Finding Cinderella

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Does this look okay?” I ask Chunk when I make it into the kitchen. She turns and looks me up and down, then shrugs.

“I guess. Where ya going?”

I step in front of one of the mirrors lining the hallway and check my hair again. “A date.”

She groans, then turns back around to the table in front of her. “You’ve never cared before what you look like. You better not be proposing to her. I’ll divorce this family before I allow you to make her my sister.”

My mother walks past me and pats me on the shoulder. “You look great, honey. I wouldn’t wear those shoes, though.”

I look down at my shoes. “Why? What’s wrong with my shoes?”

She opens a cabinet, takes out a pan, then turns to face me. Her eyes fall to my shoes again. “They’re too bright.” She turns and walks to the stove. “Shoes should never be neon.”

“They’re yellow. Not neon.”

“Neon yellow,” Chunk says.

“Not saying I think they’re ugly,” my mother says. “I just know Val, and Val is more than likely going to hate your shoes.”

I walk to the kitchen counter and grab my keys, then put my cell phone in my pocket. “I don’t give a shit what Val thinks.”

My mother turns and looks at me curiously. “Well you’re asking your thirteen-year-old sister if you look good enough for your date, so I think you kind of do care what Val thinks.”

“I’m not going out with Val. I broke up with Val. I have a new date tonight.”

Chunk’s arms go up in the air and she looks up to the ceiling. “Thank the Lord!” she proclaims loudly.

My mother laughs and nods. “Yes. Thank the Lord,” she says, relieved. She turns back toward the stove and I can’t stop looking back and forth between the both of them.

“What? Neither of you like Val?” I know Val is a bitch, but my family seemed to like her. Especially my mom. I honestly thought she’d be upset we broke up.

“I hate Val,” Chunk says.

“God, me, too,” my mother groans.

“Me three,” my father says, walking past me.

None of them are looking at me, but they’re all responding like this has been a previously discussed topic.

“You mean all of you hated Val?”

My father turns to face me. “Your mother and I are masters at reverse psychology, Danny-boy. Don’t act so surprised.”

Chunk raises her hand in the air toward my father. “Me, too, Dad. I reverse psychologized him, too.”

My dad reaches over and high-fives Chunk’s hand. “Well played, Chunk.”

I lean against the frame of the door and stare at them. “You guys were just pretending to like Val? What the hell for?”

My dad sits at the table and picks up a newspaper. “Children are naturally inclined to make choices that will displease their parents. If we had told you how we really felt about Val, you probably would have ended up marrying her just to spite us. Which is why we pretended to love her.”

Assholes. All three of them. “You’re never meeting another one of my girlfriends again.”

My father chuckles, but doesn’t seem at all disappointed.