cinderella (english name her employer gave her taken from a bad gloss of her chinese name) went to america one ship ahead of the rest of her family to join her father, who was supposed to have built his fortune working on the transcontinental railroad, but when she got there she found her father had died and the company kept all his earnings, and the chinese exclusion act has come down behind her and sent the rest of her family back at the harbor. as her family’s only remaining foothold outside of their drought-stricken hometown, she decides to step into the role of her father and earn money for the rest of her family so they can have a place to come if and when the act is lifted. she would do hard labor if she could, but with her bound feet she can’t work anywhere outside of a laundry that horribly mistreats its employees. cinderella wants to form a union, but without financial backing and media attention their boss will just fire them all and hire a batch of willing scabs.
meanwhile the prince is the beau of high society, but her parents, whose sensibilities and experiences as german jewish immigrants make them far more scandal-averse than their flamboyant child, desperately want her to settle down and marry and please stop picking girls up in bars it’s getting difficult to keep your name out of the papers. they give the prince an ultimatum: either you can get married and become someone else’s problem, or we’re cutting you off completely. the prince has proven severely allergic to all forms of matchmaking and has no romantic prospects that last longer than a week, so to sweeten the pot (from the parents’ perspective) or twist the knife (from the prince’s) they throw a grand coming-out ball with invitations open to all of san francisco. the prince shows up to the ball supremely unhappy and looking for oscar wilde to liven up the place, when she catches sight of a gorgeous guest certain to stir up some drama: cinderella, who had stolen a suit from the laundromat, borrowed a walking stick, and stuffed men’s shoes with newspaper to find a sponsor at the ball. the two meet, and it’s mutual benefit at first sight.
the bargain goes as such: the prince will support cinderella’s efforts to organize a union of cinderella shows up to every event the prince is invited to and makes a whole act of their seduction and forbidden love. the prince will never learn cinderella’s real name; from the union side, the prince will deal with the chinese laundress’s union as a body, and from the society side cinderella will always appear as “mr. chan,” and if anything goes wrong mr. chan will cease to exist and all traces of collusion will vanish with him. but of course things are never so simple. as time goes on the prince becomes more and more invested in union building, and cinderella becomes more influential in high society—no matter how professional they try to stay, feelings between them start to grow.
but when a rising politician’s anti-chinese platform causes the minor affairs of mr. chan and the chinese laundress’s union to explode into major, violent scandal, the prince’s parents tell their daughter very clearly: we will host a soirée. at this soirée, you will announce your engagement, or else you will be on a train to your aunt in ann arbor the next morning. the prince explains the situation to cinderella and asks her if she would be willing to come. there is a curfew for chinese people at midnight, but she doesn’t have to stay that late. just long enough to say goodbye. against her very good better judgement, cinderella agrees.
mr. chan shows up to the soirée, the last social engagement she can ever attend. she gives the prince a scripted, dispassionate greeting and says her carefully chosen parting words to key figures in the room. the prince approaches her in private and asks her if she could spare one last dance. cinderella knows that everything she has worked for for her family and her union sisters could be on the line, but she still agrees. they dance in a side room, music muffled through the wall, and they lose all track of time—until the clock strikes midnight. in a panic, cinderella grabs her cane and hat and runs from their house.
mr. chan has ceased to exist. they had always decided their meeting locations and times in advance, so—just as they had planned—the prince no longer has any way to find cinderella. the only thing she has is a man’s shoe stuffed full of newsprint that had fallen off on the front steps of their home.
but that is enough. running away from the train station, the prince uses the newspapers stuffed into the shoe to calculate where in the city cinderella works. she finds the laundry, barges inside, the humidity staining her fine starched collar and frizz up her carefully combed hair. the laundry is full of workers, their heads lowered and their faces obscured with steam. the prince watches for a while. she falls on one of the workers. it is her cinderella, whom she cannot leave, and she does not: she accepts her parents’ disownment and builds a life for herself in san francisco, and cinderella builds a life with her, and the two of them attend union meetings and send letters and money home and dance to the gramophone, happy ever after
turnnoffyourmind
2087
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
