Confessions of a Cat-holic (60)

So taking pictures of my vagina became Jackson 5's way of bad ass ultimatum, exclusively only in Hong Kong. Wow, just so very evil.

If they said every cloud had a silver lining, I thought that maybe there were lessons I could learn from the stupidity of my new friends. Every step I took, I took with precaution and I liked to reflect upon my past mistakes. I had already transferred school. There was no way of turning back. I might as well just embrace the challenges and moved on.

I decided that it was time for me to add a bit of spice in cooking up my new friends. So I contacted Sharon and asked her to come out for a chat.

Sharon obviously was mad at me for applying and attending her dream school. She said she thought I went to DGS, because nobody had any idea where I went. I told her I didn't think I would get in because I was not good enough. She said I was deflating myself again and assured me that SPCC would be harder to get in than any other schools in Hong Kong.

That was right. I wished she could stay dreaming. I went along with whatever she said, as always.

For a split second, I wanted to tell her the truth but of course I didn't like her enough to do so. I told her that there were a lot of tycoons in SPCC and I confessed to her that sometimes all she needed in order to marry rich was simply a connection, a chance for them to get to know her. I even told her that a girl as pretty as her would not have the chance to marry a rich bachelor not because she was not good enough, but simply he had no way to approach. I said I had a better chance of marrying rich because I went to school with many qualified bachelors which she would not have access to in a girls' school, whilst showing a grin on my face too.

Come on, I had known Sharon since the age of 6. We grew up together. Of course I knew what she wanted the most. I knew exactly what motivated her, aka her soft spot. She would do anything to be those rich man's girlfriend, second wife even. After endless nights of chatting with her on the phone through all these years, I knew exactly what she wanted to hear. But then, she also knew that I had a thing for Aaron Kwok. Not sure if that was why Sharon and her boyfriend introduced my husband to me in college. My husband became Sharon's boyfriend's roommate in senior year. I wouldn't like to believe that was coincidence.

Sharon was a Scorpio in Mars, which meant that she was only motivated by revenge, and maybe a bit of money too. But I would say she could do a lot more in revenge than in benefitting herself. She quitted St Francis a year after I spoke to her and studied abroad in a prep school called Loomis Chaffey on the east coast of America. She repeated a year too, to get more prepared for her college applications. As far as I knew, she befriended every single Hong Konger among the prep school circle on the east coast in high school and during my time at Columbia to badmouth me calling me a superficial plastic fishing for an Ivy League bachelor. My reputation was severely damaged with her libels, but then it cleared up the path onto marriage with a narcissistic Yalie. I could sue her if I wanted to but then she was doing more good than damage to me in a non-microscopic perspective.

Sharon was determined, but she was not strategic. There was a Chinese idiom to describe her motives, which was "smart Chiu's heart every passerby could see". The fact that she wanted to marry rich and eliminate any competitors who got in her way was just too obvious.

Only years after I finished college when we spoke on the phone that I realized she sold her apartment in Baguio Villa and her three automobiles to finance her tuition and expenses in Loomis and NYU. Her mother divorced her father and moved with Sharon's brother to Seattle for good. Well, what should I say? I didn't do anything evil, did I? I was just fetching a wishbone to a hungry bitch. That was human of me to do so. Maybe she was too greedy. Maybe she oversubscribed to what I said. Maybe she was just too obsessed with marrying rich. Tough luck.

All I knew was that she still could not give up searching for a rich bachelor as she turned 40, unmarried. Oh Sharon, I always wished you all the best.