by Julie Wright
Lillian made sense. Before we parted ways, she asked if we could get a photo together. She had Jen snap one with her phone as well as with mine. We did a selfie with all three of us. Back in my hotel, I immediately forwarded the photos to Kat with a million exclamation points and a gif of Cinderella going from her peasant garb to her gown. “I met L. M. Christie! And it’s official! I have an agent, and I can’t wait to tell you everything when I come home tomorrow!”
I sent a similar message to Anders, who was working a graveyard shift at the station. We texted back and forth until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
My phone dinged with his last message. I pried my eyes open long enough to read, “Go to sleep, Cinderella. You deserve this dance at the ball more than anyone I know, which means you deserve to finally rest.”
I smiled even while doing as his text directed and drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Nine
“No one recognized Cinderella at the ball. If she’d passed a mirror while walking into that ballroom, would she have recognized herself? Look past the gown and glass slippers. Look past the peasant clothes. See the person.”
—Charlotte Kingsley, The Cinderella Fiction
(The “Know Yourself” Chapter)
Kat was downstairs and out the front door of my building to greet me, which meant she’d been waiting by the window to see when the driver of the hired car dropped me off. She slammed into me in a huge bear hug, nearly knocking me off the curb and back into the street. She tugged the handle of my carry-on out of my hand to help me up the stairs outside my building. Her help wasn’t exactly help, as she used the trolley handle to lift the bag up rather than the carry handle, but I had a check coming to me soon enough that meant if the handle broke, I could afford to buy a new suitcase.
“Your building manager is an idiot, by the way.”
“Shannon? Yep. She really is. But what did she do to prove it this time?”
“She spoke Spanish to me and then became incredibly offended when I told her I don’t speak Spanish.”
“Why would she think you speak Spanish?” I asked.
When Kat turned to shoot me a look of incredulity, I realized I was much more preoccupied with all my news than I’d thought. “Right. Sorry.”
Similar scenarios had happened to Kat before. People assumed that with her dark hair and dark skin, she must be from Mexico. They didn’t often guess her true heritage.
“I should’ve responded to her in Arabic. Seriously, the next person who assumes I speak Spanish simply because my skin is darker than theirs, I’m going to respond in Arabic and see what they do. What do you think your idiot building manager would do?”
“Shannon’s a wild card. Her response to anything is anyone’s guess, but if she messes with you again, tell me.”
“And you’ll what? Make her attend a sensitivity training meeting or something? Anyway, forget her and tell me everything!” she insisted. “I want to know what other people wore and if we picked the right outfit for the meeting. Where did you eat? What did they say? How soon will they have the book sold? Do you think they’ll make it into a movie?” She stopped and made a breathy sigh. “A movie. I could be related to someone famous soon!”
Kat the dreamer. She would never know how close to right she was. The movie deal would probably not happen—not with a nonfiction, self-help book. But the famous part?
Well, I didn’t know about that either. But if Toni had anything to do about it . . .
Kat started walking again, forcing me to walk as well so she didn’t run me over with my own suitcase. I took a deep breath of my own just before we moved into the entry of my building.
I could now afford to move to a nicer apartment building—
a building without a Shannon. But then I’d be forced to live in a building without an Anders, which would mean it wouldn’t be nicer at all.
“Have you texted Anders?” Kat demanded to know even before I could get through my doorway.
She turned and gave me a narrow-eyed stare that she’d most certainly picked up from my mother. “You haven’t.” She let my suitcase fall to the side with a thunk against my coffee table—the one I’d be replacing. “Why do you insist on sabotaging yourself?”
“I wanted to wait until I was home.”
My sister stared at me until I pulled out my phone. I sent the text announcing my arrival home and then showed her the screen. “See? Sent.”
“It’s disturbing that a high schooler has to help you manage your love life when you’re the adult here. Especially when your idiot building manager asked all sorts of questions about you and Anders once she found out I was your sister. Well . . . I mean . . . she argued the fact that there was no way that I could possibly be your sister because you look like an Irish temper tantrum—her words, not mine—and I look—”
“Did that cow say something else to you that was racist? I swear I’m going to have her thrown off a balcony.”
Kat laughed. “Whoa! That was way darker than making her attend sensitivity trainings. I can take care of myself, you know. Did you not catch where she said something racist about you? She called you an Irish temper tantrum in spite of the fact that you’re Scottish. Anyway, she didn’t actually say anything else to me because Anders was entering the building at that moment and that creepy crush she has on him wouldn’t allow her to look bad in front of him. All I’m saying is that you need to keep that monster away from Anders.”
On cue, Anders replied to my text by bursting through my front door, taking a picture of me with Kat, crossing the room, handing the camera off to Kat, and wrapping me up in his arms so he could lift me off the ground and whirl me around. It was a movie moment, the kind that never happens in real life.
Except that it did.
It happened in my real life.
“Tell me everything!” he insisted as he put me down.
Get your head out of the clouds. This was what my mom always said to me when I was little. She still said it pretty much every time we talked on the phone if I mentioned my writing and career plans as a book writer and not a copywriter.
Get your head out of the clouds. But my head wasn’t in the clouds. It was so much higher than that. I had the agent of my dreams, a publishing contract that opened up all my possibilities, and a man I cared for looking at me like we had possibilities. My head had passed the clouds entirely and gone straight to the stars.
Both my sister and Anders stared at me expectantly, so I pulled back from Anders’s embrace and sat on the couch. Kat sat in the armchair across from me, and Anders seated himself next to me.
I told them everything.
They were an amazing audience—full of excitement and genuine happiness for my happiness. Kat begged to know every single detail about my meeting with Lillian and begged me to take her the next time I had the chance to see Lillian. Two sets of eyes widened into super-moon proportions when they heard about my advance. “You can take me to Europe!” Kat squealed aloud the very thought I’d already entertained. “You can take Anders, too!” My sister really did know me.
When I got to the part about the publicist, Kat confused them with the publisher. Anders didn’t.
“Wait. What’s this list?”
I pulled the folded list from my purse and handed it to him.
“I don’t think I understand.” He frowned at the list, looking at it with the same expression I likely had when looking at it for the first time. “What’s wrong with your curtains?”
I sighed at my curtains. I loved them. I’d snagged them on an eBay auction for seven dollars. That included shipping. Sure, they were used and had a small hole that I’d sewn up, but I loved the midnight blue panels with the glittering stars on them. They were as close to fairy-tale decor as an adult woman could get without having to explain herself too much to her dates. “I guess they’re too dark. They want my livin
g space to look bright and minimalistic in a trendy sort of way.”
“Are they going to be parading prospective book buyers through your apartment?” Anders asked.
“This is for my social media. It’s part of the marketing. The bad news is they expect me to help with the marketing. The good news is that I have you guys!”
He flipped to the second page. “What do you need all the camera equipment for?”
“Like I said: the good news is that I have you guys. Want to be my photographer for a while? At least until I get the hang of this?”
He looked at me over the top of my lists. “What, and support you in your lifelong dream of being a published author? Who do you think I am?”
I tugged the list from his hands. “My best friend.”
He gave a dramatic sigh. “I guess, when you put it that way.” He lunged at me, crumpling the list between us. “Congratulations, Lettie. I’m so proud of you!”
Kat joined us by turning our embrace into a dogpile. I only got her to get up by mentioning the Cora-original Alice in Wonderland shirt. She nearly wept with joy when I promised she could borrow it whenever she wanted.
Anders left my apartment to get ready for the night shift, but he already had our first date for the following night planned.
The next day, he picked me up around 7:30 for what he called a “late dinner,” late meaning dinner after eight. Not that I had rules on when dinner ought to be, or where, but when we arrived at Independence Wharf, I raised a protest. “There’s food here?”
“What?” He pulled the door open. “You don’t trust me?”
“Of course I trust you.” I laughed and entered through the door he held for me. “I just didn’t know there was food here.” I didn’t ever have a reason to be in this part of town, so the few occasions when I’d passed the red-brick and glass building that from a certain angle looked like a red capital L with a glass box sitting on it, I’d pretty much ignored it. It was a financial building and didn’t really hold much interest for me.
As I passed through the doors, I saw the sign that said there was an observation deck. Things were starting to make sense. A nice view. Anders loved a good view of the world. When he handed his ID over to the guard at the reception area, his plan solidified for me. We were going to the observation deck.
The guard escorted us to the elevator and hit the floor button for us as we got in. The guard moved out of the way, tossed a wink to Anders, and told us to enjoy ourselves. The elevator doors squeaked closed as I leaned against the silver bar and gave Anders a smirk. “The sign downstairs says that the observation deck closes at five. It is now 8:12. My math isn’t awesome, but even I know that 8:12 comes after five. So how did you get him to let us in?”
“I helped do an emergency delivery for his baby.”
“You’ve delivered a baby?” How did I not know that about him?
“I’ve delivered three babies. This one was even named after me.”
“Well, there is a thought I’ve never had before.” I swiveled to stare at the numbers dictating our ascent to the fourteenth floor. “There’s another person running around with your name.”
Anders gave me his half grin—the one I’d always thought of as endearing. How had the steam of that single facial expression never provoked a full-on fire in my belly before?
“There are actually hundreds, probably thousands, of people running around with my name.”
I had to center my thoughts on his words, not his mouth. “Didn’t you say you’ve only delivered three babies?”
“I’m talking about Sweden. In Sweden, my name is as common as the name John is here.”
“So can I start calling you John, since we’re not in Sweden?”
“Sure. You can call me John if I can call you Charlotte the harlot.”
I rolled my eyes and made a psh noise. “How long have you been holding in that extra lame and entirely unoriginal joke?”
“Pretty much since the day I met you. But I’m a nice guy so I never used it until you decided to mess with my heritage.” He smirked. I laughed. This comfortable banter is why I love him, I thought.
And then I blinked.
That word again. Love. I could not seem to stop using it when thinking about Anders.
The elevator suddenly felt like too small a space for the both of us. But for the first time in my life, claustrophobia wasn’t an issue. I pushed off the side of the elevator to put myself directly in front of Anders. “I’m sorry,” I said, finally coming to terms with the fact that I couldn’t pay attention to what he was saying when so much was new between us.
“For what?”
“For not seeing you before the way I see you right now.”
He leaned in and turned his face down so close I could feel the warmth of his skin and the energy flying between us. “You are most certainly forgiven,” he whispered.
My eyes fluttered closed of their own accord in anticipation of the kiss that had to follow such a moment, but a bell dinged, and the elevator doors squeaked open. I had expected the doors to open out to the observation deck, but they opened to a hallway, which, thankfully, was empty.
Anders stepped over the gap to keep the elevator door from closing on us, which meant I had to stop thinking about kissing the man and move forward. He held open the door that led to the observation deck. The initial chill of wind made me glad he’d told me to dress warm. My mouth fell open when I saw what waited for me. “Oh my,” I said. “How did you do all of this?”
All of this consisted of a table complete with a white, perfectly pressed tablecloth and china and crystal place settings. Cloth napkins were folded into the shape of a swan and placed on top of each plate. A silver chafing dish had a silver dome over it to hold in the warmth of the food. And a few of those fake flickering candles stood on a glass pedestal surrounded by rose petals in the middle of the table.
The two chairs had been pulled out from the table and set to the side as if the table had arms to welcome us into its embrace.
The whole thing was crazy romantic.
Romantic.
It had never occurred to me to think of Anders as romantic. Funny, friendly, fantastic, all of those. But not romantic. Until now.
“Wow,” I said again, only this time the word was whispered in reverence.
Anders must have felt pleased to hear the approval in my voice because his shoulders squared and his chest puffed out. He put his hand to the small of my back and led me to one of the chairs.
“This is a lot.”
“A lot meaning overkill?”
“Overkill would be if you made these napkins out of real swans. But seriously, how did you pull all this off?” I took my seat.
“Baby delivery, remember?”
“That must have been one cute baby.”
“Obviously. No one would want to give an ugly baby such an awesome name.” He slid onto the chair across from me and barely scooted it forward so he could still tuck his long legs properly under the table.
Even without Anders lifting the lid from the chafing dish, I knew what hid underneath it. He knew me so well. “I wasn’t aware The Thai Guy delivered all the way out here. Did you deliver a baby for Pravat, too?” Both Anders and I did enough business with The Thai Guy to be on a first-name basis with Pravat, the owner. We’d spent as much time in his restaurant as we did in our own kitchens. Or at least we had until Pravat implemented the delivery service. Now, not only did I not go to Pravat’s restaurant, but I could barely be convinced to leave my apartment. Bob’s Grocery and The Thai Guy were enabling my agoraphobia.
“No, not a baby. But I did treat a nasty cut on his head.”
“Oh yeah? How did he get that?”
Anders’s grin widened. “That was the reason he had me do the stitch work instead of going to a hospital like he should have. He didn’t want
to talk about it, and he didn’t want anyone asking questions.”
I frowned. “And you agreed to this plan that sounds incredibly shifty?”
Anders busted up laughing. “What he was involved in was not so much shifty as it was him doing something stupid, and I think it involved him not wearing a helmet while taking his new motorcycle out for a spin even though his wife told him he could never drive the motorcycle without the helmet.”
Anders pinned me with a knowing look that was easy to interpret. I’d been present the day Pravat’s wife told him that he was, under no circumstances, to purchase the motorcycle in the first place. So the fact that he’d bought it and then chosen not to wear the helmet she’d asked him to wear . . .
Anders nodded at my new understanding. “Right? Nothing hurts more than admitting to someone that they’re right and you’re wrong. If there was a hospital bill, he would have to explain to his wife why he wasn’t the smart man she thought she’d married.”
I lifted the dome from over the food. “So can we base what kind of stitch work you do on how good the food tastes?”
“If that’s how this all actually works, then I can guarantee you will never have a better meal than you will tonight because I do the kind of stitch work that’s so good little old ladies come to me for seamstress advice.”
I started dishing up a plate for Anders. “Sweet!” I said in response to his declaration of sewing skills. “You can help me make my Halloween costume then.” The words brought a sigh of relief to my lips. Anders would probably be around for Halloween. He wouldn’t be engaged or worse, already married. He’d be available to be my . . .
I wasn’t sure exactly what of mine he would be, but whatever it was, he would be mine in some capacity or another. We would watch scary movies, perhaps go to his work costume party—which, based on the time I’d gone with him before, was where the best costumes could be found.