The Anti-Cinderella

by Tawdra Kandle

  I don’t have much time to write at the moment, but I wanted to say something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Whatever happens next, I don’t want to be separated from you by any ocean or continent. I know it may take some figuring out, but we’re going to be together.

  That doesn’t mean you can’t continue with the work I know you’re meant to do. We may have to be creative. But I want to wake up next to you every morning and fall asleep with you in my arms every night.

  Not sure how we’ll make it happen, but we will. Trust me. Believe in me.

  I love you~

  Your Nicky

  Dear Nicky,

  I’ve been following your travels, and the trip looks as though it’s been tremendously successful. I can’t wait to hear all the details.

  Not sure if you need to know this, but I graduate on the tenth of May. After that . . . I haven’t made any firm plans. I’m hoping that Honey Bee Juices will approve some funding for me to continue my research into natural farming, so I could work for them in that capacity. I’m going to present my thesis paper and my preliminary findings to them in late April.

  I’m not telling you any of this to pressure either of us—just so you’ll be informed.

  Spring seems to be rolling in slowly this year. We had one last gasp of winter weather last week, but this week, it’s been warm every day. Maine warm, you understand—not Florida warm. But I’ll take what I can get.

  To celebrate spring’s arrival and our survival of another New England winter, Shelby and I ate dinner at The Meadows on Saturday. Gav came out to say hello, and he offered his services if I needed someone to, in his very elegant words, ‘kick some royal ass’ as punishment for hurting me. I told him that he shouldn’t believe everything he reads in the papers or hears about on-line. He seemed skeptical, but I think I managed to convince him that I’m okay and that you’re not, as he said, ‘a stuck-up royal asshole’.

  Still, you should probably watch your back.

  Speaking of such things, I hope Harold and Tom are well. It also occurred to me that I left Alex and Jake’s house without so much as a thank you or an explanation. I want to apologize to them for that. I hope they’ll understand.

  Honey and Handsome offered to take me with them on the Mediterranean cruise they’re planning for the summer. I’d told them no at first, because when they asked, I was still suffering from a broken heart and determined never to go near Europe or the British Isles ever again. And then I said no again last week, because I didn’t want to make plans if you . . . or if we . . . well.

  By the time you receive this letter, you’ll probably be almost ready to leave Africa. If you should decide you want to make a detour to another continent, I’ll be here, waiting for you.

  Love,

  Ky

  “CONGRATULATIONS, KYRA. YOU MUST BE very proud of yourself.” Marietta Jenkins, the president of the Honey Bee Juices advisory board, beamed at me. “I already know your grandparents are. Proud of you, I mean.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins.” I returned her smile. “It’s been quite a journey, but I think it’s been worth the work. And I hope the board feels the same way and will consider allowing me to head up the natural farm research full-time for Honey Bee Juices.”

  “Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” She pointed to the experimental plot. “Now, I’m standing here looking at your non-interventionalist plot and thinking that it looks a mess. It’s not pruned, it doesn’t have the same neat and uniform appearance of the control plants, and it just looks . . . untouched. Wild. And I’m realizing as I think this how much we’ve been brainwashed to think one way—the man-interference way is so much preferable to letting nature do its thing.”

  “Exactly.” I nodded. “That’s one thing we have to be cognizant of as we go forward.” I squinted over her shoulder. “Here are my grandparents and the rest of the board. We should be able to get started on time.”

  “There’s my beautiful, smart and strong granddaughter.” Honey hugged me. “Look at you, Kyra. You look so grown-up and professional.” She stepped back to admire the simple short-sleeved blouse and dark blue jeans I was wearing with my sneakers. For this presentation, I knew I had to dress as though I was both responsible enough to deserve a job with Honey Bee Juices and practical enough to realize that heels and suits were not meant to be worn in the dirt. The new jeans and blouse had been a compromise that worked.

  “Honey, you can’t hug the job candidates,” my grandfather chided. “Kyra is presenting to all of us today. You need to maintain professional distance.”

  “Oh, bullshit.” My grandmother rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows she’s our granddaughter, Cal. This isn’t an interview with a stranger.”

  “Fine.” Handsome gave in and bent over to kiss my cheek. “Your grandmother’s right, sweetie. You look wonderful. And so does this field.”

  “Thanks, both of you.” I raised my voice. “And thank you for coming, everyone. I have an outline of notes for you here, if you’d each take one and pass it along. I’d like to start with a little history . . .”

  For forty-five minutes, I took my listeners on a journey from the ancient practices of agriculture to the more modern methods of extreme intervention and then launched into an explanation of natural farming. From there, I moved onto the specifics of our experiment, pointing out the various plants and explaining what the numbers on their outline meant.

  Behind me, I heard a huffing and turned my head to glance out of the corner of my eye, to where Ed was jogging over. He’d had a final presentation for another class this morning, and since what I was doing here was for my own future with Honey Bee Juices, it hadn’t been vital that he was on hand. But he’d promised to come for the last half of my talk, to answer any questions that I couldn’t directly address.

  I introduced him to the board, and then together, we continued, finishing up by opening the floor to questions. The few that the board members raised were thoughtful and considered, and Ed and I were both able to provide answers.

  “Very interesting. Very interesting,” one of the older men remarked. “I’m going to go home and order that book on natural farming that you mentioned. I’m not sorry to say I’m intrigued.” He offered me his hand. “You already know you have a job with Honey Bee Juices, I hope, but I believe you can consider this project funded going forward. We’ll all be eager to see how your work benefits the company’s future.”

  The other four members murmured their agreement, and I felt a mix of relief and exhilaration. All the hours that Ed and I had devoted to these plots and this project suddenly were worth it. We’d done it.

  “Kyra, what’s over there?” Honey pointed to the hard dirt path that led between the trees. “That’s not another one of your project fields, is it?”

  I shook my head. “No. That was used by another group—they were experimenting with some new irrigation ideas. I’m not sure if they still have plants growing there now.”

  “Oh, I’d love to see it.” My grandmother enthused. “You know we’re always looking for better ways to irrigate.” She tilted her head, confiding in Ed, “As passionate as my granddaughter is about food sustainability, I feel the same way about water. It upsets me to think about the waste that goes on.”

  “Sure, Honey. Go on up and check it out.” I waved my head in the direction of the field in question, hoping she’d take the hint and not bend poor Ed’s ear about water management through the world.

  “Come on and walk with me.” Honey held out her hand. “I don’t want to trip and break a hip. That would put a real damper on our cruise in the Mediterranean next month.”

  “It sure would,” I muttered, but I obeyed, offering her my arm and walking alongside her through the trees. My grandparents had always been unwaveringly supportive, but even more so over the last year—and especially in the past months. Although they’d never questioned me about what had happened with Nicky, I’d noticed that both Handsome and Honey had been extra
attentive, taking me to dinner and showering me with love and attention. I was grateful for them. And given the fact that I was more uncertain than ever now about my future, I was glad that I had the potential for meaningful work settled.

  It had been several weeks since I’d had a letter from Nicky. In those first weeks of our correspondence, I’d begun to cautiously believe in the future once again. But I knew he was back from Africa, and I’d been hoping that he would bring up what came next for us. Would he come here after I graduated? Or would I be brave enough to go back to London? I wasn’t sure. I held onto my belief in his love for me, trusting that he was working things out, even if I couldn’t see it happening.

  But I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for him to make a move. I’d never been that girl, and I wasn’t going to start now. I was moving ahead.

  “Honey, remember how you asked me if I wanted to go with you and Handsome on that cruise, as part of my graduation present? I’m thinking about it. Maybe it would be good for me. I mean, I could get away and relax—it’s been a hell of a year, and I could use the break.”

  “Oh, really? Do you think so?” She sounded distracted as she picked her way up the path with me. “Don’t you think you might get bored, with all those old people just sitting on a ship in the middle of water?”

  I frowned. “Why are they all old people? You told me this was a trip for all ages, not just a senior cruise. And we wouldn’t be sitting in the middle of water. We’d be visiting interesting ports of call, like in Italy and Greece and northern Africa. And Spain! I’ve always wanted to go to Spain. I’ve heard it’s lovely. Think of the history.”

  “Let’s talk about it later, all right?” Honey seemed almost cross now, and I was bewildered. After all, me joining them had been her idea to start. I wondered if she was afraid I’d crimp their style or—ewww—interfere with their romantic trip. That was something that didn’t bear thinking about too closely.

  “Well, fine, but I might need to—” I came to a sudden halt just beyond the edge of the trees, and my voice broke. My body began to shake, and I was certain my temperature had gone up several degrees, because I was instantly flushed and on fire. My heart thudded so hard that I wondered distractedly how common it was for twenty-five-year old women to have heart attacks.

  But it wasn’t a heart attack, because I knew why I was feeling this way. Across the field, a mere fifteen or so feet away from me, Nicky was standing. He was wearing jeans—possibly the same ones he’d worn the first day he’d come here to see my gardens—with a snug gray T-shirt and an expression of undisguised hope.

  “Ky.” He spoke my name—he didn’t call or yell, but I heard it anyway. He began to say something else, and then stopped, because his voice was hoarse and trembling.

  I was dimly aware that Honey had slipped away from me and was making her way back through the trees, clearly without any worry about needing help. And as I stared at Nicky, waiting for him to talk again, I took in the field in front of me.

  Hyacinth. There were rows of vibrant purple hyacinth laid out, but they weren’t in neat and orderly rows. Instead, they were in curved lines, although some were straighter. I furrowed my forehead, trying to figure out what it meant.

  “I should have thought this through better.” Nicky stepped carefully around the flowers, coming toward me, and I thought I’d never seen anything or anyone look more wonderful. “I wanted to make a grand gesture. I didn’t realize that you might not be able to see the shape from down here. Not as easily, anyway. But that’s a heart in the middle—”

  “Oh . . .” I breathed. “I can see it. Wow. Oh, it’s beautiful.”

  “And on either side, I spelled out—well, I had another idea, but I also underestimated how many flowers I needed. So it spells out . . . my Ky. I hoped that you’d remember what that means.”

  I heard the echo of his voice from last summer. “I’ll just have to say you’re my Ky, and you’ll know that all the other stuff—the intelligence, the goddess, the sexiness—it’s all implied in those two syllables.”

  “I remember,” I whispered. “I remember.”

  “But what I wanted to spell out was . . . I love you, Ky. If I had all the hyacinth in the world and all the time and space, I would have said, I love you, Kyra, and I never want to be separated from you again. You are my heart, and you own my soul. Life isn’t worth living if you’re not part of it.” He stood close enough to me now that I could feel him, and my entire body was humming with his nearness.

  “Kyra, you are my best friend, and falling in love with you is the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I want us to have a future together. I want you to be who you are, and I want you to know down to your very core that I love you for all of everything you are. I never want you to change. I know we’ll both grow and change over the years, but I want us to do that together.”

  Something wet splashed on my hand, where it was still covering my lips. To my shock, I realized I was crying. Nicky lifted a tentative hand and cupped my cheek, wiping away tears with his thumb.

  “I’ve said a lot about what I want, Ky. Now, you need to tell me what you want. Is it the same thing I do? I hope so . . . but no matter what, I’m going to make sure that what you want and need is my number one priority. Nothing else. No one else. Only you. Only my Ky.”

  I swallowed and moved my hand to cover his where it still rested against my face. “I want everything, Nicky. I want it all. Everything you just said—that’s what I want. But when it comes down to it, the only thing in the world I need is you.”

  Nicky’s answering smile was brilliant enough to nearly blind me. He wrapped his arms around me and held me close, both of us clinging to each other. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, and his hands rubbed slow circles on my back as he whispered into my ear.

  “Once upon a time, two children—a boy and a girl—fell in love on the sand in Florida. One was very wise, very strong and very beautiful. And the other one was smart enough to know that the girl was everything to him and always would be. On a perfect August night, he kissed her for the first time, and it was magical.”

  “Did he love her even then?” I murmured.

  “He did. But he wasn’t old enough to know it fully. Not yet. But when he met her again, ten years later, this time he was old enough, and so was she. This time when he kissed her, he never wanted to stop.”

  “But he did. And even though it wasn’t completely his fault, her heart broke, and she thought she might die of it. She was still strong, but she didn’t want to be strong without him.” New tears welled in my eyes.

  “He felt the same way. He loved her so much that he didn’t know how to hold onto her when she thought she had to change for him.”

  “Silly girl.” I touched my lips to his neck.

  “And idiot boy,” Nicky laughed softly, and then he nudged my head back, and he kissed me as though it was the very first time. And in some ways, perhaps it was, because it was the beginning of our new forever.

  A few seconds later, when he lifted his lips from mine, I gazed up into his bright blue eyes.

  “Whatever happened to those two children on the beach? The girl who was not quite Cinderella and the boy who was so much more than Prince Charming?”

  Nicky brushed my hair back from my face.

  “Don’t you know? They lived happily ever after.”

  “IS THIS BOX READY TO be sealed, Kyra?”

  I paused in mid-motion as I bent to place another armful of books into the huge carton in front of me. “Yeah, it should be good to go. Thanks, Shel.”

  “Phew.” She fell onto the couch with a sigh. “When you told me that you were moving to England, I had a mental image. It included uniformed men coming in to pack up your shit to be magically transported across the Atlantic Ocean. It did not include the two of us, sweaty and nasty-smelling, figuring out how to fit all the aforementioned shit into boxes.”

  “Sorry. Nicky offered some help from professionals, but I thought it would
be more fun for us to do it together.”

  “Fun. Yeah.” Shelby rolled her eyes at me. “I still can’t believe that you’re moving over there. If you had told me when we started grad school that you’d end up deserting me after graduation to go off and be a princess, I would have said you were insane. Yet, here we are.”

  “Uh, no. Don’t jump the gun. I’m not going to be a princess. I’m just moving over there so that Nicky and I can have a real relationship. So we can explore all the . . . possibilities.” I stood up and brushed my hands over my thighs. “Okay. The books are done, too.”

  “What time are the movers coming tomorrow?” Shelby turned her head to watch as I flopped into a chair and rested my feet on the coffee table next to hers.

  “About noon.” I reached for the beer I’d gotten out of the fridge earlier and took a swig.

  “And then you leave the next day.” Shelby sniffled a little. “I think I’ve been in denial. I keep telling myself it’s not going to be a big deal. That you’re not going to be so far away. But shit, Kyra. I’m never going to see you. You’re going to be over there, working for Honey Bee Juices and helping Nicky with his food sustainability projects, and I’ll be in New Mexico, where I don’t know a single soul.”

  “Shel, I promise, we’ll still see each other.” I nudged her foot with mine. “I couldn’t lose you. You’ll fly over to see me, and I’ll do the same.”

  “Hmmmm.” She didn’t look convinced. “Will I get the first invitation to the wedding?”

  “If there is a wedding, of course you will,” I assured her. “And you heard Nicky the other day. He says you need to come to England and make some waffles for him. He’s tired of hearing about me eating them all the time.”

  “Glad to see you ladies are working hard.” The man himself strolled into the living room, and I stifled a deep sigh of appreciation. Nicky was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and damn, my man looked good. I smiled a little; there was something satisfying on a primitive level about knowing that I was the only woman allowed to touch that ass or see him without the shorts and shirt. It might not have been official yet, but I didn’t have any more doubts that Nicky and I were it for each other.