way to scare the offenders off.
Irritated by the attention, Parker had grabbed the friend at her side and engaged Alison in a steamy kiss, tongues and all. There were wolf whistles and catcalls but the alpha males quickly gave it up. The act became a practiced routine that she would keep in the back of her mind for the rest of her life as it still, to this day, remained the most effective method for disposing of unwanted company.
Not that she had anyone to pull it off with.
The group split up soon after, each going their separate ways. Parker headed in the direction of Delaware, taking her time because she wasn’t looking forward to the family reunion. Daddy, as he occasionally had a tendency to do, figured out exactly what she’d been doing, dismissed it as a poor keeping of company and had her transferred to Japan with orders to continue her education there. Prior to leaving she ran into Jarod in the halls and thought nothing of it; his curious gaze was met with her token glare and all the pain of rejection bubbled to the surface as she remembered the unanswered letters.
In Tokyo she learned to fight; hours were spent with the gangs of hardy boys, playfully yet determinedly wrestling with the few that hadn’t been discouraged by her glacial manner and had managed to befriend her. She found herself different from the other girls, who had little interest for violence, and ignored the names she was called when she spent all her time with the boys. She got herself a personal mentor, Kopinski Sensei, and spoke the musical language as well as, possibly better than, the locals.
Her father knew a man named Tanaka, whose son she dated for a whole summer - a relationship outdoing her longest by two weeks. She got herself a goldfish, then another when it died, and gave up after the third. Time flew by and, not nearly soon enough, her years in the education system were coming to an end.
College finished and she graduated, with honours, and celebrated her new freedom with a night of sake and sushi, both of which she liked, which was followed by clumsy groping and beer-flavoured kisses and mediocre sex with a man she barely knew. The next day she’d called the airlines, booked a ticket and jumped on the first plane to the Mediterranean without even a word to her father.
She was going back to Italy.
– – – –
1. xxFall in lovexx Have a good sex life.
2.xxGet marriedxx Get a job.
3. xxHave childrenxx Keep a pet for longer than a month.
4. xxTravelxx Find a residence of some permanence.
5. xxWatch a sunset in Parisxx Visit Daddy.
– – – –
Upon arriving back in the boot-shaped country she had grown to love, she rented a nice place outside Rome, decorated it to make it homey as best she could, and set about finding herself a way to earn some cash.
She drunk on odd weekends, when the empty coffee tin on the top of the refrigerator was full enough to allow her the bottle of cheap brandy, and savored the buzz. Some nights she listened to music as she drank, others she invited old acquaintances from school or golden skinned boys from the vineyards.
Most nights, she drank alone.
Straight out of college and chain smoking like the world was coming to an end, by candlelight when she couldn’t pay the electricity bill, she’d fluttered her eyelids feathery and soft and won herself a position at a local cafe, selected because the uniforms were comfortable without being tacky, classy without being nerdy-slutty. In a matter of weeks she became la hostess usa most-ess, and she knew there had been talk of whether it was actually her talents on the floor or in another area that warranted the honour. She left the cafe when the manager hit on her and landed a job in a moonlight taproom called the Twilight Zone, alias TZ, which was run by an American who told her he had come over from Amherst, Massachusetts around five years ago. It was there that she learned the aerodynamics of various bottles of liqueur, and was tutored in mixing drinks called cocktails with funny names like Bloody Mary, Orgasm and Sex on the Beach. She developed a liking for the one known as the Fluffy Duck, had not one too many martinis, then became unemployed after being the cause behind a bloody fist fight that broke out between two burly gentlemen at the bar.
A trip back in April to visit her mother’s grave straightened her out when Daddy summoned her home to stay, so, her days as a defiant youth coming to an end (out of the lack influence of Alison, perhaps), she returned to Rome, packed up her things and bid la dolce vita goodbye.
Ciao-arrivederci-see-you-later-Italy-Delaware-here-I-come and damn was she not happy about it.
Her return to Blue Cove had her back in her father’s sight, and he was quick and effective in ironing her out. She started as an intern, minimum wages, and worked towards the top the good old fashioned way with a lot of hard work and not nearly enough nicotine. Just when she was contemplating accepting a position as a cultural liaison, a perfect prize because of her multilingual abilities, her father grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and deposited her bang smack in the centre of the Centre.
Cleaner to Corporate and she was going places. All business, no-nonsense and the resoluteness, dedication and tenacity of an Olympic athlete. More papers, more smoking, more drinking. Less of a life and a long list of one night stands.
She acquired a taste for all things expensive and classy. Fiercely independent, frosty and increasingly disdainful, she turned her nose up at most - impatient with the bumbling, incapable idiots that worked her father’s staff. She made sarcastic, scathing remarks and snapped at regular intervals; unhappy, though she hadn’t quite realised it.
On two other occasions she had quick encounters with Jarod; on both she was rude and condescending, treating him as if she truly believed what her school mates had once said; that he was but a lab rat, just another servant to those of higher status.
Six years after the latter of the meetings, she had been sitting in her office, reclining in a comfy leather chair – Italian, she’d noted with a strange sense of pride - talking on the phone to another client, when the memo had come out.
Jarod, the Centre’s prize pretender, had broken out. Her childhood companion had actually done it – put his overrated brain into motion and done a runner.
She hadn’t quite been sure how she’d felt about that.
The company had gone haywire – she’d taken advantage of the fuss and used it as an excuse for an early night. She overcame her daily migraine by seven, broke out the bottle of single malt scotch, got a nice buzz going, unplugged the phone, passed out on the couch and slept til nine the next day.
She’d learned in college the art of the overcome hangover – strong coffee, no sugar, salt and vinegar potato crisps and a cold shower. With blurry eyes and a headache she’d experienced a vague sense of déjà vu when she stumbled over a pair of shoes; it had taken her back to her high school days and sleepovers at Rosa’s, when she would get up to go to the bathroom at night and trip when she accidentally stepped on Gianna or Massimo or Luigi. After narrowly avoiding falling flat on her face, she’d jumped in the shower, made herself presentable - flawless and intimidating, breathtaking and deadly – and had boldly dared to show her face late at work.
Daddy hadn’t been impressed but there’d been other matters to attend to. Forget Corporate, he’d said. Her new assignment was to bring Jarod back, no ifs no butts. And so she’d been thrown into a jam jar with a psychologist whom she remembered vividly and whom had not changed one bit, and a stuttering computer technician whom she grew to like but would die before she admitted it.
So, competitive as ever, she’d accepted the task and tried to tell herself she didn’t care. Tried to tell herself she didn’t have some ulterior motive, and tried to tell herself that she was doing the right thing. When she found out the truth about her mother, she gave up trying and opened her eyes, just a little.
Millions of unearthed secrets, twice as many unanswered questions, a dead boyfriend, an ulcer, the knowledge that Daddy may not be her daddy after all, a near-kiss and an island later, she was still there. Still searching for approval, still boldly defiant, still tough-as-nails and still harbouring mixed feelings for a certain pretender. Memories of a lost childhood, frenzied school years and a corrupt career, the taste of lips she had only touched once, a ring and a bunch of voices in her head she only sometimes understood was all she had.
‘Get used to it,’ Alison had once said.
And she had.
– – – –
1. xxFall in lovexxHave a good sex lifexx Kill Raines. Slowly. And painfully.
2.xxGet marriedxxGet a jobxx Cut off Lyle’s other thumb.
3.xxHave childrenxxKeep a pet for longer than a monthxx Stick Jarod back in his cage.
4.xxTravelxxFind a residence of some permanencexx Blow the Centre to smithereens.
5. xxWatch a sunset in ParisxxVisit Daddyxx Apologise to Jarod. xxMaybexx For everything.
– – – –
