Planted

Chapter 1 Driving myself round a bend.

Hi readers,

I'm still trying to figure out how Wattpad works but I hope you enjoy the story. Just ignore the cultural references if you are not from SE Asia, the story still works. Just think of a woman on an alien planet, that type of thing. If you've ever visited Singapore, even just been to the airport, you'd like the setting. 

I'm really keen to hear your opinion, whether you laughed, or anything really. If you're some one who has struggled to learn to drive, like me, you would identify with Sandy. She's spunky; I'll resist the temptation to make Wonder Woman references. Oops :) Please vote. Enjoy.

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"Ahhhh....mummy aaah! Don't touch them. Please! Argh!@#%%*," he swore. 

My car swerved to avoid hitting two pedestrians who appeared out of nowhere and came to a sudden stop.

"Miss are you really trying to kill me or what?" his voice tapered off into some garbled nonsense. 

The elderly lady laden with groceries shook her head and walked on but the white-haired old man in flip-flops, shorts and singlet turned around and flipped his finger before stalking off. Patiently, I watched the elderly man's back as he shuffled away. Following quickly behind him were three men in business suits who dashed across.

Men. I have met so many, many men. My mom went through a phase where she made me meet a new man every week. Men of worth, financially sound. Men of Power, forcefully arrogant. Men of Distinction, branded and envied by many Singaporeans. She insisted that I land the perfect mate. Not someone remotely resembling Logan. The best. So, did mom have the best? Yes, many times over in dad. But in her eyes dad didn't count. Dad was a whole different type of man than what she wanted for me. That's the irony of it all. Dad's so absolutely lovely, warm and personable; he is the type of man I wanted for myself.

The uniformed driving instructor sighed, "If this was the driving test, you'd have failed. Failure to give way to pedestrians on a zebra crossing is an automatic zero." 

We drove on.

Dad always said mum and him were childhood sweethearts, neighbours from the same fishing village. They were meant to be. My parents just had it easy. Fairytale easy. My best friend Bea had it harder when she met her husband Jo on a rebound. But me, I've had zero movement in the romance department for years--that's as hard as it gets. For my mum, that is.

Less than a minute later, a ball bounced out onto the road causing me to swerve again. 

My instructor glared at me. 

"Sorry," I said quickly, "I'm changing focus now. Preparing myself for sudden potential hazards and slowing down."

At some point in my twenties, mum suddenly changed focus, stopped trying to marry me off to some business tycoon. Instead, she groomed me to take over the family business. She hired the best accountant she could find because she knew I was bad at maths and, as they say the rest is history. So here I am, the heiress of Tembusu Furniture, or affectionately known as TUF for short, the largest supplier of Indonesian wooden furnishings in South East Asia. Yes, best in Singapore, JB and some say Batam. At least, that was the catchphrase for the company until mum croaked almost a year ago.

I turned into Bukit Timah Expressway and watched the cars behind me using my mirrors. 

"Good, good," said the instructor, " Maybe you won't kill me after all. Be aware of everything that is around you always." 

I nodded in agreement.

My mother used to say the same thing about business, "Always be prepared for surprises." I didn't expect her to mean to be prepared to take over the company immediately when she drew her last breath. I do mean she croaked in a literal way; I am not being disrespectful to her memory or anything like that. Mum was at the karaoke bar belting out her rendition of Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and the Wings. On the last "mama you..." she went three octaves lower, croaked three times and died right there of a heart attack. Her audience was still applauding her creative improvisations. That's mum for you really, everything she did was done with her own unique style and timing. Logan and I agreed that for her it was the perfect exit—stunning, memorable and influential. I, honestly, doubt any of her friends would ever go singing again. I know dad wouldn't. He's been taking it really hard.

Drats! A Toyota rounded the corner and cut in front of me without signalling and I jammed on the brakes. The car jerked to a stop and the instructor glared at me. My car slammed into the Toyota's bottom, and as if in slow motion the boot creaked open to the sound of smashing glass and compressed metal. The car behind me screeched to a halt and stopped within centimetres of my bumper. I draped myself over the steering wheel in shame as the instructor headed off to talk to the ranting Toyota owner.

I turned on my phone and speed dialled Logan.

Engaged, always engaged ...that's my Logan.

I checked my phone messages—fifteen missed calls from him and messages that I read at a glance said "Help. Call me now. Why is your phone off? I am in deep shit."

Yup, always in trouble. That's my Logan, too. Unreliable, irresponsible, irresistible Logan. His Greek-God features and rock hard physique meant he had that much sort after star quality. He had the power to turn heads and linger there. This was all worthless in mum's eyes because instead of wealth, he just wanted to make beautiful music. How could you not just love the guy? Every one did. About half a million other women in his twenty-five years of life loved him with a passion. Out of which I am his one and only true friend. Bea and Jo were good friends but I am the closest.

Closing my eyes, I shut off my current situation and went to the happy place in my mind. In the background, I could hear muffled voices of two men at each other's throats.

As far as I can remember, throughout my enriched childhood, stylized teens and jet-setting twenties, Logan and I have been in my living room hanging out—cocooning that's what I called it. He was seated on the faded brown velvet sofa in a Nirvana position, cross-legged and trying to work out a tune on his acoustic guitar. Meanwhile, I'm spread eagled all over the floor with my books trying to read to his pulsating strumming or plucking twenty centimetres from my ear. That's our life together. He was my first real friend. He gave me my first bruise from a karate chop, my first copy of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", my arachnophobia and my first kiss.

The driving instructor's blow by blow account on his phone, in Cantonese, of his near death experience interrupted my thoughts. It's funny how the first words, I've learnt in most Chinese dialects were expletives. In his conversation, he was using a fair number of choice expletives with reference to me.

I was such an idiot. Why did I place myself in positions like this? I am efficient, effective and do excellent work--The Youngest Woman to win CEO magazine's Executive of the Year Award. Just last month, I was in Beijing on a work trip trying to give jobs to migrant workers; two weeks before that I was in Fiji checking up on research into using mango tree trunks as material for cabinets. Logan said travelling was wasted on me. I didn't go clubbing, or shopping, or take heaps of photographs or even eat massive amounts of unusual food. Maybe he was right, a normal girl doesn't go to the gumboot throwing festival in Taihape or photograph a procession of unmarried women in Palestrina or literary festivals in remote villages. For me, every place had a story to discover and I was there to find it.

I lifted my head as I heard a car door slam and the Toyota drove off.

"Maybe Ms Ko, we should just go back to the driving school. You seem slightly distracted today. Come let me take the wheel before you kill us both" insisted the mid-aged instructor as he held the door open for me and walked purposefully towards the driver's seat. 

I had no choice but to relinquish the wheel. Like most things in my life at the moment, I just had to let go.

As I headed towards the taxi stand, I tried to get Logan again on the phone. Before, he could answer, I heard a voice call out to me, "Ms Ko, Cassandra Ko. "I turned around and saw a pleasant, cheerful youngish man waving at me. He extended his hand and said,"Ms Ko, I'm so glad we've finally met. I'm Mr Lok See Yew from Green and Grow."

Green and Grow the environmental action group that was suing us for so much money that it could sink TUF. G and G is the reason why I was learning to drive and why I currently hated Logan.