A New York City Cinderella

Nina cannot remember what hunger is supposed to feel like. Perhaps it should be a ringing sensation that reverberates through one’s body, like an alarm that goes off whenever energy levels are low. She often hears people describe their hungry stomachs as “growling,” but Nina’s stomach never growls. Her hunger is a savage thing that, when awakened from its dormant state, attacks the confining walls of her stomach and then climbs up her throat in a desperate attempt to escape. Hunger has been raging in Nina’s gut for over an hour already. She digs her nails into the soft skin of her palms, but the sharp flash of hurt does nothing to distract her from the pain emanating from deeper inside her body. Its presence is so imposing now, that she can no longer focus on the TV show she’s bingeing. She doesn’t even care about these reality TV people anyway, but their stupidity makes her feel smug and she spends most nights scoffing gleefully at them. Oh god, she is so hungry. Nina gets out of bed, but she doesn’t have to open the refrigerator to know that it’s already empty. Potato chip bags litter the floor under her bed, but those are empty too. It’s 5:33 AM, according to the digital clock on the TV, but it doesn’t matter because the bodega on the corner is open 24/7. She slips on the nearest pair of shoes, plastic flip flops, and in less than a minute she is standing on the sidewalk outside her apartment building, teeth chattering in the cold. The sky is black, but the white lights in convenience store windows and the flashes of yellow taxis speeding by fill her eyes with an artificial sunshine. Small groups of people are already clustered outside (this is the City that Never Sleeps, of course). Nina steps around a drunk couple stumbling hand-in-hand down the block. There are a few teenagers sitting on the curb smoking weed. A boy with bleached hair that falls across his eyes glances up at Nina before turning to the girl on his left. The girl holds her joint carelessly in one hand and laughs. A few liquor bottles lay smashed beside them on the sidewalk. Nina walks straight through the pile of broken glass, and then only a few more feet before she arrives at the bodega. She immediately goes to the chips aisle, pulling down bags labeled barbeque and hot chile and vinegar. There’s a pack of Red Vines, some double stuff Oreos, and a couple energy bars at the counter, plus a block of cheddar cheese that entices her for some reason, so she grabs those too. The cashier eyes the pile of goods and then stares at Nina. His mouth contorts into a thin-lipped smirk. “Wow, you’re really going to eat all that?” A red flush spreads from the bottom of Nina's neck to her hairline. She doesn’t say a word, but she imagines the curved knuckles of her fist flattening the cashier’s big nose into his big stupid face. It’s such a pleasant thought that she almost smiles. On her walk back to the apartment, Nina makes the mistake of glancing into the window of a drug store. The glass reflects the image of a woman with a drawn, pointed face and a dirty mess of hair tied together on her head. Her small body hides beneath a sweatshirt and sweatpants. There’s a line of crumbs along her upper lip and her right hand is shoved deep inside an open bag of chips. Nina looks away from her reflection quickly and continues onward, but an unbearably hot, sticky feeling of revulsion has spread throughout her body. Back at her apartment, she takes a hot shower and scrubs her skin furiously as the sun rises through the bathroom window. Her fingers can’t unknot the tangles in her hair, so she shears it all off with a pair of kitchen scissors and then immediately wishes she hadn’t. Dark chunks of hair lie in piles on the floor. There’s no way she can attach them back onto her head, so her face crumples like paper and she begins to cry. Nina finds a shiny blonde wig in the back of her closet. She wore it once to a costume party last year, when she actually had friends and a job and money to spend on useless junk. As she lowers the wig onto her head and feels the smooth curls fall around her face and upon her shoulders, her crying stops. She tries to see how it looks in the mirror, but she still can’t stand the sight of her face. After digging through her bathroom cabinets, she finds an old set of makeup bottles, palettes, and brushes. Painting the different colored liquids over her skin and her eyelids makes her feel kind of silly, and she’s a little sloppy with the mascara. But when she looks in the mirror, her face is perfectly unrecognizable. It even makes her heart flutter a little. Nina can’t stop now. She needs to find the right costume to make herself disappear completely. She pulls on a blouse, short skirt, and heels from a box in the closet, and then the transformation is complete. As soon as she walks outside into the sunlight, her thick makeup is no longer a heavy mask, but a new layer of skin. The yellow curls are no longer a wig, but her own hair. Her clothes fit better, her eyes glow brighter, and her legs move confidently in tall heels like they used to do when she took the subway to the office everyday. For the first time in months, she feels warm and bubbly, like a literal hot spring. Even the puffy dark circles she has had under her eyes from months of anxiety attacks and sleepless nights have disappeared. It’s like magic. Nina spends all day outside, exploring the beautiful homes on the Upper West Side and the calming greenery of Central Park. She catches her reflection in every window she passes and falls in love with herself over and over again. The yellow curls frame her face, her cheeks are pink, her legs look long, and her lips are curved in a true smile. Other people glance her way too, but this time she doesn’t mind them looking. When Nina returns to her neighborhood at the end of the day, the bell from a nearby cathedral tolls a dozen times. It’s midnight. The familiar sights of the bodega and the broken bottles on the sidewalk and the teenagers smoking weed up ahead make her smile falter. Her makeup is suddenly heavy, as if it’s about to slide right off her skin, and her scalp begins to itch under the fake blonde curls. All at once, she feels the eyes of six stoned teenagers boring into her. There’s something unfamiliar about the way they’re staring at Nina’s shiny clothes and hair, which are now nothing more than flimsy disguises, barely concealing her. They’re just a bunch of kids, Nina reassures herself. But then why do they make her feel so cornered, and even helpless? She quickens her pace. At the very moment when Nina passes by the group, the girl with the joint from the day before sticks out her leg into the middle of the sidewalk, catching the heel of Nina's shoe. Nina stumbles head-first to the ground. Her blonde wig, along with seven of her pink stick-on nails, fall off her body when she hits the pavement. The group of teenagers scoff gleefully at Nina's exposed self surrounded by the splintered fragments of her mask. They run off down the street, laughter echoing for blocks, leaving Nina alone in the middle of the sidewalk cradling her yellow hair in her arms.

Sophie Garcia '22

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