My parents have never taken much notice to me. They had always been too busy planning fancy parties or work or interior decorating to spend time with their daughter. Their minds were always elsewhere; wrapped up in the world of gossip, scandal, and social events.
Not to say that I was ever short of material goods like clothes (from all the finest stores and botiques in Manhattan), the latest iPods, and other various unneeded items that were wanted by others and not me. No, my parents didn’t understand that kids needed more than just things like that. They cared more about how I looked than what kind of person I was, and one hot, summer evening, as we were all eating dinner together (on a rare occasion that my dad wasn’t working and my mom wasn’t out with friends), they dropped a figurative bomb on me. They predictably stunned me with their ‘good news,’ the news that they claimed would change all our lives for the better.
I had been innocently playing with my soup, thinking casually to myself, when my mother interrupted with a loud clearing of her throat.
“Dear,” she said (although you could tell how much it pained her), “We have some rather… exciting news!” She didn’t look very excited, but that could have been due to a recent round of botox injections. I smiled to myself at the thought, but her next string of words wiped it off in less than three seconds flat.
“We’re moving to London!” She practically screamed, and erupted in giddy laughter. I, however, proceeded to choke on my sparkling water. After regaining my composure (at least somewhat), I processed what she had just said.
“What. Did. You. Say?!” I shouted.
“I know! Isn’t it exciting? Your father has the most wonderful job opportunity there, and I am hoping to work more with design and fashion!” She said, but this was no opportunity for me to humor her or her childish dreams.
“Dad. Is this… this… outrage... true?” I asked, hoping against what I knew would happen anyway.
“What? Oh. Why, yes, I suppose it is!” he said with a sigh. I could tell that he had been trying to keep out of the whole situation.
“You suppose? Right. And I suppose that that the sun will rise tomorrow. God. Thanks a lot! You and mom just boot us over to another COUNTRY without even talking it over with your only daughter first? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“But we’re not, Ivy,” my mom said, calling me by my hated first name. “And the fact is that we haven’t even told you the best part! You will be attending Birch’s Academy for Young Women, a boarding school just outside of London.”
I practically heard her words in slow motion, as she ejected them like poisonous darts that couldn’t possibly miss their target.
At this point, I must have started breathing rather heavily, because my mom asked me if I was feeling alright.
“I do believe that she will pass out,” my dad said without emotion. No. Dr. David Collins never showed emotion.
Slowly, I regained a steady heartbeat, and with it came the horrible realization that there was no use arguing the facts.