This Crazy Rich Boy

"What's that?" Claire couldn't believe her eyes.

Miss Cassandra stares at her, then turns to the skimpy bikini in her hand. "I don't follow."

"I mean, am I supposed to wear that?"

Miss Cassandra smiles. "Oh dear. Didn't Captain Eduard tell you? You're supposed to attend a little event at the pool."

"Another event?"

"Yes." Miss Cassandra holds the bikini against Claire's body, as if testing it. "That's how things happen here, if you must ask. One moment you're having a party. The next moment, you're, err, having another party."

"This is ridiculous," Claire mutters to herself. "Is this not going to end?"

"I'm sorry, what?" Miss Cassandra says. "What's ending?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing." Claire receives the bikini as if entranced. It's fiery red, with flimsy straps to attach themselves to the body. Claire imagines herself wearing it, and she gulps at what she sees—she's going to bȧrė so much skin. Isn't this exploitation? Gabriel didn't even mention this earlier during breakfast! Did he just make this thing up now? Claire's entire being is dying to resist this most recent turn of events.

Miss Cassandra seems to have read her thoughts. "I'm sorry, Miss Monteverde, but Mr. Tan wants me to remind you of your private agreement with him. He made me understand that this is part of your agreement."

Claire stares at the young fashion stylist slash wardrobe manager dumbly. She still couldn't process the whole thing. She thought she could spend the next few days while she's in the mansion in relative peace and quiet. She thought the party last night was the wildest she was going to experience. And now this.

"Sorry, I think I'd need to speak to Gabriel first," Claire says.

"What for?" Miss Cassandra says. "Your fiance's already at the pool waiting for you. It's not like you haven't done this before, have you? It's just a pool party."

"He didn't tell me there's going to be a pool party."

"Exactly," Miss Cassandra says, trying to be the patron saint of patience. "That's why he wants me to take care of it. So here's your bikini. All you have to do is head over there and slay. What's the big deal?"

The big deal is I've never worn a bikini before, especially not in front of people—is what Claire wants to say. Sure, she has seen her body a million times in front of a mirror, and what she has seen is always pleasing, always a "sight for sore eyes," as they say. The woman in the reflection is the image of self-confidence and feistiness—but there's only one catch: that all happens alone in her room. If you don't count the accident at the bathroom last night with Karen's boyfriend Russel, maybe you can count with the fingers of one hand the number of people who have seen her nȧkėd, or at least semi-naked, in her life. Her mom and dad notwithstanding.

And now her fake fiancé is demanding her to do something she holds sacred, in a casual pool party, no less. What should Claire do?

Perhaps more importantly, what would her mom, Carol Monteverde, would do, if faced with a similar situation?

Her mom, Carol Arevalo, was legendary for her beauty and achievements. She's always aspired to follow her mother's footsteps. But unlike Claire, her mother was also legendary in her youth for a different reason: she was a certified playgirl, having a string of boyfriends she left crying like heartbroken little boys in her wake. Her mom was the Ice Queen, never succumbing to her own emotions and treating men as secondary creatures—that is, until she met her future husband, Claire's dad, Magnus Monteverde. There was something about Magnus, Carol would tell her daughter years later, that made her change her mind about men, about life, about relationships. And it's a story whose narrative still unfolds to this day.

But she's digressing. What matters is the here and now, and finding an answer to the question: To be or not to be?

"Here," Miss Cassandra as much as shoves the bikini in Claire's hands. "Don't overthink. Just go over there and sashay and show everybody why Gabriel Tan is head over heels about you. Show them the merchandise, Miss Monteverde. Slay! You go, girl!"

"Alright," Claire says in exasperation.

"Try it on here now, so I can coach you," Miss Cassandra says.

"Like, right here, right in front of you?"

"What's the matter?" Miss Cassandra says. "We're both girls. What you have, I also have." She grins.

That sounds fair. But Claire nevertheless asks for a private moment in a fitting room, so Miss Cassandra points her to a small adjoining room. Claire slips inside and spends the first few minutes staring at her reflection on the full-sized mirror. Yeah, what's the matter, Claire asks the reflection. Stop being Miss Good Two-Shoes and take your darned clothes off.

Claire lets her dress slip off her body. Then she holds the little piece of fabric against the room's light—so fragile and flimsy, and to think this is all that's going to cover her body—to examine it. Two pieces. One top, one bottom. Jesus. When they say it's skimpy, they really mean it. Claire looks at her nȧkėdness for a moment, then slowly, slips on the bikini. It fits her so nicely, emphasizing her hɨps and—Claire turns around—her buŧŧ. She got her body from her mom, who had sepia pictures to prove it. When she puts on the top, the sight almost takes her breath away—only two smallish triangles of flimsy fabric have the job of covering her brėȧsts. It leaves very little to the imagination. But for some reason, Claire feels good, not really embarrassed: what the mirror shows her is a woman she has never seen before, a specimen of youth's beauty. Any man's jaws would drop at the sight of her.

When she slips out the room, even Miss Cassandra is speechless. It takes her a few minutes before muttering, "Holy moly. It's obvious why you've reeled in the CEO of TXCI Industries."

Claire doesn't really know how to respond to that, except, "Thank you, Miss Cassandra."

"You are stunning," Miss Cassandra says. She smiles sweetly.

"So," Claire says. "Do I walk all the way to the pool wearing only this, or can I at least use a bathrobe?"

"Oh, sorry. Yes, a bathrobe should be nice."

Miss Cassandra rifles through a selection of bathrobes and pulls out a pink one. "Here, this would be perfect on you."

As Miss Cassandra suggested, Claire did indeed sashay like some runway model all the way to the pool area, only it's not that simple: with the sheer size of the mansion, even the simple instructions of "Take a left, then go all the way to the statue of a nȧkėd boy, then turn right, walk down a narrow corridor, take a left, than you'll find a door that opens finally to a room adjoining the pool area" was not at all easy to follow. Claire finds herself in the wrong room or making the wrong turn quite a few times, until she stumbles into Lucille the maid, who only gladly walks her to the pool area.

And once she gets there, Claire discovers it isn't exactly a "little pool party."

"Darn it," Claire mutters under her breath. Before her is a full-on pool party, with a DJ, a laser light show, and dozens of beautiful people she doesn't even know. Worse, Gabriel Tan is nowhere to be found.