ARIS RISING

ARIS RISING

“Hello, miss, could you help me, please? I’m on the invitation list. My name is…“

“Speak up, miss. Have you noticed what a zoo it is in here? This premiere is by invitation only, so it you don’t have…”

“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I’ll try to speak up. And I do have an invitation. See! That’s my name, Aris. There on the invitation.”

“Well, Erin, it looks like you are alone. Well, nevertheless. It looks like you’ll have to entertain yourself while you wait…just like everyone else.”

No, it’s not Erin, its Aris, and Wait? It looks like almost everyone in the line is already inside!”

“Excuse me. Are you telling me how to do my job, Maris?”

“No, of course not. I’ll wait. And it’s Aris, not Maris.”

Aris rhymes with Paris, Aris used to tell people whom she met for the first time. But there was nothing about Aris that put people in mind of a fascinating city like Paris. There was almost nothing about Aris that other people seemed to like, remark on or (even worse!) notice! So why should this night be any different? So, of course she would be the one asked to wait. And possibly forgotten when the festivities had begun. It wouldn’t be the first time. At least she could daydream while she waited.

Sometimes (actually most of the time) Aris felt as though she was invisible to people around her. Aris the ghost, insignificant, unremarkable, a cipher. It probably didn’t help that Aris favored clothes in innocuous pale beige and watery shades. Colors that made her fade even more certainly into the background. Tonight for the premiere of a film the latest she had heard so much about and managed to get a ticket for, she had put on a rather shapeless inoffensive beige dress (not unlike the proverbial flour sack) that at least hid her muffin top, along with sensible ballerina flats and on top a tan raincoat, serviceable if a size too big, from the local thrift shop. Aris’ clothes were like old trustworthy friends that had hung side by side in her closet for well, years. Maybe since college.

“We live in such a wasteful society, don’t you think?” Aris had remarked to her office mate Andrea one day, standing in yet another line at the company café. Andrea who favored the latest designer outfits despite her modest assistant office manager’s salary looked up from her phone and stared blankly at Aris.

“We should all shop at the thrift shop,” Aris added. The world would be a better place.”

Andrea hiked her Gucci sample bag up onto her shoulder, glared briefly at Aris and went back to scrolling on her phone. “I thought all you wanted in the world was to be a designer?”

“Yes, but of home furnishings, not clothes. It’s different. Anyway, it’s just my opinion. of course.” Aris had a voice like a hummingbird –petite-- l high pitched and, as a roommate had once described it, “floaty”. It seemed inoffensive to Aris but some people found her voice irritating the way a high pitched whistle can make you scrunch up your face and cover your ears.

“I’m sorryApril, but it looks like we are fully booked now. They must have sent out too many invitations. You’ll have to come back when it’s open to everyone. Don’t blame me; I’m just the hired help,”

Aris didn’t blame her; she didn’t even bother to correct her this time. She was just a greeter, after all. And Aris was used to being left out and misnamed. She had been called Maris, Mavis. Mary, Erin, Ali, Alice … or nothing at all, by people too uninterested to learn her name.

But the real Aris at 32 and 5’2” was not a beige background sort of woman. Anything but! She had the making of a princess, a queen, a celebrity, or at least something better than a popular influencer. She knew she had talent as a designer. She had won a couple of Honorable Mentions for her sketches in the Home Show at the Galleria last year. And her talent didn’t depend on any Prince charming.

But who could see Aris’ potential on the inside if they couldn’t even see her on the outside outside?

Aris went to the coat check booth and pulled her overcoat off the hanger and nodded at the greeter who turned away and began closing up her station.

“You could still go to the movie, Mara…right down the block. You can always get a seat if you are just one.”

I am always just one” thought Aris. She closed her eyes and began to imagine she was a real life princess. A princess with a sparkly tiara on her smooth long blonde hair wearing a ball gown with layers and layers of skirt that rustled as she walked in tiny shiny polished high heels with her attendants at her side. In a magnificent ballroom that she had designed herself, from the carpeting to the candelabra! She, Aris!

Aris opened the theatre door, pulled up her collar and shoved her hands into her pockets. It had begun to rain. A cold wintry rain. She felt for her gloves but her fingers locked around a scrap of paper.She pulled it out and stood under an awning to open it. It looked like a fortune cookie message and it read “We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”

Whose coat was she wearing? It was the same color as her tan raincoat but felt like even a size bigger than her own.

She reached into the other pocket which was heavier than the first.

She pulled out a wallet with more bills in it than she had ever seen.

Oh, no. Now she was a thief. Not a fairytale designer princess, but a common thief.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. “Miss, miss”. It was a tall handsome older woman in a smartly tailored suit carrying a briefcase. She was smiling warmly as though she could see the promising Aris inside, not just the frightened Aris, the thief, on the outside.

“”I came out to the cloak room to retrieve my wallet from my coat pocket but both the coat and the wallet were gone. And if I am not mistaken, I believe you are wearing my coat. And I believe this one is yours.”

Aris could feel her hands shaking and tears beginning to well up in her eyes as she reached out to take back her own coat. It seemed shabbier than she remembered.

“Did you find the fortune cookie message? Did you read it?”

Aris nodded, wondering how she would explain herself to her mother when she discovered her daughter was in jail.

“Do you believe what it said to be true?

“Oh yes. I so want to be someone else. At least a better version of myself. I studied design. I believe I have talent. I want to be a designer with all my heart but right now….”

“What is your name, miss?”

“Aris”

Aris? How Delightful. It rhymes with Paris!And would you will like go there, Aris? To Paris to become a better version of yourself?”

Aris swallowed and nodded. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer and her voice had sunk into her chest.

“I am Marianne Fee, the CEO of Princess Travels, a company that sends promising young people on trips of self-discovery. She handed Aris her business card.

I have held onto that message for a year, carrying it in my coat pocket, in my purse, using it as a bookmark, stuck like a feather in my hatband, hoping to find the right person to give it to and now, voila, here you are ….”

“Miss Fee. Are you sure it’s me you want? How am I worthy of such a gift?”

“But, the message found you, Aris! And you found me. The universe has brought us together.”

“Close your eyes. And open your hands, Aris. Until I count to three.”

Aris closed her eyes. And opened both hands.

When she opened her eyes, on the count of three, the woman was gone, but in Aris' left hand was an envelope that said “courtesy of fée Marriane,”and inside was a round trip ticket to Paris.

Aris blinked and held her breath, trying to remember her high school French.

Fee? The mystery woman was Not Marianne Fee, but fée Marriane.  Aris had met her Fairy Godmother!

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