Down With The Queen

A Warm Welcome

 “VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!”

Vi mumbled her annoyance as she woke from her slumber. She was having the best dream ever in which she was a twenty foot giant trying to squish Jennifer and her cronies under her big feet who happened to be three feet tall and just the right size for getting trampled on. Vi wasn’t exactly religious or superstitious, but she did like the vibes this particular dream was giving off, until her mom had to interrupt her dreamland victory. She turned in her bed and got comfortable again, trying to fall asleep again to find out if she could continue her dream from where she was interrupted...

“VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!”

Her mother’s voice was louder now, which meant she was coming to her room.

Bye bye to dreamland.

Vi sighed crossly as she sat up, yawning and stretching, wondering why her mother saw it fit to interrupt her sleep. It was a Saturday after all, and it wasn’t as if she had any other thing to do asides unpack her belongings. Besides, last night’s party had drained almost all of her energy.

“What?”

“Well good morning to you too, Shailene Violet McCain,” her mother answered with as much sarcasm as she could muster, standing with her hands akimbo at Vi’s bedroom.

“Mom, I’ve told you several times...It’s Vi. VI,” she said, wishing her mother would for once listen to her instructions. If her mom called her Shailene or ‘Shay’ as she was fond of, it could ruin everything. It could render her ten-month plan useless. Vi was at the brink of resorting to hypnotizing her mother, which wouldn’t be a bad idea after all.

“What is wrong with calling you by the name you’ve answered for sixteen years?” her mother asked.

“Well, what’s wrong with bearing the surname of your ex-husband?” Vi countered.

“Well, miss Smarty Pants, that’s different and you know it,” her mother said with a roll of her stormy grey eyes, which Vi had luckily inherited from her. Vi always said she had dodged a bullet by having the grey eyes of her mother and not the boring brown of her father.

Vi knew her mother wasn’t offended at the mention of her dad, for they both felt the same way about the unfaithful 'butt-licker', a term both her and her mother had grown accustomed to calling her father.

Her mother was a pretty woman who even in her late thirties could pass off as Vi’s older sister. She had gotten married to Drew Whitmore in her twenties, and at that time she had thought it was true love. They had known each other a couple of years before they tied the knot and made their union legal, much to the chagrin of her mother. She hadn’t seen her mother since she got married and eventually divorced Drew, but she was sure the woman would be all smiles and go on and on about how she had warned her only daughter not to rush into something she didn’t understand but she didn’t listen.

Emilia McCain was young and fresh out of college when she met Drew. She was a smart woman, and bagged a job working as a personal shopper and stylist for important personalities and rich housewives who lived to squander their husbands' fortunes. On one occasion, she had to accompany a client to a fundraising gala, where she met a charming stranger who introduced himself as Drew. She wasn't the type to fall easily for sugar-coated tongues, but Drew Whitmore swept her off her feet that night. And so she found herself falling in love with the man, and even though on a few occasions, she caught him flirting with other women, she let it slide and always made up excuses for him, telling herself that he would stop once they had gotten married and started a family. Her mother had warned her severally against marrying Drew, but Emilia was far too gone in love to pay heed to her mother's advice. Her father had nothing to say except "listen to your mother", but he nevertheless supported her marriage, since it was what she wanted.

Emilia married Drew and moved to Knox to be with him, but her job always took her out of town. It took her out of town less when she had Vi, but by then she had started to see the signs of Drew's infidelity. The breaking point of their marriage was moving to California in order for Vi to start a new life, because there Drew had the opportunity to cheat more on his wife than he had back in Knox. Finally, Emilia had had enough and requested a divorce, and Vi had chosen to stay with her mother, to which the judge did not contest.

And so, the newly divorced and her daughter sought to start a new life in an old home, Knox.

"Look, I know you want to be a totally different person than you were the last time," her mom started, walking to her bed and sitting by her side, "but you have to remember not to get carried away and forget who you truly are. High school isn't always everything."

"Mom, it's easy for you to say. High school was a breeze for you."

"Oh honey, high school was never fun for anybody. High school is just a place they put together a bunch of kids who have no idea what they're doing."

"I just don't want to be shark chow again," Vi said solemnly, looking out her window. The sun was starting to peek out of the horizon, casting a warm golden glow on the town of Knox, and lighting up her room with its yellow rays.

"Just be careful, Vi. The only thing you can't afford is to lose yourself trying to be somebody," Emilia cooed softly, hoping her daughter was hearing not just her words, but her heart.

“Anyway, I wanted to inform you that we have dinner at the Simon’s tomorrow evening, just so you can get prepared.”

“What?!” Vi exclaimed, incredulous at the news she had just heard. Her mother was indirectly putting her in the enemy’s camp, which was quite dangerous.

“Why are you having dinner with anyone? We just got here!” Vi argued. She’d better find a way to get out of this fast, or else she would be spending Sunday night sucking up to Jennifer Simon.

“Well, I bumped into one Mrs. Simon yesterday while trying to find a coffee shop and we got talking. She seemed to know that I was new in town, so she invited me for dinner,” Emilia explained.

“But you’re not new in town mom.”

“Honey, I practically am. I lived ten years in Knox and I still don’t know how to get anywhere. I was never really around,” her mom replied solemnly, wishing Vi would not give her a hard time about it. Like Vi, she craved a fresh start, and was trying to forget about her past life where she was absent for most of her daughter’s life.

“Just think of it as a warm welcome,” Emilia said finally, getting up to prepare for her early morning run. Emilia was also a fitness junkie, and sometimes she managed to drag Vi along on some of her runs. But she sensed that Vi wasn’t up to it today, so she said nothing.

“See you later kiddo.”

With a big sigh, Vi got out of bed, and having been woken from her slumber she could sleep no more, so she looked around to see what she could occupy herself with. She saw nothing to do except unpack the piles of boxes that lay scattered across the whole house. Her new home was one of those cozy modern minimalist houses her mother’s clients were always going on and on about, so it didn’t come as a surprise when her mother bought the house when it sprang up for sale. Apparently, the mayor had built these rows of minimalist bungalows in some part of town that was newly developed, since the patch of land had been abandoned by the previous mayor. It was good business, her mother had said. Well, she liked her new house, and hoped she could call it home. She hoped her plans wouldn’t go up in flames, so she wouldn’t have to flee. She desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that, because she didn’t know whether fate was in her favor.

Downstairs, Vi heard a knock on the door. Taking her time as she didn’t feel like being a social person this early, she eventually got to the door and looked through the peephole, trying to see if she could recognize the distorted human on the other side of the door. The figure was already turning to leave when Vi opened the door.

It was a girl who looked to be her age. She had curly red hair that seemed wild, green eyes and a sprinkle of freckles under her eyes. She looked somewhat pretty in the morning sun which highlighted her porcelain skin, but she was a bundle of nerves and fiddled with the box in her hand.

“What?” Vi asked, not unpleasantly but not pleasantly either.

That was enough to make the girl stammer. “Um, h-hi, I-I’m Kaleen. I live across,” she pointed behind her, where a woman stood in front of a house identical to Vi’s across the road. The woman waved when Vi looked in her direction, and Vi waved back politely. “M-my mum said to come over and give this to you and your mum, w-which is her way of saying welcome,” Kaleen said with a small voice, wanting nothing more than to run back home and take comfort in her bed. The new girl looked scary with her unsmiling face, but not as scary as Jennifer Simon and her posse.

Vi sensed that she was freaking out the girl who already seemed to be socially awkward, so she softened a bit and tried to be less menacing.

“Uh, thanks. My mum will really appreciate it,” she managed to say with a small smile, taking the package from Kaleen. “I’m Vi.”

“It’s really nice to meet you,” Kaleen said with a nervous smile.

Vi opened the box Kaleen had given her and immediately her nose was overwhelmed with the aroma of home-baked cupcakes. “Wow,” she said, surprised. “They smell nice.”

“Yeah, they’re my grandma’s recipe. My mum loves making them,” Kaleen explained, looking a bit proud. “And welcome to the neighborhood,” she added and turned to go, bumping clumsily into the rail of the stairs.

Vi turned to go back into the house, and one glance at all the boxes she had to unpack gave her an idea.

“Hey Kaleen...”

Kaleen, who had not gone far at all, turned. “Yeah?”

“Do you want to come in for a bit?”