Free Tinderella by Jecca Bartlett

just resigned. What would she do with it anyway? She was glad someone was using it and enjoying it. Kind of.

    The trees formed beautiful arches above the roadway, and with the window down she could smell the nearby ocean. She came to the familiar stone gate and turned the car up the long winding drive. The house was situated to the right, with a carriage house for parking to the left. She parked the car and walked across the neatly kept driveway to the front door.  

    Letting herself in she was struck by the smell. It always smelled like home, even though it wasn't anymore. She walked quietly to the kitchen and there was her stepmother in all her caftan-ed and bejeweled glory.

    "Cyndi, sweetheart, how are you?"

    "Fine, Sarabeth, I'm fine, thank you. How are you?"

    Her stepmother began a litany of her ailments, real and imagined while Cyndi moved to the guest suite to the right of the kitchen.

    "I'm sorry to interrupt, am I in here?"

    "Yes, yes dear. I always did like to keep you close to the kitchen," she chuckled.  

    Cyndi rolled her eyes so hard she was afraid they might really get stuck. Right, keep her by the kitchen, she wondered idly if there were cleaning rags waiting with her name on them.

    It wasn't that bad, Sarabeth was clueless, not usually deliberately unkind, she was an opportunist but good grief.

    "Well if I'm to be doing the baking, it will come in handy. Let me just get this stuff settled."

    "Right, dear. Do you have anything else?"

    She looked at the suitcase, the same one Bailey had wheeled into her hospital room. "No, actually this is exactly all I have, Sarabeth. And the car's a rental. Will it be okay in the carriage house?"

    "Of course, it will. I'm so sorry darling, so sorry, maybe the girls will have something that fits you?"

    Right, because she wanted hand me downs from those two. Right on cue the two whippet thin stepsisters made their entrance. They had their mother's gaudy taste, big hair, giant hoop earrings, tight spandex jeggings, long nails. And vapid as the day was long. The whippet thin thing was why she wouldn't be able to accept any hand me downs. Maybe if two outfits were sewn together, but otherwise, no.

    "Hi," they said in unison and proceeded to air kiss  

    "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not uh...built like your girls. I'm all set, I have friends in the city looking out for clothes for me. In the meantime, I've made some lists. I'm going to be a baking machine for the next few days."

    "I hate to ask for the help," her stepmother lied, of course she wanted basically free stuff for her party, but for Cyndi it was like therapy, so she ignored whatever the woman had to say and got on with things. Her stepmother kept talking in the background, every once in a while Cyndi added an um hmmm, just to keep herself in the game.  

    In her head she was planning her grocery trip and making lists of pans she'd need and in what order to bake.

    She came out of her reverie just in time to hear her stepmother talking to her daughters about the guest list "and of course he said yes, but reluctantly, so let's make him feel welcome, shall we girls? You never know..." they all giggled at the prospect of netting some dimwitted well moneyed business-man and duping him into marriage. Cyndi sometimes felt sorry for Sarabeth, caged up with these two girls, husband shopping for them. But mostly not, reap what you sow and all that.

    "Sarabeth, I'm going to go to the store and get supplies. I'll be back later and start baking tomorrow."

    "Okay sweetie, let me know if you need anything, charge on the house account at the grocer," she waved her hand dismissively and with that she was gone, her dreadful daughters in tow.  

    Cyndi had taken the money her dad had left her and started her business, and invested the rest. It wasn't the most stable life, but ten minutes in the Leary Island Looney Bin with Sarabeth and the sisters and she was grateful all over again that she had been free to move on.