Walk of Shame: A Cinderella Story (Part I)

Updated 12/27/09

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Walk of Shame: A Cinderella Story

Part I

“Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation.”

- Eric Hoffer

When I woke up, I felt like the magic had gone out of everything.

My shoe lay in two pieces on a stool by the fireplace, its broken heel balancing pitifully, precariously over the edge. The birds outside were silent, and no breeze moved through the open windows to stir in the room.

I was still for a long moment, blinking, as if that would send everything singing back to life, then pushed myself into a sitting position. Stiff-backed, I grimaced, and winced at the pain that shot through my temples.

With a groan, I lifted one hand to my forehead and covered my eyes. I had work to do.

A gasp of surprised pain escaped my mouth when I forced myself to my feet, and I stood wavering back and forth as the headache alternated pounding and stabbing.

I could feel the newly formed scabs on my feet as I moved across the cold floor, remembering how the soft grass of the palace lawn had changed abruptly into dead branches and slick leaves and unforgiving pinecones that cut into the soft curve of my foot. But I had been covered in magic then, and it hadn’t bothered me much at all.

The dress was hanging over the back of the chair beside the fireplace. I touched it to make sure it was real, and the fabric rustled beneath my fingers. I lifted it off the chair. It was heavy. I dropped it without care, and a silent shower of sparkles fell to the ground.

Odd.

The fire had died hours ago, and the room—tolerable with the movement of labor and a full fireplace—was unbearably cold.

Shivering, I moved to the hearth and tried to relight it, but my fingers were too numb to effectively strike the flint on the steel. I stayed huddled in the corner for a long moment, watching the white cloud of my breath appear and disappear in front of my face as I breathed out and back in.

As I stared without seeing, it took me a moment to realize that the dark pile beside the fireplace was actually breathing. Stacked so it was impossible to tell where one small paw started or where their long tails ended were the rats who had been my coachmen and footmen the night before.

I had never seen a rat sleep before. It was strange to watch; I had been horrified when they came scurrying out of the corners of the kitchen I thought I had patrolled vigilantly, but once they were transformed, looked no more vermin-like than any other obsequious servant. And now, they were almost sweet-looking, with their eyes closed and whiskers twitching slightly as their little chests rose and fell.

I returned to staring into the remains of the fire.

It was so quiet it was if the world had died—simply fallen asleep without realizing it was never going to wake up again.

Then, outside, I heard hooves on the cobblestones, and—trumpets? Slowly, the other sounds distinguished themselves: shouting villagers and laughing children and, behind them all, a carriage rolling down the poorly paved road toward the house.

I lifted my head at the creak of the floor above my head, and imagined Rachel moving the curtain aside with a single, chunky finger to peer outside. I held my breath.

She shrieked, shattering the stillness of the morning, and I clutched my head as the pain in my head made me see spots.

“Cin-der-ell-aaaaaaaaa!”

I tried to call back, but it came out as a whisper. I cleared my throat and managed a scratchy “coming,” in reply as I began to search for my shoes.

“Cinderella!” she shrieked again. “Wretched girl, where are you? Wake the girls! Hurry—hurry! They’re coming!”

“Who’s coming?” I asked Rachel’s cat, who had padded downstairs and was now watching me with disdain.

The ceiling shook as Rachel’s substantial footsteps pounded around the drawing room, tossing Miriam’s sewing into its basket and snatching up Faye’s discarded clothing. I located my shoes and slipped my sore, frozen feet inside of them, wincing as the heels dug into a fresh blister on the side of my foot.

The stairs creaked in protest as Rachel thundered upstairs to wake her daughters. I snatched a cold, limp shawl out of a basket of wrinkled clothes and tied it around my shoulders. Had it been this cold last night?

After a moment’s hesitation, I snatched my fairy godmother’s calling card from last night and stuffed it in my corset on my way out. I resisted the urge to kick the cat out of my path as I climbed out of the kitchen and into the dining room.

I hadn’t bothered to clean up the “snack” I’d prepared for the trio before they left for the ball, and there was a light, green fuzz sneaking its way over a slice of cheese half-concealed by a crumbled chunk of bread. I began to gather the plates as Rachel came into the kitchen, one fat curl hanging over her fat shoulder.

“No, no, you stupid girl—leave it be—leave it be! Just the rooms they’ll see. Hurry! Miriam! Faye!”

“What’s going on?” I croaked.

Rachel had pinned up half of her graying hair and donned a clean gown, but she was still barefoot and her face looked old and tired in the morning light.

“The prince is coming! Now, quick, get upstairs and dress the girls, then get out of the way—hurry!”

The prince was coming? Shouldn’t he still be lying in his royal bed in his royal, drunken stupor?

It was brighter in the drawing room than it had been in the kitchen, which had only a small, single window through which light could enter, and I could see where Rachel had tried to hide the evidence of her daughters’ messy living habits beneath a decorative table.

I squinted harder as I moved closer to the window and grabbed the stack of clothing, beginning a rather painful trek up the main staircase.

Miriam was awake and had already dressed in her favorite, dark violet gown, but she was absolutely useless when it came to dressing her hair, and pounced before I’d stepped off the last stair.

“Put my hair up!” she squealed. “Hurry! Hurry—do it quick!”

I dumped the load of clothes where they couldn’t be seen from the doorway and spun her around, pushing her back into her bedroom. “I will. Sit down. Where’s Faye?”

“Oh, who cares about Faye—just do my hair quick!”

She plopped down in front of the mirror and began combing her light brown hair. Half was straight and hung limply, but the other side was still pinned and styled from when I’d put it up last night.

I left the room and went to see how Faye fared.

She was sound asleep, snoring magnificently. I shook her without gentleness.

“Faye. Faye. Wake up. The prince is coming. You have to get dressed. Faye.”

Her snoring ceased abruptly. She opened her eyes and sat up, tossing her angelically blonde hair over her shoulder. Faye rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

“What?”

“The prince is coming. You need to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Because you have to go downstairs. Come on—out of bed.” I tugged at her wrist.

“But I look fine now,” she said, frowning.

“Of course you do. Now get out of bed.”

Satisfied that she was awake, I left and returned to Miriam’s room, beginning to work without preamble. Faye had been right. She looked more than fine, in fact; she was stunning, no matter the time or situation. Even when we were eleven and everyone else our age was gap-toothed and awkward, Faye had been a lovely girl, and she only grew more beautiful each year.

She appeared in Miriam’s doorway, holding a patterned gown in one hand and a blanket in the other.

“Cinderella?”

“Mmm.” My mouth was full of hairpins and I was standing at an awkward angle as I twisted Miriam’s hair into a reasonably attractive bun high on her head.

“Which one should I wear?”

I stabbed three pins into Miriam’s hair. “There. You’re finished. Find some shoes and go downstairs to help your mother.” I turned to look at Faye. “The dress,” I said.

“But this is so pretty,” she said, holding out the blanket. “Couldn’t you turn it into a gown?”

“Yes, but not today.” And certainly not in the next minute and half.

That was the real trouble with Faye—she may have been breathtakingly beautiful, but she was incurably stupid as well.

Her face fell. “Oh.”

“The gown is lovely,” I told her. “Put that on and come back and I’ll do your hair.”

She shuffled away, and I pulled Miriam out of the room as she complained about how Faye was going to look better than she was.

“It isn’t fair,” she whined as we thundered down the stairs. “I can look just as good as Faye if I have enough time to prepare.”

I sincerely doubted that, but only gave her a nod and a light shove into the drawing room.

Miriam had carried the second-born-second-best curse her whole life. Of all the gifts that were either congenital to Faye or had somehow fallen into her lap, Miriam hadn’t received a single one.

When Faye and I were born, it was customary for a fairy to be present to give some sort of blessing to the screaming newborn. Faye’s fairy was a particularly flamboyant female who’d just been passing through when Rachel went into labor, and, because it was close to Christmastime, was feeling especially generous. She’d taken away Rachel’s labor pains, set her husband at ease, decorated the entire house, zapped a turkey with all the fixings onto the table—and all that before Faye’s golden-blonde head had even emerged.

After she was born, then the fairy had really gotten going.

She started with the most obvious gift—beauty—then moved on to musical ability, grace, charm, and fashion sense before another fairy showed up and put a stop to all the nonsense before the first fairy could remember to bestow any useful gifts on the little darling, like intelligence, or common sense.

Unfortunately for Rachel, but even more so for Miriam, she was blacklisted by the fairies, and no one showed up to bestow any gifts of any kind at her second daughter’s birth.

Consequently, Miriam was everything that I suspected Faye would be sans fairy gifts: her skin was pasty white and freckled instead of creamy and smooth; her eyes were dull and perpetually squinted instead of wide and bright; her hair was a dull, limp, boring brown instead of a bright, bouncing blonde; and she was lumpy with large, sloping shoulders, just like her mother—and that was just her appearance, to say nothing of her needling, charmless personality.

Meanwhile, the origin of all Miriam’s natural loveliness, Rachel, was putting the final touches on the drawing room. “Fix my gown,” she directed as we came in.

I tried to button the space she’d missed, only to find that she was just too fat for the dress she had forced herself into, so I snatched a shawl lying nearby and flung it around her shoulders.

“Where’s Faye?”

“Dressing,” I said.

Her eyes bulged. “Well get back up there and get her down here!” She bustled to the window and looked outside again. “The footman has been detained by all those filthy little children but we don’t have much time. Here—Miriam—take this. Sit down.”

“What is it?” Miriam asked, taking the book her mother flung into her hands.

“The Bible. Open it up and sit there and look reverent. Hurry.”

Miriam rolled her eyes and sat delicately on the edge of the nearest chair, fiddling with her necklace. The chair tilted forward, then thumped back into place as Miriam rearranged her girth.

Rachel turned on me, teeth gritted. “Cinderella, I don’t care if Faye is still wearing nothing but a chemise and has her hair hanging in her eyes like some kind of vagrant—get her down here now.”

The throbbing in my head was almost unbearable. Gritting my teeth, I climbed upstairs again and found Faye standing in front of her bed, sorting all her jewelry by color.

“Faye, we have to hurry.”

“Look how pretty it is!” she exclaimed, pointing at the jewels, glowing in the sunlight.

“Wonderful,” I said, clasping a necklace around her throat and stabbing pearls through her ears. “Let’s go.”

I pushed her away from her masterpiece, braiding her hair and pinning back the stray curls that fell onto her forehead before we descended the stairs.

“Here.” Rachel thrust a needle, thread, and sampler into her daughter’s hands and sat her down on the chair opposite Miriam.

“Why does Miriam get to hold the book?” she asked, her perfect lips slipping into the slightest of pouts.

I could decide which was more improbable—Faye sewing, or Faye with a book.

There was a sharp rap on the door, and Rachel gasped. “The door! They’re here! He’s here! Oh, girls, our lives are about to change!”

“I’ll get it,” I said dryly.

She looked at me for the first time that morning. “You look like you spent the night asleep in front of the fireplace,” she said, drawing back her chin in disdain.

“Close,” I said. “But it was actually the cot in front of the fireplace.”

“You watch your mouth when the prince comes in here. Open the door.”

I heard her dress rustle as she waddled back into the drawing room and the whoosh that it made when she settled herself onto the loveseat.

I opened the door in the middle of the footman’s second knock, but wasn’t expecting the light that came rushing in like a physical blow. I gagged against the pain of my punishing headache. The footman looked confused.

“Good morning,” I heard my scratchy voice say, and I bobbed a sloppy curtsey.

The footman, a bow-legged man with an unnaturally neat goatee, wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Make way for the prince,” he announced with what I thought was gratuitous volume.

I didn’t need a second invitation to move away from the horrifying light and excited, shrieking children on our doorstep, and I kept my head down as three sets of highly-shined black, leather shoes moved into the house. I closed the door behind them, effectively muffling the noises outside as Rachel gasped in feigned surprise and leapt to her feet.

“Your highness!”

“Madam,” he said.

I shrank further into the shadows. Now that he was actually in the house, I wasn’t sure how to hide. They already knew I was there. Rachel had obviously forgotten about her get-the-girls-ready-then-get-out-of-the-way plan and now I had nowhere to escape.

“Are these your daughters?” the prince was asking.

“Yes, your highness,” Rachel said, moving back and gesturing toward them. “These are my treasures. This is my Miriam, and this is Faye. Aren’t they beautiful, your highness?”

They both stood and curtsied in unison.

Faye stabbed her needle into Miriam’s sampler awkwardly.

Miriam looked uncertain of the most attractive way to hold the open Bible in her hands and kept shifting uncomfortably. She noisily flipped forward two pages, then back three.

The man standing beside the prince cleared his throat. “Pardon me, madam, but time is in short supply. His highness has not slept. I presume you were present at the ball last evening?”

Rachel nodded. “Oh, yes, we certainly were, and his highness danced with each of my girls—did you have a good time, your highness?”

“I am searching for her,” the prince said abruptly. (I had noticed last night that social grace was not exactly Edward’s strong suit, but between the magic and his good looks, it hadn’t really mattered.)

The mustached assistant nodded. “Prince Edward danced with a young lady last night who, ah, disappeared, shall we say, around midnight. She left behind this glass slipper—“ He held it up and my eyes widened in horror. “But it is all we have. We have been to every house in the area, searching for the maid that is the owner of this slipper.”

“It is imperative that we find her,” the prince said. “For I have vowed to marry the maiden whose foot fits this shoe. I would like for both your daughters to try it, please.”

I could only see the back of his head, so it was impossible to tell if he was wearing the full-toothed smile that sent every girl falling over her feet the night before, but whatever he was doing, it was certainly working on Rachel and her daughters.

“Of course,” Rachel breathed, moving aside and urging him forward.

He intended to marry whoever’s foot fit in that stupid, uncomfortable shoe? He had to be kidding.

The mustached man knelt in front of Faye, who looked at him blankly.

“Miss, may I see your foot?”

She shrugged and sat down and stuck out her right foot, transfixed by the glowing glass in the man’s hand.

He cleared his throat. “Your other foot, if I may, miss.”

“Oh. Of course.” She stuck out the other foot and the man slipped off her shoe and tried to slide on the glass slipper.

However, for all her perfection, Faye had remarkably large feet. The shoe clearly was not hers.

The prince looked disappointed.

“You next, please, miss,” the man said, turning to Miriam. She was already sitting and had taken off her shoe. She smiled at the prince as the slipper covered her toes and then swallowed her foot.

She gasped. “It fits perfectly!”

Rachel squealed and clapped as Faye frowned and said loudly, “No, it doesn’t.”

“It does!” Miriam declared, holding out her foot. “It does!”

But the shoe did not fit, and as she thrust out her leg, still insisting that it did, the slipper fell off her foot, hit the floor, and shattered before anyone had time to react.

The room went dangerously still.

The mustached man stared at the glass shards in front of him, open-mouthed, then closed his mouth and looked slowly back at Prince Edward. His shoulders were high and tense, but I still couldn’t see his expression.

“Your highness!” the goateed, bow-legged footman cried, running out of the kitchen. “Prince Edward—your highness, see what I found!”

“When did he leave?” Rachel asked no one in particular, looking horrified that the footman had certainly seen the wreckage of the rest of the house and could potentially report to the prince on our squalid condition.

But her horror was nothing compared to mine when I saw what he was carrying.

In one hand, he held the shoe I had worn to the ball the night before, and in the other, its severed heel.

“It is broken, highness, but this is certainly the slipper’s mate!”

I saw Edward’s shoulders relax in relief, and I turned to open the door and see them out just as the mustached man spotted me lurking in the shadow of one of Rachel’s ugly vases.

“Miss,” he said, moving toward me. “Miss, please, come and try this slipper.”

“No, thank you,” I croaked, but no one heard it as Rachel launched into a barrage of protestations.

“She’s just the scullery maid—your highness, please—she’s filthy—been scrubbing away muck in the kitchen all morning—don’t let her infect that shoe—“

“Madam,” the mustached man said. “Enough. The prince has decreed that every eligible maiden, regardless of station, will try the slipper.” He turned back to me. “Miss. Please sit.”

I sat on the stairs, unwilling to move into the drawing room, closer to my stepfamily’s wrath and Edward’s probing gaze. I kept my head down as the mustached man took the slipper from the footman and squatted down in front of me.

“I found it in the kitchen,” the footman interjected with glee.

“Well done, Thomas,” the mustached man said. He held it in front of my foot and pulled off my slipper. “What was this doing in your house?” he asked me, quietly enough that I doubted anyone else heard him speak at all over Rachel’s histrionics.

I frowned as he slipped the glass slipper onto my dirty, scabby bare foot, then drew back and stood.

“Your highness,” he said without fanfare. “The slipper fits.”

Miriam’s fleshy face paled. “What?”

“Impossible!” Rachel declared.

“This shoe is broken,” Faye said with a disapproving shake of her golden head, pointing to the pile of glass in front of her sister’s chair.

Edward pushed the mustached man aside and knelt in front of me. He pushed my hair out of my face and ran his thumb over my cheek.

I leaned away from his touch as a smile broke on his face. “It’s you,” he said. “It’s really you.”

“Please,” I said softly. “Please don’t—“

“I looked everywhere for you,” he said, holding my hand in both of his. “Will you come with me? Please?”

I looked from Rachel’s enraged countenance to the confused expressions on Miriam and the mustached man’s faces to Faye twirling a curl around her finger to the satisfied-looking footman and back to Edward.

He didn’t look as if he’d stayed up all night searching for the love of his life. In fact, he looked well groomed as I’d ever seen him, and remarkably well-rested.

“Please, darling,” he said. “Please say you will.”

Feeling incredibly disoriented and more than a little nauseated, I nodded.

Edward’s face lit in a smile and he caught me up in his arms. My head spun, and I worried that I would pass out as he swept me off my unsteady feet and carried me from the house to the raucous cheers of the villagers loitering around his carriage.

He held me in his lap as Thomas the footman closed the carriage door and we jerked into motion. Edward waved to the villagers as we passed, and I could have sworn I saw another silent sprinkling of glitter, just like the kind that had fallen off my dress, go tumbling off his arm.