The street lamps hazy glow pierced the dark through a veil of dense snowflakes. They were the kind of flakes that floated, then settled softly on cars and sidewalks. No angry wind pushed them around so their whiteness quickly masked the dirt of the inner city. It was the kind of snow that for some, especially children held a magic. Misty, part child part woman leaned against a lamppost unaware of the beauty of the winter garden rising around her, unaware of the fact it was Christmas Eve. She was only aware of the cold and the trouble it caused her. Bare red skin peaked out through the holes of the thin glittery sweater she wore. Her little body shivered as the icy cold of the metal post pressed into her back. Her long blonde hair glistened from the crystals of snow intertwined in its dirty strands.

Misty looked down at her feet her toe nails were painted a fiery red. Her shoes stolen from a thrift shop were made of clear plastic with thin high heels embedded with rhinestones. They offered less protection than the sweater. Misty kept staring at the shoes and remembered somewhere, someone, reading Cinderella to her, a long time ago. A story about a clear glass slipper that Cinderella lost, and how losing it helped changed her life. Mine ain't glass, but maybe if I lose one of these plastic shoes she thought, and laughed sadly. She dragged deeply on a cigarette and watched the smoke curl and mingle with the snowflakes as it rose. For a moment, the child in Misty was aware and saw the crystalline flakes sparkle like the rhinestones in her shoes.

After all it was Christmas Eve and she watched as people laughed and hurried carrying wrapped presents on their way home to celebrate.

"I'll never get nobody here tonight" the woman Misty said out loud. But she couldn't go back empty handed he'd hit her again. She hugged the sweater to her trying to pull it down over her short black lace skirt. The snow was piling up. Walking back and forth trying to get warm, her plastic shoes slipped and slid. The heavy wet snow muffled the noise of the city and as the flakes got bigger and bigger, the city went to sleep. Church bells rang in the distance and midnight turned the eve into Christmas day.

Misty sat down under her street lamp and started to cry. This time her tears mingled with the snowflakes. She was shivering constantly. "Cinderella," she yelled "just a stupid fairy tale." Somewhere a long time ago she remembered a doll with blonde hair dressed in a gown, wearing glass slippers. She remembered opening a present and someone reading to her from a book, Cinderella. Misty tried to get up but couldn't. She sat there crying, her body shaking and racked with sobs. She wanted to sleep too, maybe never wake up. Hugging her knees, her face buried in her hands, the snow was covering her like a blanket, warm and cold at the same time.

A snowplow, its lights beaming and coated with ice cast an eerie glow as it moved up and down the block, kind of pushing the snow around, like big soft clouds. The noisy machine was keeping her awake.

The first time he passed, he saw her sitting there under the street lamp. The second time, she still hadn't moved, but now she was a small white bump. He'd seen her there before he knew what she was. So little, he thought, just a kid. He knew he'd be in trouble if anyone saw him with her, but at that moment in the magic of the snowstorm and on Christmas day he didn't care. "Kid, wake up," he said "Kid, you're gonna die out here, come on get up." He helped her, feeling the bones through her sweater and the uncontrollable shivering. Tony wrapped his coat around her and put her in the front of the heater in the plow's cab.

"What will it be mac?" Misty the woman asked, her shivering hand with fiery red nails reaching for his lap. He took her chin in his hand and she looked at his face, an older man with a potbelly and graying hair, and sad eyes. Like most of her customers, he smelled of tobacco and beer.

"I don't want nothing, kid," he said as he gently moved her hand away. "My name's Tony, what's yours?" The plow bumped along clearing the still clean, white snow.

"Look, I gotta get back to work Tony, thanks for the ride. Maybe I can help you out some time."

"Wait, here's five bucks and some quarters," he said as he pulled loose change from his pocket. "I'll drop you off at Vinny's coffee shop over on third. I don’t know if he’s open but give it a try. Nobody's gonna pick you up in this storm anyway. Nobody's gonna need you tonight, kid. its Christmas. You get yourself something hot to eat, OK? What's your name?"

"Cinderella," the child said, "like the fairy tale, and you Tony, you're my prince charming," she laughed, almost a sob. She climbed down from the snowplow her high heels unsteady and caught one in the metal grating on the outside of the plow. Before she could yell, Tony pulled away, her one shoe still there, its thin heel wedged in the metal runner on the plow.

When Tony finished his shift he found the shoe. Such a tiny foot wore this, he thought. Someone's little girl. He shook his head and put the shoe in his locker and forgot about it. About two weeks later he stopped at Vinny’s down on third for a cup of coffee and he remembered the blonde hooker he'd given a ride to. He hadn't seen her in a while. "Vinny, do you remember a blonde kid, all dressed up, a hooker with one shoe who came in here, during the snow storm about two weeks ago? It was Christmas Day."

"Yeah, I remember, just a kid, she couldn't a been more than fifteen. I wasn’t open but I saw her standing out in front crying. I let her in and she sat here for a while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and kept looking at this plastic shoe. She kept saying I lost my shoe. She was acting kind of strange, crying and all, and shivering the whole time. I tried to talk her into going to one of the shelters down on fifth told her they was serving Christmas dinner. Told her if you got no folks, maybe the shelter people could help you out. All of sudden she jumps up and says, I got folks, I got folks who read Cinderella to me on Christmas day.

"Then she picked up some quarters she had in front of her and went to the phone booth. I hear her saying Mama, its Misty I want to come home, I want a come home. The next thing I know she hands me this shoe, and says to give it to you. If you see Tony the guy who drives the snowplow give this to him, tell him its the glass slipper. Tell him, it’s from Cinderella and tell him Merry Christmas. And she walked out with no shoes on into the snow. Strange eh Tony?"

Tony smiled. He took the other shoe and put it in his locker and every once in a while when he'd drive down first street he'd pass that lamppost where he first saw the snow covered bump and he'd think of Cinderella. He wondered if she made it. He kept those shoes for years. He’d see them on the top shelf of his locker and smile. He never saw her again on the city streets but always kept the shoes.

Years later, after Tony died the men he worked with him had to clean out his locker and no one on the job could figure out why tough Tony had a pair of rhinestone plastic high heels wrapped in Christmas paper on the top shelf of his locker.