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CHAPTER 1

Phoenicia Carlisle

My boyfriend’s just asked me to marry him. He popped the question yesterday night during dinner at a fancy, posh restaurant in the hub of London, while I was drinking champagne. I was in an exceptionally good mood because I had managed to accomplish a staggering feat with my team. We, ahem, I’ll get back to that later.

As I was saying, I was drinking champagne, which was so not my type, but my boyfriend detests women drinking anything heavier than champagne or wine. He hates me drinking brandy, Scotch, vodka, anything heavy. How many times have I noticed him giving me a tired, exasperated, over-exaggerated look when I tried to sneak a small sip of brandy or vodka to calm my nerves because I always get jumpy when I’m with him? I don’t know why I get jumpy, because I never do get jumpy with men. It’s not that he’s making me fluttering with love with his deep grey eyes. He’s just a plain, boring Englishman called William Bolding.

But I love him.

Okay, scratch that. I wish he would just end our relationship. It was becoming a bore. I mean, what’s a relationship with no sex? Yeah, we hardly have sex! He was a staunch Christian who believed that a bride should be virgin. Yeah, crazy, isn’t he? Who gives a damn about virginity nowadays? To have sex is so natural again, it’s like we’re reversing back to Neanderthal ages, when, I’m sure, sex wasn’t even an issue. Of course we’re supposed to be all morally-conscious and everything now, but, like I said, what’s a relationship without sex?

Ahem, okay, back to the marriage proposal.

I was drinking champagne and literally spluttered it out when he suddenly slid a small, velvet blue box under my nose. What made me splutter the wine out was the size of that thing that was fitted inside: a huge, goodness-knows-how-many carat silver ring with a goodness-knows-how-big sapphire on its throne. I didn’t know why, but the first thing that entered my mind was this: ‘HOLY CRAP!’

I was SO not ready for marriage.

Then, as innocent as a child, he misunderstood my reaction as a joyful surprise. He must have I thought that I was thinking ‘Ohmigod he’s going to propose to me ohmigod he’s going to propose to me and ohmigod of course I’ll say yes! YES! WILLIAM, I WILL MARRY YOU!’ when I was actually thinking of ‘WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING? He’s NUTS!’ But I knew he wasn’t, and as I stared disbelievingly at this plain, Englishman named William Bolding who had the nerve to propose to me, I felt fear for the first time in my whole life. I’d never been this scared of something so abstract but real. The entire meaning of my almost unreal relationship with William suddenly fell from the sky and shook the ground so hard that I can hardly believe it. Did he really believe that we could work?

For a full five minutes, I just sat and gaped. Not at the ring, but at him. And what would he care about the ring anyway? I could just chuck that ridiculous ring out of the window of this fancy, posh restaurant which he owned and he wouldn’t even flinch because he had the bucks to buy ten more of it just to convince me to say yes. I mean, I’m sure as hell that I wasn’t there for the money.

Now, I didn’t even know what on earth I was doing, stuck in a sex-less relationship with a plain, filthy rich Englishman named William Bolding who had apparently assumed that we were perfectly in love with each other, and were ready to become husband and wife.

What a horrible reality.

He broke the terrible silence for me by smiling sweetly and saying, “Will you marry me?”, which, of course, only made things worse for me.

And you know what I did?

I just snatched my handbag from the handle of my chair and fled from the restaurant. I was positive that I couldn’t bear to look at William’s face anymore.

Until I was absolutely ready to break up.

Randen Russell

“So I was, like, ‘Honey, cut the crap and just mow the lawn!’ And she couldn’tshout at me in front of the kids, so she really went out and mowed the lawn!”

I laughed, but it was a half-hearted laugh because I thought the joke was lame. Sick, even. This is why I hate high school reunions. Lame jokes, cheap beer, cheesy music in attempt to revive school-days I didn’t want revived, and of course, ex-buddies who went out of touch years ago only to reenter my life tonight with Stepford wives and even Stepford kids. Heck yeah, if kids could be as Stepford as their mothers, there wouldn’t be movies like ‘Problem Child’. Then there were kids who were ‘Problem’ kids and of course only served to further ruin my day. Hey, why the heck did I even choose to come back to Durwood High anyway? Hadn’t I sworn never to return once the bell rang on my last day? Heck, I didn’t even go for graduation. I was at a boot camp, getting my butt kicked and kicking new ones everyday.

Why was I at the boot camp? Don’t ask. It’s classified government information.

Toby, the master of all lame jokes, was still laughing when the whole gang had stopped. Yeah, the whole football gang: Toby, David, Matt, Harry, Lloyd, Jerry, and Randen. I still can’t believe that I was a player in my school football team. I still can’t figure out why I joined in the first place. If Feeny knew about this, she’d have a ball.

Note to self: don’t tell any of the others that I’d actually played football before.

“So, Randy, what’ve you been up to lately, huh? Still playing Casanova?” I gritted my teeth in a fake smile and restrained my arm from punching nosy Toby in the face. I’ve broken a few hearts before in high school, but once I got out from the boot camp I’d sobered up, but in the eyes of Toby, David, Matt, Harry, Lloyd and Jerry, I didn’t show up with a Stepford wife and Stepford kids because I was still playing with women. So what am I supposed to say?

I came up with a real smart reply: “Oh yeah.”

Way to go, Randen, I thought wryly to myself as, for the tenth time tonight, the boys cracked up again. Toby gave me a comradely shove in the shoulder (At least, I think he was trying to be friendly. I hate people doing that to me, but since Toby was being the light-headed jock he was so many decades ago, I figured I could let it pass, you know, for old times’ sake). “You’d better sober up, partner. You keep on playing women the way you do now and you’ll end up not noticing the perfect woman for you until she’s gone for good.” He laughed again, alone.

Heck, like I needed the advice. But I laughed along and said, “Jeez, thanks for the tip.”

“Anytime, mate.”

Yeah, anytime, anytime.

“Hey,” Toby took a sip of his beer and grinned. “Now that we’re in town for the moment, why don’t we go check into Rosa’s Lodge for the night? We can go hunting tomorrow morning and, heck, since I’m still living here in Durwood, you guys can come over to my house for a barbecue lunch!” He looked at me, his grin getting bigger and bigger by the moment. “How about that, huh? And Randen’s going to foot the bill, eh, buddy? For old times’ sake!”

For some reason, my self-control managed to hang on to the fake smile still plastered on my face. I wanted to say, “No! No, I can’t! I’m not buying this crappy frat thing again! I don’t want to go to your Stepford home and see your Stepford wife and Stepford kids and eat a Stepford barbecue and have a Stepford weekend! I want to hang out and watch cheesy flicks with my real friends in London, and, heck, who knows I’m gonna re-watch ‘The Stepford Wives’ again!”

But I knew that I had to be nice, because these, heck, these were my buddies from high school.

For old times’ sake, indeed.

As David, Matt, Harry, Lloyd and Jerry nodded and hollered in favour of Toby’s idea, I nodded as well, and said, “Sure, I will! We’re buddies, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the spirit!” Toby almost screamed in response. We clinked our glasses together and hollered so loudly that 95 of the heads in the school gym turned in our direction accusingly.

Heck, this was going to be one long, Stepford weekend.

Coldon Perchis

“Coldon, pass the salt, please.”

I immediately tensed up. My grip on the fork and knife tightened, and I was feeling a burst of . . . what, insecurity? rising up in me. And with that unknown feeling, I became scared.

Absolutely terrified.

My cold, regal wife who sat across the long dining table opposite me, set her fork and knife down, and her thin, cherry lips pursed in annoyance.

“Coldon, I said pass me the salt.”

I bit my lip and kept my eyes glued to my plate. It was a simple instruction: pass the salt. But I couldn’t comprehend it. My mind refused to. Every single muscle in my body tensed up. Nobody has been able to intimidate me like this before. Sure, I get intimidated when I am up against cunning assassins, oops.

Sorry about the leak.

No one has made me feel smaller than my very own wife, Elizabeth. Sometimes I wonder why I even married her ten years ago. Ten years ago, I wasn’t this paranoid. She wasn’t as unfeeling as this. We were happy, carefree, adventurous, young . . . Don’t get me wrong, we’re still young, but it feels as if I’ve aged ten decades.

I guess it’s because I’ve caught her in bed with another man three times already last year. Or was it because of me being away for long periods of time at work? But I always come home in time for dinner. Always. Dinner was always at seven, and I always turned up at seven.

Right?

“I always come home for dinner at seven, right?” I blurted out, unable to contain my insecurity.

That was it for Elizabeth. That really blew things up. That really was the final straw.

She scraped the beautiful teak chair backwards and stood up. I looked up. I had to. I couldn’t help but face her beautiful wrath. The quiet, burning anger flashed in her eyes every time this sort of thing happened. Me and my paranoia, just get a life! How many times have I heard the painful insult, flung to me by my own wife!

Even Rourke Hassell, the brashest and most laser-tongued person I’ve ever befriended, was easy on me and my paranoia. I mean, I’m not even paranoid.

Am I?

Elizabeth drew a deep, trembling breath, her perfectly bound blonde hair actually shook with her rage. But she would never shout at me. Never. She liked to keep herself in check. She liked to be calm, but her eyes always belied her true feelings.

I looked into her eyes now and saw that there was immense rage.

Then finally she said, breaking the enraged silence quietly, “I want a divorce.”

I gulped. My mind scrambled for something, anything, to reply her.

But I had to know something first.

“I’m always home for dinner at seven, right?”

Rourke Hassell

“Just where do you think you’re going, young mister?”

Shit. Blew it.

My mom was fantastic at listening for tell-tale sounds of her 25-year-old son creeping out through the back door, even when she’s asleep. However when it came to hearing for the oven timer, she loses out, and I have to be the one running home just to save thedinner every time she tells me that she’s cooking pot roast or roast chicken for the night. And you know what, the best part is, every time I clock in to save the oven, she’sat one ofher Grand Dame pals' home watching ‘The Kumars at No. 42’ or something as insanely hilarious that can make a 56-year-old woman like her completelyforget to mind the oven timer.

So, as the filial son who displays exemplary behaviour by rushing home almost everyday to shut off the oven, I turned around to face the frowning witch who was, most unfortunately, my mother. And of course I remembered to include the sweetest, most apologetical smile I can get myself to smile.

“Yes, Ma?”

“What did I say about going out after ten?” Her eyes blazed with an old woman’s wrath, and it was enough to make anyone cower.

But not me.

I know that I should be grateful that I’m living with my mom, who can cook, do the laundry and clean up after me. But in terms of freedom, well, sometimes I wished she could just get lost. But she will never do that, because I’ll always be her ‘rooky Rory’. To her, ‘rooky Rory’ goes to work at 8 in the morning, comes home for lunch at 1 in the afternoon, and shows up for dinner either at 7 or 7.30 in the evening. Then I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, as long as I was home by ten.

But what she didn’t know was that her ‘rooky Rory’ played the electric guitar, hacked computers, handled submachine guns, drank vodka, and had narrow scrapes with death almost every single day. She’d have a hell of a fit if she knew what I did for a living. She’d probably sign herself into a nursing home and would not hesitate to badmouth me behind my back.

“Rory, are you listening to me?” She interrupted my rare moments of contemplation with a hard rap on my forehead. I did not complain but just rubbed at the place where she had knocked me. Years of experience had thought me never to complain or protest when she bullied me.

“Yes, Ma. I’m not supposed to go out after ten.”

She folded her arms and nodded with preliminary satisfaction, but she wasn’t done with me yet. “Do you know the consequences if you break the golden rule?”

Gosh, she just loves this part of catching me red-handed. But I just pretended that I didn’t know. I’m tired of this stupid game, but I’d rather she punish me than having her scream at the top of her lungs and denying my neighbours in my nice suburban neighbourhood a good night’s rest.

So of course I said, “No, Ma.”

She smiled coyly and crooked a wrinkled finger. “Come here, Rory. You’d better come here now and take your punishment like a grown man, or I’ll beat you up like a sack of potatoes.”

So I went closer to her, and she strode towards the kitchen cabinet, from which she took out a huge axe. I tried not to sigh with exasperation and despair. But I couldn’t help it.

Outside, I was the impatient, impulsive, and roguishly charming Rourke Hassell. At home with my mother, I was the lousiest loser in the whole of England.

Scott Levine

“Mr. Levine, please stay. I need to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”

I froze when I heard old Professor Kerrington’s warm voice. What’s a guy to do when his professor tells him to stay? I shrugged. Stay, of course. I had time. It was an I-have-nothing-else-better-to-do weekend so I decided I might as well stay and hear what he has to tell me.

Once the other students had gone out, he shut the heavy, wooden door and sat behind the desk on the far end of the lecture. I noticed that his footsteps, always heavy and stable, suddenly became light and jittery. As he shuffled his papers and I watched him nervously from across his desk, I couldn’t help but feel that it had something to do with my girlfriend, Leda.

After ten minutes of sniffling and book-arranging, Professor Kerrington cleared his throat and folded his palms together on the desk. This made me even more nervous. Get out with it already! my mind screamed, but my expression, I hoped was cool and patient.

Finally, he said, his voice somewhat wavering, “Leda didn’t come home last night.”

My heart stopped almost instantaneously. Weren’t you in Bristol visiting your sick grand-aunt? I thought wildly. My nerves were frying on a sizzling plate of confrontation. If he knew that I had been sleeping with his daughter all this while behind the disguise of ‘student integration’ programme, I was as good as dead.

I was sure that I will flunk my thesis. Leda’s dad is, after all, my professor in art history. Gosh, how on earth have I sunk myself this deep? If he didn’t flunk my thesis, he would probably strangle me with his own, bare hands. I really care about my degree in art history, but then again, I really care about Leda as well. I care about my parents’ wish to see me pose with a degree after letting me pursue my passion in art history. They’d always envisioned me as a high-flying lawyer, following my father’s excellent footsteps. Of course they didn’t see my interest in art coming, and most certainly they disapproved when I declared that I was going to become an art dealer, and nothing could stop me.

I came from a wealthy, polite family. Yes, you heard me. Polite. My parents were extremely polite with me and my sisters, and with each other. They’d never fought openly before. If their opinions clashed, they would just purse their lips and glare at each other until one of them relented. Even their laughter was small, quiet and polite. They covered their mouths when they burped or yawned or laughed. Really, sometimes they scare me, with their politeness and fastidiousness. In my late teens, I always wondered if they had sex that way too: polite, reserved and nice.

But I, I was the expressive one. I couldn’t stand having a row quietly like them: I prefer to scream and shout. But as I was always taught to keep my emotions in check, art became my only outlet of feelings. So I fell in love with it.

And ended up being faced with charges of secretly dating the daughter of my art history professor, who, by the way, is a strict, almost-Puritanical Londoner father.

I gulped, but I didn’t say anything. A thousand sentences were running through my mind and itching to get out through my lips. But I kept my mouth fastened.

However, my good professor wasn’t buying my innocent outlook. He tapped his fingers on the desk, as if prompting me: “Well?”

It’s as if I could hear his question. I had to reply. I had no choice.

So I drew a deep breath and said, “I hope you will forgive me.”