Atairal Martinez
Aliases or Nicknames:
Thai
Era:
Pre-Rift
Appears In:
Beverlee Hills Mummy
Importance:
Secondary Character
Main Goal:
To be perfect. And perfectly in control.
Relationship to Other Characters:
Best friends with Candy and China Romney and Ophelia Piercy, and becomes close to main character over course of trilogy. Engaged to Quincey Foster Benchley.
Backstory/Infodump:
Thai grew up in Beverlee Hills with her besties, China, Candy, and Ophelia. Thai felt very competitive toward Ophelia, who was the group leader before she was in a horrific car accident that left her paraplegic. Survivor's guilt leads her to keep her weekly visits to Ophelia secret from Candy and China.
Thai always had some control issues, and was concerned with what other people thought of her. Now, she uses the image that she protects as a barrier to emotional closeness as opposed to a shield from rejection. She genuinely loves her fiance Quincey Foster Benchley, who she met in kindergarten. They didn't start dating until third grade but they both agree that it was love at first sight.
The accident happened two or three years prior to the first Beverlee Hills Mummy book when the girls were in junior high. Soon after, Thai proposed to Quincey (who accepted). She is constantly planning her wedding throughout the series, with the plan to marry Quincey the second she turns eighteen. Although she decides against this plan eventually, she and Quincey remain a couple and very much in love.
Ever since the accident, Thai has pulled away emotionally from China and Candy, even though she is now the unofficial leader of the trio. Her discomfort with this role leads her to befriend "Sunny" on the first day of high school. Even through the bandages, Sunny has a lot of charisma and Thai unconscously hopes that Sunny will take over as leader of the group and she can distance herself from the twins.
As it's Beverlee Hills, everyone assumes that Sunny's bandages are due to plastic surgery, and as Thai started the school year with a brand new boob job, she respects the commitment that the volume of Sunny's bandages imply.
Thai also has a dog named Prince Machiavelli. Thai only had Prince Machiavelli for about eight weeks when it became clear that (after accident) Ophelia bonded with the dog, so Thai gave her the dog and got a new puppy. She told her classmates that it was because the other dog got too heavy to carry around and after this, she makes a habit of getting a new Samoyed puppy every eight weeks. It's an arrangement she makes with her aunt, who is a Samoyed breeder, but Thai likes the way that it makes her seem superficial and fickle. When the latest Prince Machiavelli bonds with Sunny, she gifts the dog to Sunny and decides to be done with this particular conceit of her personality.
Although she initially hoped that Sunny would take the leadership role of her clique so that she smoothly transition into college and out of her friendship with the twins, Sunny ends up being the glue that not only helps brings Thai closer to China and Candy than before, but Ophelia becomes a part of the group again. So, they start out as a quartet, and are a trio when the story starts, and a quintet by the end of the trilogy.
She goes into her college years secure in her friendships and with a much more solid sense of herself than she had when she felt so competitive with Ophelia in junior high.
No comments:
Post a Comment