Who said I was done?” said the Fairy Godmother. She tapped her wand again. At once, a beautiful carriage came to be, with a driver and four white horses. At once, Cinderella was all clean. She was dressed in a beautiful blue gown. Her hair was set up high on her head inside a golden band. Ah, me!” said Cinderella sadly. The carriage rode down the street. She said aloud, “I wish I could go to the ball, too!” I know, Mother,” said the Prince. Yet he knew something was wrong. He had met many of the young women. Yet after he said “hello,” one by one, he could find nothing more to say.

Cinderella is a girl whose mother has died and after her father remarries, her father dies also. She is forced to live with her evil step-mother and step-sisters, who are jealous of her beauty and force her to do all the chores. When the prince invites all the women in the kingdom to a ball at the castle, she thinks its her chance to get out of the house, but the step-mother does everything to make sure she can't go. Cinderella's fairy godmother shows up just in time and helps her get to the palace. All heads turned. Who was that lovely maiden stepping down the stairs? She held her head tall and looked as if she belonged. But no one knew her. Her stepmother, Lady Tremaine, is cruel to her, and she is jealous of Cinderella's charm and beauty. Additionally her two stepsisters, Drizella and Anastasia, cruelly take advantage of her. In spite of this, Cinderella is a kind and gentle young woman. As Cinderella leaves for the ball, the Fairy Godmother warns her the spell will break at the stroke of midnight.

Maybe Mom’s do give kids this book to make children aim high. And so I read this book as a child, and yet I never aimed high enough to want to marry a prince. I knew they were scalawags. It didn’t help kids that Shirley Temple grew up and married what’s his face from wherever. That was so romantic when we reached our teens.. And it didn’t help that Americans were and still are enthralled with kings and queens from England. And then there were those mothers who wanted us to marry doctors or lawyers. The palace guards give chase as Cinderella flees in the coach before the spell breaks on the last stroke of midnight. Cinderella looked around her. "Did that even happen?" But there she stood in a fine gown, and with a golden band in her hair. And there were her driver and four horses before her, waiting. Over at the ball, the Prince did not know what to think. “Why do you have that sad look on your face?” the Queen said to her son. “Look around you! You could not ask for finer maidens than these.”

ONCE UPON A TIME a girl named Cinderella lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters. Poor Cinderella had to work hard all day long so the others could rest. It was she who had to wake up each morning when it was still dark and cold to start the fire. It was she who cooked the meals. It was she who kept the fire going. The poor girl could not stay clean, from all the ashes and cinders by the fire. Insisting that Cinderella will go to the ball, the Fairy Godmother magically transforms a pumpkin into a carriage, the mice into horses, Cinderella's horse, Major, into a coachman, and dog, Bruno, into a footman, before turning Cinderella's ruined dress into a shimmering pale blue ballgown and her shoes into glass slippers. One day, big news came to town. The King and Queen were going to have a ball! It was time for the Prince to find a bride. All of the young ladies in the land were invited to come. They were wild with joy! They would wear their most beautiful gown and fix their hair extra nice. Maybe the prince would like them!The Prince rejects every girl at the ball until he sees Cinderella, who agrees to dance with him, unaware of who he is.

Ten years later we were divorced, and I was living in Berkeley looking for a doctor or a lawyer. I met a few of each, and I was so bored with these guys, not that all doctors and lawyers are boring. Then I tried dating a teacher, and he was neurotic like Woody Allen. I couldn’t take that kind of craziness, so I tried a dating a psychologist and almost married a psychiatric social worker. Nothing was working out for me. Then one day I walked into Café Med down on Telegraph Avenue, and I ran into an acquaintance, an aspiring writer named John Ratcliff. I sat down at his table and during our conversation I said, “I want a macho man.”I walked into the living room the other day, and my husband was watching the end of a Hallmark movie. “What are you watching?” “I am watching a movie about a woman who is in love with a prince.” Ever since American politics has grown ugly, we sometimes sit and watch Hallmark movies, but this? At least it was the end of the movie, and the next one I watched with him.