Confessions of a Cat-holic (144)

Actually, there were many things I needed to thank Sharon for. If not her, I would not have been able to totally disconnect with my ex, Ed, after our breakup in 2007. She introduced his wife to my ex, and they had been perpetually married against all odds. She was Jessica, a friend of Sharon's also from NYU. I heard she had a crush on Ed ever since she saw the pictures I posted online. That was a trick I copied from Jason. Thank you Jason and Sharon, I was always a huge fan of ideas recycling and sustainability.

Talking of which, I thought I needed to explain myself a little more, and perhaps you would see that my relationship with my husband, Eddie, was not so much of a serendipity, or that of a love at first sight. I knew Jason before I met him in person. How should I say? I should have said I knew of him instead. I saw Jason's picture with his girlfriend Iris (Chow?) from USC even before I got into Columbia. That was the last year of my high school when I was at Li Po Chun United World College. Even though school work was tedious and I had a very packed schedule, I still talked to people and browsed the internet whenever I had time. Someone showed me the xanga of a girl named Iris on the internet and I was absolutely stunned. She was drop dead gorgeous. She was so pretty that I thought my husband must have mistaken me for her substitute when we went out. But later I found out that he was in love with me, not for the fantasy or shadow of Jason's girls.

How should I describe my feelings when I grabbed hold of their picture? I thought she looked like Vivian Chow, the diva of our generation, but even more attractive and within reach. How could such a pretty girl exist in reality, I thought to myself? She had long and straight hair up to her shoulder, with some make up but not overdone. She was young, decent looking and appropriately dressed. I was very impressed. She was showing off her date with Jason when they rowed on a boat near their high school campus. I heard that they both went to Tafts School, a feeder prep school on the east coast for the Ivy League. She could not get into Columbia and went to USC instead. Their long distance relationship did not quite work out so they broke up shortly after college started. Not only that, my friend Tracy Lau was a good friend of Iris when they both went to USC together. USC was a magnet school for many of the SPCCers. Tracy told me that she found Iris's beauty almost surreal. What was ironic was that Iris also lived in the same complex as me, as verified by Tracy. Tracy told me that she drove Iris to school at USC every day, since they knew each other from way back at SPCC. But I never saw Iris around when I went there. She must have left school by the time I got in.

I didn't know where Jason went at the time when I saw Iris's xanga. I only found out all about Jason after I matriculated at Columbia. At the time, I thought Jason looked like a Cornellian and Iris somehow looked like a USC student too. I thought they were too perfect looking to be true, almost like a heaven sent couple.

That summer before I started freshman year, I was invited to a boat trip with my boyfriend then, Ed. Ed was already a rising sophomore at Yale. He liked to show off his connections with the rich, like I was from a third world country. Hey, I had friends in the super rich circle too, it was just that I never bragged about it. If you googled Yammie Lam and Lo Shiu Fai, you would see what I meant. You would see the consequences of offending someone high net worth when you technically did not belong to that circle. By the way, my former boss Eric Tsang and Kirk Sweeney were great friends with Paulyn Sun.

Ed was invited by a Yale alumnus, Edward Kwok, who was the son of the Kwok's family from Sun Hung Kai. Edward Kwok was visually impaired. Nevertheless, he was one of the kings of Hong Kong. He owned a yacht, no, many yachts. So out of courtesy, he invited Ed to bring me for a boat trip on a sunny weekend that summer before school started. Joyce Kwok was also there. Joyce went to Harvard University and then Columbia MBA. I could tell Ed was hoping to allure Joyce by avoiding any skinship with me on the boat. And Joyce saw that as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmGHjPrmU9Y