Cinderella and the Leper

Jules met a leper the other day. She knocked on the office door in the middle of Jules’ monologue and asked to use the telephone. It was an emergency, she said, and Jules believed her. The leper glowed purple, almost. No, it was the opposite of a glow; like all of the light gathered around her and got sucked into her skin. Her features were sunken on her face like debris on a moon crater. Her skin white, her pupils lavender, the corners of her eyes an irritated sort of red. She did not, and probably could not close her mouth all of the way, and her silver gray hair lay wrapped in a silk red scarf. Jules led her into the office and at once the leper started sputtering numbers and area codes. Jules picked up the phone and tried to follow along, but the dial tone crackled. It yelled angry tones and buzzed threateningly into her ear.

“I’m sorry,” Jules said. “I’m not sure how to use the phone. I’ll go find someone—”

“You have to dial nine first.”

For a moment Jules was taken aback, bewildered at her visitor. Her face flushed salmon pink next to her employee ID. The leper looked at Jules incredulously.

“Do you work here?”

Of course I work here, she thought. She replied to her politely, Yes.

It was mostly true. Jules never made calls, only received them. And since she was a typist posted in a surplus office, no one ever dialed her extension. Jules had only ever received three calls at the office: a wrong number, a call from her fiancé Mike asking her if the laundry was done, then telling her that the cat had escaped out the apartment window and got hit by a Honda Civic, and her last call was from Henry Chase thanking her for coming to audition for Millwood Theatre’s production of Cinderella. He offered her the title role.

Still, the leper had Jules on her guard. They had never met, never spoken until that moment. There was something oddly beautiful about her even though illness sat blatantly on her body, like the disturbing paleness that made Snow White ever more enchanting. She was a shipwreck, pieces washing up on a shore with the pulse of the waves, casting elegant shadows over sand and rocks. Her soul glowed, Jules concluded, and this terrified her.

“Are you sure you work here?” she asked, with a freakishly similar tone to Snow White when asking Grumpy the dwarf if he really washed up for dinner.

“Yes, I just don’t touch the phone.” And it came off a little harsher than Jules had wanted it to. There were no guidelines for typists in dealing with patients. Her job was simple: she was to sit like Sparky in front of a computer for eight hours a day, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, typing up patient records, interview notes, and meeting minutes until her input tray was empty. She spent her breaks practicing her monologue and browsing websites for audition notices, vowing to herself that one day she will make it big on Broadway and never have to type 114 words per minute again. Surely, she thought, Snow White would understand why she was being as awkward as she was. For two years Jules never came into contact with patients and boss alike. The same went for surprise lepers.

-*-

Jules didn’t like to wear her shoes in the theatre. Most of the time you couldn’t step on the stage with dirty street shoes. Her socks wore thin over six weeks of rehearsals. Dirt and paint stained the balls of her feet. When she was not at work, she was in the theatre. And although she suffered fatigue and the nuisance of spending her paycheck periodically on new socks, the hardest part of being an actor, Jules thought, was getting into character. Acting is not only about pretending, said Chase, but it’s about being. It’s about being the other person, experiencing them, their pains and their joys.

But even after getting into costume, after Mac the makeup guy did up her face, after Helen the hairdresser slapped an itchy gold wig on her wispy brown head, Jules still felt like a typist.

“Well you look like a princess. I picked you for a reason, you know.” Jules did not know how to take this. “To be just,” Chase said, “Cinderella wasn’t technically made a princess until the very end of the story, so you’re perfectly in character.”

Despite saying that, Chase understood Jules’ plight. She asked her fiancé, Helen, and even Mac for their sentiments on her character. Chase praised her for progress she did not see, but he comforted her. His words stopped her from entering a panic.

In her character study, Jules found Cinderella to be pure of heart, fully and absolutely. There was no fault to be found, nothing left to wanting and no quality of her that Cinderella ever needed to “make better”. She was merciful, giving, a friend to the cretins. Most of all she was faithful, kind of like Jesus, her fiancé suggested. Helen and Mac did not have much to say. But Mike went on about Jesus, perfect and without blemish, going around, laying hands on the faithful and healing them of bleeding, crippling, leprosy and death.

“It’s like the story of that woman with the sick kid. They weren’t Jewish, and Jesus’ ministry was for his own people or something, but he still healed her because she proved her faithfulness. So that’s kind of like how Cinderella isn’t royalty, but—”

“Honey,” Jules said to Mike after his Jesus assertion. “It’s harder for me to relate to Jesus than it is to Cinderella. It’s a well-known fact that Jesus was perfect and impossible to imitate.”

Mike went back to his newspaper. “How would you know? You never tried.”

-*-

Jules dialed nine first like the leper told her to and pushed in all the numbers she requested. As the phone began to ring, she held the receiver on one end and held it out to Snow White. She responded, and with two quivering hands grabbed the phone, and Jules’ fingers. Her nails scraped and clicked on the hard matted plastic. Her hands felt like leftover chicken cold from storage.

“I’ll be home soon. Oh, no. No! Sweetie, give him the phone. Lou? Lou. What the hell are you doing? I told you I need that money. No, you don’t need that. What’s more important, Lou? It’s her birthday for chrissake, don’t be such a spoilsport. If you take that money, Lou, I’m going to sock you right in the…Okay. I’ll be there, I’m coming home. Bye. I love you, bye.”

Jules sat quietly while the leper talked above her like a seagull hanging over the crowds at Long Beach on a busy summer day. When she finished, she thanked Jules, but did not leave. She floated over to a book shelf to admire the dusty knick knacks, cocking her silver head on the side to read the book spines. Women and Psychology. The Mind, Explained. Personality and the Person…

“Do you have an appointment, ma’am?” Jules asked.

Snow White, ripped from her reverie, straightened up and left without closing the door.

-*-

Jules told Mike about the leper who used the phone. She examined her fingertips as she described the incident to him, how her hands felt like cold chicken; how Jules might be infected, or healed, perhaps. She paced the living room around him while he beached himself on the couch, a copy of the New York Times scattered like sea foam on his thighs and the coffee table. He examined the Local News portion.

“Damn, Sanders, this looks like shit,” he muttered.

“It was weird, she had dark circles around her eyes that were purple, and red at the same time.”

Uh huh.

“I don’t know. She reminded me of Snow White—in a creepy, zombie kind of way. And Snow White was pure of heart, too. I mean, I felt like I had to learn something from this woman, even though she was probably schizophrenic, otherwise she shouldn’t have even been on our floor. Chase tells me I’m doing a great job, but I feel like I’m missing something. I don’t feel like I’m doing this Cinderella thing justice.” No response. “Are you listening to me?”

Mike put down his newspaper, wrinkled and damp on the edges where he held it. “It’s work. The new layout guy is a mess and a half.”

“Oh, Mike.” Jules bent down and kissed him. His lips were lukewarm and hard. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m still getting used to the hair. It’s so short.”

Nine inches shorter, to be exact. Helen took a pair of scissors, by Chase’s suggestion, to her head last week and left just enough for Jules to grab handfuls of. The result was more chic and classy than Jules could have ever thought. Chase thought it was brilliant and Helen was equally thrilled. Oh my Lord, now that’s where that darlin’ face has been hidin’. You should’ve come to me sooner, miss. You’re such a pretty young thing.

Mike didn’t seem to think so, but he hadn’t found her looks particularly moving since college, at least not overtly. The last time he gave any remarkable comment on her appearance was when he proposed. But in the months after, Jules could have gotten dreadlocks and he would’ve reacted the same, flat, way. It wasn’t dislike, but a sort of pestering that she did not know the meaning of. It went hand in hand with the sound of his rustling newspaper and knowing that she was only being tuned into a fraction of the time. Mike made her feel like a radio station that played the oldies, where listeners would never have heard of two thirds of the tracks, their ears fogging up the notes to unknown songs and perking up whenever the Temptations or something popular came on. He turned another page and she shrugged. “It makes it easier to put the wig on. Cinderella can’t really be a brunette. I think the children will get confused.”

“Did Chase tell you that?”

“The hairdresser said it’d be easier to maintain, and casting directors think short hair is kind of edgy. I’ve always wanted to go short, anyways, you know that.”

“But it was so…unexpected. You just came home and bam, it was gone. What are you going to do with it for the wedding?”

“It’s fine. I like it like this.” She consoled him. Mike’s attention folded backwards to his paper, and this made Jules fish further into his domain to win him back. As long as it involved work, perhaps he would listen. “Maybe you can get Cameron to take my headshot? I would need a new one.”

“He’s a freelancer, I don’t know how to get a hold of him.”

But of course there must have been another photographer that Mike worked with at the paper, she thought. She felt perturbed by his underwhelming response. Perhaps he found her comment to be vain. He turned the page and she recognized this as a dead end not to be pushed.

But why not push?

 “It’s not just the hair. This means a lot to me, Mike. You know that. I’ve been trying to tell you that I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the part, and I don’t know what to do.”

“I know, Jules, but I’m a sports writer. What the hell do I know about acting?”

“Oh come on, Mike, I don’t need you to be anything for me. I just need you to listen. I just need to…talk this out.”

And upon hearing this Mike’s heart sank a little bit. Mike was good at what he did. He was a top-ranked sports writer at the paper who had, for someone in their mid twenties, an amiable amount of experience decorating his resume. She waited for him to respond.

They had met at a writer’s workshop when he still dabbled in historical fiction and Jules had aspirations of becoming a best-selling author. But things had changed since then. Mike craved upkeep and stability while Jules was taught to follow her tumultuous heart. And whether or not she would decide the next day to become a ringleader in a traveling circus troupe, Mike would not try and stop her for it was all part of why he loved her. But when Jules talked to him about the theatre, about Chase and about Cinderella, he felt like a fish out of the water, struggling to understand her schizophrenic changes of mind, changes of heart; why his gills didn’t work; why air became the medium rather than the resource. And all this was happening while Jules hovered by him, demanding him to say something useful. He was not good at this. So when Jules told him he needn’t be anything, he was nothing. She expected him to be nothing more than a blonde-haired blue-eyed man that a thousand other men could easily be, and Mike had no clue as to how he could ever begin to redeem himself from this notion.

“You’re coming tomorrow night, right?” she asked.

Mike stiffened his newspaper into a barricade, so that she could not see his face, his presence fading behind thin inky paper. He affirmed her curtly from behind his fort.

She left him on the couch and went to the window. It was night. Her reflection, soft and lean, stared back. She thought of Chase and how he looked at her the day she came in with her new haircut. Her brown eyes shimmered over the skyscrapers in the distance, unencumbered by her once-long bangs. Mike turned another wrinkled page. The glass savored her new face, telling her silently that she wasn’t beautiful yet, that she was not the only one who needed to be healed.

-*-

 “I’ve been doing this for twelve years” Chase said. “And I still hate directing children’s shows.” He grabbed the spikes of his black hair and dragged them through his fingers. He wore a pencil on his left ear and had a piercing on his right. He abandoned his tie during rehearsals and undid the buttons on his dress shirt, allowing a screen-print dinosaur to peek out from underneath his crispy exterior. Chase looked and acted young for someone in his thirties. He leaned forward in his seat, watching the stage lights flicker on and off, bouncing off the walls and the speckled cream surface of the proscenium walls; blue, teal, lavender, amber. The whirring of the speakers and tinkering of wrenches and lights could be heard from the catwalks above. The rest of the cast huddled nearby a coffee station. Jules fiddled with a bottle of water while Chase sat next to her, scribbling notes on a clip board. He had a well-built torso, and Jules found herself staring intently at the dinosaur.

“Twelve years is impressive. I haven’t even done one. I was scared no one would take me. I mean, I didn’t do any theatre stuff in college. I’ve only ever been in one play.”

He smiled at her with hurricane eyes. “I know, I had to laugh when I saw that you included that in your resume. You’ll do fine. I’ve watched a ton of actors and I know the good ones when I see them.” Jules blushed like a salmon when he said this. He stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “Stop worrying. It’s a children’s play. It doesn’t have to be as deep as you’re making it.”

But to Jules, it had to be deep. There had to be something more to the part than wearing the wig and the costume. She needed to be more than convincing to the eyes.

“You’ll be fine, go take your break—oh, but before you go, I need your actor’s blurb. Ten lines max, on my desk by tonight. And go ask Helen what you can do about your hair. It might be easier to cut it off.”

-*-

Julianne Thayer (Cinderella) recently graduated from SUNY Stony Brook and is thrilled to make her debut at Millwood Theatre. Previous roles include Laughing Lucy in Mrs. Gutman’s fifth grade production of The Wonderful Adventures of Spectacular Sam and Terrific Tammy. She thanks mom, dad, Jim, Janie, and her fiancé, Mike, for supporting her and encouraging her to try on the glass slippers. She thanks Henry Chase for making them fit.

-*-

Mike pulled up in front of the theatre where Chase stood under the awning. He was halfway through a Camel Menthol and gazed peacefully out towards the city ambience and six-o’clock timers lighting up store fronts. She smiled brightly when he saw her in the passenger seat, and Mike took notice.  He waved to her with the one hand, dropping his cigarette with the other and rubbing it into gum-speckled pavement with his shoe. As he approached the sedan, Mike shifted into park mode, flinging the driver-side door open without thinking about oncoming traffic. There were no cars coming by. The slam of the door rattled the mirrors. Jules, amidst gathering her things, felt an unexpected breeze on her calves as Mike pulled her door open with a collected savageness which she did not expect. The attempted act of chivalry came off all too barbaric, but Chase who stopped a few paces from the car was beat to the punch. She stepped out. Thank you, she said, which Mike responded with a hand around her waist and a kiss—a stage kiss. This was his act, she thought. But he held her hand tightly like he did over the tablecloth at a nameless restaurant where he first told her he loved her. He held on and did not let go.

            “Are you ready?” Chase asked her.

            “I guess I have to be.”

            “You’re fine. You’ll be great.”

            His reassuring words washed over her like they always did. Mike tightened his grip; one not of forcefulness or anger, but of an unexpected sense of despair and pleading that she did not know how to address. She felt the sweat forming between their skins.

“You must be Mike.” He extended his hand to him. “Hi, I’m Chase.”

The men clapped hands and squeezed mercilessly, speaking with a forced civility that barely masked their sub speech.

Hello. I’ve heard a lot about you.

You’re the fiancé?

You bet. I’d like to deliver you a good one to the gut, but it’s nice to finally meet you.

Likewise. Will you come see the show?

What kind of question is that you little shit? Of course I’m coming to see the show.

I just thought I’d ask.

Look, man, you had better step off before I—

“Julianne! I thought you’d be inside by now!” Helen rushed towards them and helped Jules with her bag. “It’s past six! You’re due in makeup—Mac’s not one to be kept waitin’.”

“The show starts at eight, Mikey. Do you have your ticket?” He nodded. She walked away from them both. She turned to see Chase pull out his Menthols, offering one to Mike. Without a word, Mike got into his car, merging into oncoming traffic.

-*-

She paced the dressing room with her eyes closed, fingering the frayed edges of her apron. She looked at herself in the watt-lined mirror, then down at her engagement ring sitting peacefully on the countertop. It sparkled under the megawatt light bulbs. There was a knock on the door.

Come in.

The silver-haired leper poked her head into her room again, and for a moment Jules was overcome with spiraling confusion.

“Hi, I’m sorry to bother you—”

“You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“I know, it’s just my daughter,” she motioned to a child standing behind her. “She really wanted to meet you.”

She looked upon the child, no more than ten years old, blushing fiercely at her mother’s awkward assertiveness. They looked extremely alike, she thought.

She stared at Jules, confused. “You don’t look like a princess.”

Jules laughed. “No, honey, not yet. I’m a poor peasant girl now. See my clothes? I don’t look like a princess. But if I just believe, some pretty cool things can happen.”

“Is it like what happens in the movie?”

“Sort of, but this is different. This is a play, and I’m real, right?” She nodded. “Right, so I need you to believe that magic can happen. I need you to believe with me.”

Her name was Lianna. It was her birthday and they took the subway out from Queens to see the show. She grew more and more talkative with each second she spent in the presence of a princess. Pure, soft spoken joy filled Jules’ smile as she listened to this child, and she began to change her regard of Snow White’s unwelcomed curiosity. She began to admire her, taking the chance to ask even when the answer was clearly “no.”

“Ma’am, you’re not supposed to be in here.” Chase said, coming through the jarred door.

“Chase,” Jules began. “Can you take a picture for us?” She went to her bag and handed him her camera.

-*-

Jules stood alone watching the audience percolate in the lobby, looking back in the house at the crew sweep up the stage and collecting stray props. There were hugs and congratulations, but few people asking for pictures or autographs since she was out of costume, wigless and unrecognizable. She held a “Happy Opening Night” card given to her by Prince Charming. When she came out of her dressing room, Mike was not waiting in the foyer with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. She found a short voicemail saying that he stayed at the office to teach Sanders how to do a newspaper layout, the right way. He will see her at home, he said. She knew this was false, that he was probably on his third or so beer at Nick’s Pub. His apology and “I love you” gurgled and drowned underneath the giggles of passing children.

Helen came up to her and gave her a hug. “Honey, you did fantastic. I watched the whole thing on the monitor downstairs. You were shinin’ brighter than Times Square.”

Chase stood with a group of men and talked business and art in a random circle. They complimented him on everything from sound effects to casting choices. They praised his coaching and how his leading lady was so engaging. But she was as invisible to him as she was to her adoring audience without her costume. She turned to leave, and from her peripherals caught a glimpse of a pale purple-eyed woman fastening a silk red scarf onto her child’s head. Jules could still feel the emanating warmth of her hug from before, not at all feeble or sickly as one would have thought at first. She smiled at them and watched them follow the crowd, filtering out into the night with families and their sleepy children.

Jules stood out on the sidewalk and hailed a cab.

2^nd Ave, please .Nick’s Pub.