The Visitor
Harlequin
Cynic
Cinderella comes. Cinderella comes, and a girl hides her
honey-colored
hair under a patchwork blanket. Sleep is far away and she can smell the
thick air
under the blanket. Moonlight streams through her bedroom window. She is
hiding
her face, hiding her eyes from the moonlight's sharp glare, curling up
around the
mysterious sharp pains in her stomach.
If the shoe fits, wear it, baby, calls the voice from the window.
That's
what I told him.
The girl throws the blanket aside, sits bolt upright. The princess is
in
the window. The figure she recognizes from her storybooks, modified in
her
daydreams into a familiar face, sits on the windowsill, dressed in
rags.
Yup, says the princess, back to square one.
She wiggles her toes, sticking out of her ragged sandals. One party
goes
well, she sighs, and you think you've got it made. One night you get
lucky in
silk and Jessica McClintock, the next day you're back in all the crap.
She raises her hands. The palms are black.
Ashes. I have ashes all over my hands from cleaning out their damn
fireplaces. Let the fires burn all night to keep their little toes toasty
in bed,
and the next morning who has to creep out at six AM to sweep out the
remains?
Yours truly, that's who. You would not believe how cold it is at that
hour. You
would not believe it. I have icicles hanging off my damn fingernails.
The girl is seriously considering diving back under the covers. The
princess's fingernails are stubby and rimmed with blue and black.
The chandeliers.
The sudden change in the princess's voice catches the girl's
attention and
she drops the blanket she was clutching. Dreamy-eyed, soft-voiced, the
figure
becomes somewhat less frightening.
You should have seen those chandeliers, sister. Flaming bright, and
everything sleepy-warm like the bottom of a sleeping bag in the morning.
Like
stepping into a hot shower after a long day, you know what I mean? And
the
colors, the watered silk and the taffeta and the what-have-you in every
color of
the rainbow. Everybody's hair was glossy. You could just see the light
reflecting
off the hair-gel and the enamel on their little manicured nails. I
haven't got
nails to speak of, but I glued on fake ones, I got along. That night, I
was up
there with the best of them. Oh yeah, I had the nails, nine inches long
and filed
sharp as razors.
The girl makes a swift, subtle move for her blanket. The princess
smiles.
Her eyes are wide.
He danced with me, she murmurs. Every dance. He knew how to waltz,
and I'd
learned how listening to my grandmother's Victrola. Everyone else doing
the
Running Man or some stupid thing like that, and what about us? We were
waltzing.
We were the classiest, I tell you. He won the limbo contest--won a bag of
glow-sticks, you know the kind that you snap and they glow green or
violet for
hours? He gave them to me and I snapped them all and wore them in all my
hair,
all at once. I was queen, I had my crown. You better believe when curfew
rolled
around, I left a trail. Follow me, I called over my shoulder. Catch me if
you
can.
The princess rubs her face with one hand. It leaves a sooty trail
across
her cheek.
Catch me if you can. Six sleepless nights I waited, in my freezing
garret,
waiting for that knock to come on the door, waiting for the pounding of
hooves
and the sound and the smell of that great glorious carriage. Lying
perfectly
still, hardly even breathing, at the very darkest hour, just before the
dawn
breaks, waiting for the knock on my window. Six days it was before I
realized he
wasn't coming. Kinda strange how after all that time, it only took me a
second to
figure it out. One minute I was waiting with perfect faith, the next I
just knew.
Like all the butterflies in my stomach just vacated, cleared out, party's
over,
in an instant, and left me hollow as a meringue. That morning was just a
little
bit colder, let me tell you. The ashes tasted bitter on my tongue, I
couldn't
help but breathe some in. Then I reached in, felt them soft and black on
my
hands, lifted piles of ashes in the air. Perfect, they felt perfect, yes,
sooty
gray and altogether dirty pretty. I covered my hair with those ashes. I
rubbed
them into my face. I curled up in the cinders. When I heard footsteps on
the
stair, I just sat up and laughed, I laughed at the horror on their faces.
It's
bitter, I tell you. Took me weeks to get it all off.
The princess laughs. Readjusts herself on the windowsill.
It's bitter, honey. But you get over it. And you remember. There's
not a
one of those sleek-curled ladies that's equal to me unless they have
curled up in
cinders. I know what they will never know. And one day, when that prince
stares
into the dying embers of a fire, snatches a quick moment before the
remains are
spirited away by some helpful subservient...Maybe one day he'll wonder
what he's
lacking, where's the ballast, that missing balance in a life all
sweetness and
light. And I will laugh in his face, sweetheart, laugh like a
mockingbird, like a
raven on helium. And then I will drag him off for a romp through the
ashes.
Everyone deserves a chance to get their hands dirty.
She smiles. And then she's not there anymore. The girl blinks, shakes
her
head. Not even a smudge of gray on the windowsill. She snuggles back
under the
blanket, and lies with eyes wide open, unaware of the spots of blood on
the
sheets below.