The Cinderella Pact

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  And the doctor was confused as to why I topped 150 in seventh grade.

  Mom answers the phone like she’s at home. “It’s Betty!”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Nola! I was just going to call you.”

  “First hear me out. I have big news,” I begin dramatically, already feeling teary at the thought of what I’m about to declare. “I am going on an exciting weight-loss journey that is guaranteed to change my life forever.”

  “A spa? Caroline Spivak went to a spa and lost ten pounds of sweat.”

  “No.” I clear my throat and try again. “I’m going on a diet, or diata—which, I don’t know if you know this, means ‘prescribed way of living’ in Greek.”

  “I’ll have to tell Nicky Spanadopolous. He’s Greek, you know.”

  “It’s Greek to me!” someone in the background yells, spawning an uproarious round of laughter at the Princeton muni clerk’s office.

  “Are you coming to Eileen’s birthday party?” Mom asks.

  Clearly, she does not appreciate the gravity of what I have just announced, that I am embarking on an exciting weight-loss journey that is guaranteed to change my life forever.

  “It’s on the twentieth,” she reminds me. “At her house. Your father and I are buying her a new set of tires.”

  My parents cannot do enough for Eileen, the baby in the family. And I say this without one ounce of sibling rivalry. My sister is thirty-two, works full-time as a hairdresser, drives a leased late-model Camaro, and has a serious boyfriend named Jim Russell, whom we’ve secretly nicknamed Jack Russell because he is as wiry and hyperactive as a terrier. Despite this adult lifestyle, she somehow gets our mother to wash and iron all her clothes and our dad to help pay her Visa bill, on which she once charged a spontaneous trip to Hawaii.

  Don’t even talk to me about Eileen.

  “Of course,” I say, though it had completely slipped my mind.

  “If you haven’t gotten her a gift yet, I have the perfect one in mind.”

  Here it comes. The diamond ring my grandmother gave me. My left kidney. My favorite spleen.

  “See, Eileen was over for dinner and E! came on. There was a brief segment about Belinda Apple and Nigel Barnes and how they’re an item and all. Now Eileen wants to talk to Belinda about something personal,” Mom is saying. “I told her to write Belinda a letter like everyone else, but apparently whatever is bugging her can’t wait. I thought maybe, for her birthday, you could have Belinda give Eileen a call at the party. She can put her on speakerphone!”

  Nooo!! I give my head a slight bang against the steering wheel. I can see it now. Me as Belinda on speakerphone. Eileen, Mom, Dad, and Jack Russell all listening in, commenting that her voice sounds so familiar. Why, you could swear she’s Nola.

  “Eileen will be forever grateful to you. It’ll be a hoot!”

  It’ll be hooting impossible. How am I supposed to pull off Belinda on the telephone if I have to be at the same party at the same time? Ventriloquism is not one of my talents. Not yet.

  I really want to dissuade Mom of this brainstorm except for some reason my windshield is fogging up. No. It’s not really fogging up, it’s . . . smoke. Smoke rising from the hood of my car, which has been idling in the traffic jam. A mere twenty feet from my exit ramp to the Princeton North Corporate Office Park.

  “Gotta go, Mom,” I say, waving the smoke out of my eyes.

  “Wait! What about Belinda Apple calling on Sunday? Is that a yes?”

  I quickly shout “Whatever!” and then click off because the smell inside my car is worse than the perpetually burning trash fires down in Perth Amboy and I have started coughing uncontrollably. I careen my ancient and now exploding Audi Fox off the highway, past the breakdown lane, and onto the grass before I wiggle out, remembering at the very last minute to grab Belinda’s cell phone from the seat next to me.

  Which means I am standing at the edge of the highway in a black pantsuit on a ninety-degree June day. Of course I am wearing black. I always wear black to work, no matter what the temperature. I also always wear long sleeves and, if I’m in a skirt, hose. Queen size. I’d do well in Afghanistan.

  Something goes poof under the hood of my Fox, and the front of my car explodes in flames. I’d rush around and do something except that I am already five minutes late to the “Mandatory Staff Meeting” on which hangs my entire career. I freeze, uncertain what to do.

  “This your car?”

  An East Brunswick cop who is equally sweaty and hot is standing next to me with a red fire extinguisher. “Don’t go near it, OK? Back off.”

  He lifts the extinguisher and sprays the hood. The flames disappear as white steam rises along with a sickening acrid smell. “Thank you,” I say, coughing. “I’ll move her off the berm.”

  “There’s nothing you can do with this heap now,” he says cruelly. “She’s history.”

  “But it can’t be a heap. It’s my car.”

  “Trust me. It’s a heap. I’d lose my badge if I let you get behind the wheel.” He pulls out a walkie-talkie and radios for a tow truck.

  I regard my forlorn Audi. My first car, ever. This is the car that drove me to college and the Jersey Shore and, once, to Boston to see the Rolling Stones. This is the car in which I made out with Robbie Spillman in twelfth grade. This car defines me.

  “You need a ride somewhere?” the cop is asking nicely.

  “Actually, I work right up there.” I point behind me to the fortress. I am reluctant to leave my car but here’s the tow truck, its yellow lights flashing, coming to take my Audi to the Big Scrap Heap in the sky.

  I can’t bear to see the Audi treated like a piece of junk. I turn my attention to the hillside littered with McDonald’s bags and dirty socks and various bits of garbage. Climb the hill and I’ll be at the Princeton North parking lot. Climb the hill and I just might make the meeting in time.

  I thank the cop again, give him my address so the tow truck can bill me, and start the climb.

  The hill turns out to be much steeper than it seems from the highway and I can feel rivulets of sweat running down my arms. There’s a mirror in my purse, but I don’t dare check my reflection lest I turn myself into stone. My black pants are snagged and covered with burrs. Good thing I’ve got twenty more pairs at home.

  I pause halfway up to catch my breath. Over to the right I can see the cause of the traffic jam: a car with a front crumpled end at the top of the exit ramp. People are standing around uninjured, so that’s a relief.

  I plow onward, finally reaching the parking lot, sweat popping out of places I didn’t even know sweat could pop out of. To think that Mom’s friend Caroline Spivak paid good money to do this. Hah! Bet I’ve lost five pounds of sweat already.

  All I have to do is step over this rather high, rather rusty line of barbed wire, and then I’m safely on the macadam, two steps from the side entrance, a half a stairwell from the conference room, and—bing!—I’m home free.

  I lift my leg and safely step over. I lift my other and feel a tug on my ass. Wait. Was that a rip? It couldn’t be a rip. I pat my behind, cautiously searching for a hole. Nothing. Whew! And then I feel a slight breeze.

  Damn. It is a rip and not on the seam, either.

  I can’t see it, though. Maybe if it’s not too big I can get by. Hold on. What color underwear am I wearing? No biggie if it’s black. I can just slide into the conference room and sit down and no one will be the wiser. Then, after the meeting, I’ll slide out and down the stairs, get my friend Lisa or someone to drive me home and change my pants.

  Oh shoot, it’s pink. All-cotton baby pink Hanes. Perhaps it doesn’t show. If I check underneath. I’ll just bend over and . . .

  “ ’Ello, luv.”

  I stop dead in my tracks. My head is between my knees looking up.

  “Have you lost something?” The voice is British. Genuine British. Not my fake Monty Python/Posh Spice/Mr. Bean/Belinda Apple British.

  I snap up and, in so doing,
my hair falls out of its clip and over my face like Cousin Itt. I feel a bit dizzy and I must be dizzy because in front of me is standing Mick Jagger, only thirty years younger. But what would Mick Jagger only thirty years younger (Son of Mick?) be doing near the Route 18 overpass in East Brunswick in the Princeton North Corporate Center?

  He grins, and that’s when it comes into focus. This isn’t Son of Mick. This is Nigel Barnes. The Nigel Barnes. Belinda’s Nigel Barnes, whom I last saw in the flesh at the annual Sass! Christmas party.

  That’s where he said to me, and I quote, “Did you make these meatballs? They’re rather good.”

  And I wittily retorted, “Uh-huh.”

  And he said, “Family recipe?”

  And I grunted, “Mother’s.”

  At which point he smiled politely and chirped, “Jolly good.” Then some tart from Personnel threw her arms around his neck and dragged him to a group of giggling fellow Personnel tarts tipsy on punch.

  He is taller than I remembered. Confident in a classic white shirt, a rather preppy striped tie, and worn jeans and somewhat unshaven face. His hands are large with long, almost graceful fingers. Artistic, I think. And other things that I wouldn’t say unless I were Belinda. But I’m not Belinda. I’m Nola. If I were Belinda, I wouldn’t be as eloquent as I am now.

  “Um.” I start searching my database for a lie that might explain why I, literally, had my head up my ass. “You see . . .”

  Forget it. There simply is no easy way to recover from being caught checking the state of your underwear.

  Chapter Four

  “My car exploded,” I say by way of idiotic explanation as Nigel, probably suspecting that I am a runaway mental patient, insists on escorting me to Sass! Much to his obvious surprise, I declare that we are both late for the same meeting.

  “You work . . . here?” He turns to me on the stairs where I am keeping a careful distance to fall behind. As a general rule, I try to never end up walking ahead of someone up the stairs so that my rear end is in their face. But today this rule has a codicil. The pink underwear codicil. Today no one will see my ass, not as long as there are walls against which to slink.

  “I’m Belinda Apple’s editor. We met once at a Christmas party two years ago.” I raise my eyebrows alluringly. “Swedish meatballs.”

  “Oh, yes, right. Of course,” he flubs, not remembering me or my meatballs one bit.

  Which means I have to gracefully bring up my name so that he won’t have to stumble around it. “Yessirree,” I say, as we reach the corridor leading to the conference room. “It’s hard to forget Nola Devlin’s Swedish meatballs.”

  “Right. Nola.” He smiles weakly and opens the door to the hallway, though I demur because of the pink-undie codicil. “Apparently Belinda and I are an item. You know, I should sue since I’ve never even laid eyes on the woman.”

  “You’ve never met her?” I ask innocently.

  “Never. I have to say I am a closet fan of her columns. Though don’t tell my students that I read such trash.”

  We both laugh conspiratorially about my trashy prose.

  “Seriously. I think her message of encouraging women to relax and enjoy life is simply brilliant. I can’t tell you how many uptight women I’ve met at Princeton who drive me up the wall with their insecurities, their ‘How come you didn’t call me’s’ and ‘Will I get tenure’s’ and ‘Do I look . . .’ Well, you get the idea. Really, most men are sick of it.”

  I should be listening to his rant, but I stopped at the word brilliant. Brilliant! Nigel Barnes, the Nigel Barnes, said I was brilliant! I try to appear unflustered by this and reply with a classic non sequitur. “Yes, she’s not bad.”

  We have arrived at the closed conference room, but Nigel shows no signs of eagerness to make the meeting. Perhaps he is such a star here that his job is assured, whereas I, like any editor, can be replaced with a phone call.

  “So what’s she like in person?” he asks. “Belinda, I mean.”

  “Well, she’s very tall,” I begin, uncertain whether it’s her physical beauty he’s interested in.

  “Oh?” He makes a curious face. “Freakish Guinness Book of World Records tall or model tall?”

  “Model tall,” I say quickly. “Definitely not freakish. And she has long red hair . . .”

  “Yes, yes,” he says, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I can tell all that from her photo. I mean, what’s she really like? Is she as laid back as she claims? Or is she actually a witch? Does she sleep around? Or is she perhaps a lesbian?”

  “Lesbian!” I scream as if I’ve just seen a centipede.

  “You have something against lesbians?”

  “No. No I’m perfectly fine with lesbians. It’s just that I never thought of her in that way.”

  “So she sleeps around, then? Lots of men, is it?”

  “No!”

  “You mean she’s a virgin?”

  “What?” I have to slap my hands to my ears. This is nuts. Belinda Apple doesn’t even exist and now she’s a lesbian whore with a Madonna complex.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, smiling. “I suppose what I’m trying to find out is whether it would be acceptable for me to, you know, look her up. I do travel to London quite a bit.”

  Look her up. My heart skips a few beats.

  “I mean”—he hesitates, stumbling—“I’m asking if . . . if she’s seeing anyone.”

  And then the sweetness wears off and the truth hits me. This pompous Princeton half-professor is talking to me like I’m an automated gatekeeper to the fantasyland that is Belinda Apple. Oooh, I so hate that. This has been my role since high school when my close friend Constance Maxwell—the concert pianist, the blond-wavy-haired, could’ve-been-a-cheerleader-but-was-too-smart Constance Maxwell—drew boys to me like dogs to roadkill.

  Was Connie seeing anyone? Did she like so and so? Did I think she’d go out with him? Could I put in a good word for him?

  “We don’t delve into her personal life much,” I snap, a mischievous scheme popping into my head. “Besides, she’s quite preoccupied these days, what with Wills and all that. Royalty can be sooo demanding.”

  “By Wills, you mean Prince William?” Nigel looks as though he’s swallowed an egg.

  “Whoops! I shouldn’t have said that. Then again, I suppose it’s obvious, with her living at Balmoral . . .”

  “Balmoral!” This elicits an even more satisfactory reaction. Nigel is practically salivating. “I’ve always wanted to go to Balmoral. I have quite a bit of Scottish blood in me, you know. My father was a MacLeod.”

  “Really?” What the hell is a MacLeod?

  “I’d give anything for a chance to stay at Balmoral. I’ve already been to Deeside. Lovely area, absolutely lovely. Um”—the wheels in Nigel’s brain are clicking—“I do wonder if there’s a chance she might fancy a visit from the likes of me.”

  “You?”

  “Well, I am rather famous, aren’t I? I mean dozens of women write to me every day. They even send me their knickers.”

  “That’s nasty.”

  “And I am a professor at Princeton. There’s some cachet in that. What do you think? Do you think I would pass? I mean, not to your American standards, rather to Belinda’s higher—er, British ones.”

  I grip my purse. Not my standards, Belinda’s higher British ones? Listen, I’m tired of being the nun from Romeo and Juliet, I want to tell him. Look at my chin. Do you see hairs? Is there a cowl around my head and a cross dangling from my neck?

  And then it hits me. OK, Princeton’s Gift to Women, let’s have some real fun.

  “I’ll tell you what.” I reach into my purse, pulling out the tiny black “food diary” I picked up at the bookstore along with Who Moved My Fat? I rip off a blank page. “I’ll give you Belinda’s e-mail, her personal e-mail, not the one her columns go to, and you can write her yourself.” I scribble it and hand it to him.

  Nigel takes the paper with gleaming eyes. “You won’t regret it.”
r />   “Oh, I’m sure I won’t.”

  Boom! The conference door flings open and there stands Lori DiGrigio looking nothing short of insane.

  “I can hear you two all the way in there.” She waves to the conference room where I spy my friend Lisa from Books, her eyes wide. “Why weren’t you at the meeting? You’re so late, it’s over.”

  “There was a meeting? Fancy that.” Nigel, calm as crystal ice, checks inside where everyone is standing, pushing in their chairs and mumbling somberly. Joel, Lisa, and Dawn, Lori’s former secretary who was replaced by a dimwitted Valley Girl from Swarthmore, file past us.

  “Sorry, Lori,” I begin, feeling the familiar panic rise again, “I didn’t know if . . .”

  “You.” She points a finger straight at me. “I need to see you now. Alone.”

  I flash Nigel a wave of my fingertips, wishing that I were as lucky as he to be spared a private conference with this rabid pit bull, and slide against the wall into the room. Lori slams the doors behind me. It is just the two of us, and her bloodred nails are digging into the flesh of her elbows.

  “I have a question for you,” she says. “Just who in the hell is the real Belinda Apple?”

  Chapter Five

  Five Things You Couldn’t Pay Me to Wear (Even If I Were Thin):1. Cropped tops

  2. Flimsy T-shirts that say things in sparkly lettering

  3. Polyester bicycle shorts

  4. White pants

  5. Thongs

  Thong! is the first word that pops into my mind when Lori DiGrigio demands to know who the real Belinda Apple is. No matter what she is saying, all my attention has turned to the very faint straps of her red thong peeking above the waist of her Tahari black pants. Accident? I’ll venture not.

  After all, David Stanton is out of his deathbed.

  It is common knowledge that Lori is plotting and planning to become the last Mrs. David Stanton so she can cash in à la Anna Nicole Smith. Seeing her thong, I realize she has taken a hint from Monica Lewinsky and decided that the first step in finding billion-dollar love is to reveal one’s underwear the way baboons flash their crimson bums to show they are in heat.