by Cate Masters
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cinderella Dreams
Copyright © 2013 by Cate Masters
ISBN: 978-1-61333-566-6
Cover art by Mina Carter
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
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Dead to Rights
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1Night Stand Stories
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Tease
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Cinderella Dreams
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By
Cate Masters
~DEDICATION~
For Gary, who made my Cinderella dreams come true.
Chapter One
I stared at the photo in my hands until daylight seeped into dusk and washed away the smiling faces of the young bride and groom. Every trouble in my life had its roots in that day. Five decades later, I still kept the photo as a reminder. Sleek silver frame cold against my clutching grasp, the image beneath the glass might as well have been Prince Charming and Cinderella. My grip tightened, throat thickening. Except I should have been the princess, and the prince should have been—
The overhead light winked on, momentarily blinding me. I shielded my eyes with my hand.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mellie said. “Do you want me to come back later?”
Clearing my throat helped my voice to not waver. “No, of course not.” I smoothed a stray wisp of white hair behind my ear, but yearning had shaken my old bones.
Uncertainly, Mellie tugged the cleaning cart closer and stepped in my room. “You’re sure I’m not disturbing you?”
I flashed a smile. “Oh, a daydream, maybe.” But I was finished with those, as of today. They’d occupied my days and nights, but whether to keep me company or keep me from some drastic deed, I hadn’t decided until yesterday. I couldn’t stand the loneliness one more day.
Mellie set the robovac on the floor. As I watched it skitter past, I wondered how such a flat, compact device swept the floor clean. One of the few advancements for domestics, though not much improved over the first versions introduced before the turn of the century. But then, retirement homes had seen little improvement either. Strange how, even in 2032, technology had minimal impact on the lives of some people.
Mellie moved the dustrag over the top of the bureau, now empty of my belongings. “Is it true you’re leaving us?”
The decision hadn’t come easy. I’d almost chosen the quicker way out—a more certain ending but it held no hope for happiness. I desperately wanted one final chance to see him.
I steered the wheelchair toward her. “Yes, my transit should be here very soon. I’m glad we had a chance to say goodbye.” I reached into my purse, the sole bag I’d be taking, and removed the small wrapped package. “Here. For being such a good friend.”
Her eyes widened. “No, I couldn’t.”
“Please.” The diamond ring might help her leave this place, too. I couldn’t stand to look at it, evidence of my short-lived marriage. The second huge mistake of my life, an attempt to substitute a not-quite Mr. Right with the real thing, a misjudgment I vowed never to repeat. Not in this lifetime.
Her reach reluctant, Mellie accepted the gift, and she clasped my hand warmly in gratitude. Her gaze went to the photo. “Taking that along?”
At my nod, she said, “You never told me who they are. Friends?”
“Not exactly.” More like reminders of a terrible mistake. Though I had no regrets about my affair with the man in the photo ending. He’d chosen her over me. By the time I realized he’d chosen right, I also realized I’d ruined my one chance at happiness. Not with the groom, but someone else. How had I not seen? I missed him so terribly, what might have been.
“But you seem to love the picture so much.”
Mellie’s voice snapped me back. “I do. It reminds me how much I used to love being a photographer.” I would love it again. Excitement gave me a false sense of youth, especially knowing it wouldn’t be false for much longer. And I’d see him again!
Mellie’s smile turned sad. “I’m sorry to see you leave, Genevieve.”
“You’re the only one here I’ll miss.” I held my finger to my grinning lips but trusted her to keep the small secret.
“Where will you go?”
Conscious of my deeply wrinkled skin, I twisted the amethyst ring I bought for myself after the divorce. A reminder never to give my heart away again. It already belonged to someone, and always had. “To find some old friends.”
Concern filled her face. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. No one could ever be sure of that. “The uncertainty’s what makes life exciting, isn’t it?”
And terrifying. The web site testimonials praised Madame Evangeline, and the few conversations I’d held with the woman assured me of her professionalism, but this might prove beyond even her capabilities. And what if I forgot her advice to follow my heart? What if her warning came true?
Enough of such thoughts. I had to act now. “Goodbye, Mellie.” I wheeled toward the door.
“It’s a forever goodbye? I’ll never see you again?” Such heartfelt feelings she conveyed.
I grew woozy considering what might happen, but my giddiness erupted in a chuckle. “Not unless Cinderella’s carriage turns into a pumpkin again.” But it wouldn’t, not for another fifty years, if I didn’t squander the opportunity Madame Evangeline promised, and not at all, if things turned out as I hoped. Well worth the remainder of my life’s savings, which I’d signed over to Madame Eve for this one-way trip. My single shot at righting the course of my life, but no guarantees. Madame Eve would provide the rare do-over, but I had to use it well or face another lifetime of heartache.
Mellie shook her head. Her expressi
on suggested I might have lost my mind.
Despite my fear, I’d never been more certain of anything.
Time would prove one of us right, I thought as I exited the thirty-story facility and aimed toward the open doors of the waiting transit, and toward my past.
Chapter Two
Soon after Madame Evangeline’s driver helped me into the sky car, the tinted windows darkened to black. As the vehicle lifted into the air, REO Speedwagon’s “Time For Me To Fly” drifted from speakers all around me and filled the darkness.
I laughed, the first real laugh in a very long time. Never let it be said Madame Eve had no sense of humor, or didn’t know how to put her customers at ease. I sang along, my voice cracking.
The car whirled, and so did my head. I clutched the wedding photo tighter, reached for the door handle, and grew more disoriented. Images drifted through my mind, my life in reverse. Soon they flew by too fast to absorb, streaking faster than a meteor shower, their light trailing behind. Trying to lock my gaze onto one, then another, made me dizzy. Throughout it all, the damn song blasted. I might have begun to hate it, except it was the one constant; a signal, I suspected, that Madame Eve had everything under control.
The sensation of falling, endlessly spiraling down a whirlpool, caused me to grip the framed photo even tighter. My chest tightened when I suddenly discovered the wedding photo gone from my grasp. I groped the seat beside me but couldn’t find the frame so pressed my fingertips to my temple to quell the queasiness washing over me.
My own touch registered as something real, and reassured me for some reason. Maybe that was what made the spinning slow and finally stop. The flashbacks faded into the void surrounding me, though within that void, vague shapes began to form and solidify into a familiar landscape, darkness giving way to sunlight. I shook off the odd sensation and took mental stock of the rest of me.
Though unsteady, I stood upright, my legs clad in pantyhose, my feet in black pumps, a concrete sidewalk beneath. A short black skirt matched my black jacket, set off by a rose silk blouse. I stared at my right hand, free of jewelry. Why had I expected to find a ring there? And where was I?
A song snapped my attention to a Ford Pinto cruising past, blasting REO Speedwagon’s “Time for Me to Fly,” the teen behind the wheel singing along fervently. That song had followed me from…where?
I gasped for air. “What the hell’s going on?”
A small voice called my name from a distance: “Genny. Genny, are you all right?”
The hard plastic object I held was a phone attached to a phone booth on a street I’d traveled often.
I blinked to clear the dizziness. Across the street from the pay phone on the corner of Bridge and Union, the soaring spires of the church cast its shadow over me. On the sidewalk beside me sat a large camera bag–the one I’d bought before I opened the studio.
Of course. A wedding. I’d come to photograph the event—joyous, but not for me. Not this one.
A strong buzz shot through me, and in my mind I saw a faded photo of the man and woman who hired me as their photographer. But that made no sense. The photo couldn’t exist, let alone have faded; I hadn’t taken it yet. I shook my head to clear it.
“Genevieve.” My mother’s voice came through the phone, and a wave of emotion hit me. I hadn’t heard her voice in forty-two years. Wait, that couldn’t be right. I saw her yesterday in her kitchen, canning tomatoes. I must have called her for reassurance or a kick in the butt. She excelled at both.
I spoke into the receiver. “Mom, I don’t think I can do this.” The church loomed, a gray stone castle waiting to magically transform a woman and man into bride and groom. The wrong couple. Or was it? Again, a buzz zinged through my head.
“You can’t back out now, Genny,” Mom said. “It’s not professional.” Her smile came through the phone. “Sometimes these things have a way of working out.”
“You’re right, Mom. See you later.” I cradled the receiver, took a deep breath, and marched to the church steps. I would take such great photos, the couple couldn’t help but think of me when they paged through the album in years to come.
The song stuck in my head and prodded me forward.
I heaved my camera bag, and a sigh, then hauled my tripod into the candlelit interior.
“Oh, good. You’re here.” A middle-aged woman, a Nancy Reagan clone in her gray knit suit, clutched my arm. “The bride’s in the back, getting ready. Come with me.”
I paced alongside her, reminding myself why I was in this business. Maybe I’d absorbed too many fairy tales when I was little, but weddings were always magical to me, so it felt natural to become a wedding photographer. My job was the easiest one in the world, shooting pictures of a man and woman while they were so crazy in love, they practically glowed.
On the day they joined hands and hearts with the one they believed their soul mates, ordinary people transformed into royalty, princes marrying their princesses. And nothing made me happier than hearing a newly married couple gush over the special moments I’d captured.
My guide pushed the door to the bridal lair open and announced me, as if I were visiting the royal family. Five young women giggled as they filled their champagne flutes and swayed to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” on the boom box. Seated in the center, in a stunning white satin gown beaded with pearls, the bride held court over her pretty-in-pink bridesmaids.
“Diana!” My guide winced, covering her ears, and one of the bridesmaids turned the music down. “Diana, the photographer’s here.”
Of course, Diana—Princess Di—perfect. The bride turned her wide blue eyes on me and said hello in a silken voice.
My heart sank.
Who was I kidding? I’d be the last thing Ray would think about while viewing any picture I took of his bride. Her blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders in waves. Her smile could melt the polar ice cap. In short, she was gorgeous.
Fighting the urge to curtsy as I greeted her, I set up and went to work. After the standard shots, I took a few extra of the bride. It would have been a crime against creativity not to capture her beauty at its peak.
My watch read quarter to three. “I’ll see you out there.”
As I folded my tripod, the bride touched my shoulder.
“Thanks again for doing this on such short notice. Ray said you were a wonderful photographer. We should have planned the wedding for next year, but we just couldn’t wait!”
Beautiful and nice. No wonder he’d fallen for her.
I forced a smile. “You’re welcome. Break a leg. I mean, best wishes.”
Swallowing my embarrassment, I followed the hallway to the side entrance of the altar. Steadying the tripod, I repeated my mantra: It’s been an entire year. Get on with your life.
When Ray walked in from the back of the church, my heart flip-flopped. His black tux hugged his contours as if custom-made and showed off his six feet of muscles. He must have joined a gym. Too bad I hadn’t been more faithful with my Jane Fonda workouts.
My cheeks went hot as he strode toward me, and I fiddled with the camera to stop gawking at him.
“Genevieve.” Just hearing him speak my name could send me over the moon again. I ignored the fact he’d used the full, formal version.
I smiled, hoping I appeared as unaffected as he did. Well, as unaffected by seeing me, I should say. He wrung his hands with a slightly dazed expression, a dead giveaway he’d fallen head over heels. Not with me. He’d never been that crazy happy when we’d been together. Pain zinged through my chest. Again, a buzz shot through my head, some sort of signal, but what the hell did it mean?
A deep voice behind Ray said, “Hey, Gen.”
Matt. The next wave of emotion sent me reeling. I might have drowned in that wave, but the sight of him riveted me. The best man, taller than the groom by two inches. Slimmer by a few inches, too. His hazel eyes sparkled, and angels might have sung as he aimed his dazzling smile at me. I had to remind myself to breathe.
“Hey, you’re back.” Oh, witty greeting. Way to state the obvious. Better than gushing how wonderful it was to see him, how much I’d missed him and feared he’d never return. Now there he stood, hotter than Bon Jovi, and me his rabid fan.
Something nagged at me; I’d meant to tell him…what? All I could do was stand and stare more pathetic than a teenage girl high on her first hormone rush. What the hell had come over me today?
Matt locked his gaze on me. “Good to see you.” A throw-away phrase people tossed out to make conversation, but he said it with such feeling, the emotions reverberated through me. My hand went to my stomach, now performing Olympian gymnastics to rival Mary Lou Retton’s floor routine.
“You, too. So good.” Wow, I couldn’t believe I said it out loud, but I meant it. Matt had moved away a year earlier. When Ray broke up with me, it had been a double tragedy. Matt and I were buds, though we indulged in occasional flirtations. Harmless, mostly. Except for the night we split a six pack waiting for Ray to show up, and we shared something better—a kiss. One incredible, mind-blowing kiss, the kind that starts off slow and builds to the intensity of a hurricane. It turned my world upside down, but I begged him not to say a word to Ray. Then Matt was gone, and soon after, Ray dropped the breakup bomb on me.
Ray grabbed his sleeve. “We need to get in place. It’s almost time.”
“Calm down,” Matt told him, shooting me a glance as they stepped up on the altar. A worried look that said he wanted to be sure I was okay.
It sent a tingle through my nerves, but the blare of the organ playing the “Wedding March” erased it. Time to get to work, but I couldn’t shake the euphoria since Matt arrived.
Taking a deep breath, I pointed my camera at the six guys lined up, waiting for their pretty maids all in a row. Except Matt, who still watched me with a gaze so focused, it seemed to reach right through the telephoto lens. Without thinking, I clicked the shutter, a picture I’d keep for myself. Not that I’d need it. Already, his image had seared into my memory.