The sign outside Scarpaletto
I argue with a sign on Wednesday, and not for the first time. Not out loud, but on the way home, on the train.
Life is not a fairytale. If you lose a shoe at midnight, you’re drunk.
It’s just a sign outside a shoe store and they don’t mean it any more than North County means it when their sign says tequila is the soup of the day or the gift shop means it when their sign lets you know your husband called and said to buy whatever you want. Nothing sexist about that one. You’re supposed to laugh, not form your mental arguments on the train. But then the sign wasn’t expecting me.
I wrote a whole book about this.
It was, formerly, an unmoored hot mess of unconnected vignettes, not unlike, well, this Substack. A story with no structure. And then, my book club friend said it:
“I teach my girls that life is not like a fairytale.”
And I hear myself say it: “But sometimes, it is.” Because my love story was. Exactly like, even. And suddenly my unmoored hot mess book had something of a skeleton. I wanted to tell the world about my prince, my life, my fairytale. So I gave my book that narrative. And that’s why now I am arguing with a stupid sign that’s supposed to be funny.
Before I am a woman arguing with a sign, I am the little girl whose mom says “Why don’t you put down that book and go outside?”1 The little girl who wins the Holmdel Library summer reading challenge by reading seventy-seven books. Lest we be too hard on my mom, she’s the one that drives me to multiple libraries when one is not enough. I am the girl whose middle school library has a series of books with folk tale collections from around the world. I read all of them.
Before I argue with a sign, I am a young mom who reads romance novels, book in one hand, baby in the other. I spend decades writing about romance novels, reviewing them, analyzing them, blogging about them, and running a book review website that does all of that. I rarely read them now but am happy to come at anyone, guns blazing, who dismisses them as stupid. Just try me.
Are we really that worried that people who read stories will not understand the difference between fiction and reality? I don’t recall ever worrying that a witch was going to turn my brothers into birds, or thinking a pumpkin growing in my backyard could possibly become a mode of transportation. My children liked Heckedy Peg, and were not concerned about being turned into food either.
I think the real concern is not that women do not understand reality, but that they will expect too much. No handsome prince for you, hon! Yes, women. Because how often do you hear someone say they’ve sat their sons down and explained that Star Wars was not real, or woman-splained to a science fiction-loving man that life isn’t like Dune and there are not really giant worms or the spice? We seem to think men can handle metaphor and see themselves in stories without becoming sadly confused about the odds of Galadriel or Princess Leia showing up at their door.
Stories are a mirror, and always have been, since there were stories. They tell a truth and explain our feelings before we can really understand them ourselves. And what, exactly, is so unattainable about a man thinking you are the most beautiful woman in the world, or rescuing someone from a danger? It happens every day.
I fell in love with a prince, and I rescued him from a locked tower, hacking through thorns and overgrown bushes. He was the handsomest man in the world, and I was the most beautiful woman. We thought so, anyway, and ours was the only opinion that counted. I have seen wolves, and witches, and fairy godmothers. I’ve turned a giant pile of straw into gold. My sisters and I walked through an enchanted forest and danced all night until we wore out our slippers. I had to scrub the terrace, sweep the halls and the stairs so thank God the mice and birds made this dress:
Oh, I guess that was the fine people at Oleg Cassini. But if that doesn’t look like Cinderella and her prince to you…look harder. Life is a fairytale, if you just look hard enough. I found a romance novel hero, the kind everyone was afraid I might actually believe in.
I don’t take a picture of the sign Wednesday night, and I am just kicking myself because it isn’t there on Thursday, when I already know I want to write about this. So I take a chance, and wander in. I ask the man if he still has the sign.2
“You want to take a picture of it,” he guesses.
Right. And write about it. Is he okay with that? Is he still okay with it if I say the name of his store and if my whole point is that fairytales are real after all?
He sighs, and lets me know it would be great if I were in there to buy shoes. I am not, but I wouldn’t rule it out someday. You never know when you might lose one at midnight, a thing that could happen to anyone! He says to write what I want, do whatever I am going to do. He has already dismissed me as a crazy lady who is not planning to buy shoes today, a lady who believes in fairytales. Please!
But if you can feel like Cinderella when you are walking down the aisle, or when you put on a prom dress and get a fancy up-do, why can’t you feel like Cinderella when you scrub the terrace, sweep the halls and the stairs? Cinderella is both those people. Fairytale people. When you’re drunk and you lose a shoe at midnight, why can’t you laugh and think:
Just like Cinderella.
What if life is a fairytale - happily ever - after all?
Lifehack: You can read outside too.
Theory about which I am almost sure I am right: He originally wrote the wrong “your” and had to correct it. See how the R and E are a little smaller?