A Modern Retelling of Snow White and Rose Red

Shortly after the summer of 2008, Mr Bennett--overcome with debts and other financial problems--decided that there was nothing more he could do. Rather than wait out the recession and do what he could to keep his family comfortable, he took the cowardly man’s route and jumped off of the 23rd floor of the office tower. Needless to say, the Bennett family was put through even worse hell, and hence had to relocate from their pricey Renaissance villa to a mildly-better-than-mud-houses apartment. Mrs. Bennett found that she had to sell all of her precious poodles and her daughters, Roslyn and Fiona chose their own ways to react, which happened to be on two ends of a spectrum. Fiona, being the older, felt she had to take the responsibility. Shedding her spoilt girl image, she went into work as a waitress and a babysitter. Roslyn on the other hand, felt angry that her partying years had been taken away from her and did what girls normally do to rebel: throw tantrums and do the stupidest things possible.

Had this gone on, the Bennetts might have gone on to share the similar fate as their former bread-earner. But as it happens, the coldest day of the year saw the Bennetts inviting a stranger to their already overcrowded home.

Fiona brought him home. She had found him wandering outside the diner she worked in, ogling at the warm food that was being delivered to customers who were growing increasingly wary of his presence.

Roslyn, being the ever-so-angry one, demanded why Fiona was “stupid enough to invite a hobo inside, especially one that looks so like a wild bear”. But, Roslyn being the ever-so-angry one, was ignored.

Over time, as the hobo--whom we shall henceforth refer to as Bernie--kept talking to the girls and their mother, they realized he wasn’t your everyday homeless person. Bernie had once run a company, travelling to countries far and wide to conduct business negotiations. For a while, Bernie would come everyday. Even Roslyn grew fond of his stories about the terrible service at French restaurants or the overpriced clothes in Dubai. In fact, Roslyn grew incredibly fond of him, that it made her mad when he would acknowledge Fiona more than her.

One day, Bernie told Fiona that he was going away, which is ridiculous, Fiona thought. Where would a homeless man go away to? He said he had something to take care of, and that maybe, he could set right at least two things that went wrong.

Fiona didn’t have time to worry about the cryptic hobo; Roslyn was getting into trouble again. Trouble named Melvin. She had noticed Melvin first when she had gone grocery shopping. She came to realize he had been following her for a while. Melvin wasn’t out-rightly attractive. There was an impish quality to him. But his Prada jacket and Louis Vuitton shoes screamed out to her. How she missed quality leather! Tired of playing second fiddle to her sister, Roslyn started seeing Melvin everyday.

Melvin had asked her about Bernie, so many times that if Roslyn were not blinded by the sparkling studs in his ear, she would have seen what was wrong. But as the days went by, her relationship with Melvin became...not stronger, but she kept getting more drawn in. Melvin grew more abusive, forcing Roslyn to do things she didn’t want to, to apologize for things that wasn’t her fault. Eventually she told Fiona. But, by then Melvin had disappeared.

In a couple of months, Melvin and the hobo were forgotten. Roslyn, in the wake of the consequences of her foolishness, was turning over a new leaf. Things were nearly normal when Roslyn spotted Melvin again. Only this time, he was in cuffs and on the front page of a newspaper. The article said that he had been found embezzling money from an unnamed company that rendered it to go bankrupt. He had been one of the partners along with B. O. who had fought the case for nearly a year and another man who hadn’t been named.

As Roslyn got home that evening, she saw that a car was parked outside of the building--the kind of car that wouldn’t normally be seen in her neighbourhood. Inside her apartment, she found her mother and Fiona talking to a gentleman who looked vaguely familiar.

“It’s Bernie!,” exclaimed her sister, which prompted her to wonder whether Fiona had lost it. But no, she realized her sister was right when she looked more deep into the stranger’s face.

“Bernard Orson, actually,” he said looking at Roslyn. “I was one of your father’s partners. When I came to you before, I had to find out if he had anything to do with the downfall of our company. I’m sorry I ever doubted your father, but Melvin Griffiths is the son of the devil; he can say the worst things possible about a man and make you believe them.”

It goes without saying that Bernard Orson ended up dividing the winnings of the case with the Bennetts. Mrs. Bennett got her poodles back, Fiona went back to college and Roslyn decided to find for herself if the service in the French restaurants were really that bad.

**

This story was first published in Cactus Flower 2012 - the annual literary magazine of BITS, Pilani