EXPAT

This is an idea for Novel 2:
Ria, the protagonist is someone with no plans to go home... maybe she is from Saskatchewan Canada (where she has suffocating memories of small town life) ... or maybe fro South Africa, where she feels unsafe. Anyway, she lives in Taiwan and teaches English, although she is underqualified for almost every position, having not graduated from university. Resourcesful,. she always finds ways to make money, although sometimes via unscrupulous or not-so-safe means: doctored resumes, schemes for selling stuff to students, stealing students away from schools, foreign currency buying and selling.

Every chapter ends with Ria being in some kind of trouble: fear of deportation, drunked telling of secrets to coworkers who secretly want her fired, dwindling of finds and imminent eviction, being given translating work she can't handle (cause she lied abut language proficiency on resume) etc...

Ria is a little bit tight, but she goes out occassionally ... when she knows Orlando will be out. He is a Paraguayan working at the Embassy. He is the youngest of such people in Taipei. She wants him and he flirts with her... Truthfully, he is juyst playing with her. He finds her freckles charming and she is tall and thin enough... what she isn't enough of is blond. NOt that Miss Clairol can't fix that. The real problem is that Orlando has a foot fetish... and the toenail he glimpsed peeking out of Ria's oopen-toe shoes... well, it made him shudder. But these things must be ended diplomatically... endings take as much time as beginnings.

We also meet Ria's best friend Claire. They get along well, but also resent each other. Ria Claire because Claire can get well paid jobs and has the education Ria is lacking. Claire Ria because Ria is slim and pretty and gets all the male attention. Throughout the course of the story, many other friends will come and go as expat life is transient, but this friendship will continue, although the friendship is almost mutually destructive at times. Claire makes Ria feel inadequate and Ria depresses Claire with her continual problems.

At some point in the story, Ria finds out she has cancer and goes to the only place she can afford treatment (she has no real insurance as an illegal worker in Taiwan)-Thailand (separate country for those who get confused.) She really does seem to have a streak of bad luck... but in Thailand, she meets Delmar, a scholoarship student from St. Vincent and several several years her junior. She falls madly in love and quits her life (not just her job) and follows him to the UK (leaving all her stuff with Claire).

What happens next? I don't know yet, but perhaps the relationship won't really end, but will end in indecision as will everything else. Ria will find a way to upgrade credentials, but whole process starts again...