Wicked Wednesday #127 — Fairy Tales

Eleanora was not sure why it weighed so heavily on her mind now. It was not usually her style to be so concerned with the lives of others, even her friends. Well to be honest, she did not have a lot of friends, but she included Severine among them since she had moved to Paris with her ex. That fairy tale was over before it began, but she was lucky. She was always lucky.
But right now she was thinking about Severine who she had had brunch with before her friend Sherilyn had moved to Paris. Severine was so much happier than she had ever been holding her smartphone.
Her happiness was on the large screen of the phone. The words that she had wanted to hear, like the Beatles’ song lyrics, “Say the words you want to hear, I’m in love with you.”
The man that she had been on and off with for years, had finally texted her that he loved her. Severine was filled with joy as she turned the face of her smartphone to Eleanora and showed her. She flashed the phone almost like it was a diamond.
“R texted this to me the other day. He was drinking, but that is when people really tell the truth in my experience. When they are drunk and their defenses are down. But,”
She looked down at the grande café in front of her. They were sitting on the sidewalk in front of Severine’s favorite cafe in Paris, which honestly was not as nice as some that Eleanora had been to. It had its charms though, and she had spent a lot of time with her there dreaming away the afternoon.
She had heard a lot of stories about R–R for Rhett, for Roger? Robert? Rufus? Severine kept mum about it, because even though he was not married he was involved with another woman.
“I know it is wrong, but I did not know and we had been together in the way we were for a long time. I thought that we could have been something, but I know it is hard to have a relationship with me. I am always going away on a flight. But I loved him, I fell in love with him. Honestly, I fell in love with him more after he told me that he was with someone else. There were no more secrets.”
“Well, because he was being honest with you finally.”
Severine looked away from her coffee and onto the sidewalk where there was an elegant older woman pulling a suitcase into an apartment. There was an equally elegant and debonair older man who was following her to the door, before he kissed her. He twirled her, and kissed her like their lives depended on it. She abandoned the suitcase to completely embrace him, her arms cradling his head. They pressed their faces together when their lips parted, their eyes fixed on each other. Eleanora could see the longing in Severine’s face, or more the longing for the fairy tale to come true.The her and R happily ever after…
“I have a flight tomorrow heading to New York, and I told him and he says that he wants me. That…well you can imagine the things he said to me…” She took a slow sip of her coffee.
Eleanora could absolutely imagine every word he had said to Severine. Fairy tales were rarely told with new words. The same words with some variations in their twists, but ultimately ending the same way with the happily ever after. The happily ever after in her experience, had lost her her job as a flight attendant alongside Severine.
But she had been so in love with Carter, and that was her first mistake because she had always avoided love because it usually did not amount to much. She knew he was a bit of a player, and she knew he was married so she figured that she would not get that connected because she knew she could not.
But she did, the first time he kissed her she was in love. All the stereotypical love things happened to her, and surrounded her like ghosts that she was able to coexist with. His love was like a ghost, that she called Carter.
She saw the ghosts gather around Severine, standing amidst all the Venetian masks in her apartment where she had been so generous with them for Halloween.
Eleanora looked down at a text that she was sent from Severine who was now in New York. Her face was painted with Calaveras makeup for Day of the Dead celebrations. She texted she was with R, who was also painted with Calaveras but was not quite as pretty as Severine. Severine, who even with bones on her face albeit with roses, she looked more beautiful and elegant than most women who painted their faces regularly.
That beauty and elegance was love, which was the most important makeup for any woman. In the photo she texted, their mutual skeletal smiles were lovely, and maybe indicative of the fairy tale coming true at last.
Love and all of its fixings eluded her now as she looked down at her grande cafe. When Eleanora looked up, she saw that same elegant, older woman pulling her suitcase out of the apartment building. Again abandoning it, and kissing her man like he was the only thing in the world, and in their world he was her only thing. They kissed for the longest time, and then pressed their faces together after. She got into a Parisian taxi, and she looked at him for the longest time her face pressed to the window before she headed off with the driver to her destination. Eleanora picked up her cup, and inhaled the lovely coffee aroma.
She got a text then from Severine, that started:
About fairy tales they…
She picked up her phone, and saw the quick spiral that meant her phone had died.
As hardened as Eleanora was, she hoped that R had made Severine’s fairy tale come true. Even though she sensed in her heart that he was a dark knight…

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calaveras via google images