EPISODE 1 – WHICH KING WILL CHECKMATE THE QUEEN?

 

Angelique Randolph sat across the kitchen table from her mother in the restored century old Pink Lady Victorian home in which she had grown up. Through the lace curtains on the lattice window over the sink she could see the sun beginning to set. Each of them had both hands wrapped around a coffee mug. It was the only similarity between them.

Danielle Randolph was pale-skinned, blonde and blue-eyed while Angelique bore all the coloring and features of her Korean father. He was the reason that Danielle had asked her daughter to stop by.

“It’s started,” Danielle said, sliding a stack of legal-sized documents secured with a paper clip across the table to Angelique.

“What’s this?” Angelique picked them up and examined them closely, flipping through each page.

“A purchase offer on the house.”

Angelique noted that it was a fair but lower end figure from an out-of-state developer.

“I didn’t know they were planning on putting in a new subdivision in this area. It doesn’t seem like the market would bear that right now.” 

 “As far as I can tell from the permits filed at the Public Works Center, they didn’t until yesterday.”

“But what about the public hearings?  Didn’t you go to them?” 

Angelique was surprised that she was so upset at the thought of her childhood home being demolished. During her high school years she had hated being under its roof and found numerous ways to stay away from it and her mother.

Danielle leaned back in the chair and assessed the look on her daughter’s face. She knew that Angelique wasn’t stupid. She decided that she was simply clueless and innocent. This conversation was going to be a rude wake-up call for her only child.

“There wasn’t one. Think, child. With your head; not your heart. If we trace the money backwards from the developer, through all the corporations and subsidiaries, where do you think the long chain will eventually end?”

“Chairman Min?” 

Even as the words crossed her lips, Angelique wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. It was the only logical answer but she didn’t want to believe that her birth father could be so cold and calculating.

Danielle nodded. She watched her daughter’s face go through a series of expressions as various emotions fought for dominance. She wanted to go to her and comfort her, but it wasn’t time yet. Angelique still had several more bitter pills to swallow yet tonight.

“But he promised to give me to the end of the year to make decisions. It’s only the beginning of December,” Angelique wailed.

She referred to the deal that she had made with her birth father who was the Chairman of the 2nd largest and most powerful conglomerate in South Korea. Neither of them had known of the other’s existence until this past summer when a DNA ancestry trace had let her mother’s skeletons out of the closet.

“What exactly did you promise?”

Angelique thought back to her conversation with her half-brother, Seung-hwa, who had acted as an intermediary between them.

“I promised not to make any major decisions until the end of the year.”

Angelique’s mother hung her head and groaned. She rubbed her temples where a tension headache was beginning to form.

“Then you’re the one who started it.”

“I did no such thing!” Angelique argued. “Don’t you dare try to make this out to be my fault!”

Danielle looked at her daughter with sad eyes. Had she ever been as idealistic and gullible as the young woman who sat across from her?  She hadn’t been much older than Angelique when she met and fallen head over heels for Min Dong-hoon. She had never told him that she was pregnant, had changed her name before Angelique was born, and had spent the rest of her life hiding them both in the small little town of Jackson, Georgia even though her daughter had resented her for it.

She had told Angelique that her father was dead. She had thought that would be the end of it. She had not wanted Angelique getting drug into the middle of the power struggles and manipulative games of South Korea’s elite Chaebol class. Despite her best efforts to protect her, her daughter had ended up exactly where she had tried to stop her from going.

“And you don’t think that getting engaged to the sole heir of LH Group isn’t a major decision?” Danielle asked softly while eyeing the heart-shaped green diamond on her daughter’s left hand that Lee Hyung-joo had placed there only two days ago.

Angelique’s eyes widened in horror at the connection and she hastened to explain herself.

“But that’s not what I meant. I was referring to whether or not I would return to Seoul and live with him and whether I would attend college there or here.”

“Even if that’s what you meant; it’s not what you said.” her mother pointed out.

“Still, why did he have to do something as drastic as this?” she jabbed her fingers on the legal documents.

Danielle laughed at her daughter’s naivety.

“This is nothing. This is just a warning shot across the bow. Otherwise he’d have found a way to take the land instead of just insulting me with a low-ball offer. You’ve watched enough KDramas. Yes, they’re stereotypes. But stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. They’re often based on truth. You tell me what comes next if this doesn’t work.”

Angelique recalled all the different methods that she had seen portrayed in her beloved Korean melodramas and applied them to their situation.

“He won’t come after me directly. He’ll go after those I love. Because he knows that would hurt me more. He won’t touch Hyung-joo because he won’t want to antagonize Chairman Lee.

“I’m not sure how he’d do it but I can figure out the order. After this, it would be your job. If that didn’t work, he’d go after Jessica and her family. But why did he do it in the first place, why not just wait a few more weeks?” Angelique was completely distraught.

Danielle felt sorry for her offspring. She was going to have to dish out some tough love. When she spoke her voice was bitter and dripping with sarcasm.

“You wanted to live your life like the lead in a KDrama. You know what they say: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. You tell me, KDrama Queen, what scene have you written yourself into?  And remember the cultural perspective.”

Angelique was hurt by the harsh words but tried to step back objectively and look at it as if it were a plot she was trying to solve for one of her stories on her fanfic website.

“I broke my promise. Which in their culture is highly dishonorable. That also means that he doesn’t have to keep his end of the bargain anymore either. Which is what this is supposed to let me know. Right?”

Danielle sighed. She had hoped that she could ask enough questions in enough ways to lead Angelique to find the answers on her own. It looked like she was going to have to spell it out for her.

“Only partly. You’re forgetting the fact that that one decision that you made is one that is made by the families, not the children. That’s not a little transgression, sweetheart, that’s a direct challenge of authority and a declaration of war.”

“But, an AMMA between the two largest and most powerful conglomerates in the country would be advantageous to both. It’s just better for us because we actually love each other. What am I missing?” 

Angelique’s distress was not just audible but visible. Her hands began to tremble despite being wrapped tightly around the mug.

Danielle reached across and took her daughter’s small hands in hers, squeezing them tightly. She tried to nudge her child in the right direction.

“Is an arranged marriage of merger and acquisition really favorable in this case?  Think. Reason it out. Instead of thinking about why it would be something, think about why it wouldn’t. Remember, you aren’t a baby. You are a young woman.”

A light bulb went on in Angelique’s mind illuminating things that were better left in shadows. Her eyes started to fill with tears and she closed them tightly to keep them at bay, stammering out the facts.

“I’m an illegitimate child. If he had gotten me as an infant he could have found ways to make me look legitimate like remarrying and altering the birth record.  As it is right now, I’m nothing but a scandal waiting to happen. One he has to control until he can figure out a way to minimize the damage. The agreement to wait until the end of the year wasn’t magnanimous on his part at all. He knew that as long as I was still undecided about what to do the risk was minimal.”

“And from the other angle …” Danielle prompted. She needed to get her daughter into the habit of seeing things from more than one side.

Angelique swallowed hard fighting back her tears.

“It also means that Chairman Lee doesn’t really want me as a daughter-in-law either for the same reasons. He only supported our relationship because it would give him a hold over Chairman Min.”

The tears Angelique had held in check overflowed and ran in torrents down her cheeks.

Danielle got up and went to her daughter now and took her in her arms. She had needed to bring her back down to earth if Angelique was ever going to have even the slightest prayer of being happy.

She had not enjoyed the experience anymore than she enjoyed setting broken bones at the hospital but decades as a nurse had shown her that you often had to hurt the patient in order to help them.

“You and Hyung-joo were both played. By two very accomplished and seasoned competitors. Do you understand now why I made the decisions I did?  The only way to win is not to play.”

“Eomma,” Angelique cried in anguish.

She gasped at the slip. The last time she had used the Korean word for ‘mom’ she had been slapped hard across the face. Of course, that was before she knew why her mother had been so opposed to her passion for the culture.

“It’s okay,” her mother assured her as she took her hand and held her daughter’s head against her shoulder and stroked her long, chestnut brown hair.

“How am I ever gonna get myself out of this mess?” Angelique sobbed, her chest heaving as she gulped in air between words.

Danielle tipped her daughter’s chin up so that she could look into her eyes.

“What is that quote you like so much you wrote a book centered around it? ‘He who wishes to wear the crown endures its weight.’  The queen declared war. So the queen is going to have to go to war. You’ll have to gather all your strength and all your wits for the battle ahead.

“The first thing you need to realize is that you can’t fight both of them. Your existence alone is power. Don’t forget that. But it’s not enough to defy them both. You have to get one of them on your side and use that to your advantage. Make your choice wisely.

“Remember, you are the queen in their chess game. But you need to make sure that you are the one controlling the moves. And you’re going to have to think several steps ahead of them both.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about chess,” Angelique moaned burrowing her head deep into the crook of her mother’s neck.

Danielle hugged her daughter tightly. She had broken her down to make her see reality. Now it was time to build her back up so she could be prepared for the fight ahead.

“No, you don’t. But you do know KDrama. And you know how to write.”

Angelique stepped out of her mother’s arms and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. She finally saw the problem in a way she could understand it.

  “They’re my cast.  And actors often adlib. The only difference is that, as the director, I can’t just yell ‘cut’ and need to keep the cameras rolling. So my script needs to be flexible. Then, if necessary, re-write the next episode when we finish filming for the day.”

“Good girl!” her mother praised, smiling for the first time that evening.

Angelique squared her shoulders, pursed her lips and nodded resolutely before proclaiming, “I have to go back to Seoul.”

Danielle Randolph’s eyes glistened with pity. “Did you really think you ever had a choice?”