fairy tale no more? (cinderella na!]

That very first time Ella had visited Quay Beach a strange notion had hoisted itself on to the sails of her mind, which seemed to be fluttering to the newly blowing breeze of love. It was the first time they’d taken a trip as a family which had been glued together by a terrible mistake---her dad, step-mom and Anna and Drizzy. Ella had realized soon enough that this marriage, made upon her aunt’s insistence that Ella ought to grow up with a mother around her, was making her father miserable. Macy was so self-centred, to say nothing of her obsession with extravagance. Dizzy was not too bad to be with when she was alone, but was at her vicious best when she was around the tyrannical Anna, which was most always. Her stepsisters and Macy manage to drain her dad’s indefatigably jovial spirit and drilled a big, ugly hole in his pocket.

But she’d met John, the Hotelier’s son, a millionaire by birth, who took a fancy to the wide-eyed, shy Ella from almost the minute he set his eyes upon her. She recalled with nostalgic relish their midnight rambles on the moon-bathed sands, listening to her dad’s funny anecdotes, when John would laugh in his sudden, frank way, catch Ella’s eye and fall quiet almost at once. Anna and Drizzy had hardly taken notice of the scrawny boy with a mop of unkempt hair, who seemed to be willing to walk on his head to please Ella, and liberally bestowed looks of cold disdain upon rich Mr. Harrison’s stupid young son.

That long ago night when Ella came down with a fever, her dad had rushed out for a doctor, while Macy and her daughters attended the annual beach party hosted by the Harrisons’. John Harrison had sat down by her side and read her a story about a nightingale and a rose. Maybe it was the gesture, or the story, more likely both, which had made her sniffle and cry, her tears rapidly rolling down her hot, flushed cheeks, while she kept willing her nose to not water. A disconcerted John tried to make her laugh by twisting his face into the most bizarre contortions, but Ella began fearing an epileptic attack on his behalf and howled even louder,

Ella smiled a sad little smile. Those long—forgotten days which had opened up unknown thoughts and puzzling feelings had long been buried in the past. Her dad used to often tell her that her life would turn out to be a fairy-tale, and Ella’s romantic mind had believed him…foolishly, she now thought. She could never forgive her dad for walking out on her three years ago, but she still reads the letter he’d written her, assuring her of a rosy life ahead and asking her to forgive him, telling her that it was impossible to live on with Macy who refused to grant him a divorce until he agreed to leave Ella out of his will, and that he’d be back as soon as he could find a legal way out of this problem. Ella often wondered why he didn’t return; didn’t he love her as much as she’d thought? This had been the year after the summer at Quay-Beach, but Macy insisted on returning there to keep her summer tryst with the rich and fancy, evidently unaffected by her husband’s sudden desertion. Mr. Waters hadn’t taken a penny away with him, and this often worried Ella. How and where was he living? she often asked herself, with no inkling of an answer. The thought of Quay-Beach, had, however, delighted Ella, though she feigned indifference. Both she and John had decided not to write to one another so that they’d have a store of things to talk about when they next met, which Ella had known would be soon, knowing Macy. It surprised her that Macy turned out to be more predictable than her dad.

At first her family had talked of leaving her behind, making Ella’s heart take several frightened leaps, but Macy was struck with the vague fear that her dad might return and abrew trouble in their absence. “Looks like you’ll have to tag along, after all,’ she’d drawled, dripping contempt. John would be there, Ella had gladly thought, her Prince Charming, who’d stirred that abstruse emotion in her heart, the thought of whom was all it took to make Ella believe her life wasn’t as bad as it had begun to seem. Then the bomb had dropped. Anna managed to fail her annual exams, Drizzy secured an F in math, and Ella accrued a decent number of decent grades. Macy saw a lot of the colour red, was hopping mad and promptly cancelled Ella’s secretly sought trip as a sign of reproach to her daughters. Ella was more than a bit surprised at her step-mom’s taking academics
so seriously, and felt slightly re-assured that she didn’t know Macy so well after all.

It’s been four years since she’d first met John at 15, and now she’s sure he has long forgotten that distant, perhaps inconsequential summer.

The door-bell rings. A letter arrives. Trembling fingers tear open the envelope with an impatience that would rival a five year old’s on Christmas Eve. Ella can’t believe her eyes, and neither can Anna and Macy... She’s gotten through to the law college she’d set her eyes on ever since her dad had taken flight. Macy looks rather scared; she lives in perpetual fear that Ella’s dad will come back and turn her out, {having found a legal way out of the problem} and to have a full-fledged lawyer on the other side of the family was more than an unpleasant thought. “Don’t work yourself too hard.” She says weakly. “I’ll have to, I’m on scholarship!” Ella smiles. She gets along fine with Drizzy now, who gives her a big, rather clumsy bear hug. Life’s not so bad after all, Ella thinks. After all, wasn’t there romance in the idea of a long lost child-hood love? Maybe she’d earn enough go back to Quay-Beach herself one day, maybe John would have changed beyond recognition, maybe he wouldn’t recognize her and maybe she wouldn’t really mind anymore.