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A Time
“The Escape of Cindy Prince,” a Cinderella story
by Jessie Burton
Photograph by Dan Forbes
My Mother left us when I was three, and it was okay, just Dad and me. he
did his best. But looking back, I can see how lonely he was, how her decision to
abandon us had hit him like a 10-ton truck, parked on his heart for years. for me,
it was an early lesson that no one was ever going to put me frst, unless I did myself.
Perhaps it was something my mother also learned, a little too late.
When my father met sheena, a widow, another single parent with twin girls, he started
caring about his appearance. he used words like “snazzy” and “adorable.” “you’re looking
snazzy, Cindy,” he would say, and my heart would contract with warning, that here was a
metamorphosis over which I had no control. And, indeed, sheena—in satin, all hair spray
and chewy soft mints, that awful leather jacket with the tassels—became my stepmother.
I shouldn’t speak like that, but I move in snobbish circles now, given the man I mar-
ried. sheena was a lonely woman who met a lonely man. they made each other happy.
I noticed the perfected rhythm of their shared life, how grateful they were for a second
go. It was the way sheena turned on the tV for Dad’s favorite show, adjusting the
volume to how he needed it; the way he mixed her drink, the way he left her slippers
in a neat position at the front door for when she came in from the cold.
sheena’s daughters, my stepsisters. how do I put this politely? Delilah and Melody
were bitches. Basic, straight-up goblin bitches. I remember clearly the day they moved
in, taking over my large bedroom because there were two of them, leaving me with
the coldest room, in the back of the house. they were bigger than me and moved
as a pair, but such was their threat; it felt like a wolf pack pacing through my life.
two years ahead of me at school, they spread rumors—how I masturbated
with Dad’s golf club, how I drank my own vomit as part of a fad diet I was
trying, how I had never been kissed. they played their music loud every
night when Dad and sheena were out romancing so I couldn’t do my
homework. Delilah told me I was dumb and ugly; Melody said, “your
own mother couldn’t even bear to hang around to see you grow
into a freak.” they made me do their chores while they
smoked in the garden. four years of tricks and pranks
and mental warfare—on and on it went. they
grew bigger, and I seemed to shrink.MANICuRE: GERAlDINE HOlFORD FOR CHANEl lE vERNISContinued on page 521