Not bothering to flip on the light she felt her way to the bed.
The curtains flew open suddenly and bright shafts of sunlight hit her square in the eye. The girls sat on the bed, all three in a row smiling.
Cara was ready to beg. She didn’t want to talk fashion, or how big her thighs were or those damn shoes. She wanted to crawl in a hole and leave the world behind.
“Please go away,” she heard the whine in her voice. She knew she sounded like a big, honkin’ girl, but she didn’t care. Pride was nothing compared to some solitude and respite from the fab three.
“Now, you must know we can’t do that. Look, lamb chop, it’s time to get yourself together and listen to us.”
Cara snorted derisively. “And would ya look at where listening to you wannabe fairy godmothers got me? I knew the ride was over when the shoes were gone. I just didn’t know it would be so damn painful. I’m sorry I lost the shoe, I don’t know how it happened. I spent the night at Alex’s house and when I woke up I only had one shoe. I don’t know where it went. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what happened. Is there a way I can reimburse you? Do they cash checks in magic-ville or do you take credit cards?”
Katia reached behind her and pulled out the shoes, two shoes. She held them in the palm of her hand. The sunlight bounced off the thick red heels.
Cara snatched them away from Katia and shoved them on her feet, “Is this some kind of joke? Tease the ugly girl? Let’s see how far we can go before the Plain Jane slips over the edge?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling, we would never do such a thing!” Simone scoffed at her. “We took the shoe.”
“What? Was my time up? Is it someone else’s turn to wear them?” Cara couldn’t believe this. They took the shoe? This was mean, and cruel and such a pretty girl thing to do.
“It’s always someone else’s turn, sweet cheeks, but we didn’t take them because of that. We took them because it was time for you to give them up and develop wings of your own so to speak.”
Cara was speechless. She sunk to the bed in defeat.
“I know this is going to sound all corny, and I hate to burst your bubble of denial, but the shoes were never important, Cara.” Katia waited as just a smidge of realization dawned on Cara’s face before she continued.
“I know, I know. It sounds all fairytale like, right? It’s really pretty corny. We even have trouble believing it.” Katia paused and took a deep breath.
“Okay, it goes like this. We were sent here to help you find your self-esteem. Sort of like the self-esteem police.”
God knew they had an over abundance of that particular trait, Cara thought snidely.
“You know the whole makeover thing. So that you could see that you are worthy of anything you want out of life. It isn’t really about how you look, lamb chop. I mean we’re beautiful, but we’re also dead. Get the picture? We couldn’t tell you because you had to make those choices on your own. Like totally on your own. But you were just too damned afraid to take a chance. It was you who had to take the chance, Cara. We couldn’t do it for you. So we stole the shoe. We thought that might force you to let Alex see you for who you really are.” Katia sighed deeply and looked at her Barbie partners in crime. “Unfortunately, you woke up before him and we were essentially screwed.”
Cara jumped up and paced before them in the shoes. “So all this crap up ‘til now was for what? Is this some kind of fairy godmother torture? Like, do you get your kicks out of freaking people out? I mean, wasn’t I supposed to feel all omnipotent and oozing sexuality? It sure would have helped if you had let me know I could take the stupid shoes off to experience that particular high. Crap, I wandered around in those things like they were my lifeline to sexuality. Like I could keep Alex as long as I had them on. I wouldn’t take them off when we went to the beach, he must have thought I was nuts. I told him I didn’t like sand, for crap’s sake!” God, she felt like a complete idiot.
She was a complete idiot.
“The only magic those shoes have, Cara is that they change to match your outfit. Those other men would have chased you anyway, because you felt good about you. That’s it. The rest came from right here.” Mia poked at her chest somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. “It’s no big secret. The attention you’ve been getting has been all about what’s been waiting to get out of you. It isn’t just that you’re pretty, it’s that you’re a good human being. Yes, those other men care about what’s on the outside, but try to remember, Alex liked you long before we slapped that goop on your face and dressed you up. He tried to tell you that.”
Cara was feeling less confused by the minute and less angry with the Barbies. “So, if I take the shoes off, it won’t matter because all of these men, who find me irresistible with them on, will continue to hound me and make Alex crazy?”
“Daaaaaarling, not if you tell them to go away they won’t. Let them know you’re not interested. Didn’t we try to tell you that being pretty wasn’t easy?” Simone tilted her head and shot her that ‘told you so’ look.
Cara waggled her finger right up under Simone’s pert nose. “Don’t you give me that ‘I told you so’ nonsense. I’m not pretty, not really. It’s all about the goop I’ve been putting on my face and the clothes I’ve been wearing.”
“Duh!” The triplets yelled back at her in unison.
Well, hell. This was the part where they gave her the moral of the story right? The big bang. The part where she rode off into the sunset with Alex. Married the prince, got the booty from her wicked stepmother.
And so would the fab three. Ride off into the sunset, that is. Her heart hurt as she drew a painful conclusion.
“If I take them off, you’ll be gone too won’t you?”
Mia nodded her head and looked away. Simone bit her bottom lip and Katia remained silent.
“Why can’t you stay here? I…I don’t understand why you can’t just stay here and do the fairy godmother thing. Aren’t you global? Why does fairy godmother land have to be the place you dispatch from?” Cara’s voice broke.
Mia brushed a stray tendril of hair away from Cara’s face. “Because you won’t remember us when we’re gone…”
“What?” she yelped in frustration. “Why the hell not?” Cara flopped down on the bed in defeat, her shoulders slumping, waiting for an explanation.
Katia sat down next to Cara, her green eyes shimmered. “We’ve done our job, muffin. Our job is to help you find what’s inside of you, and for you to make use of it.”
Simone snorted. “Don’t forget the rules, Katia. All that stupid nonsense about her not remembering is just fiddle faddle! You know, at the next fairy godmother coalition meeting we have to bring that up. I’ll never understand why all this hard work can’t have some kind of staying power.”
Cara swallowed hard. “You mean I won’t even remember you were here? What kind of rule is that? If it weren’t for you guys, I wouldn’t even have had Alex for the time I did. I would still be Cara Anthony, cafeteria owner extraordinaire. No life to speak of and going home to her cat alone every night.”
Katia took Cara’s hand in hers and examined her nails, pushing her cuticles back. “Aw, lamb chop, we’re glad we could help, but those are the rules. You’ll remember us for a time, while you go make up with Alex, but soon we’ll fade from your memory, it won’t be long before we’ll be a twinkle in your eye.”
Tears fell from Cara’s eyes, splashing onto her frumpy pajamas. “Somehow this just doesn’t seem fair. I mean you’re responsible for all of this and I won’t even remember it.”
Simone produced a tissue out of thin air and dabbed at Cara’s cheeks. “Now stop this, darling, please. Your eyes will be puffy in no time flat. You know how unattractive that is. The fashion gods know you don’t need that right now,” Simone joked. “In a way, you will remember us. Because you’ll know that you’ve changed inside. That you made new discoveries about yourself and you’re not just Cara Anthony, cafeteria owner. You’re Cara A
nthony, a woman who knows what she wants and then goes out and gets it.”
She was different and if the shoes weren’t responsible for that, then she really was tougher than she thought.
“So the shoes are just a gimmick…”
Mia giggled, “Yeah, but they work and that’s all that matters.”
Cara leaned down and pulled them off. Her fingers trembled with the effort. “So what happens now? Like the second I hand them to you, poof…you disappear?”
Each perfect face was solemn as they nodded the affirmative. These Barbie knockoffs were going to vanish from her life and never return. She wouldn’t even know they’d been there.
Okay, chin up, shoulders back be brave.
“Then give me a hug and get the hell outta here. I’ve got a man to snare.” Cara swallowed hard and smiled at them. Shoes in hand she threw herself at them as they huddled around her. “Mia, get a pair of bunny slippers, okay? To remind you of the farm. And Katia, try not to hurt Simone. It was an accident and there was nothing you could do to prevent it, Simone knows that in her heart. Simone? Well, you have to let go of this grudge, so quit being such a mean bitch. I know I won’t remember, but right now I hate to think of the two of you tearing up magic-ville fighting over something neither of you can change. Okay?”
Cara hugged each one of them. “Thank you. Thank you for helping me to find Alex. Thank you for helping me with all of the girlie stuff, but most of all, thanks for being my friends even if you are all too perfect to be believed.”
She took one last look at the red pumps in her hand, trailing a finger over the heel. She held them out to Katia with shaky hands.
“Good luck, Cara. I just know you’ll be happy with Alex. I know you won’t remember us for much longer, but we love you.”
Katia took the shoes from Cara, and gave her hand one last squeeze. The sunlight glinted on the brilliant red shoes in a bright swirl of light.
As quickly as they’d arrived, they were gone. No fanfare, no trumpets blaring, no flashing lights of color, no magic-fairy godmother dust.
Just gone.
Cara’s heart sank in her chest. Her legs shook as she found her way to the back to the bed. Grabbing a pillow, she cuddled it close to her cheek and lay down. She drew her knees up tightly to her chest and sobbed pitifully.
Exhaustion crept slowly over her body, her eyelids felt heavy as they slid closed. Her last mental image of the F.M.P. Society was fleeting, but crystal clear. Mia, Katia and Simone strutting one after the other down a catwalk. Their slim hips swaying to the beat of music she couldn’t hear. Three perfect faces, all with cheekbones you could strike a match on, smiled and blew her a kiss.
* * * * *
Cara rubbed her hands together nervously as she contemplated this wacky plan she’d cooked up. She’d called Alex and asked him to meet her here, at the beach, in the same secluded area he’d brought her to on their last date. As the sun began to set, she wiggled her toes in the sand and looked at her very bare feet.
She was now officially shoeless.
Her gut clenched into a tighter knot. She was adrift, alone, not to mention barefoot. The Glamazons were gone. Her heart ached over never seeing them again. What would she do without Simone, to remind her to wax her upper lip? Or Mia helping her choose just the right outfit? Katia telling her to line, blot, blend. Or was that line, blend, blot?
She couldn’t remember. She wished that she wouldn’t forget.
When she woke up on the couch her head felt stuffed full of cotton, but she knew she had to somehow explain to Alex, that he was who she wanted for the rest of her life, and no one else. The girls told her the shoes weren’t important and if that was true, then all she had to do was tell Alex she loved him.
Really loved him. Loved him more than anything in the world. She also had to find the words to do that. She had to believe he loved her too… without the shoes.
The tide rolled in with slow lazy laps at the sand as she laid out the food she’d brought on the picnic table. Glancing at her wristwatch, she wondered if he would even show up. She couldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
Her last words to him rang in her ears. You don’t really know me, Alex. There had to be a way to make that up to him. She buried her head in her hands trying to block out that night. If she had only known the shoes didn’t make a difference. She could smack herself for not realizing that earlier. For not even taking the chance. All fairy godmothers had a lesson to teach, didn’t they? How Cinderella ever snagged her Prince was beyond Cara.
Her head popped up at the roar of a car engine. The sleek outline of Alex’s car was visible from her seat at the picnic table.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Well, here goes nothin’.
She wiped her clammy palms on her thighs and took a deep breath. He made a slow descent down over the hilly path to the picnic table. The lump in her throat was growing in leaps and bounds as he drew closer.
She heard the words in her head. Shoulders back, chin up, be confident.
Says you.
Says us.
Plastering a smile on her face, she tucked her shaky hands under her legs.
He stood in front of her, his big body blocking the last rays of sun. Cara forced herself to look up at him.
She smiled at his rigid form. “Hi, Alex, sit down with me.” Cara scooted over on the bench and gave him a place to sit. He remained silent but sat down next to her.
Cara grabbed his big hand and wound her fingers through his. “Look, I know you’re mad at me. But let me explain and then if you’re still mad you can leave,” she gulped. “You can leave and never speak to me again.”
“Shoot,” he said as he looked out over the ocean. His profile was hard and unforgiving, the tick in his jaw twitching.
She cleared her throat, “I’ve worked in the same office building as you for over a year and you never once noticed me. When I put a little makeup on, all of a sudden it was like you saw me for the first time. No one ever noticed me until I did that.” Cara sighed, struggling to find the words to explain to him without revealing the shoes and the fab trio. Who, in their right mind would believe that anyway?
“Then, all of a sudden, you were asking me out and so was every man within spitting distance. Nobody wanted to go out with ‘the before she had a complete makeover’.” She watched the muscles in his jaw clench.
His voice was hoarse and husky to her ears. “So because I didn’t ask you out before this magic makeover means I didn’t want to go out with you? You have no idea what I know about you. I know that you help Mrs. Andrews watch Mr. Andrews diet. I know that you hired Ruby despite her age and in favor of her experience with people. I know lots of things about you, things that I’ve observed since I moved into the building. I didn’t ask you out right away, no. I’ve had plenty of experience with a gold digger or two and I wanted to be sure you were as genuine on the inside as you appeared on the outside.” He cleared his throat. “As you appeared to me. Thinking I only wanted to go out with you because you’re beautiful makes me seem pretty shallow, Cara. I don’t think I particularly care for that kind of assessment of me. It also doesn’t make you look very good either. Why would you want to go out with a guy who only liked you after you put on some tight clothes and makeup?”
Well, there was that, she mused sheepishly. Jesus, she was an idiot.
“I don’t know, Alex. I only know that my priorities were all screwed up. I’d like to think that I knew somewhere deep down that you weren’t only attracted to me because of what I looked like, but I was so glad you finally asked me out that I honestly didn’t care. The genuine girls don’t always get the dates you know.”
“Finally asked you out?”
Okay this would be the whole honest gig that she could do without. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I had the makeover so that you would ask me out.” There, she was as naked as she could get.
Ick.
“So you thought I was
cute all this time, too?” She saw from the corner of her eye that he was smirking at her. Now if she could just wedge her way into that tiny crack in his armor.
“Yeah, sorta.” She tried to make her tone sound indifferent.
He turned to look at her, his brown eyes softening a bit. The corners crinkled. “Only sorta?”
“A lot, okay? That’s not the point.”
“Well according to you, that is the point. You liked me because of the way I looked, but you’re mad at me for liking you for some of the same reasons. You didn’t know a single thing about me. You didn’t even know that I owned an adult toy manufacturing business. So, what does that say about you?” He waited for her answer.
“I don’t know? I’m vain, vapid and shallow? Just because I thought you were cute didn’t mean I didn’t like the person beyond the cute.” Jeez, he was thick. And then it hit her. She was as thick as he was, thicker in fact.
“Well, that’s my point. I thought you were cute before this makeover, a makeover I can’t even remember you getting.”
She gave him a perplexed look. “I had the makeover the day before that jerk, Carlton asked me out. You don’t remember?”
He shrugged his big shoulders. “I didn’t see you any differently on that day than I did the day before. Carlton was just the perfect excuse for me to ask you out. Finally make my move.”
Cara flung herself at him, landing in his lap and kissing him soundly. She threw her head back and laughed at the irony of this. She kissed him again for good measure. “I love you, Alex Mackenzie. I’m sorry for thinking you only loved me for what I looked like.” God, as if she ever thought she’d be saying those words.
His arms began to wrap themselves around her waist, but he stopped short. “How much do you love me?” he whispered teasingly.
“Well, I dunno. Depends on how much you love me.”
“Do you love me enough to live with my toy business?”
F.M.P. Society Page 12