Miss Naughtie Two-Shoes and the Rebel

Chapter 1

Andy rolls off the edge of the bed and hits the cold floor with a low thud - face first.

Half-awake, she recounts: Before there's a floor, there's a wall. And then, she sits up and realizes she's been dreaming. It's all a dream! No, scratch that. Nightmare. Of the worst kind.

Throwing back her head on the bed, she stares at the popcorn ceiling. She can still feel her heart hammering in her chest. Her dream, it felt so real. And so perfect. Up until that painful ending.

She brings both of her hands to her face and inspects her fingernails with trained eyes. They're trimmed and clean. She's obsessively meticulous about keeping them that way. Dreaming about them being the opposite - filthy and gross - is a total nightmare.

Who is he? Andy asks softly. She puts her palm over her heart and feels its erratic beating. Have I met him in real life? She wonders. Have we crossed paths with strangers in our dreams one way or another? If not, are we ultimately destined to meet them in the flesh?

She has a very vague memory of the man's face. Up until he showed up, it became all hazy. She tries to inventory what she remembers about the mystery man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Thick bedhead hair. Generally good-looking. Useless adjectives. As much as she tries to ransack the corners of her brain for anything distinctive, she comes up with nothing. She just knows that he is attractive, even if she couldn't paint in her mind the distinguishing features that make up that handsome face.

It's just a dream.

Sighing, she gets up. Then she realizes she is wrapped like a burrito in her cotton blanket. Because she could not wriggle her legs free in the tangles of fabric, she loses her footing and falls down, for the second time, on her bed.

"Time to get up, princess," echoes Uncle Chris while knocking on the door. Just then, her bedside alarm goes off. Five o' clock on the dot. She turns it off and extracts herself from the sheets. Before leaving her room, she fluffs up her pillows, folds her blanket and smooths the bed.

"Morning, Tio," she greets the older man while rubbing sleep off her eyes. He's only a year above fifty but can be mistaken for someone much younger. Lines that deepen when he smiles are permanently etched from the corners of his kind, clear eyes. He has the same set of dimples as her mother. And the same rosy glow to his tanned skin when he stays a little too long under the sun Unlike other men of his age with thinning hair and receding hairlines, he has a full head of salt and pepper hair, the only giveaway to his real age. Except for a stubborn paunch that appears only when he sits, he has a solid build for his medium height. Years of hard toil as an auto mechanic chisel the sinewy muscles of his arms.

Already in his usual combo of tatty pants and plaid shirt, Uncle Chris puts down two steaming cups of black coffee on the table. A block of cheddar cheese and a jar of peanut butter sit between freshly baked bread rolls on a low wicker basket lined with green checkered linen. She glanced ravenously at the morning offering. Breathing in the mixed aroma of coffee and bread, she takes a piece, still hot in her hand, and splits it in half. She takes a heaping spoon of peanut butter and spread it on the roll. Then, she cuts a thick slice of cheese and slap it on top of the thick spread.

"Yuck," Uncle Chris says in disgust, wrinkling his nose and imitating a barfing noise.

She peers above her sandwich and darts the old man a wicked look, before devouring whole her breakfast creation. Uncle Chris rolls his eyes and shakes his head. He watches his niece chomp at her food like an overstuffed hamster. The tears forming at the outside corners of his eyes and nostrils flaring; he burst out laughing.

"Spit it out or you'll choke to death," he warns. She raises a finger as if telling him to give it time and continues her laborious chewing. "You keep forgetting yourself, Andy girl. You were eight. Ten years ago. Better behave like a lady or you'll chase the boys away with your antics," he gently reminds her, before taking a sip from his mug bearing the logo of his auto repair shop - GCG in fat, rich yellow letters, the crossbar and downward slope of the second letter G patterned like a metal gear.

"So, I was supposed to behave a certain way in front of some guy?" Andy puffs air and pouts. She downs three more bread rolls with the same weird spread combo.

"Well, is that how you're going to impress the parents when it comes to that?" asks Uncle Chris, trying to drive home a point.

"No! Are you giving me away? I've just turned eighteen." Andy complains, groaning.

Sometimes, he could not blame Andy for her boyish ways. She grew up without a female role model in her life to guide her through the complicated journey to womanhood. Andy's mom, her sister, died of a terminal illness when she was still five years old. As to what kind remains a mystery to this day; she had no medical records because she had never set foot in a hospital for treatment, and empty blister packs of paracetamol didn't really account for anything. There was no doubt, however, that it was serious because it sucked the life out of her, leaving her all skin and bones on her deathbed. If not for well-meaning neighbors who'd kept little Andy fed, she couldn't have survived. It is to his endless regret that he had given up looking for her sister only a couple of years after she ran off with a secret lover at a young age and disappeared. He could have taken care of them both, made a huge difference in their lives. On the memory of her sister, he vowed to take Andy as his own and give her a life she would have wanted for her. He'd been to busy learning the ropes of raising a child that he just woke up one day too old for chasing women. Nursing her to health whenever she comes down with a mysterious childhood ailment, tying her hair in pigtails, teaching her math, showing her how to put a pad during her very first period. As years go by, the anguish over losing his sister twice diminished and is slowly replaced by a sense of contentment. Andy has been more than a daughter to her. She is his sole happiness, the meaning to his existence. His pride.

As his apprentice at Greasy Chris Garage, Andy is one hell of a mechanic. Before she learned her ABCs, she'd memorized all the names of the tools in his shed. Before she graduated high school, she already knew how to change tires. He taught her everything he knew about cars and engines. And she absorbed everything like a sponge. Her love of learning is evident more so in her studies. While the other kids played in the mud and frolicked in the rain, she would be curled up under her blanket with a book between her hands. Consequently, she only accepts birthday and Christmas gifts from him in the form of hardbound copies of her favorite authors: Agatha Christie, Paulo Coelho, Virginia Woolf. The list goes on and on that he starts to wonder if the word "favorite" still holds its meaning for Andy. Sometimes, he would surprise her with an entirely new book, on recommendation of the petite, soft-spoken lady at their favorite bookstore. And she would eye it with the same enthusiasm, fumbling at the ribbons with the same clumsy fingers. So eager to run her hands along the sea of written words. Fantasy, thriller, romance, sci-fi. She loves them all.

Weeks before her eighteenth birthday, he commissioned a local calligraphy artist for a special project. He was ecstatic when it turned out exactly as he'd imagined. After a simple celebration, he handed her "the gift" - a rectangular block carefully wrapped in plain brown paper, decorated with paper twine and an enormous red bow. Her brows furrowed and her eyes were wide with bewilderment. In the zestful manner of how gifts are supposed to be opened, she ripped through the wrappings while carefully balancing the heavy mystery object between her hands. She squealed in delight and her eyes were filled with tears when it was finally revealed.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

On a plank of wood which was sanded and stained to reveal its beautiful grains, the Ernest Hemingway quote were engraved in flourishing letters, scorched at the edges so that the words looked more pronounced.

"Oh, Tio. This is perfection!" she gushed, tightly hugging the piece of timber.

"Nah, you're so easy to please. If you knew beforehand that it used to be a piece of junk I found lying in the shop, dog poo and all, you'd say I was so cheap." He turned around to hide the tears in his eyes. Seeing her this happy warmed his heart and filled his life. Wiping the tears with a callused hand, he proceeded to get a hammer and some nails from a toolbox he keeps under the sink. "Where do you want it hanged?" he asked.

*****

"There's lunch money on top of the fridge. I'm heading off." Uncle Chris grabs his keys and pats her head as he passes her by the kitchen sink.

"Ugh, you always do that. First of all, I'm not a puppy. And second of all, I'm a grown woman," Andy groans but starts following his old man around. Trailing him as he walks toward the garage right outside the kitchen door, she goofs around in her best imitation of a dog. Her failed attempt at howling elicits a hearty chuckle from Uncle Chris.

"You'll make a convincing dog if you'd be more obedient. Now, go back inside and get ready for school. Shoo."

Still canine-mimicking, Andy whimpers, then laughs and walks back inside the house. "Tio, don't forget your anti-tetanus shots," she teases and stops in her track, pointing to the rusted panels of his beat-up pickup truck. The red paint was bleached by the elements and there are patches of bluish-gray Bondo from unfinished body work.

"I run an auto repair shop, not a body shop," he shouts and starts the engine. "Don't bring home a boy while I'm gone."

"You bet, I'm into girls," she banters. Andy heads back towards their quaint cottage and into the kitchen. After a quick cleanup, she takes a shower and prepares for school.

Framed by clean white walls, her room is tiny and there's not an inch of wasted space. Blue gingham curtains hang at the recessed windows. Next to the door that she painted a deep shade of blue herself, Uncle Chris built a floor to ceiling shelving system out of pallets he bought cheap from a nearby warehouse that went out of business. She has filled basically an entire wall with books she has collected over the years. The opposite wall is where her treasured Hemingway wooden ornament hangs among her knick-knacks and framed photos. She has a white vanity, a flea market find, beside a moderately sized closet.

If only she loved dressing up more than reading, her wardrobe won't look as sad and pitiful as it is. Then she remembers the upcoming party at school. She only has the bare essentials, and she's already outgrown the one dress she owns that she'd worn already on three different occasions, including her high school graduation. In just a period of five months, she went from cups A to C and added two inches to her height. Well, she wants to go but she doesn't like to spend a penny for a dress that she'll wear only once. Weighing her options intently, she finds that none of the options don't involve money and even the simplest cocktail dress doesn't come cheap.

Fairy godmother, help!

Letting out a sigh, she finds herself in a tight spot. All for a silly little party. As much as she wants to convince herself that, there's a niggling thought in the back of her mind. Aside from the disastrous party she'd attended last night in the fertile grounds of her sleep, she has never been in one that does not have party hats and clowns and magicians in it. What's it really like? She wonders. Still wrapped in her towel, she falls back on her bed and starts daydreaming.

She remembers the dark blue gown she wore in her dream. It was so gorgeous! The cut, the details, the fabric - it was so... dreamy...

Yeah, dreamy. As in dream. Ergo, unreal! Her mind asserts.

Shh, she interrupts the little voice in her head. I'm trying to interpret my dream here. Obviously, she loves blue, it's everywhere in her room, therefore the blue dress. Her ugly duckling to swan transformation represents her trying to come out of her cocoon and improve her self-esteem. The ridiculous glass slippers tell her she's walking on dangerous grounds given the tricky place that is college. Or it's telling her to watch her steps, figuratively, because she could actually see her feet in those shoes.

Her biggest fear is being caught dead with filthy fingernails. Working in his uncle's shop is dirty business - dust, grime and grease, the whole nine yards. She can live with her palms being rough and callused as long as her fingernails are flawless. Also, it's honest work where she gets decently paid. Medical school is expensive, and that's why she started young. All her earnings, she puts in a bank. But she admits she has a long way to go, and she's not even halfway there. A three-page article in a business magazine about millionaires under thirty has caught her attention. One of the featured personality mentions he has grown his net worth mainly from investing on stocks. Since then, she has been obsessing about it. She feels it is something that she can do since it involves nothing other than a computer and informed decision-making. If she wants to grow her money, she needs to take some risk. And she makes it her life's mission to learn everything first. She heard there are free seminars that teach people financial literacy and she needs to sign up for those. Eventually, she'll get to that.

Getting back to her dream interpretation, she finds herself at a loss for the meaning of the Cinderella-esque drama where she left behind a glass shoe. Did she expect the stranger to come looking for mystery girl with the help of a shoe? That's ridiculous because as far as she can remember, she didn't go anywhere in her dream because she slammed herself smack on a glass wall. She snorts. Imagine if it was in real life.

She gets up and quickly puts an ensemble of band tee, short-sleeved polo, black jeans and lace-up ankle-high leather boots. She tucks her hair inside the collar of her jacket before zipping up. Taking one last look in the mirror, she heads outside, grabbing her bag and keys along the way. After strapping her helmet securely in her head, she mounts her vintage two-stroke 50cc Yamaha bike, a junkyard find that his uncle painstakingly flipped into its present serviceable state. It's not much to look at but it gets her from point A to B fast and conveniently, so she has no complaints. She turns the key, pulls the clutch lever and kick-starts until the engine sputters.

After ten minutes of navigating the morning traffic, she arrives in school with plenty of time for her first class. She removes her helmet and secures it with a cheap cable lock to the handlebar. Straightening her back, she flips her hair from under her collar and gives it a quick toss. Then, she hoists the bike on its center stand and heads toward her building.

Unbeknownst to Andy, a pair of eyes is watching her curiously from the privacy of his darkly tinted car.