Mrs. Beast (29 page)

    
"Oh, Paul, it's too late in the evening for me to drink champagne," Cinderella squeaks, hugging the king’s arm for balance. "Princess Beauty won't have any either, she's expecting a baby soon."

    
"Is this true, Beauty?" Paul asks in charmed disbelief.
 
"You're still a
 
girl," he says and lifts the tablecloth's edge. "And your feet are slim and delicate.
 
Cinderella's swelled like cream puffs when she was expecting."

    
"You have a child?" Beauty asks.

    
Cinderella hides behind the hand mirror and douses her face with powder.

    
"Yes, we have a son.
 
I've just come from his castle where I learned that he and his charming wife will make us grandparents this winter."

    
Beauty can't help herself, she blurts, "Surely the boy is your son from a former marriage.
 
Cinderella is too young to be a grandmother."

    
Paul raises Cinderella's hand to his lips. "My baby doll is well preserved."

    
"I'm very tired," Cinderella peeps. "Carry me to bed?"

    
Paul's brow creases with concern and he whisks his wife off her feet, then asks Beauty, "Shall I carry you too?
 
I can easily carry you both, one in each arm."

    
Cinderella sighs and lays her cheek on Paul's chest.

    
"I prefer to walk," Beauty says as straight-faced as possible, "but I will follow you.
 
I'm afraid I could easily become lost in your grand palace."

    
A while later, Beauty lies on her back in bed, the only comfortable position since nearing her eighth month of pregnancy.
 
She closes her eyes and tries to sleep.
 
First the baby rolls a tiny heel over Beauty's ribs, then Cinderella's squeaks penetrate the wall separating their rooms.
 
Beauty then hears Paul's soothing tenor, the opening and closing of a door, and his steps to a bedroom across the hall from the queen's.

    
Beauty has almost slipped into sleep when she hears Cinderella squeal, "Why did you put her next door?"
  
A voice caws in reply, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

*
     
*
     
*

22 July        Page Sixty

    
Three weeks I have searched Charming Castle for my mirror. I've discovered rooms hidden within rooms behind closet doors, and hallways hidden behind walls. These spaces are Mother's treasure rooms, packed floor to ceiling with gems, coins, keys, bracelets, necklaces, ear bobs, rings, glass and metal jars filled with dried pomades and creams, all sorts of shiny baubles, and mirrors, hundreds of mirrors.
 
But not my mirror.

    
I'm growing desperate.
 
If I don't leave soon, I'm afraid I'll be unable to complete my quest.
 
How can I travel with a newborn? Where is Runyon?
 
I need my mirror!

    
Cinderella avoids me and I do not seek her out as I know my presence disturbs her. Since learning that she is not a young woman, I long to talk with her seriously, for I believe I could learn much. It seems the single recipient of Cinderella's confidences is the raven, Mother.

     “Mirror.
 
Make Cinderella the fairest in the land,”
the raven screams from the crystal ball.

    
Croesus leaps from the bed and howls.
 
"Croesus!
 
Shut your yap."
 
Elora slides her eye mask onto her forehead and floats the crystal ball to her bed.
 
"Something must be done about Mother.
 
She's been nothing but trouble since the day she died."

    
Croesus tucks his tail between his legs and slinks to the bedside.
  
Elora conjures up a mug of Jamaican Blue and the raven shrieks, “I command you mirror, grant my wish!”

    
"She'll be at it for an hour, at least."
 
Elora snaps her fingers over the crystal ball and young Cinderella appears, weeping on her mother's grave.
 
"I believe this is where I left off."
 
Elora pats the bed and Croesus bounds up beside his mistress.

    
"Cindy went to that grave three times a day, never noticing the white raven perched in the ash tree.
 
She'd cry and pray and talk because she believed her mother was watching from heaven.
 
Eventually, she discovered that if she uttered a wish, for example,
I wish I had a pumice stone to clean the soot off my elbows
, it would drop from the tree."

    
Elora snaps her fingers, "Here's Cindy at fifteen, scrubbing the hearth while Lavinia reads aloud an invitation to attend a royal festival.
 
The king invited every eligible Grimm girl; a bride bash for Paul."

    
Elora and Croesus watch as Cinderella drops her scrub brush and squeals,
Can I go too.
 
Oh please, please, pah-leese!

    
Croesus covers his ears.
 
"Yeah, that voice is a killer,"
 
Elora says. "Listen to what Lady Lavinia said, that piece of work."

    
You Cinderella?
 
You're covered with dust and dirt, you have no clothes or shoes.

    
“Then she picks up a tub of beans and shakes them into the ashes. She said if Cindy picked up the beans in two hours she could go to the ball. Cinderella runs crying to her mother’s grave and squeaks,
Dear tree, please help me
. Mother, perched in the tree top, cocks her hoary head, and after hearing Cindy’s dilemma, rounds up every pigeon and dove she can bully into picking the beans out of the hearth.”

    
Elora snaps to an hour later when a puffy-faced Cinderella goes back inside the house where the tub is full and the hearth is clean. Joyfully she hefts the tub into Lavinia’s chamber. The queen eyes the tub with chagrin, shakes her head and says, “No, Cinderella, you can’t go. You have no clothes or shoes, and you can’t dance; you’ll only be laughed at.” Sweetness and Light laugh to prove her point.

    
Cinderella wails all the way to her mother's grave where she prays,
Rustle and shake yourself, dear tree, and silver and gold throw down to me.
 
The raven throws down a dress of gold and silver, and silk slippers.

    
Croesus puppy whines and sniffles watching Cinderella wash the soot from her exquisite face, lift the dress over her hourglass figure, slip her delicate feet into the silver slippers, and make her entrance at the ball.
  
Young Prince Paul bows to the floor and kisses her foot before whisking her onto the ballroom floor.

    
Elora sips her coffee and fast-forwards through the three hours Paul and Cinderella danced, through Cinderella slipping out and running home.
 
Elora snaps her fingers and the scene changes to the next morning.
 
"Cindy went to the grave to grab her fancy duds. They weren't there, but . . . watch this."

    
Cinderella raises her eyes, spots the white raven, and squeaks,
Pretty bird.
 
Did you take the fine clothes the tree gave me yesterday?

    
The raven answers,
It was me, not the tree, that gave you those clothes, my dearest darling.
 
It has always been me, and I'll give you anything else your heart desires, my sweet daughter.
 
She flaps down and lands on Cinderella's shoulder.

    
Mother?
Cinderella peeps, her baby-blue eyes brimming with tears.

    
Croesus sniffles.
 
Elora smacks his head. "Get that Sally Jesse Raphael reunited after X years look off your puss or I'll shut the thing off."

    
In the crystal ball, the raven pecks Cinderella's rosy, tear-stained cheek and croaks,
The day you planted the ash branch and cried pitifully upon my grave, I willed my bones to spring up along with the tree so that I might ease your suffering.
  
I found myself in the top most branches in the form you now behold.
 
Mother ruffles her white feathers and caws,
I have a prettier dress for you to wear today.

    
Elora fast-forwards through Cinderella and Paul dancing until midnight, Cinderella running from the castle and losing her gold shoe.

    
"The next morning, Paul strode up to Cindy's door and announced,
My bride shall be no other than she whose foot this golden shoe
 
fits.
 
Sweetness and Light smoothed their hair, fluffed their skirts, and pinched their cheeks.
 
Cinderella sat soot-faced and mute on the hearth."

    
Croesus whines and points his paw at Cinderella's image.

    
"What?" Elora snorts, "You think she's going to jump up from the hearth and say,
That's my shoe, I'm the one you want.
 
She's a fairy tale beauty; she's compliant, lives virtuously, and waits."

    
Sweetness takes the shoe and walks to Lavinia's chamber.
 
Croesus chews his nails watching as Sweetness tries to shove her toes into the shoe.
 
Lavinia brandishes a carving knife and hisses,
Your big toe is the problem.
 
Cut it off.
 
If you're queen, you won't need it.

    
Croesus spits a nail across the room and jams his head under a pillow.
 
"You are such a wuss.
 
It's over, you can look now."

    
As Sweetness and Paul ride past Gertrude's grave, Mother caws from the ash tree:
 
Look at her foot.
 
There's blood on the shoe.
 
She is not your true bride
.

    
Croesus faints.
 
"Hopeless," Elora mutters.
 
She breaks an ammonia capsule under the dog's nose.
 
"You're such a puppy toes when you're scared.
 
I'll skip the gore and tell you that Paul took Sweetness back, and the same thing happened with Light, except the carving was done on her heel.
 
Hey, that's marketing.
 
This is not a story of good dead mother versus bad live stepmother. Lavinia and Mother shared in the crime of marketing their daughters.
 
They're no different from Chinese mothers who bound their daughters' feet, or African mothers who hold their daughters while a granny slices off their clitorises, or American mothers who procure nose jobs, electrolysis, orthodontia, and diet pills for their daughters.
 
All it took for Cindy was some soap and water and fancy clothes.
 
She's the original makeover, the icon of hope for every woman who hunts the cosmetic counters with the fervor of Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth.