Chapter One
Eighteen years passed, and the baby Alexandra grew up knowing nothing of her unconventional heritage. But never mind how the infant became a girl. This is the story of how Alexandra Thorn became a woman, a much greater challenge altogether. For to achieve it, she must win the heart of her one true love.
"Alexandra? Don't forget the flowers," Alexandra's father yelled from up the steps.
"Yes, I've got them. Thank you father," Alex said as she stepped outside the door to her home with a bouquet of small white flowers in hand. With a small smile on her face, she looked up towards the night sky. It was absolutely clear, providing a clear view of the millions of stars. Yet, there was one in particular that caught her eye as the brightest one. With a sigh, she looked around before setting off down the street. It was still dark so there was no one on the streets apart from her as she ventured through the village.
Finally she stopped on the road in front of a two story home that looked remarkably like all those surrounding it. Vines covered the tan walls, stretching up to the top window before blooming in red flowers under the sill. Taking a deep breath to quell her nerves, Alex picked up a stone from the road and tossed it up toward the window of the second floor.
Inside the room of said window, three girls were standing around talking when they heard the pebble hit the window. Many exclamations of "It's her!" rung out throughout the room repeatedly as they all rushed towards the small window. One of them in particular, a blonde of average size opened the window with a smile. She had long blonde hair that was slightly thicker than normal, parted down the middle as it puffed out slightly. All in all, many would say she was pretty, but not overly so.
"Hailey?" The blonde girl asked in excitement, looking down upon the road with glee.
Alex's hopes were slightly dashed upon hearing the girl call the name of another. "Um-no. Its Alex."
The blonde in the window looked down at Alex in disgust of sorts, as if she couldn't believe Alex would dare be in her presence. "Oh. Did I leave something at the shop?"
The awkward air was growing thicker as the two girls behind the one in the window snickered at Alex. Alex started to stumble over her words, "No-uh. I just thought I could bring…" Before she could even finish her sentence the flowers were smacked out of her hand by a long black cane embellished with gold carvings. A young woman who was slightly taller than Alex stood before her, a menacing look upon her face. Her long dark red hair curled at the edges perfectly as she stood with the cane still pointing at Alex's chest. She wore a nice button down waist coat with a top hat on her head, obviously showing the wealth from which she came from. Although her clothes were ones that were traditional for men, she was still a rather pretty young woman. However, her pompous attitude and constant smirk detracted away from her physical appearance. The glare on her face was one that Alex had seen many of times before.
"Alexandra Thorn, shop girl by day, peeping Tom by night," the girl sneered. At this the blond girl and her companions in the window snickered, hiding their smiles behind dainty hands. The girl then shoved Alex backwards forcefully with her cane, "Is there any end to your charms?"
"Ouch, ow, ow," Alex said pressing a hand to her chest where the cane had previously been.
At this the blond girl in the window seemed to take pity on Alex. "Hailey, there is no need to be like that. Be nice to the poor girl."
Hailey merely smirked, glancing down towards the ruined bouquet on the ground. "Ah, were those for Victoria?" She gestured towards the blond girl in the window.
Instead of answering, Alex walks over and picks up a nearby stick on the ground. Both girls stand on guard, Alex with a measly stick and Hailey with a long, black cane. With a try at a jab towards Hailey's chest, Alex is pushed back hard with a shot to the side from Hailey's cane. The hit causes her to stumble backwards a few steps, dropping the faux sword on the ground. Hailey approaches and knocks Alex's feet out from under her, standing over her with a triumphant gleam in her eyes.
"You were always useless at fencing in school, Alexandra," Hailey says, still holding the bouquet of red roses in her left hand. As her foot keeps Alex pinned to the ground. "In fact, I'm having trouble remembering if there was anything you were good at."
"Hailey that's enough," the blond girl, Victoria, cuts in once again.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm alright," Alex replies as she starts to stand up. At this, the girls in the window begin to outright laugh along with Hailey who is now entering the house through the door. The door and the window are shut almost simultaneously, leaving Alex completely alone out on the street, humiliated.
See, poor Alex is not what one would consider well known in a sense. She could be rather pretty, but seems to be forever stuck in the girlish cute stage and her hand made clothes don't help. Her dark brown hair flows down just past her shoulders in waves, but is parted down the middle like those many years her junior. She has a nice figure, but it is hidden behind a set of baggy clothing that she had made herself for her job down at the shop. Unlike Victoria and Hailey, Alex didn't come from a lot of money so she was forced to make a lot of the things that the others bought. Despite her appearance being less than acceptable by most standards, her attitude is quite different. Even though she grew up poorer than most, she never cared for money and simply bought the necessities and made whatever else for her and her father.
The following morning, Alex comes down the steps to her father eating breakfast at the table. He looks up as she stumbles down the steps hurriedly, frantically fastening clothing before grabbing her coat hanging on the back of the door.
"Want some breakfast?" Her dad asks.
"No thanks, I'm really late for work," Alex replies, not even looking up in her haste to get ready.
Alex's father looks on in concern, wondering what is going on with her this morning. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" Alex replies while putting on her coat.
He shakes his head, giving Alex a meaningful stare. "Oh, I don't know. Last night, how'd it go?"
Alex's face flushes as she remembers the events of the previous night, but instead of telling her dad the truth she simply smiles at him before replying. "Oh, really good. Really, really good." Her dad only stares at her with a funny look before shaking his head and motioning to the door, causing Alex to smile and bolt outside.
Alex arrives at work and throws on the usual white apron around her waste before getting behind the counter to help the long line of customers at Monday and Sons Grocers. Not too long after beginning work did Victoria arrive. She was wearing a plain blue dress with a light green umbrella tucked under her arm. Instead of going towards the back of the line she simply skipped ahead with a coy smile at Alex the entire way.
"Hello, Alex," she said coming to stand at the counter beside the woman Alex had just been waiting on. The people in line were giving Victoria hard stares and the woman beside her was no different, but the girl simply ignored them thinking she was better than them anyway.
"Oh, Victoria. Um-yes?" Alex says, surprised that she is actually talking to her. The woman in line next to Victoria scoffs and rolls her eyes, drawing the attention of the owner of the grocer. The owner, Mr. Monday now watches with narrowed eyes as the exchange continues.
Without even thinking of all the people she has skipped, Victoria begins listing off all of the various items she requires. After she finished, she looks at Alex almost apologetically. "Oh, look. I'm sorry about last night. Hailey was really rude."
Alex says nothing in response to that as she continues to fill the order Victoria has requested before finally saying, "May I perhaps see you tonight?"
Victoria immediately recoiled at such a notion, before rolling her eyes slightly. "No, but you may walk me home."
Alex stiffens at that, looking around the shop at all the people in line and her boss staring her down. "Now?" Victoria only looks at her expectantly, and after a moment, to the disbelief of everyone in the store, Alex grabs all of Victoria's items and walks with her out of the store.
It wasn't much of a surprise to Alex that she was fired after leaving work in the middle of such a time, especially for such a reason. Yet, here she was sitting in front of the mirror in the kitchen reciting ways to break the news to her father in the best way possible.
It isn't but maybe the fourth or fifth time of saying it does her sentence get cut off with the voice of her father. "You lost your job. Yes, so I heard."
Alexandra slowly turned away from the small mirror in the kitchen to face her father. The look on his face was impassive and she couldn't tell what he was thinking at that moment. "Father, I'm sorry. I…" With a defeated sigh, Alexandra looked away from her father's imploring gaze. "Maybe Mr. Monday was right. Maybe I am deluding myself. I'm not good enough for Victoria."
"He said that?" Her dad asked in surprise and slight anger as he walked further into the kitchen. "That's poppycock."
"You really want to know how it went last night?" Alex said as she sat at the kitchen table across from her father. "Not good. Come on. I'm-I'm wasting my time. I'm not like Hailey."
"Alex," Dunstan said leaning forward onto the table. "I can tell you that every man I ever envied when I was a boy has led an unremarkable life. So you don't fit with the popular crowd. Now, I take that as a very good omen."
With that in mind, Alex came up with a plan. Kissing her dad on the cheek she went upstairs to begin planning for the night to come. Hoping, that this would be the night that Victoria would see her for who she really was.
That night Alex followed the very familiar path towards Victoria's house and once again threw a pebble from the dirt road towards her window. When Victoira appeared she rolled her eyes slightly and scoffed, "Alexandra, I clearly said…"
Before she could say anything more Alex interrupted her. "I know. You told me not to come. I have something for you. A surprise."
Once again Alex was met with a sigh and an eye roll. Victoria turned, shutting her window with a sigh and leaving Alex out on the street without a word. As Alex was walking away in defeat, Victoria came up beside her and locked arms.
"It's not my birthday for another week, you know?" She questioned playfully as they strolled down the street away from her home. Alex's face held a bright smile as she led her on towards where she had everything set up.
They arrived in a small clearing of trees, no bigger than five feet across, with candles all around in the trees. A blanket was laid out on the ground in the clearing, along with a picnic basket and a bottle of champagne. Victoria was slightly surprised at the extent at which Alex had gone for her tonight, but she knew that nothing Alex could ever do would make her love her in any sort of way. Alex was too poor and not hot enough for her tastes. Nonetheless, they both sat down and started to enjoy the champagne.
"I've never had champagne before," Victoria stated before taking a sip out of the goblet holding the golden liquid.
Alex simply smiled at her shyly, "Yeah, me neither."
Victoria's eyes widened slightly as she looked down into her goblet in amazement. "My God! This is delicious!" With a small chuckle, she began looking around at everything that Alex had brought and turned to her in astonishment. "How did…Well, how does a shop girl afford all of this?"
"I'm not a shop girl," Alex immediately responded, looking at Victoria intently.
Victoria simply wrapped the blanket around her shoulders about her more tightly, looking at Alex with a small smile on her face. No sympathy anywhere could be seen. "God! I heard. I'm sorry. What are you going to do now?"
Setting down her goblet of champagne, Alex began to explain. "No, I mean, I'm not a shop girl. I was just working in a shop. And now I'm not. Now I'm free to live my life as I wish."
She scoffed at that, Alex would always be a shop girl with dreams of being a queen that would never happen. Looking at everything around her, Victoria was still wondering how Alex afforded all this. "This must have been all of your savings."
Alex merely shook her head, " So? I can make more. That's the beauty of it. I never intended to stay in Wall, Victoria. There's a big world out there, I'm gonna make my fortune."
"Oh, you sound just like Hailey. She's quite the traveler. Do you know she's going all the way to Ipswich just to buy me a ring?" Victoria said with a slightly smug smile.
Alex started chuckling with mirth. "Ipswich? Victoria I'm talking about London or Paris or… A ring? Why is she…what kind of ring?" Alex's face scrunched with confusions and denial.
"The word is she's planning to propose to me on my birthday," Victoria replied smugly, sipping at her goblet.
"And you're gonna say yes?" Alex stated, but her intonation made it clear she was asking, hoping the answer was no.
"I can't exactly say no after she's gone all the way to Ipswich," she said in exasperation, as if she couldn't believe Alex would even question such a thing. Of course she would marry Hailey, there's no way she would marry Alex.
"All the way to Ipswich? Victoria, for your hand in marriage, I'd cross oceans or continents," Alex said in excitement.
"Really?" She hid a small smile behind her goblet as she drank.
"Yes! Victoria for your hand in marriage, I would go to the gold fields of San Francisco and bring you back your weight in gold. I would-I'd go to Africa and bring you back a diamond as big as your fist. Or I'd go to the Arctic and I'd slaughter a polar bear and bring you back its head!"
"A polar bear's head? You're funny Alex. People like you and people like me, we're just not…I should be going. It's really late."
"Well, hold on, then. Let's at least finish the champagne," Alex said with a sad smile gesturing to the bottle.
"Well, okay," Victoria said, swaying slightly as she offered her goblet to Alex once again.