“If the Shoe Fits” is my personal favourite and my final installment from my “Not the Tales You Remember” collection of fairy tale adaptations.
Why do I like this one the best? Because the ending surprised me. When I set out to write it, I thought it was going in a different direction. My favourite thing about writing is when a story takes me somewhere unexpected. Sentimental fool that I am, I typed the last lines with tears in my eyes.
“If the shoe fits…” That’s what I told her. Stuck-up little brat.
I don’t know what Mom was thinking marrying Morris. Okay, he was a baron. But not like one of those uber-rich barons. By the time Mom met him, the good baron had drunk most of his inheritance away. He had a title, proper lineage, and noble pedigree, and he owned a bit of land and what not, but he wasn’t like the best catch at the ball.
And he had that brat from his first marriage, our soon-to-be stepsister. Oh, she was a looker (must have got that from her mom because Morris was a bit of a toad) but she wasn’t good for much else. You know how these blue-bloods are.
While our stepdad was alive, it was all well and good for her to shirk her duties playing young baroness around the house–that’s right, Baron Morris and family lived not in a castle, not in a mansion, not even in a manor house–but in an ordinary house.
Well, little sis could afford to play the part of the privileged brat while her papa was alive, but unfortunately for us all, that would not be for long.
Thing is old Baron Morris might have looked like a toad, but he drank like a fish. Drank himself to death. And left the four of us–Mom and we three girls–in the house that was all that remained of his family’s estate.
In those days there weren’t a lot of avenues open to women looking for reputable means by which to support themselves. That meant that the maids had to go, the butler had to go, the cook had to go, and the grooms had to go. There was just no way for Mom to support the baron’s army of serving folk. We were on our own once again, and the upkeep of the household was on our shoulders.
For Drizy and me, no big problem. Before Mom and Morris hooked up, we’d been doing our own housework. We knew our way around the kitchen and could handle a broom, but our poor stepsister Cindy, well, she’d grown up the way most high-born kids do, with a battalion of servants doting on her and tending to her every whim.
There was a lot of whining and crying and gnashing of teeth at the suggestion that she should help us with the laundry or the dishes or the sewing. I could hear her up in her room on the phone mimicking our voices and making us sound like cruel, bitchy stepsisters, “Cindy, dust the chandelier, Cindy shake out the rug, Cindy, empty the chamber pots,” she’d complain to her friends.
“Well, I never,” her friend, the young Duchess of Kent, might reply on the other end of the line. “If anyone ever asked me to fold my own laundry, I’d have them decapitated.”
“I know, right?”
“I can’t believe she expects you to comb your own hair,” the Countess of Hertfordshire might gasp. “Does your sister think you’re some common servant?”
“Stepsister,” Cindy corrected.
Well, that’s how it went. Good luck getting that brat to pull her weight around the house. Mom was busy, of course. She had to get out there and find another noble–hopefully this time one who hadn’t pissed away the family fortune–before the bank foreclosed on the house. So, while she was busy A / B testing her profiles on popular dating apps, swiping left, swiping right, it was up to Driz and me to cajole the young baroness into helping around the house.
“You’re a mean hag,” she spat at me.
“I just asked you to pick your gown up off the floor, Cindy, before it gets dirty.”
“Right, like I’m your servant.”
“Look, bitch, it’s your dress. If you want to walk around all day in dirty rags because you leave your clothes on the floor, that’s fine by me.”
“At least I’m not going to die poor, ugly and alone,” Cindy replied, flicking her gossamer blond hair over her shoulder and storming up to her room.
Mom had a fit when she saw the state of Cindy’s clothes. “We can’t have your stepsister waltzing around barefoot in dirty rags all day; do you know the stories people are going to tell about us?”
“But Mom, we showed her how to use the bucket and scrub board,” Driz said. “She got through like two pairs of stockings and one thong, then said she was too tired and threw her dress back on the floor. We’d help her, but Stas and I have to cook dinner while you’re out with Lord Tisdale.”
“It’s Prince Hamilton tonight.”
“Hamilton? Wow, good stuff, Mom.”
So there we were, left minding Cindy again. It was Driz’ turn to do the pot pie, and I was on dishes, but Driz has always been prone to distraction, so the pie got a bit singed. Nothing you couldn’t eat if you just flaked off the burnt edges, but the little baroness was having none of it, and she hurled hers on the floor, which made me mad.
“You pick that up right now,” I shouted.
“I’m not your slave.”
“It is not our job to clean up after you, you privileged little bitch.”
“I’m telling Mom,” Cindy stomped up the stairs.
“Stepmom,” I called after her.
I went to tend to Driz, who was in tears over the whole thing; she really is too sensitive. Well, little did I know what spoiled miss privilege was up to in her room.
“Hello? Yes, my stepmom and stepsisters have locked me in my room…Yes, and they make me wear rags…And they try to make me eat burnt food off the floor…And they make me cook and clean and do laundry…No, ever since my father died.”
Well, weren’t we surprised when we answered the knock at our door. “Child Protective Services.”
“Come in?” I said, but the burly lady draped in a pink leopard-print teddy coat had already bulldozed past me, the grey highlights in her dark pixie bob giving the distinct impression of a zebra.
“Miss Godmother,” Cindy cried, throwing herself down the stairs and into the large woman’s arms.
“You’re safe now, child,” the woman cooed, wrapping our stepsister in her spotted pink polyester embrace. “And you can call me Farleigh.”
“Excuse me, Farleigh,” I said.
“That’s Ms. Godmother to you. You’re the stepsister, I presume?”
“Anastasia,” I said.
“Well, Anastasia, you and your sister should be ashamed of how you have been treating your poor stepsister, Cindy.”
“What, like a responsible adult?”
“You know what I mean,” the lady from Child Protective Services put a gaudy arm around Cindy as she hustled her out of our house and into her waiting carriage. Good riddance, I thought.
Mom was furious, but what were we supposed to do? Her calls to Child Protective Services were rebuffed. Ms. Godmother was considering designating herself Cindy’s legal guardian and was initiating proceedings to have our mother officially stricken from the role. We didn’t see our stepsister Cindy again until Prince Henry’s ball.
Drizy and I were thrilled to receive invitations. Everyone knew Prince Henry was on the make. He would be sizing up his options. And since Mom wasn’t having any luck on the dating front, if we were going to save the house, it was up to Driz and me to land us a prince.
We worked day and night sewing ourselves ball gowns. We were rather proud of them too until the night of the ball when we arrived and saw the designer labels the other ladies were wearing. Driz almost refused to go in; she was so embarrassed to be seen in our obviously homemade dresses.
“Look, if Prince Henry is the kind of guy who can’t see past a woman’s looks to recognize her inner beauty, then he’s not the kind of guy we need to impress anyhow,” I said.
The doorman did a double take, eyes glancing from Driz’s lemon chiffon ball gown and my sea foam off-the-shoulder layered gown to our invitations and back again as if suspecting he might have misread them. “Anastasia and Drizella Tremaine,” he announced after an awkward pause.
“Dick,” I muttered under my breath as we entered the ballroom.
It was quite the affair. A hundred snooty bachelorettes from a hundred snooty noble houses, all clamouring for the attention of our host, Prince Henry. The room reeked of designer perfume and estrogen. Frills, ruffles, sequins and enough cleavage to make you think you were attending the annual mammoplasty’s convention.
Well, the ball was in full swing when Cindy finally waltzed in.
“What’s the brat doing here?” I wondered.
“Is she wearing Prada?” Driz asked. Cindy wasn’t wearing rags now. She’d had her hair done, nails manicured, face made up, and the turquoise dress she was wearing was gorgeous. But what really stood out were Cindy’s remarkable heels.
“Holy crystallographer,” I gasped.
“Are those Louis Vuitton’s Crystal Dream Slippers?” Driz exclaimed.
“How in the world?”
All eyes followed those shoes and our stepsister. You might call it chutzpah; I call it an over-inflated sense of entitlement because I don’t think it even occurred to Cindy that she should do anything other than glide across the floor and directly to the prince. She didn’t seem to register the six other high-born ladies gathered around, vying for his attention. She just cut her way through the cloud of Baccarat Rouge 540, pushed herself between the gaggle of push-up bras and put her hands around Prince
Henry’s arm. “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance?” she simpered.
Hearts broke and hopes fell as Cindy swept charming Prince Henry onto the dance floor, though I personally could not imagine how she managed to dance in those Crystal Dreams. You had to hand it to her though, our stepsister might measure high on the privileged bitch scale, but in a ballroom full of stunners, she was peerless. Even though she’d dashed mine and Driz’ dreams of landing the prince, I couldn’t help but feel a small glow of admiration for the cow.
Yep, our stepsister Cindy came to showcase her talents that night. Too bad keeping track of time wasn’t one of them. Seems her would-be guardian, Ms. Farleigh Godmother, liked her girls to mind their curfews. Cindy’s was midnight. Pretty generous, if you ask me. It was no surprise that Cindy didn’t see it that way.
“It is so unfair,” Cindy had complained to her bestie, Lady Karen, on the phone earlier that week.
“So uncool,” Lady Karen agreed, “I mean, none of the other ladies at the ball have a curfew. I bet Prince Henry won’t even make an appearance until after midnight. You know, fashionably late and all that.”
“And she expects me to go in this cheap, off-label dress from Target!”
“I would just die!”
“I know, right? What should I do?”
“You should teach that old bag a lesson.”
And that’s exactly what our stepsister Cindy did. When Ms. Godmother got home from a long day rescuing young waifs from labouring in the coal mines or sweeping out chimneys, it was not only her favourite ward who was missing but also her favourite no-limits credit card.
“No, I’m not on your guest list and I don’t need no bloody invitation to your ball,” Ms. Godmother shouted as she shoved the startled doorman aside, “Cinderella!”
All eyes turned toward the large zebra-headed, leopard-printed woman from Child Protective Services as she barrelled into the ballroom like a pink polyester storm.
“Oh shit,” Cindy ducked behind the prince, “Sorry, got to go.” Cindy tripped out of there so quickly she left one of her priceless (well, actually they have a price, but it is too obscene to mention here, this is a family story after all) Louis Vuitton Crystal Dream Slippers behind.
“Good evening, madam. Are you looking for someone?” Prince Henry intercepted Ms. Godmother with a courtly bow, taking her hand to give it a kiss.
Ms. Godmother snatched her hand away before Prince Henry’s lips could touch it. “Keep your filthy lips away from me,” she snarled. “I’ll have you know that girl you were dancing with is underage!”
“I beg your pardon?” a nonplussed Prince Henry asked, unused to being so addressed.
“Is your highness in the habit of consorting with minors?”
“Well, I…”
“Is that a bit of information you’d like the tabloids getting wind of?”
The prince shook his head, face red, palms raised to ward off further attack as he made conciliatory remarks, including the crown’s intention to increase annual funding to certain not-for-profits committed to safeguarding the youth of the realm.
This seemed to mollify Ms. Godmother, but before she could turn to go, she caught sight of me and Driz in the crowd.
“Oh great, here she comes,” I nudged Driz as Farleigh Godmother shouldered her way through the sea of gowns and hairspray.
“Where has that rotten, thieving, lying stepsister of yours gotten to?” Ms. Godmother demanded.
“How should I know?” I shrugged, “I thought you were her guardian now.”
“You mind your sass, miss,” Fairleigh growled before stomping off in search of her ward, muttering under her breath. “Is this what the nobility has come to?”
What did you think I was going to do, rat her out? Sure, I’d seen Cindy sneak out the servants’ entrance, but you don’t think I’m going to give her up to the lady from Child Protective Services, do you? I mean, sure, Cindy’s a bitch and a total headache, and she drives me and Driz mad, but she’s still our sister. Well, okay, stepsister, but family’s family, right?
As it turns out, now that Ms. Godmother had become better acquainted with our dear sister, she changed her mind and decided that maybe Mom should get one more chance at being a responsible guardian to the ungrateful brat. The next morning Cindy was dropped on our doorstep minus the Prada and the crystal slippers, of course.
But our stepsister wasn’t back home sulking long before Prince Henry came about on his rounds. He’d kept Cindy’s dropped Louis Vuitton Crystal Dream Slipper and was searching all over town for the girl from the ball whose foot was dainty enough to fit it. Poor Prince Henry had been around to all the palaces, mansions, estates and manor houses looking for the slipper’s owner. At last, his desperate search had brought him to our lowly household. I was in middle of washing the floors and called for Cindy to answer the door, but of course she didn’t.
“I’m busy!” she shouted from upstairs. “What do you think I am, your butler?”
Stuck up tart. So, I ended up answering the door in my cleaning clothes to find Prince Henry standing there with the lost slipper and his entourage.
“Didn’t know Vuitton made children’s sizes,” I muttered when Prince Henry explained his mission to me.
We tried it on. Of course we did! There was no way that slipper was going to fit anyone but Cindy’s dainty foot, but Driz and I couldn’t resist putting the prince through it anyhow. We made a big production of trying to squeeze our fat feet into that delicate slipper, all the while watching the hope drain from his face. At last, after we’d had our fun, we took pity on him.
“You might as well try our little sister,” I suggested. “But don’t get your hopes up, the ball was past her curfew.”
We sent the prince upstairs to knock on Cindy’s bedroom door.
“Go away, I’m busy.”
Prince Henry looked down the stairs at us; I shrugged so he knocked again.
“I told you not now!” Cindy flung open her door, about to hurl her hairbrush, and found Prince Henry standing there with her crystal slipper in hand.
“Oh,” we heard her exclaim.
The wedding was alright, I guess. The speeches and ceremony ran a bit long for my liking, but the banquet was impressive. And it was a second chance for me and Driz to wear the dresses we’d made for the prince’s ball.
After the cutting of the cake, Prince Henry, tipsy from all the toasts, staggered over to compliment me and Driz on our home-sewn gowns. “I told Cindy the two of you have such amazing style,” he slurred. “All the other ladies look like clones wearing the same designer labels from the same popular catalogues, but you two stand out with your distinctive designs. I’m sure Cindy gets her great fashion sense from you.”
Ha!
Cindy came to the side of her inebriated prince.
“I got you a wedding present,” Driz said.
Cindy wrinkled her nose as she unwrapped the fondue pot, but she gave Driz a hug.
“I got you one too,” I handed her my gift. It was a watch. “To help you keep track of time.”
Cindy fought to maintain her surly frown, though I saw the corner of her lips twitch. Then she cleared her throat and announced, “I’ve decided I’m keeping the house.”
“What?”
“Sorry, I’ve decided the house is mine and I don’t want you living there.”
Mom, Driz and I exchanged hurt looks. “But you will live in the palace with Prince Henry; why do you need the house?” I asked.
“I don’t need the house,” Cindy said, “but it was my childhood home. It reminds me of my dad, and now that I’m the princess, I’ve decided to keep it. It’s not like you could afford it, anyway.”
“Where are we supposed to live?” Driz asked.
Cindy looked to the prince and then back to mom, me and Driz, this time she could not suppress her smile, “Henry and I bought you Earl Cormorant’s palace in a foreclosure sale, we thought it would be a better fit for you.”
“We retained the household staff,” Prince Henry added. “And the estate should earn enough to support itself as long as the three of you don’t gamble it away like the earl did.”
“Or if you do gamble,” Cindy said with a wink, “make sure you win.”
Driz the big softy, threw her arms around our stepsister.
“Our little girl is all grown up,” Mom cried, joining their embrace.
Wrapped in Mom and Drizella’s tearful hug, Cindy looked up and reached out one arm for me, “Come on, sis.” I’ll admit the world got a bit misty then.
“You little bitch,” I croaked as I joined the family hug, but it came out as a hoarse gasp on account of the unfamiliar lump in my throat.
And even though my cheeks were wet with tears, I could not stop smiling.