IN VIBRANT SHADOW

· As a debutante, it had to be said that Aria Margaret Dea was something of a failure. Her poor mother—God bless her and keep her safe—lived in a world entirely detached from the gritty realities of earth . It was as though she traveled the globe inside a fragile, illuminated, and beautiful bubble. Much like Glenda the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz . This bubble gently transported her just above the harshness of everyday life, allowing her to view humanity from a most advantageous, large-picture perspective. From there, she could take the measure of anyone effortlessly. Money played a massive part in protecting and continuing that bubble, but money did not direct its course. Only she did. It was her mother's pedigree, her bloodlines, her flawless etiquette, pronunciation, and posture that had been passed down to Aria . It was programmed directly into her DNA on both sides of the family tree. Her mother was the kind of woman who commanded immediate respect; when she entered a room, everyone sat a little straighter. When she was pleased, a mischievous twinkle lit up her eyes, followed by a sudden startle of whooping laughter that would surprise the hell out of innocent bystanders, forcing them to love her before its cacophony had even finished ringing in their ears. Born in Buenos Aires during the tumultuous era of Evita Perón, Aria’s mother was raised in a world of clear-cut class distinctions. As an Anglo-Argentine, she belonged firmly to the upper side of that crust. Her lineage was mostly Scottish, tracing back to the Clan Davidson—a fierce tribe of highland warriors. To this day, the men in the family married in their traditional kilts and full accoutrements. They looked quite dashing wearing the tartan, whose colors bypassed the garish oranges and muted browns of most patterns. Instead, the Davidson tartan was a striking blend of emerald green, black, and midnight blue, with the finest line of blood-red shot right through it. History ran in their veins, and engineering . Aria's great-uncle had worked as a sanitation engineer during the monumental building of the Panama Canal. But the women of the family were traditionally raised to shop, marry, and reproduce as elegantly as one might. The only job Aria's mother had ever held for any length of time was as an airline stewardess for PanAm, back when it was considered a highly chic profession. Fluent in three languages, cultured, and beautiful, she was a highly marketable bride. During her adolescence, the troubled politics of Argentina caused many Anglo-Argentine families to ship their children off to boarding schools in England. Aria’s mother was sent to an all-girls Catholic school in the English countryside, an institution she later tried to coax upon a twelve-year-old Aria to ensure a "decent" education. She went on to have five children, placing Aria in the center as the middle child of five . It was a position that inherently required survival skills, nestled between the older siblings who set the rules and the younger ones who demanded the spotlight. Perhaps because of the sheer size and momentum of the family, or the shifting tides of their lifestyle, Aria grew up in constant motion. At school, she was always the new kid. There was no time to grow deep roots or build lasting childhood cliques, because she never stayed at any single school for longer than two years. On more than one occasion, the stay was even shorter—making it through just a single year before the anchors were pulled up yet again. Aria did end up at one of the most expensive and renowned boarding schools in England, but fortunately, it wasn’t that one. Hers was not Catholic, and it was co-educational. She emerged four years later with an excellent education and a peekaboo English accent that drifted in and out depending on whom she was speaking to. But as far as being marketable as a bride? Quite frankly, she was not. Overweight, outspoken, and entirely lacking in traditional tact, Aria defied her mother’s best efforts to teach her how to marry well. Her mother simply wanted to rest easy at night, knowing her children were happy, healthy, and safe somewhere in the civilized world. Alas, in Aria's case, that was not to be. She was impossible to dress and held absolutely no interest in shopping. She questioned everything—especially authority and rigid regulations, a trait only amplified by a childhood spent constantly adapting to new school systems and foreign rules. She possessed a strong, unyielding sense of self and an openly hostile demeanor toward anyone who took issue with it. Furthermore, she had a habit of attaching herself to some rare mavericks whose rebellious ways frequently landed her in the center of scandal or danger. Meaningless social niceties like small talk thoroughly annoyed her, and she never hesitated to say so. Even though she had been graced with her mother’s classic beauty, natural grace, and excellent teeth, Aria refused to let her appearance be treated as an asset; after all, she hadn't earned it, she had just inherited it by accident. Because she marched through life with the heavy foot of the righteous—always on a mission to quell injustice—her natural grace was largely camouflaged. Her teeth remained hidden too, as she rarely smiled. Her brothers often remarked that she had only two forms of communication: silence and rage. For the most part, they simply tried to stay out of their middle sister's way. Yet, her upbringing had been filled with every advantage. There were ballet classes, piano lessons, art appreciation, and the finest schools. By the age of twelve, she was living abroad. She mastered French, learned ballroom dancing, attended the opera, and watched Broadway musicals. She learned to ski in the Swiss Alps and to sail the waters of Antigua. She even saw the Pope in Rome bless her school during a school trip. Financially rooted in history, she owned shares of the historic Bourse building in Philadelphia—the original trading floor for the stock exchange long before Wall Street took over. Her shoes came from Neiman Marcus and her handbags from Bloomingdale's. She rode thoroughbred horses imported from Holland, ate pâté, detested caviar, and loved Brie. For Easter, the family hunted goose eggs rather than chicken ones. They lived on a grand estate, kept champion show Dobermans as pets, and ate London broil every Sunday. Aria went to school alongside the Princess of Luxembourg, Sean Connery’s son, and incredibly wealthy Saudi Arabians who arrived at school with their own Rolls Royces before they even knew how to drive. There were also the sons and daughters of Nigerian chieftains, church choir practices, swimming camps every summer, acting classes, and doll collections too antique to play with. And in their living room, there once stood a pianoforte that had belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother. It sat in perfect condition, its ivory keys aged, yellowed, and brittle. For some reason, a young Aria had decided one day to flick the tops off each key, delighted by the neat, clicking sound it made—like snapping teeth. Eventually, the gilded world faded into the reality of adulthood. After five years of university, during which she attended six different schools—a continuation of her childhood rhythm of constant disruption—Aria took a two-week mixology course. At twenty-two, she took her very first real job: waitressing at a sports bar in West Chester, Pennsylvania. From there, she moved to California. She survived as a waitress, a barmaid, a nanny, a canvasser for the California Public Interest Research Group, and a door-to-door vacuum cleaner saleswoman. Somewhere in the middle of that grinding hustle, her thirtieth birthday arrived. To high society, an unmarried debutante at the age of thirty was entirely done. Passé. Finished. All washed up. A wannabe has-been. A spinster. The realization hit her like a breath of fresh air: A god damn spinster. Finally, the crushing pressure was off. It was officially too late to wave her pedigree, employ feminine wiles, or weaponize her beauty. Her youth had passed her by, but the truth was, Aria had been boycotting her own life anyway. She had been staying indoors, watching television reruns, and waiting for the right conditions to occur before she even agreed to run the race of life. She chose the comfort of television over a world rife with discrimination and prejudice. Because even a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant like Aria could become a target. In America, and the Western world at large, society treated it as a literal crime to be pretty and fat at the same time. So, she boycotted their world. But while her heavy feet kept her grounded in the physical world, her mind was a pressure cooker. She possessed an unexploded broadcast tower of thoughts—loud, intense thoughts that vibrated at a frequency completely out of sync with tea parties and Neiman Marcus handbags. She didn't know it yet, but her DNA hadn't just been bred for high society. Her superior genetic potential had been quietly selected by forces far beyond the upper crust. Aria was boycotting her life because her soul was waiting for a frequency it hadn't yet heard. And then, right on the heels of her thirtieth year, when the civilized world had officially written her off... the bubble didn't just pop. It collided with lightning. His name was Gideon Douglas Savage.