365 Days with the Celebrity

Chapter 2 - Betrayal

When she was a young child, Ariel loved playing pretend-cooking with the little toy pots, pans and plastic food. Since then, that passion evolved into the real thing. Ariel's very first dish was decorating a chocolate cake with piped cream topped with coloured sprinkles with her mother.

Every day after school, she would rush home to tune in on her favourite cooking channels rather than on cartoons. As a teen, those habits hardly changed. While girls of her age screamed for over-the-top boy bands and filled their rooms with celebrity posters, Ariel's walls were plastered with images of her favourite famous chefs and mouth-watering food photography, aspiring one day fulfil her dreams to be a 5-star chef with a restaurant of her own.

She stocked books on the latest recipes from Eastern to Western cuisines and cooked a new recipe almost every day. Everyone praised her talents in food decoration and delicious cooking. While her conservative immigrant parents from Hong Kong smiled at her achievements, they did not hide their constant worry over her life choices that did not fall in line with their lofty pursuits of being a doctor or lawyer which their only daughter should strive for. Her mother was a housewife while her father worked as a physician at a traditional Chinese medicine shop.

However, Ariel was not academically inclined and neither was her circle of friends. She was also never the type to go boy-crazy since hormones began to rage. When Rita and their other high school girl mates, Beth Lisbon and Camila Pérez would check boys out at the malls, Ariel would roll her eyes in amusement, relentlessly pleading not to be subjected to their constant setting her up with other boys. The only obsession that took over her life was cooking. Despite their differences in interests, Ariel was grateful that the three girls accepted her into their circle, since the first time they invited the then lonely newcomer to the school lunch and fended off occasional racist slurs hurled at the shy, quiet girl who did not favour dressing in flesh-revealing clothes and who was more slender than curvaceous like her colourful group of girl friends. 

They nicknamed her "Miss Beautiful" because of her soft-spoken sweet nature and her natural beauty, even though Ariel never consider herself pretty enough to turn heads. She was not really interested in the latest trends in fashion, beauty or makeup. 

The four girls were far from the typical girl cliques that were obsessed with looks, popularity or the superficial. They were different in their own ways but gelled together quite well like a patchwork.

Rita Johnson had smiling emerald eyes and bright red hair that turned heads, despite not possessing model looks. Her groundedness and being able to listen to others before speaking were respectful and admirable traits. Beth Lisbon was a black beauty who had been mistaken many times for the singer Beyoncé. Her highlighted curls did only more to accentuate the myth. Her straightforward and often pessimistic persona occasionally caused friction between her and the entire group who cringed at her ability to not think twice before breathing another unnecessary word. Still, when she stated her honest opinions, they were honest opinions and they knew they could trust her more than they could tolerate her. Camila Pérez, who immigrated with her family from Colombia, had bronze skin and was fond of wearing blue contact lens and elaborate makeup every day without fail. She relished in every newsworthy celebrity gossip she could find, sometimes tiring the group with her never-ending, talkative gossip before being snapped by Rita's and Beth's rolling eyes.

The four friends kept in touch after high school despite pursuing their interests at different places. Rita took up flower arrangement and floristry, Beth chose nursing and Camila pursued special effects makeup and hair styling at a film school. As for Ariel, she already knew her pursuit in life, but not without coaxing her parents for an awfully long time before they finally allowed her to enrol at the infamous Brimhill Culinary Academy.