"Of course, dad." Eliza stubbed her toe forward as she dipped the brush into the nail paint and swashed it across her toenail all the while steadying her phone between her shoulder and her ear.
"She's been helping you for three years now, make sure you don't do or say anything that may disrespect her." Eliza chuckled as she could tell that Darius was thinking so deeply, already prepared with the next set of instructions for her. "With you thousands of miles away, Kim MinJu is the only one I can trust with your safety and well-being. And if she thinks it's best to separate the three of you for your final exams, I suggest you listen to her."
"Yes, dad." Eliza flashed a wry smile in evanesce, as the sense of fondness he felt dawned on her.
"What are your internship plans?" Darius cleared his throat, his voice was gruff as a result of spewing instructions, mandates, and stipulations for the past quarter-hour.
"I've applied to a few architectural firms, but I could get a job as good as an architect's assistant for now. There's still a long way to entrepreneurship." She sighed, mentally marking the amount of time it'd take her to open her own firm with a quality experience and a list of loyal clientele.
"I hope you know how proud I am," Darius said in anticipation. "I may not be your biological father but I just want you to know how happy I am to have you as my daughter."
"Oh, come on, dad. Of course, I know." Eliza chuckled, jovially. "Let's not get sappy."
"It's just hard being away from my daughters." He sniffled. Eliza could picture him sniveling his tears back and tipping his eyes with his uncharacteristically and extraordinarily white linen napkins which no one was allowed to wash; laundry only.
"I know, dad. I miss you too." She slipped the brush back in the bottle and placed it on the table far away so as to avoid spillage, before resting her feet up on it for drying.
The window left ajar cast a beam of sultry sunlight to the room, illuminating the vaguely abyssal room. The curtains added an orange glow to the morning light.
That morning hazily reminded her of the forenoons spent on the Sydney and Melbourne beaches during summer. For a moment her mind conjured the rhythmic waves, soft on the sandy shore and Eliza felt her heartbeat to the same slow pace.
There was a faint noise, of the house code being punched into the electronic lock and then the door swung open, not slow but fast enough to drive the door into the plaster opposite.
She swung her head around to acknowledge the individuals, antecedently knowing who it might be. Max and Mia grinned ear to ear before perching their shopping bags down on the living room floor and gathering before her. They had a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon, practically oozing with excitement.
Max gestured asking about the person on the other end of the call as Eliza mouthed dad. Mia leaned back on the couch, her feet loosely hanging on the armrest before she pulled her cellphone out.
"Have you been in contact with Jade?" Something ticked in Darius' voice like he'd wanted to talk about Jade since the beginning but couldn't.
"Yeah, a few days ago. Why?" Eliza narrowed her eyebrows which caught Mia's attention. She gazed at Eliza intently as if to try and listen in on what her dad had to give utterance to.
"She's not picking up any of my calls." He sighed in defeat. "She's angrier than I presumed."
"Give her some time, dad. She's working non-stop. Besides, there's been quite a bit of a misunderstanding between her and Walter." Eliza bit her lip before she dared to say the next words. "And she blames you for that."
"Fair enough." There wasn't even a glint of regret in his voice. Seemed like Darius really despised Walter for knocking up his daughter. "But I've apologized a million times."
Owing to the fact that Darius had a bit of an indicting personality for the things he disagreed with, Jade had run away from Sydney and settled in New York a few years ago and Eliza soon followed. Jade was neither on speaking terms with their father nor Walter. Eliza had to be the administrator as well as the coordinator between the conversations or messages Walter or dad needed to pass on to her half-sister. Walter met up with Eliza constantly, pressing her to let him talk to her sister but Jade didn't budge.
Jade had made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with Walter- who couldn't stand up to his own father and her dad- who wouldn't support her for her decision to keep the baby.
"To be honest dad, the words you said were pretty harsh." Eliza swallowed a hard gulp of air before uttering her next words. "I would've done the same thing if I were in Jade's place."
"Eliza." Her name rolling off his tongue had a sense of disgruntlement as he'd at least expected Eliza to understand his side.
"Dad, you just have to give her a bit of space. The moment she tries to understand your concerns as a father is the moment, she will return your calls. Be patient with her, she's pregnant yet she's still working. She has a few cases in court this week." She sighed, not knowing how else to comfort her step-father.
"Alright." He sighed and Eliza heard a doorbell clink at his side of the call before he put her on hold for a few minutes. "I'm sorry, darling. I have to go, your aunt Kelsey is here. Apparently she's getting divorced for the fifth time." He whispered the last bit almost comically which cracked Eliza up.
"Say hello to her from me." Eliza chuckled acknowledging the fact that her father was a sucker for gossips.
"Yes. Take care, sweetheart." And he hung up.
"So Jade's still not talking to Darius?" Mia bit her lip, scooting closer to where Eliza sat.
"No." Eliza shrugged, curling her lip in disappointment.
"What about that guy-what was his name again.." Max knitted her eyebrows before she spoke, "...Walter Wheeler."
"No, Walter has been trying to contact Jade through me but the moment I mention him, she hangs up on me." Sighing, Eliza leaned back her head, resting on the edge of the couch.
"Tough luck." Mia patted Eliza's back with a distressed look.
"Yeah." Eliza smiled, sadly, glancing down at her feet, checking the progress of her recently painted nails. "Anyways, what were you two beaming about?"
"Wait." Mia sprinted near the doorway, grabbing a huge paper bag with a square box sitting in it. It didn't take a genius to guess what it contained taking into consideration, what date it was.
Max plopped down from the chair and perched on the floor, with her legs spreading across the floor, outstretching under the table. Eliza joined them on the ground as all three of them huddled around the glass table.
"Happy-early-birthday." Mia chirped, gleefully.
"You guys!" Eliza chuckled with content. Although this was their tradition- surprising each other with cakes one day before the actual birthday-it never stopped being zestfully stupefying.
"12 more hours to go." Max chimed pointing her camera-rather what seemed like her Instagram camera-at Eliza.
Mia placed the huge box of cake on the shimmering glass, a lopsided grin plastered across her face.
"I'm twenty-two, I feel so juvenile celebrating my birthday before the actual day." Eliza scrunched her nose up playfully.
"Traditions never die," Mia remarked, as she planted three candles in the cake and lit them up with a matchstick.
Following the disclosure of the sugary sweet, was a stunning ombré rosette cake with layers of red velvet sponge and then sprinkled with pink sugar dust. Max gleefully clutched her fists engulfed in one another as Mia took her rightful place beside her twin, both awaiting Eliza's action.
Eliza smiled with her eyes crinkling at the edges as she blew out the first candle, Mia followed next, blowing out the second in the neatly aligned arrangement and Max blew out the third just like they did in their childhood. Before they could vanquish the once glorious cake into crumbs, they were interrupted.
The doorbell chimed again. It was shrill and it jangled their exuberant trance. It snapped Eliza out of her stupor as she jumped like a button and strode off to the door.
A man with an orange cap and a company logo in-scripted on it stood before her with a paper bag identical to the one the twins bought. Her gaze fell upon him but his eyes were glued onto some chick's Instagram account.
Eliza cleared her throat as his orbs struck onto her in astonishment. He looked young, probably 16-17 years old. Young and distracted.
"Sorry." He chuckled nervously before handing her a card and the paper bag.
"How much?" Eliza asked, out of habit.
"It's a gift. It's been paid for." Giving her one last contrite smile, he pulled his cellphone back from his pocket and dug his nose into stalking some chick's Instagram account.
"Who is it?" Mia stood on her knees, her eyes desperately trying to overlook Eliza's shoulder and into the corridor.
"A delivery guy." She slammed the door shut with the card still in her hand.
Eliza placed the paper bag next to the cake the twins bought and Max spared no time in ripping open the bag and pulling out another cake.
This one was an absolutely dreamy and sophisticated coconut cake, iced with coconut frosting, generously covered with a handful or two of coconut shavings, and finally bedecked with a champagne-colored satin bow at the base.
"What does the card say?" Max scraped some of the frostings off the new cake before sucking her finger.
As if on cue, Eliza tore the ribbon from the card and ripped it open.
Happy birthday, Eliza. I'll be out of town for a meeting and won't be able to call or wish you in person tomorrow. I'm sorry. But here's an early-birthday cake. Just like you and friends celebrate.
-Mom.
Eliza's smile turned upside down into a bitter frown. She knew this wasn't sent by her mother but what was even more painful was that her own mother hadn't wished her in years.
"Who's it from?" Mia cut a small piece of the sugary delight before stuffing it in her mouth.
"My aunt who fills in for my mother every year." Eliza chuckled, humourlessly.
"Aunt Delilah, again?" Max raised an eyebrow.
"Mmh-hmm." Eliza accompanied Mia as the buttery aroma wafted tantalizingly under her nose, similar to the cartoonish beckoning finger of smell you'd see on the TV. "I can recognize Aunt Delilah's handwriting anywhere, yet she tries her best to convince me that it's mum who sends me a card every year."
"Why don't you tell Aunt Delilah that you're aware of it?" Max cut a larger piece of the red velvet cake and another piece from the coconut champagne cake before devouring both the flavors.
"That'll break her heart." Eliza plucked a piece from the coconut flavored cake, giving it an experimental bite. She was surprised to find how easily the spongy layer gave way to teeth and nearly gasped when her tastebuds practically sang under the sugary flavor. "Aunt Delilah never gave up on trying to reconcile me with Chelsea. Unfortunately, my mom is not interested in reconciling with me. As a matter of fact, I'm not interested either."
"Aunt Delilah even stages an excuse every year to make it believable as to why my mum couldn't call me or send me a present on my actual birthday." Eliza scowled bitterly, emphasizing on that dreadful word.
"Has your mother ever called though? Like ever?" Mia bit her bottom lip in uncertainty regarding whether Eliza was comfortable talking about it or not.
"Fortunately, no. The only thing I receive from her is invitations to her exhibitions, auctions for her art paintings, and regular art shows." Eliza licked the crumbs stuck to the top of her finger before placing the fork in a culmination. "Selfish little bitch, that one. Although I don't even know what I'd say to her if she ever called."
"Something like, about time bitch. " Max suggested. "Where the fuck have you been for the last seventeen years?"
Mia burst into a giggle as Eliza guffawed.
"That doesn't even sum up the things I want to say to her." Eliza shrugged, nonchalantly. After pressing on it for a few more moments, she wondered if her mother actually showed up in front of her what would she even say to her - the woman who claimed to be Eliza's mother but had been absent for the better half of her life?
The traditional work of a mother and a woman is being the glue of her family, providing the bedrock of mental health. In Eliza's case, the only thing her mum succeeded in doing was fuck up her mental health.
Eliza was raised by her stepfather-Darius since she was five. And Chelsea was a woman of questionable character. She cheated on Darius with Eliza's biological father-Eugene and left Jade and Darius to fend for themselves. Then she got pregnant with Eliza.
Chelsea was hungry for power, for establishing her place in this world, for her name to be recognized all over the world and in the greed to achieve all that she failed as a mother. Chelsea was a poor mother to both her daughters- Jade and Eliza. So when the tragedy struck, with Eliza being left with stab wounds and a broken jaw at her juvenile age of five, the Child Protective Services took Eliza away from Chelsea.
Darius took her in and away from his ex-wife- Chelsea in a custody battle. With her biological father- Eugene in prison and taking into consideration the kind of manipulative, reckless, and careless of a mother Chelsea had been to Eliza, the judge ruled in Darius' favor.
Darius and Jade were all Eliza ever had. Safe to say, Jade and Darius were her bedrock of mental health. Darius loved Eliza more than her murderer of a father - who tried to kill her or her deceitful mother ever could.
With a criminal for a father and a selfish mother with a lack of maternal instincts, Eliza was sure to turn out to be a fuck up. After all, she was their remix. But having been raised by Darius and with a loving half-sister- Jade, she'd turned out quite fine.
It was uncanny how similar Eliza and Jade looked with almost the same features and only a four-year difference. They both possessed forest green eyes with an oceanic blue graze against the corners and plump lips with silky-straight raven black hair.
The only two major dissimilarities they shared were that Eliza's nose was straight as a slope and Jade had a little bridge-like structure. And Eliza had dimples near her cheeks whereas Jade had a chin dimple similar to Darius'.
If you didn't know them, you'd confuse them as twins rather than siblings.
"You could bitch slap her." Mia crossed her ankles in an X, before cutting another slice of the rosette cake.
"If you resort to that maybe we can get inspired by you and experiment on our own kin." Max rolled her eyes and Eliza knew Max's mind was generating satisfactory images of her bitch slapping her mother.
"Max, please." Mia's voice tightened. For a moment they thought Mia had been offended in some way, after all, Mrs. Kim was their mother. But then her lips curled into a smug. "Bitch-slapping is such an unfair punishment for someone who's hell-bent on humiliating us and making our lives miserable."
"Jokes apart, we need to get dressed before our mother storms in here with a disappointed look and that scary nerve on her forehead that would pop if she could get any angrier." Max grimaced.
"Why?" Fidgeting with the birthday card, Eliza glanced at her friend.
"There's a benefit gala arranged by Evelyn Hexington and all three of us are required to be there," Mia complained, her voice reeking of malaise.
"Oh god, no." Eliza huffed exasperatedly as realization sunk in.
The last thing she wanted to do was doll up and attend some stupid benefit on behalf of her step-father. His only pre-requisition into the agreement of letting Eliza migrate to New York was- attending every high society function on his behalf so he wouldn't have to. Eliza didn't have a choice, she couldn't break the agreement or he'd fly her back to Australia.
This was the first benefit arranged by Evelyn and Eliza had to attend it, mandatorily. Fortunately, she'd have the twins by her side, without them Eliza would've surely been vexed to death in that event with all the high-society judgemental bitches.
"You know what this means?" Max scrunched up her nose in a scowl.
Mia nodded, uttering the words Max had hypothesized. "Kimberly will be there."
"The same Kimberly who went to high school with the two of you?" Eliza folded the remainder of the cake in the box. If she wouldn't put it in the fridge, it would
go bad in a few hours.
Mia looked at Max for a few seconds, hands clutching her own body, it wasn't the response Eliza had hoped for. There was obviously history there that she was unaware of. And the twins didn't look comfortable enough to share it with her yet. They were best friends, sure, but Eliza had been absent from their life for the course of almost 15 years because she had relocated to Australia and she couldn't magically hope for her childhood best friends to confide all of their dark secrets in her.
"Yeah." Max threw her head back with a moue.
"Can't we skip it?" Eliza bit her bottom lip, in order to shift the topic onto something more comfortable but she already anticipated their answer.
They gave her a slumped and rebuffed shrug as the trio made their way to their respective rooms.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
"We have to be at the airport immediately after the benefit if we want to execute our plans." Mia-who sat on Eliza's left seat in the limousine-leaned in to whisper to her sister.
The leather of the limousine seat stuck to her georgette dress making tiny sounds every time she squirmed in her seat.
"What plans?" Eliza angled her eyebrows in bewilderment. She wasn't aware of any plans to take place for the evening apart from the stupid benefit gala.
"Mia, you idiot!" Max smacked her sister as Mia retaliated immediately. Their little brawl gifted Eliza with a few smacks and slaps before she could put an end to it.
"This is why no one wants to sit between the two of you." Eliza held both their hands in either of hers, ceasing their squabble.
"Would you care to enlighten me about these plans we apparently have?" Eliza let go of their hands as they immediately engaged in smoothening out their dresses.
Momentarily her gaze settled upon the view outside the window. The streets crowded with upmarket stores, smooth black and glass interiors with fancy names, and fancier lettering. In the moments they were passing the run-down pawn shops, the liquor stores, and sophisticated supermarkets that were about as wide as two bowling lanes.
On the sidewalk were spaced out women with gemmed watches and prepossessing outfits. Their hair up in luxurious buns or straightened out or curled in, walking down the avenues towards their cars with Tiffany bags.
"Argh. Now that my dumb sister has already ruined this..." Max scowled at her twin before focusing her gaze back onto Eliza. "... your dad let us borrow the keys to your mansion in the Hamptons."
"Hamptons? What are we going there for?" It'd been quite some time since Eliza had last visited their summer home in the Hamptons. It never quite walloped to her that she came from money, with her scholarship at the university and a job at a cafe like any other normal student it was easy to forget that part of her life. But she guessed that not everyone hated the glamorous lifestyle and attention as much as she did.
"We're throwing you a birthday party tonight!" Mia squealed in exhilaration.
An automatic frown made its way to her face but she recovered quickly so as to put a smile on it before the twins could notice. Eliza hated birthday parties and she thought both of her friends were quite apprised of it.
"Well not us, technically." Max pointed trying to take the angst away from them, almost like she read Eliza's expressions and her mind. "Jade."
"Jade's in town?" That brought back the smile that had abandoned her, back on Eliza's face.
"Yeah, she couldn't wait to meet you. We thought a party could pave way for a great celebratory reunion." Max rubbed the back of her neck, unsure of how her friend had taken the news.
"Why isn't she coming to the benefit then?"
"She said that she just got back from court and was tired so she'd meet us in the Hamptons in a few hours." Max placed her hands in her lap before smiling.
Eliza nodded in accordance. It had been an immense interval of time since she had last met with her half-sister. That news certainly elevated what was left of her early birthday. "Who else did you guys invite?" Her gaze danced from Max and then to Mia.
"Mia was in charge of the guest list."
"It was a mass invite to everyone on my phone log." Mia's unsettled eyes glanced unceremoniously around and tried to avoid catching their sharp, pointed, aggravated gaze.
"Mia!" Eliza exclaimed in despondency.
"I wanted you to have a great party where you could meet a lot of people. Boys to be precise." Mia defended, not regretting her choice to invite almost everyone she knew. She tried to get Eliza laid every chance she got, not that Eliza complained but it had become relatively recurrent lately.
"Plus it's really boring to shortlist people. In my defense, I did tell Max that I was too stupid to make a guest list." Mia added with a shrug like this was a fact and not an insult from her to herself.
"How is that your defense? Besides, you can't use that card on everything." Max complained.
"I didn't say it was a good defense."
"Lord, give me patience or an untraceable handgun to shoot her." Max entwined fingers and clutched her hands close to her chest. Shutting her eyes tightly, she titled her head heavenwards in mock prayer.
"But I'm not looking for anything. You know that!" Eliza shoved Mia towards the window as her friend recovered with a smirk on her face.
"Who said you had to? I'm talking about raw, meaningless sex." The corners of Mia's lips curled into a smug expression as she playfully bumped her shoulder to Eliza's.
"Well, I guess I can't say no to that." Eliza attempted to be mad at Mia but burst out into a chuckle instead. "How do you even know that many people?"
"I love surrounding myself with loose acquaintances who think I'm funny and smart and charming." The glee on Mia's face was one hundred percent genuine.
"Fortunately her acquaintances don't know her as I do, otherwise we all know what those adjectives would be replaced with," Max smirked averting her gaze from her now infuriated twin and onto Eliza.
"Why are you always such a bitch to me?" Mia whined, unimpressed by Max's brusqueness.
"Because you exist." Max challenged.
Eliza huffed with exasperation but a tiny smile settled on the far end of her lips, although she was often caught between the twins' hitch it felt good to be surrounded by a normal functioning family. Well, normal is an overstatement but one gets the gist of it.
"Don't start with this again," Eliza warned almost hoping that one of them would listen to her and stand down.
"Tell her to shut the fuck up," Mia complained thrusting her sister to the other side and in the process, she ended up smacking Eliza.
Thankfully Max just awarded her twin with a glare and a smirk of victory before turning her attention back to her cellphone.
But Mia's angry gaze was drilling holes in her sister's head so Max finally snapped. "Why are you glaring at me?"
"I'm hoping you'll spontaneously combust."
Max rolled her eyes at her sister's annoying face, going back to her Instagram scrolling. And since Max didn't retaliate to Mia's previous comment, the squabble died down.
Eliza's eyes drifted to their current landmark by gazing out the window, as she scaled the amount of time it'd take them to reach the Hexington Manor. A few moments more and they would be in suburbia, rows of uniform houses, and neatly moved lawns, each wide avenue draped in the seasonal reds and golds.
"To a night of turning twenty-two." Mia poured the shiny liquid into a glass, snapping Eliza back into the current conversation. The shimmering bubbly liquid turned out to be champagne-one of Mia's favorite drinks.
"Fuck responsibilities, get drunk, and get laid." Max raised her glass to the ongoing toast. "Let the good times roll."
Eliza chuckled. "Amen."
Mia grinned in exhilaration and they clinked their glasses of strawberry pink liquid as they began their ritual.
The pre-benefit gala ritual- gulping down champagne in the form of elixir to get them through boring events filled with snobby rich people.
Like the old man said, 'Always do drunk what you can't do sober.'