Glass Slippers, Ever After, and Me

by Julie Wright

  “Don’t worry about them. Actually, don’t worry about anything because what’s done is done, and you can’t put the jelly back in the broken jar.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that.

  “Lettie?” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Turn your phone off. Take the holidays off to meditate and have peace. The internet and its monsters with opinions will be there when you get back to it. But shutting it out for a while might help you realize how little you need or care about it.”

  “Too late,” I sighed.

  “What do you mean ‘too late’?” she asked.

  “I have my computer open in front of me right now. Comments are already happening. They aren’t good. They’re comparing me to that diva fitness enthusiast who always does those snapchats of her finishing her daily mile run when someone else filmed her from start to finish and found that she only ever ran ten steps. They’re calling me a fraud. Maybe I made a mistake. Do you think I made a mistake?”

  “Shut your computer right now, Charlotte Kingsley. Because this is nothing but a tempest in a teacup.”

  I tried to process that for a minute, but my brain was short-circuiting. Or maybe it was broken entirely from the kinds of comments that had immediately started filling my inbox. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  “A teacup is a little thing. The tempest is all the ways that little things get blown out of proportion, but those storms stay in the teacup. It all seems like a big deal because the storm is in your teacup. But I promise you, there’s a big world out there that doesn’t give a fig what’s in your cup. Consider the choices you have right now as a breath blowing the storm away. Whatever you decide, the storm will blow away, Lettie. A little tea tempest can’t last forever.”

  “I don’t know what I did to deserve your friendship but thank you, Lillian. Living honestly is the right thing no matter what kind of storm follows, right?”

  “Does that include living honestly with yourself about the fact that you and that boy are good for each other?

  “Yes. It does. Which is why I have to go. I have a plane to catch.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “The fairy tale is the reality happening in your life while you’re not looking. Pay attention to the person who has been there through all your once-upon-a-times. Notice the one who helps you slay your demons. Who can heal with a single kiss? Who do you want by your side for Happily Ever After?”

  —Charlotte Kingsley, The Cinderella Fiction

  (The “Reality Check” Chapter)

  When the ticketing agent on the phone gave me the total for my just-days-before-Christmas flight to Luleå, Sweden, from Boston, a piece of my soul died. “You’re not poor anymore,” I reminded myself before taking a big breath and rattling off the numbers on my credit card. I splurged and went with the first-class ticket so I could sleep on the flight. Granted, book sales might come to a halt after what I’d posted online, but I’d been thrifty enough to live for a long time on the sales that had already happened. Maybe if I was lucky, my international sales wouldn’t be affected.

  But that didn’t mean the cost of the airplane ticket hadn’t made my stomach churn.

  Anders had been willing to pay this sort of cost in order to have me come with him. The amount would have been nearly an entire month’s salary, and yet he’d wanted me there enough to make the cost worth it. He’d very likely been working all that overtime just so he could afford it.

  And what had I done?

  Cast it back in his face like the monster I was.

  The flight from Boston to Luleå took forever. Even though I had the nice seat that would’ve allowed me to sleep, I didn’t sleep for a long time. Instead, I thought about all the things I could say to Anders to keep him from slamming a door in my face.

  I also surfed the web to find out more about the tempest in my teacup. Sure, Lillian had told me not to, but habit had become my enemy. Toni had trained me to keep my finger on my internet-value pulse at all times. She had also called while I’d still been waiting for my flight at the airport, but I hadn’t been brave enough to answer the phone. Lillian’s texts assured me I’d made the right choice no matter what Toni might have to say about the topic.

  Shortly after Toni called, she texted, asking me to call her back. She texted that same request seven more times. Finally, I followed Lillian’s advice and shut off the phone for the last few hours of the trip. Toni wanted to run crisis management for me. She wanted me to get online and defend myself. But I’d already given my defense, and nothing gave me the right to go back with the jury while they deliberated over how they felt about me.

  Between the time in flight and the time in layovers, more than a full day passed. Somewhere in that, I’d caught little snatches of fretful sleep. By the time the hired driver dropped me off in front of the address I’d managed to talk Mags into giving me, I was exhausted in body, mind, and heart. I’d arrived on Christmas Eve.

  Luleå was a forest much like the ones I wrote about in my fairy tales. It had been a surprise when a break in the trees had opened up into an actual town center. The break had closed up again around us as the road led us to a home on the outskirts of town.

  The house was something out of a postcard created specifically for the Christmas season. The light spilling from the windows illuminated the snow, making it look warm and cozy instead of the freezing cold it actually was.

  From the tree in the yard hung a motionless tire swing with half a foot of snow covering it. The scene might have been tranquil—even charming against the backdrop of the house—if I hadn’t known what waited inside the house. Anders had come to this place to help his grandfather die. The tire swing, so perfectly still it was like it had been frozen in place, felt more like the exhausted life of the man who owned it. Motion was too hard to manage against the heavy winter, and so it had stopped struggling against the cold and had iced over, allowing the winter snows to bury it.

  The walk had been freshly shoveled and sanded to prevent falls—signs that Anders was taking care of things.

  How did I approach any of this? How did I feel it was my right to intrude on this situation after having already cast it aside? I took a step toward the tire swing, going off the freshly shoveled path and into the snow. The powder squeaked under my step, and the noise I made echoed into the cold air in a way that made it feel like it was tattling on me for daring to enter the yard. I took another step and then another until I reached the swing. I reached forward to the frayed rope and grabbed hold, unprepared for the shock of cold. The ice on the worn and unraveling rope almost felt like it sliced into my palm. I checked my hand to see if it bled or not.

  It didn’t.

  I gripped the rope harder, setting aside the feeling of cold, and pulled myself up onto the swing, displacing the snow and freeing the swing from the frozen spell it had been under. I rocked, forcing the swing to move back and forth. The creaking echoed in the still air. The rocking motion soothed me in a way that putting off things that are incredibly hard usually did.

  “Mari?” The gravelly man’s voice from behind me made me twist on the swing to try to see who had approached so quietly in this place where the air itself seemed to carry an echo. The twist from my precarious perch on the swing made me fall off, dumping me unceremoniously to the ground and shooting the swing out from me in a violent arc that came back, aiming for my head. Seeing I was about to get clocked by a heavy, oversized tire, I flattened myself to the ground and let it pass over me.

  A hand mottled with blue veins and liver spots shot out and grabbed the rope, stopping the swing from causing any more trouble. He peered down through the hole of the tire at me. I tried to smile.

  “Du är inte, Mari. Vem är du?”

  I had no idea what the man had said, but his bushy, gray eyebrows that crowded together above his bridge, and his mouth turned down into a deci
ded frown, said enough. “Hi . . . hello. You must be Anders’s grandfather . . . farfar . . .”

  He narrowed his ice blue eyes. “Ah, ja. Du är min sonson’s Amerikan.” He grumbled this but seemed to have properly identified my nationality.

  I scrambled to my feet, keeping a hold as best I could on the swing to use as both a help up and to make sure it didn’t try to take another swing at my head. Anders’s grandfather also helped to hold it steady.

  Who knew an icy tire could be so slick? Well, probably everyone who drove in icy conditions knew that. And, since I had often driven in such conditions, it should have followed that experience had taught me such a thing as well, but I didn’t know what I knew anymore.

  Once my feet were under me and no longer in danger of slipping out from under me, I smiled again at the old man.

  He sighed heavily and whispered, “Inte Mari.” Whatever those words meant, they made him sad. He shook his head, tried at returning my smile, and greeted me with a “Hej, Lettie. Det är trevligt att träffas.” He almost turned, as if having nothing else to say, but then he frowned. “Good meet you.” He nodded as if that bit of broken English was as much as he felt like dealing with at the moment. He turned away then and motioned for me to follow him up the sanded walk.

  I did as told and fell into step behind the man whose pinstriped pajama bottoms had been half tucked into winter boots.

  When we were inside, I expected to see Anders, but, from all appearances, only his grandfather and I were in the house. Which made sense. If Anders had been home, he likely would have dealt with me himself. He would never have sent his ailing grandfather out to deal with me.

  His grandfather kicked off his boots at the front door and shed his coat, revealing that he hadn’t been wearing a shirt underneath. He sat heavily in a chair that was likely once a light beige color but was now gray and worn with age so that the man and the chair matched. He filled it in the same way liquid filled a glass, molding himself to all the curves and lines until they were one thing.

  “The boy return soon.” The dusty voice made me want to cough.

  I nodded, not sure what to say, and not trusting myself to say anything.

  His home held the smell of a fire burning in a wood stove, freshly cut wood, pine needles, and heavy cheeses. His open windows allowed the frozen forest smells to live in the fabrics of the furniture and rugs and even the walls. Why he had a window cracked open when the world outside looked and felt like it had been sculpted from ice and snow confused me. There was also the faint scent of fermenting yeast and baked bread—faint enough to make me think I’d imagined it rather than actually smelled it. There were other scents, too. There was an undertone of cinnamon and nutmeg, like a hint of Christmas lived perpetually in this place.

  The tree in the corner had a garland made of straw. It also had straw hearts, straw horses, and what looked like straw angels. There were other ornaments as well, but the straw garland and ornaments took up the bulk of the tree’s space. White lights were woven into the branches. A few presents were under the tree.

  An elaborately carved grandfather clock ticked a steady rhythm, and the hum of a heater provided a base level of noise. The open window and humming heater cancelled each other out so that the room was actually refreshing to be in.

  My mother, thin and angular, had a tendency to be perpetually cold. She overheated our house in the winter while I grew up so that it felt like the heat had made a goal to smother me in my sleep at night. During all those years, it had never occurred to me to open a window to balance out the heat into something comfortable. Fresh air and warmth mingled together into something cozy.

  “Pepparkakor?” the old man asked from his chair.

  At my confused look, he nodded to a small shelf where a box of thin, heart-shaped cookies sat. I took one and nibbled on it. It tasted like a gingersnap. The old man smiled and looked like he might say something, but must have decided the trouble of making himself understood wasn’t worth it.

  I finished the cookie and then ate another one without being invited to. That made the old man laugh.

  I think we were both relieved to hear noise on the porch that had to be Anders. I stood and held my breath.

  When the door opened, Anders stood before me, but his eyes weren’t on me; they were on his farfar. “Jag hittade några glögg. Det var svårt, men—” That was when he noticed his grandfather trying to get his attention. “Har du ont?”

  His grandfather shook his head, nodded in my direction, and said, “Din flickvän är här.” Anders actually looked like he might be sick as he slowly turned in my direction.

  “Lettie,” he breathed.

  “Stäng dörren,” his grandfather said.

  Anders shut the door, so I could only assume his grandfather had given him that direction. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s Christmas.” I shrugged, suddenly wondering if this crazy seize-the-day thing was a bad idea. “You did ask me to come for Christmas.”

  “But then you said you weren’t.”

  Not a good beginning. “But I’m here, so . . . Merry Christmas?”

  “Give me a moment.” He murmured some things to his grandfather, turned on the television, and found a station that was playing a Donald Duck cartoon, of all things.

  Anders then turned to me, took my hand, and led me toward the back of the house to the kitchen. He had a bottle in hand. He held it up to me and said, “Glögg. It’s our tradition.”

  He released my hand so he could set the bottle down on the counter. Never had I felt so disappointed by any single act than that of him letting go of my hand. When he turned back to me, I dove into my confessions.

  “I came clean,” I told him, to make sure he understood in what way I had come to him. “I told pretty much the whole world all at once. I put it up on YouTube and then sent the link to a few news stations who I assumed would run with the story. I explained all the ways that the social media me wasn’t always compatible with the real me.” I had come to him honestly, which meant I had to be entirely honest. “So I’m coming clean with you, too. Even though the social media me and the real me aren’t always compatible, they’re more compatible than I ever would have thought in the beginning.”

  “I’m not sure I know what that means.” He had a white-knuckled grip on the chipped, tiled countertop behind him.

  “It means I love my Cora designer shirts. I love having the online dialogue between me and the people who love my book and think they love my lifestyle. I love being a friend online to so many people. I love my coffee table. Sometimes I just sit and smile at it because it’s the most beautiful piece of furniture I’ve ever owned. Sometimes I like wearing my Sleeping Beauty pajamas all day. Sometimes I like dressing like I’m on my way to an important event even though I’m just taking a walk in the Common. Sometimes I like the healthy choices. Sometimes I need the ice cream.”

  “Lettie—” he started

  I cut him off. “I need you to know this about me because all of this is all of me, and if it’s too much, then that’s okay. At least you’re making an informed decision. I don’t regret writing that book—that book that is not a rant, but is a real book and is really out in the world doing real good in that world. I don’t regret hiring Toni because she taught me to connect digitally with people. She taught me to be brave. Don’t you remember how afraid I was to go to your work Halloween party a couple of years ago because people would be staring at me in my costume? I’m not afraid to stand out in a crowd anymore. I’m not afraid of having a voice and making it heard. The only regrettable thing is that I didn’t shout from the rooftops how I felt about you. I should’ve done that. I should have been honest. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  He took a step forward and reached out for me—in a way I’d feared he would never reach for me again.

  His hand slowly moved my direction, a slight tremor
in his fingers as he trailed the back of them down my jawline.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I didn’t mean what I said about it being a rant. I was angry. I’m not always awesome when I’m angry. You know . . . I didn’t actually read your book until I was on the plane here.” He took another step forward, allowing his stretched-out arm to relax even as his fingers slid up my neck, through my hair, behind my ear. “Don’t be mad I didn’t read it. It wasn’t personal. I really did think of it as a rant you wrote to the publishing world—like an essay or something. And I just never pegged myself for a guy who needed to read a self-help book of any kind. But reading that book . . . It was like reading the story of our friendship. All our inside jokes and the advice we’ve given each other over the years. It was our story. So. Now that you’ve told me a story, let me tell you a story, Lettie.”

  “Anders, I—”

  “Shh. It’s story time.” He cleared his throat. “Once upon a time,” he said, “in the middle of a stone forest lived a fair princess named Charlotte Kingsley. Her stone forest looked like beanstalks climbing into the clouds, just waiting for the day when they might become interesting to giants. She had a friend, a peasant named Anders.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What are you doing?”

  “Shh. I already said. I’m telling you a story.” He cleared his throat again and moved closer, twining a curl of my hair loosely around his finger. “Anders was the sort of friend that, if giants ever did crawl down her stone forest to make trouble for her world, would do whatever it took to slay them. But, of course, there weren’t really stone beanstalks or even trees for that matter. Her forest was made of buildings. And her tiara wasn’t a crown on her head but a pen in her hand.”

  “Anders—”

  He shot me a stern look that told me interrupting was not allowed. “Her friend Anders was, sadly, in reality a peasant, but that’s not the point of this story.”

  I smiled, light and happiness edging into my soul in that place where darkness and confusion had existed only moments ago.