Dead & Forgotten

Ch. 1

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock one fine Monday morning in early September. I dreaded waking up because not only was it my first day of high school--how's that for decent?--but it was also my first day ever of attending boarding school. Double great! I had been dreading for this moment to come since during the summer, and somehow I knew it was going to be bad news. My mother and father could only afford sending me to Marshall Academy Boarding School, which was here in Pasadena, where I live. They couldn't find me any other private schools to attend, and besides, now that I just thought about it, it was going to be a lot better than switching to school after school. Yeah, you heard it right--switching schools. I came from a long line of affluence and fame, and our family was the most recognized in the whole state. My father, Aristotle Fuller, was a film producer and playwright, and my mother Vivienne was a film and stage actress, singer, and author. She plays the guitar, and she had published her first novel when she was just my age, fifteen years old.

Yes, as you have learned, there has been a long line of fame and talent in my family for about five generations. I was the only child of Aristotle Fuller and Vivienne Gayle Kuriyakos--or at least I became the only child after the death of my older sister Rachel, aged twelve. If she were still alive right now, she would have been seventeen, about to turn eighteen on New Year's Eve, 1989. That was just about five years ago, and I couldn't even remember how she died or even yet, gone missing before her death. It was all so sudden and tragic, and I wish I hadn't even mentioned it in the first place. Mom and Dad were second-generation immigrants from Greece, so you could say that I am part-Greek (hence the names Aristotle and Kuriyakos). Anyway, since my parents were so famous and made a lot of money for a living, I was recognized by others everywhere I went. They recognized me as "the daughter of that famous actress" or "the daughter of that playwright." As much a compliment as it was, I felt it was a little annoying. I wasn't the type of person who liked drawing too much attention to herself, and I didn't mind feeling like a celebrity; I just hated being treated like one. Obviously, my family members and I are human beings; we're just a special family in a unique way.

That's why I kept switching from school to school. I had been switching schools since fifth grade. I was always quite a slow learner in school, and I almost got held back in sixth grade, but thankfully didn't. I guess it's because of the fact that I'm recognized as the rich star-to-be, and that puts a lot of pressure on me to be the "perfect" school student when all I ever wanted was to become normal. Not to mention, we also travel a lot. And I think you know why. We travel around the world pretty much every month or so for filming and stuff like that, and wherever we stayed, I attended the school there. We could never spend a normal quality time with each other, not even outside the house or anywhere in public. Yeah, it's true that people would start coming up to Mom and Dad, asking for their autographs, photos, or whatever, but the real reason is because Mom and Dad's showbiz career has completely devoured up 85% of their lives. They'd spent so much time in show business industry and almost very little to no time in spending a relaxing moment with me, their family. It's completely awful, I agree. But now I am sort of starting to get used to it and accepting that no matter what, your career will always be more important than your family (sarcasm, of course).

Pasadena is my birth place and current residence, and now I was living with my aunts Hillary and Elena and uncle Shawn. I moved to their apartment during the last week in August because--guess what?--now my parents were in Broadway. As in, they were in New York, no longer here in the state. Charming, right? They'd left in late August because Mom was starring in some musical, and Dad was assisting some others producers in filming the musical. So here I was, living with my two paternal aunts Hillary and Elena and Uncle Shawn, Aunt Hillary's husband. My baby cousin Mercy Gordon was born on March 1, 1989 (ten days before my birthday) in Beverly Hills at 3:00 pm, and you'd expect any normal family member to be there for the introduction of a new family member. But of course, Mom and Dad were too "busy at work" to experience the miraculous birth of our beautiful little cousin. With her beautiful blue eyes she'd gotten from me, her soft cheeks and pale complexion, and her thick dark curly hair she also got from me, baby Mercy was simply a beauty. It's just a real shame that my parents never got the chance to see her being born. They did get to know her eventually, but it's sad knowing that they never saw the little girl born on that day. It's been six months now since she was born, how fast was that?!