Chapter 1: The Past

My name is Pandorania Puma Paloma. Yes, the most known daughter of Patricia Puma Paloma. Doesn't make me any different from the rest of the teenagers in the world just for the fact that my mother's brands on the fashion industry is well respected and highly wanted in the high, middle, and low class around the world. Let me tell you how it all started, it wasn't due to a contest, or just for wearing a damn adorable costume my mother would stitch for me. Actually, it wasn't that spectacular. It was mainly due as being a seamstress to some mean housewives in our neighborhood.
As a working mother, more like father and mother to me, she would sew other women clothes in our own little house. The housewives are very competitive women who compete to be the best cook, gardener, and mother there can be; however, if they find an object they are not good at they would try to beat the other with harsh words and glares from outside their homes. My mother was one of the victims of their evil scheme becasue sewing was just one of her best skills and most of all she was a much better mother compared to all women in our neighborhood.
One day all housewives came to our home, knowing that my mother works in our own home for business, they brought all their clothes and demanded to have ALL of their clothes sewn tomorrow, early in the morning. They never thought she would be able to do the task because when they all came all at once early in the morning, they found the biggest surprise yet. Not were their clothes all sewn, but mother had sewn hats for them as well as customers they are. I myself sewn hats for their children. Furious as they were they never bothered us again.
This day was not going to end here. When mother sews she takes ALL day to do it. Father comes from work, as he says he does, he would look at the kitchen and see a sandwich I made for him since mother was quite busy. As tired and furious he is he walks out the house and leaves without taking the sandwich a bite. That night he came back from his all nighter, drunk. Drunk as he was he would grab my mother from her sewing machine and drag her from the hair to the room. I would hear mother beg for mercy but he would only say "why are you arguing?! you know you want it." As a child you wouldn't be able to guess what that is, as a teenager you could only feel disgusted towards your father even more.
As morning came, Father has already gone to work and mother gets up to do me breakfast as she's getting ready to go to the machine once again. She goes up the stairs to fetch for the clothes that are needed for sewing, when she heads down the stairs I hear her scream as she tumbles down the stairs. I run to see my mother laying down on the floor crying in pain. As a child I am the only thing that mattered to me was to make sure I find help. I run to the phone and as I was taught at school the number that is needed to dial in case of an emergency, I dialed 911. A woman answers and I cry out for help.
Adults first expression when they hear a child's voice is to tell the child to not fool around with the emergency number and if they can speak to our parents. Scared as I was, I furiously told the lady to shut up and hear me out. "Mother fell from the stairs!" That's when she took me seriously and in ten minutes they were here to pick up my mother to the hospital. The next night we were back home and when we switched on the lights to the living room I wouldn't have expected that night to be a nightmare.
Father was sitting on the sofa waiting for us, or may I say my mother. Looking up at my mother with her cast on made react that instant. Father is up to no good! I was right, he was furious we were not home and that mother would pay for the consequence. Frightened for my safety mother blocked me from him. Anyway he wasn't reaching out towards me but mother. He dragged her to the ground and was going to rape her. I screamed and couldn't find any other way to protect her; therefore, I jumped ontop of father from behind and screamed to let her go. He pushed me off from his back and threw me across the living room. Mother's reaction was horrified and finally she started knocking him off. However, father was stronger and stoke her across the face. As little as I was, I was able to knock him off of her and I bit his hand for stroking her.
He was astonished and furious at the same time that he threw me towards the door and not that it was any painful my head hit the doorknob and left me unconcious. When I was concious again I realized that I was at the hospital with two broken ribs and a crack on my skull. That day mother kicked father out of the house and called the police. He was sentenced to five years in prison. I was only seven years old.
It is enough to break a child's heart, enough to never forget. Three months later, an agent of a fashion industry was in search of my mother as I opened the door to our house. He held a hat and a dress made especially made from mother. He smiled and said if this is where Mrs. Paloma lived. That day changed our lives forever, he was the man who was going to change it. He offered mother to work for him at the Dior fashion industry. Mother accepted only in the condition that she can bring me wherever she goes AND to keep our identity safe. He didn't hesitate and accepted.
Her clothes were getting well known in just seven months notice. I in the meantime, my skills in sewing were improving and later I was known to be Little Paloma. My pursues, hats, shoes, jewelery, and masks were getting well known. As our fame has increased people from all over the world have specifically asked for mother's work in person. Mother and I, finally decided that we should seperate from Dior and start our own business. It was a lose for Dior, yet they acknowledge our decision. As our name became known those five years and what our surprise was, was when father was able to reach mother's contact number. He asked her to forgive him and let him become a better man by giving him another chance. These words I will never forget, she said "Go F**k Off!" and hanged up. As a twelve year old I had to crack up.
It was a beginnging for the Paloma's future, a place where people would want at least a suit from the Paloma's designed clothes or even fraud one's. Nonetheless, I wouldn't expect to find a customer as difficult to please and most of all to become a royal pain in the butt. Yet who would have expected to fall in love with one in the end, especially I myself.

Author's Note

finished first chapter, you'll love the second one for sure. The conversation is coming. :)

Reviews

[Talismanic]

Really nice voice, its catchy and charismatic. Because this first chapter is a 'past' chapter, i understand why there's quite a lot of information in a block all at once; you could space the paragraphs to make reading easier, or consider starting off somewhere immediate, (like in the conversation), then spoon a little past into each relevant scene if you think that would work. The tense changes a little disruptively in places - it means we can tell she is remembering and has a simple innocence so we feel her emotions, but because these are pretty intense memories, i'd slow down and take my time. We really relate to someone's past when we know what's at stake in their present. Of course, maybe thematically you want to move on to something completely different and establishment is great for clarity. I'll happily keep reading...:)