C of Cinderella Read online

  C OF

  CINDERELLA

  Kris Buendia

  Copyright © 2020 Kris Buendia.

  All the rights reserved. Any part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted anyway or by any half, electronic or mechanic, including photocopy, recording, or by any system of storage and recovery, without permission written of the owner of the copyright.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with the reality is mere coincidence. All the characters, names, facts, organisations and dialogues in this novel are or product of the imagination of the author or have been used in this work of fictitious way.

  1st Edition, January 2020

  Original title:

  C OF CINDERELLA.

  ISBN Digital: 978-99979-0-387-7

  Design and Cover: EDITIONS K.

  Photography: Shutterstock.

  Layout and Correction: EDITIONS K.

  Because we al carry a Cinderella inside… a dreamer looking for a prince, no matter the color.

  1

  If I could imagine my life in a different way, this is what I would think: Colours, lots of colourful food, dresses, travel with the love of my life. Going through the world with his hand and being able to give mom and dad a good present for their birthday. Also that Mona final y quit smoking. Mona is my best friend, we work for the same company, but not together and definitely doing different things.

  On the other hand, if I could describe my current life, the real one. It would be like this: Me cleaning the floors whiter that my own teeth, juggling my coffee tray when I had to play coffee at the Le Dome.

  And that's it.

  There are no colours, except for the makeup left in the dressing rooms or in the bathrooms, the food, wel , I can not complain at al if at least I have a normal sandwich to devour at lunchtime, my beautiful dress, or better, the outfit I wear today, is the same one that I wore five years ago, a drained and very bad taste blue overal s and my green converse of the sales of a thousand seasons ago.

  I travel fifteen or more minutes on the way home and back, and when I have a bad day “which is almost twice a week” I walk home, which brings my glorious hour-and-a-half trip. It's relaxing, it takes away al kind of thoughts, bad thoughts for those people who ruined your glorious day of cleaning floors. And when they are real y bad days, Mona is in charge of drowning my sorrows in donuts, pizza and Coca-Cola with a lot of sugar on the way home in her car.

  Or with our other two friends in a bar.

  Which bring me to the last and yes, less important. The love of my life, I almost have trouble saying it out loud. And it is not that my lack of filter or my best friend sarcasm does not leave me. It is that there is no such thing. Because if I drown my sorrows in junk food and watching some bad movie with long commercials on my TV, I could not have any. And the truth, I think I’ve never had it. I do not fit with anyone, nor with life itself.

  Does the love for your father count?

  No, it does not count.

  “Have you finished, Cinder?” Questions Mr.

  Clay, who is in charge of maintenance of the company where I work.

  “Yes, Mr. Clay. I finished cleaning the seventh floor.”

  It's crazy that now I have to clean up there, it's the floor of the enemy, or rather, the big boss. I had been assigned to clean corridors of other floors, even the floors of some bathrooms, but now I have climbed. I could not be more proud. Who said we could not be promoted in this job?

  “I’m very sorry for the change at last minute, but we are short of staff.”

  “You do not have to apologise, Mr. Clay. It is my job.”

  He looks at me as he always does, with an effect of tranquility in his eyes. Mr. Clay is an old man, I think he has become part of the inventory of the company, everyone here has a lot of respect and I am grateful that he understands my position here.

  “You should not work here. I met to your father when he was stil alive, he was very good to me by naming me head of the maintenance staff and I remember you running around the corridors, I never imagined that…”

  “That I would end up cleaning them, I know, Mr. Clay, but every fairy tale has its end, and not always a happy one.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders. As if he could understand me or avoid scolding me.

  “You’re wrong, your fairy tale has not even started yet, Cinder.”

  “Al right, I better go now before it gets more uncomfortable than it already is.”

  He laughs and nods.

  I take my backpack with my overal s inside and enter the staff elevator because my day here is over and I would like to believe that tomorrow wil be a different day, I say it every day, but it is not like that, although today I managed to clean another floor.

  Hurrah.

  …

  “I’m home!” I shout, hanging the keys. I greet my grandfather who sleeps in front of the television with a kiss on his forehead and the aroma that comes from the kitchen cal s me.

  “Cinder, what did I tel you to go to the kitchen with that backpack?”

  My mother reprimands me. But it is her fault. I know very wel that she is baking a cake and I wonder why. I give her a kiss on the cheek and leave the backpack in the corner of the kitchen.

  “It is your fault. You are baking a cake and I have been carried away by the aroma. To what do we owe the occasion?”

  “What else?” I am sure it was a rhetorical question. “It is your twenty-sixth birthday.”

  Shit! It is my birthday. How I did not know before! I know, it is because a long time ago I stopped carrying.

  My mother notices the expression on my face.

  “Don't you think, Cinder El a Mattis. We wil celebrate it, your friends and Mona wil come. She said she has a nice dress for you. Let's see if having fun tonight you forget a little of that horrendous work with which you punish yourself on a daily basis.”

  “What kind of mother sel s her daughter that way?” I make fun, but it is not funny for her. My intention to make her laugh has not worked this time. I know my mother hates that I work for the company my father once worked for. With the one that reached the top and forgot about us, getting married again with an evil witch and her two daughters. Now Graysson Publicity belongs to Mr.

  G, son. To the cold and frivolous man who hates the whole world. Including me, I cleaned the floor of his famed company, but he does not even know it.

  Nor does he know that once I saved him from being run over when he crossed the street to his luxurious van for having some sort of argument over his mobile phone.

  Mr. G. does not know anything about that, like I do not have any fantasy about him either.

  Imagine that a man like him noticed a girl like me.

  Imagine a man like him fucking a woman like me.

  Imagine a serious man like him smiling at a girl like me.

  Among other nonsense.

  “Cinder, make me happy with this. You deserve to have fun. You do not even tel me why you are stil in that job and I accept it, at least give me this, give us this. To see you happy.

  “I am happy, mom. My work has nothing to do.

  You know that the salary is very good and I cling to my father's memory. It was not as bad as they made it look. You know.”

  I had completely forgotten. I do not remember when it was the last time I celebrated my birthday, nor when I ate a piece of cake pie. My favourite cheesecake, but it belonged to a dessert, one of those that mom made from time to time to surprise.

  My mother had stopped doing it a few years ago, and when she remarried, the surprise cakes had been exchanged for some highly meticulous dish.

  I loved my mother and any change in her life, so were things as simple as preparing cake, while she was happy for me was fine. />
  “I thought you did not do them anymore.”

  “It is your birthday, you deserve it. I have also found the recipe. I had forgotten how it was done.”

  Total lie. I knew it partly reminded her of my father, and she only maintained that tradition for a while after he left with another woman. He had forced me to live with him thinking that I would have a better life, and although my mother forced me to go with him, deep down I found it hard to forgive him for it.

  When he died of natural causes of old age and lack of care even though he had a lot of money to have a healthy life, after the funeral, a suitcase was waiting for me outside the church.

  “Your father is dead” Esther said it coldly. “You have no more family, we have never been your family. You’d better go back to the place where you should never have left.”

  As soon as I heard it, she kept muttering a couple of other things. Something like "Gaunt" and

  "Poor" of course I was emaciated. My father had died and I could not said goodbye to him. He was always good to me but he made the mistake of fal ing in love with a bad woman. Esther Bagott was fifty years old, square body and ful of surgeries, almost without muscles, empty smile; she clearly never worked in her life and always had a boyfriend or a husband with a lot of money after the father of her daughters died of a heart attack.

  Hardly and lived with the smal inheritance he left her him. Enough to operate on her nose, her boobs and look younger than she real y was. Until she met my father.

  An important publicist, he sold his ideas to the big companies and with that, he had created a smal empire. We lived wel when he was stil with mom. But it was a matter of time before he set his eyes on Esther and everything fel apart, including his health.

  Esther was bad, very bad, like her daughters. I was ten years old when I went to live with them. And at twenty was when my father died and I returned with my mother. The evil Esther had now taken what once belonged to me, but at least there was something that she could not take away from me.

  My dreams.

  No one knows that she has many debts and marked her from her childhood the envy she felt to see how affectionate the parents of their friends were. She can not help but feel an excessive passion for dogs. Damn dogs that were always al over the place.

  My mother welcomed me with open arms and also her new partner, Pib. Pib treats my mother like a queen and I know why she fel in love again.

  He is a good man and a second father to me.

  “It is your twenty-sixth birthday. You deserve a cheesecake. Your father liked it and those memories do not hurt me anymore. I do not have to pay it with you. Not only to your father liked the cake, you liked too.”

  “Mom” I hug her when I see that she wants to cry. And me to, but I hold back.

  I go up to my room to change my clothes and take a bath first. I’m looking at the mirror as always a little more than usual before undressing.

  My skin is quite white, like porcelain not as old. My blond hair is very long I can almost feel it in my ass. And my eyes, I wil not talk about them, they are as blue sapphire as my father's, and my lips, nothing to envy Angelina Jolie. I have a thin waist and I am grateful for it, even though I eat like an old truck driver. In addition, my clothes are quite casual and I could go unnoticed if I shaved my head, would not change anything since I am pretty similar to a boy. No ass, no curves.

  Almost a model with an angelic face according to my friends.

  I go to my little closet and I do not need to search inside. The first thing I come out with is a pair of ripped jeans and a red plain shirt and a white blouse. I see my poor blue converse aside.

  They are almost new and I take care them as my life. They were expensive as hel . Those and the other ten more pairs in different colours. But these, these blues had a different brightness. Not like the others.

  It does not matter that Mona brings a dress, it is not the first time she tries to dress me like a normal girl. I am not a normal girl!

  After twenty minutes, I combed my long hair with my fingers. The cake is on the table and my grandfather has awakened.

  “Who are you?” He questions. He does not have dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is a game that we have invented. I glare at him and I act surprised, I run to him and look for his ribs. He laughs loudly.

  “I know, I know! You are my little mouse who eats everything in its path!”

  “Grandpa Gus!”

  “That's me.”

  I seat on his lap. The first time he made that joke I started crying. Losing someone or someone who does not remember you is the same. To lose.

  Since then we played Who you are. He is my grandfather Gus and I am his little mouse. The little white mouse who eats everything in its path and nobody sees it. It is what happens in some early mornings when I can not get to sleep. Bags and noises are heard in the kitchen as a mouse was looking for food.

  “The boys wil arrive soon. Do you want to go?” I ask him under his breath.

  He is thinking for a second about my proposal.

  “Wil be there alcohol and women?” He ask the question serious.

  “I am afraid not, grandpa”.

  “Then no. Not worth it.”

  I rol my eyes. Of course there wil be alcohol and women, we wil be the same as always.

  “Boring.”

  But I know he hates going out and more at night. Anything to get me out of the night out with the boys for my birthday. I am not in the mood tonight.

  “Hel o Family!” Mona and the boys.

  Jimi brings a present of colourful roses and many sweets. My favourites. Wel thought for my friend, who does not even give condoms to his conquests.

  “But what looks you bring, Cinder.” Gracie complains. My other best friend, we cal her the weeping woman. She complains and cries for everything. I hope she has not broke up today with her boyfriend, again.

  Mona glares at me with a bag that hangs from her shoulder. Clearly a dress. Dress that I will not wear tonight.

  “Don't even look at me like that. Do you know what I had to do to steal it?”

  “Do not tel me, did someone touch your ass?”

  My grandfather is the first to laugh and my mother berates me. When she hears the boys laugh out loud, she passes. Pib is the last to arrive.

  Je brings a smal box wrapped in blue wrapping paper and a blue bow.

  “Blue because I know you hate pink.”

  “Thanks, Pib. You should not have bothered.”

  “Open it.”

  Al before eating the cheesecake, the seat around the smal room. I place the flowers on the floor and take out a couple of candies and I put it in my mouth.

  “Little mouse” Says my grandfather.

  “I would say rather, termite” Mona fol ows.

  I begin to gradual y break the wrapper of Pib’s gift.

  It is a bit heavy. So I rule out that it is another dress. When I open it, my face lights up.

  “From your mother and me”

  Mona, Gracie and Jimi look at each other and rol their eyes.

  “A bracelet! I love it!”

  I knew it could be made it. But I have no idea how how much it could have cost. My own bracelet with a silver heel shoe charm. What reminds me of my dream.

  “Thanks Pib. Thanks mom.”

  “I thought they were a pair of earrings”

  Gracie says. “Here, these are life-size heels.”

  I had not seen the box she brought with her. In effect, they are a pair of heels. Beautiful but I do not know when I am going to use them. Something tel s me that Gracie bought me the heels and Mona the dress. I love them for real.

  “You are crazy, people. Now to eat cake so that the dress you have brought does not stay with me.”

  …

  Three rounds of beer later, a list of songs to remember, weak knees that kil me from the pain and the guts that are making a party in my stomach.

  “I am hungry” I complain. We have arrived to one of our favouri
te clubs, where they sel cheap beer with a couple of pizza boxes. The boys are dancing and having a good time, but my best friend Mona does not look good.

  “You would have looked pretty with the dress.”

  “I know, but it wil be for another occasion, I promise. It wanted to feel myself, it is my birthday.”

  She looks for some comfort in my words and for the smile she gives me, I think sh has achieved it.

  “Wel , just because you are having a blast, no matter what you use, you are cute. Only that…”

  “I know you do not like to see me in my dirty overal s, no matter how much I try to wash it every day with that new detergent that goes on television, it does not shine, not the one I want.”

  “Cinder, try to think clearly. You are talented woman. You split your back with me at university.

  You studied design and I studied public relations, working for Graysson Publicity was one of our dreams, to work in an important company. But not cleaning floors and me being the assistant of the image manager.”

  I think she has drunk too much. It is always the same thing. Even if she does not say it, she feels sorry for me. Of the life I have lived for the past six years. Ever since my father died, I lost my dreams of being someone, and even though I am an inveterate designer in my interior and in my crazy sketchbook, I know that I wil never be able to leave my overal s, thanks to my stepsisters.

  “Are you thinking about them?” Mona reads my mind. “You are thinking about your fucking sisters.

  What do I say! Paris, Nail and Grime” she laughs before continuing, her nicknames are always funny.

  “Nail and Grime can not have so much power over you, one day you wil tel me what real y happened Cinder, and I am not so drunk for not remembering this. Who the fuck wil not remember Nail and Grime? Thank God they are not my fucking immediate bosses, although sometimes they screw up my work and ideas.”

  “Your ideas are always great” I flatter her.

  “Sometimes you help me, you have to give you credit. You are not just the girl in the dirty half overal s.”

  “Oh, Mona. You better stop drinking beer. How many have you taken? Five? I think that it is the only thing that your body resists, meanwhile I am dying of hunger.”