Glass Slippers [1st Draft]

10. James

Chapter Ten:

James

———————-

Two Years Later

———————-

"Clara, help me!"

"No! Mother said I could go first!"

"You got her first last time!"

"Only because you were so slow!"

"I was not!"

"Girls!" Linette finally yelled over her daughter's argument, and Clara winced from the sound. Estella and Edina had been at each other's throats for most of the day. First, it was over the teacups, then the hair ribbons, and now it was over who would get Clara to help them first. If Clara had her way she wouldn't be helping either of them, but alas that wasn't an option.

Linette had somehow gotten her daughter's invitations to a dinner party at a nearby nobleman's home, but Clara had no idea what she had done to get them. After their own dinner party fiasco, Linette and her daughters had not been invited hardly anywhere. At least nowhere respectable.

Which is why Clara kind of understood why Linette had turned from bad to worse within her relationship with Clara. Needless to say, she blamed Clara for the whole dinner party mishap, and as such, saw to it that she was reminded of it at least once every few days, even after two years.

"Clara! Go with Edina, you'll go to Estella after you are done with her." Clara nodded, ignoring both Edina's smug look and Estella's obvious pout as she turned to go into Edina's room.

"Help me with my dress first, then my hair," Edina commanded, sounding like a younger copy of her mother.

Clara moved to follow her directions, keeping quiet as she worked. She had found over the years that it was best just not to speak to her step-sisters while she helped them get ready for social outings, it made everything so much easier.

"That's not tight enough," Edina stated, and Clara pulled tighter on the corset laces, "Tighter." Clara just nodded, pulling harder on the laces. "Perfect." Clara then helped Edina into the rest of her outfit, trying not to look for too long at her bright yellow gown. No gown should be a color brighter than the sun, but if Edina was looking to be noticed, she certainly would be, but for all of the wrong reasons.

"Do my hair, now." Clara quietly complied, her fingers working as quickly as possible. "Ow!"Edina whined, even though Clara was quite sure she had only pulled on her hair a little.

"Sorry," Clara murmured not taking the time to look her stepsister in the eye as she said it. The sooner she was done with this, the better. After another five minutes of arranging and putting ornaments in Edina's hair, Clara was done.

Edina stared at herself in the mirror, grinning, before she waved Clara away.

"Go on. Do try to make Estella as pretty as I am, though I'm sure it will be quite hard," Edina commented, but Clara was already halfway out the door. She knocked on Estella's door before coming in. Estella was laying on her bed, her hair everywhere.

"I'm ready to help," Clara said, and Estella picked up her head before slumping it back down.

"I don't want to go," she said. Clara looked over at her in slight shock. "I just, gah! What's the point? Every time we go somewhere, no one hardly ever talks to us, and when we do talk to someone they walk away offended." Estella paused for a moment. "And I'm so tired of dressing up and only getting ridicule from mother and Edina. I'm not ugly, right?" Estella turned to Clara. "Right, Clara?"