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Jade doesn’t like Cinderella. Go figure.
“I can’t see that happening. You don’t look like the Cinderella type, although I’m sure people have told you otherwise.”
Jade made a snarly face. “No one who really knows me. My sisters like to tell people that I refused to step foot in Cinderella’s castle when our parents took us to Disneyland because I couldn’t respect anyone who had mice for friends.”
He laughed. “Mice, I can tolerate, but I never believed in fairytales.”
Her head cocked to one side and she seemed to study him in the low light. “And yet your childhood reads like something right out of a storybook. Only child of wealthy parents who died young leaving you in the care of your beloved grandmother who took you on travels around the world and left you her estate in…Zurich?”
“Connecticut.”
“Oops. Wrong continent. Sorry.”
He reached deep into his pants pocket to touch the coin he knew he’d find there. A nickel. He always carried one. A stupid superstition he blamed on his grandmother. “Carry some bit of money with you every day, Zachary. Even just a nickel. You never know when someone will judge as being poor, but you’re not poor if you’ve got money in your pocket. Don’t you forget it.”
“Well, as a writer, you can probably guess that some of the gloss of my bio is to deflect against the poignant loss of being orphaned at a young age.” Sixteen is young, right? “My grandmother did her best.” Not true. “But a part of me will always wonder what my life would have been like if I’d been raised by two loving parents.” Absolute truth with a slight variation: my wealthy parents were really an addict mom, a no-name father, and my grandmother once called me her daughter’s biggest mistake. Money? Zip. World travel? Only via pages of books in the public library. But other than that…
She dipped her chin with obvious chagrin. “Of course. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made light of that. I never knew my paternal grandparents, and Mom’s dad died young and her mother was pretty far gone with Alzheimer’s by the time I knew her.”
He handed her his nickel. “Here. Make a wish.”
Yes, Zach isn’t who people think he is. But, trust me, you’re going to love him.
And Jade, as much as I’ve groused about her flighty ways (as a character), I love her wit.
“You can call me Zach. Since we’ve kissed.”
She gave him a light shoulder bump. “That was a mistake, remember? You apologized.”
“I take back the apology.”
“Doesn’t work that way. You know what they say, ‘Words once spoken can come back to haunt you on a cold winter’s night.’”
“Hmm. Pretty sure that’s not how it goes.”
“I know. I like to put my own spin on aphorisms. It’s my superpower.”
“Really. I did not know that. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.”
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