Apparently it was lunch when I returned. That, or Alexis and Linda just felt like eating. Linda was sitting in one of the chairs, a Subway wrapper resting on her pregnant belly. Alexis sat cross-legged on the counter with one of those energy drinks and a Snickers. I tried to remember what I had packed for my lunch. Peanut butter. Hooray for peanut butter! Despite the awful Cinder situation, I was excited.

"You weren't gone very long," said Linda. She licked mustard from her fingers. "And Mr. Maser said he wanted you to find a Cinderella."

"Those are supposed to take you days, usually," said Alexis with a nod. "Linda, do you remember the last Cinderella I had?"

Linda nodded with way too much enthusiasm. I was beginning to think I had gotten off easy with the mess known as Cinder. "Oh, yes! I had almost forgotten about her, but who the heck can forget about a brat like that?" She looked at me pointedly and motioned me into a chair. "Tansy, you have to hear about this girl! It was like last year or something. Mr. Maser tells Alexis that he has a Cinderella for her. And this was of course after she had gotten all these nice Cinderellas—"

"Absolute sweethearts, totally darling." Alexis took another swig of too-much caffeine.

I grinned. "Girls, this is not very comforting." If only this story would turn out worse than Cinder. If only this story would turn out worse than Cinder!

"Exactly," said Linda. "Back to me. So Mr. Maser tells Alexis to go out and contact this particular Cinderella—"

"Hey! This is my story!" Alexis set down her drink and wiped a stripe of chocolate from her upper lip. "It happened to me!"

"But I tell it better, honey."

"You do not."

"Just shush."

I laughed. I was already feeling better.

"So Alexis waltz through this door. You've seen the doors. All cutesy and folklorish and crap. And she winds up in the cutest little garden you have ever laid eyes on. It looked like Minnie Mouse and Glinda the Good designed it together. Big flowers, expensive fountains, all that."

"I should have known," said Alexis.

"And she skips up to the house. Alexis skips really cute, trust me. I swear, butterflies with fluttering in the breeze around her pretty little head. Weren't they? Anyway, she goes up to the door, knocks, and the Lady of the House answers."

"Not Cinderella?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not Cinderella."

"Ellana, as her name was," said Alexis, "Was sitting by the hearth throwing a tantrum."

I tried to imagine Cinder, or even Lucille, throwing a tantrum.

Linda took a huge bit of her sandwich; it was a good thing she had the Subway wrapper, I had forgotten how messy sandwiches are. She chewed about half of the bite, swallowed it, and proceeded to talk as best she could. "This poor woman leads Alexis into this beautiful house, to this beautiful kitchen, and there she finds Ellana in rags. And not just any rags. I bet you're thinking, Tansy, that these people had forced poor little Ellana to wear these. Nope. This was an otherwise gorgeous dress that she had obviously ruined herself."

I couldn't imagine anyone purposely ruining a dress to… well, purposely ruin it. If she had been trying to make it stylish, that was a different matter. "And it looked awful."

Alexis nodded.

Linda continued. "Turns out that Ellana was this little worm whose poor father had married this rich woman. When he died, of course the stepmom keeps the girl around, keeps her looking nice. But no! Ellana has this psychotic imaginary audience thing going on—"

"Personal fable," I interrupted.

They both stared at me.

Alexis lowered her candy bar. "Huh?"

Oops. "Personal fable," I repeated. "You know, it's what teenagers do all the time. Though I guess imaginary audience might be part of it, they are kinda connected…" They still looked completely confused. I blushed and waved my hand. "Never mind. Keep going."

"Where did you learn that?" Linda asked.

"I picked it up in college," I said quickly. "Look, I'm ruining your story."

"She already ruined it."

Linda aimed a smack at Alexis' feet. "Quiet, you. So Little Miss College gets the whole story, I'll keep going." She said Little Miss College as a joke, but I suddenly thought of it as a compliment. She finished off her sandwich, then launched right into the summary. "Ellana was trying to be Cinderella. She made herself a servant, except she was an idiot and had no idea what the difference was between a broom and a spatula. But she wanted to be the poor little enslaved girl who would be rescued by a prince."

I made a face. "Pathetic! You're kidding me! She acted like that?"

Alexis nodded. "I had that girl for four days straight, all my appointment time booked, just so she could think she looked pretty."

"And she was not an attractive little girl," said Linda.

I laughed. "That's mean to say!"

"Well, it's true! What do you want me to say, that everyone is beautiful in her own way? That's just stupid. Go outside and walk around! There are a lot of ugly people out in the world, and you cannot deny it."

Alexis almost coughed up Snickers—she had not managed to keep from laughing. "I have seen so many ugly women, and a lot of them were even uglier than Miss Ellana!"

I tried to stand up, but I had failed to keep the giggles back and thus fell back, most awkwardly, into the seat. "I can't believe I'm working here!" Was it so terrible to realize I liked both of them.

"I'm not trying to be mean!" Linda sat up in her chair, arm around her belly. "Ouch, a baby is climbing up my rib cage. I'm not saying they are bad, horrible people. I'm just saying we wouldn't have make-up and people like us if everyone were glamorous and beautiful."

I supposed she was right. I had never quite thought about it that way. "But what about those Dove commercials?"

"Advertising," Alexis said flatly. "That's all it is. It's a conspiracy to make ugly people feel that they will never be attractive and that they should be okay with that."

"If that isn't an insult to the self-esteem, I don't know what is," said Linda.

I grinned. "What was that movie line? "There is no such thing as natural beauty." Dolly Parton."

Linda laughed. "Very good! Anywho, we are way off-topic. So you now know that Alexis spent four days on a Cinderella. Tell us about yours."

It took me a moment to figure out just what to say. Cinder verses the horror story of Alexis' Ellana. "I have absolutely no idea what to do with her. No idea."

"That's what I'm here for, dear." My mentor picked various toppings from her Subway wrapper. How graceful. Wow, but I liked her.

"And I just want to hear the horror story." At least Alexis had the grace to not lick chocolate from the Snickers wrapper. Though everyone knew that was the best part.

What the heck? "I found her in the stables. She doesn't work in the house."

That caught their interest. "But Cinderellas are most always servants."

"She was. She just works outdoors. She cleans up horse poop. I don't think she showers. She has lousy grammar. Or accent. I don't know if it's her accent or grammar. What's the difference?"

"Mm." Alexis stared at the ingredients label. "Tomboy. Gotcha."

"Am I a baby if I'm whining over her?" I asked. Suddenly my problem sounded ridiculous. I was the whiney girl unable of taking care of her clients.

"Nope. No one is a baby here," said Linda. "Tomboys are impossible. Horribly impossible. Sometimes you're lucky enough to trap one in a chair for fifteen minutes to get some of those tangles shredded out and she winds up looking like a goddess."

"And then she goes and gets herself all muddy all over again. No point."

I sighed. "Does Mr. Maser like to initiate us with evil Cinderellas?"

Linda shook her head. "No, it's completely random. Half the time the man doesn't know who the heck these princesses are."

Alexis crumpled up her Snickers wrapper and hopped from the counter. "When is your appointment?"

"In two days?"

"Just pray she shows up. We can make Brittany and Jennifer go after her, if you want. They're scary. I'd suggest Linda, but she's all with child and that."

"Wouldn't we get in trouble for harassing clients?"

"Just as long as you don't pull a Mary."

I only had to look at her face to realize that she had said the wrong thing. Linda shot her a deathly glance, and the girl went silent.

The mood had just been killed.

"I take it I'm not allowed to ask about that," I said slowly.

Linda nodded slowly and apologetically. "Yeah… we really aren't supposed to gossip about things like that, anyway. It's her business."

Mary. Mary the receptionist?

At that moment the door opened, and there she was, speak of the devil. Mary. "Tansy?" she said softly.

She could obviously see me. "Right here." I waved.

"You… you have a visitor."

I stared. I had been so busy chatting that I hadn't bothered to check my appointment book.

"He says you'll know him."

I instantly felt sick. Boy, I should have grabbed that peanut butter sandwich while I had the chance. "Michael?"

Mary blushed. "That's his name?"

"Boyfriend?" Alexis whispered, hand to her mouth.

I rolled my eyes and nodded. Then I followed Mary out the door.

The boy was leaning against Mary's desk, smiling at me like we were still together. How did he even find where I worked?

"Hey, kitten," he cooed.

I marched right up to him and slapped him across the face. Not hard; a slap is more about the mood of delivery. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I would come and visit you."

Mary was right behind me, watching with a frightened frown.

I gritted my teeth and shook my head. "How did you find out where I worked?"

"I asked Kendra."

I made a mental note to kill that girl. "Did it ever occur to you that I might be working?"

"Are you working now?" Dang, but he was cute.

"Shut up."

"I also came to see your new boyfriend."

He was so impossible! "Why would he be here right now?"

He shrugged.

I sucked in a lungful of air. I was furious. I was absolutely furious. "I'm not giving you back the stupid iPod!"

"I just wanted a kiss." He was wearing a green t-shirt. It was very attractive.

"Get out." I pointed toward the door.

The biggest surprise was that he actually left.

Fuming, I turned back to Mary. "Do not, I repeat, do not let him in here again. He's my ex-boyfriend, and I'm sick of him."

Mary nodded. Her gaze was fixed on the floor. And she was blushing. Not from embarrassment.

Oh my goodness. Was it just my imagination, or did Mary also happen to find Michael cute? It was probably just my imagination.

I thought about Alexis' slip of the tongue. No, no, I couldn't. Just because I was mad at Michael didn't mean…

And then I heard it, the words coming out of my own mouth with my own voice. "Mary, how long have you worked here?"

Her blush deepened.

Oh, crap. "Mary, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

She met my eyes. "You wouldn't say you're sorry if you didn't suspect something."

It was the longest sentence I had heard from her.

And then she smiled, a tiny little thing with a surprising amount of energy. "It's okay. I guess it'll come out sometime, and you should hear it from the source."

I felt I was about to hear another long gossip session.

"Tansy, do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty?"