Free The Cinderella Reflex by Joan Brady

the last few nights studying the agony-aunt columns of newspapers and magazines and as far as she could see the problems all boiled down to three basic dilemmas: dysfunctional families, unrequited love, and meeting and finding The One. But how could she turn that into a radio slot?
    “That’s odd. Millie likes you – she never likes strangers.”
    Tess turned in the direction of the voice and started at the sight of the woman strolling into the kitchen. Grandma Rosa looked to be in her seventies but any similarity between her and Nan Sheila ended there. Her hair was a strange shade of plum, with huge chunks of grey peeking through a very badly done home-dye. She was wearing denim jeans, a white frilly blouse – and were they Ugg boots? The only thing that looked remotely like Tess’s notions of what a fortune teller might wear was the enormous pair of silver rings dangling out of her ears.
    Rosa caught her staring and looked down at her boots, one of which she tapped with the folded magazine she was carrying.
    “What do you think?” she demanded. “Do the boots work?”
    “Er … work for what?” Tess asked uncertainly.
    “I’m aiming for a funkier, younger image. This is what young people wear, isn’t it? Uggs?”
    Dear God, did the whole world want to look younger? Tess wondered wildly, thinking of Helene and her Ten Years Younger project.
    “Young people wear Uggs, yes,” Tess said, nodding. “But er … why do you want a new image?”
    “It’s to do with my career. I’m trying to diversify and this is part of it.” Rosa pointed vaguely towards her hair. “You’re a young person. What do you think?”
    “You look … fine. But isn’t a fortune teller meant to look … well, old … and wise?”
    “That was the old way all right, but at the psychic club night all they ever talk about are the new ‘in’ things. Aura readings. Angel-card therapy. Coffee-cup readings.” Her mouth curled in derision. “Coffee readings? Seriously? And that last client who was in with me? That was Mrs O’Brien. She’s been coming to me for over twenty years for readings. I was the one who told her that Alfie, her late husband, would never come out of the hospital and that she should find a new direction for herself for when he’d gone. I told her that her son would go off to Australia and meet an Aussie girl and settle down there. All came true. But now! Now Mrs O’Brien thinks traditional fortune telling is over. Passé. And it’s all because of this!” She placed the magazine she was carrying on the table and indicated an article underscored with red biro.
    Tess scanned it curiously. It was a New Age story about Cosmic Ordering – how you simply placed your order and waited for it to be delivered. There was a story about it in some magazine or book every other week as far as Tess could tell. She glanced up.
    “So what does Cosmic Ordering have to do with Mrs O’Brien getting her fortune told?” she asked.
    “Well, why does she need to pay me to find out what the future holds if she can just ask the cosmos for anything she wants? Make up her own future?” Rosa threw her eyes heavenwards. “No wonder my business is going down the tubes.”
    “So this Mrs O’Brien – does she think Cosmic Ordering really works?”
    “She says she knows it does. She doesn’t see how gullible that makes her. She can’t see it’s just another fad. As I said to her, ‘Mrs O’Brien, if Cosmic Ordering worked why would the vast majority of people spend their days beating their way through gridlocked traffic to spend ten hours a day at work when they could be asking the Universe for a new life somewhere warm and interesting?’ But she wouldn’t listen. Said she asked the Universe for a surprise and she won a hundred euro on a scratch card.”
    “One hundred euro?” Tess protested.
    “Well, that was just for her to test the theory, she says!”
    Tess thought of what she’d ask for. For Ollie to disappear, for