One small detail caught my eye when Chloe was exploring the bedroom in which she first awoke on the island--a statue. Prominently displayed in her room is a small reproduction of the Venus de Milo, the famous armless statue of the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Will Stefan see Chloe as a "goddess"? Or will this relationship be "incomplete," as this Venus is incomplete, compared to this pair's previous relationships with Laura and with Jax? And statues belong on pedestals, right? So will Chloe be a Venus to Stefan? The statue helps set the tone for this story--timeless, classic beauty.

Will Chloe lose her shoes? Probably not. Early in the Jax/Chloe relationship, Chloe's shoes,or lack thereof, were a recurring theme. She ran around barefoot. She broke a shoe and Jax had to fix it, more than once. When we first met Chloe, in fact, she was about to waltz out to a social event sans shoes, to the consternation of her assistant Therese. (Whatever happened to Therese, anyway?) It turned out she couldn't locate her shoes, head in the clouds flibberty-gibbet that she was. Felicia handed her a pair of shoes, and got Chloe's attention and a chance to talk to her about Lila's letters. This accent on shoes not only established Chloe's character as light and fun and offbeat, it also established "Cinderella" overtones.

Also in the Cinderella mode, Jax and Chloe danced a lot in the early stages of their relationship. They danced in the gazebo in the rain, at the Quartermaine's. They danced as a last-minute replacement act at the Nurses' Ball. Again, there was a fairy-tale quality to their relationship, and that was highlighted by the situations in which they danced. This motif was picked up again later, when they danced in St. Petersburg.

Sadly, to my mind, the shoe motif was dropped after they became established as a couple and never really returned. While Chloe's sadness after Jax went in pursuit of Brenda last month was very well done, I think it could have been rendered even more poignant by having Chloe begin to slip on her shoes, realize a heel was broken, call to Jax to come repair her shoe as he always did, and then recall that he was gone.

I do not think the Stefan and Chloe are going to be written with the same Cinderella overtones. It would be a mistake, in fact, to draw the relationship with too many similarities to the Jax/Chloe relationship. The audience would quickly decide that we had "been there, done that." So this new couple is going to need their own small details, ones that establish the uniqueness of their relationship, whatever that may turn out to be.

Where does Laura factor in? In my book, Laura will always be the love of Stefan's life, whether they are together or not. So there are bound to be references to Laura in Stefan's relationship with Chloe, as there were in his relationships with Bobbie and with Katherine. Still, if this relationship is to stand on its own, there need to also be small things that are unique to Stefan's relationship with Chloe. So, no blueberries, no stone benches, no secret gardens, no portraits -- please. It was reassuring to see that Stefan and Chloe's first encounter took place along a winding path as he leaned against a large boulder. Not a stone bench in sight. The "Small Things" watchdog was pleased not to see it.

As we went to "press," GH revisited the theme of Chloe's shoes and the Cinderella connection, as our dear editor-in-chief brought to my attention. As McAmy astutely observed, in the Friday, Sept. 8th episode, while Stefan and Chloe converse about her latest adventure--checking out the cliffs on the far side of the island--Chloe, who is conveniently wearing appropriate climbing footwear, takes off her shoes, dumps the accumulated pebbles and dirt into the fireplace, crosses the room and puts her shoes back on. This, I decided as I watched the scene again, was a definite "No more Cinderella" moment for Ms. Morgan.

First of all, we have standard Cinderella symbols--a fireplace, shoes, and, if you push it just a bit, ashes and soot (okay, pebbles and dirt, but she dumped them into the fireplace, so it's not too great a stretch). Chloe's face was even a tad dirt-stained, not from sitting by the fireplace working like Cinderella, but by the exertion of exploring the cliffs. So we have reason to think in terms of Cinderella.

However, Chloe was not sitting around waiting for her prince to come, either to rescue her or to take care of her footwear. She was in action mode--looking for ways off the island, talking about wanting to escape, chiding Stefan for his apparent passivity. In the fairy tale, of course, the handsome prince showed up bearing Cindy's shoe, which he used to identify his mystery woman. In the GH version, Jax was forever (early on, anyway) holding Chloe's shoe, having repaired it for her. In the post-Jax world, Chloe tends to her own shoes, thank you very much. She does not expect Stefan, or anyone else, to do it for her.

We are seeing a new side to Chloe, or rather, in my opinion, a reversion to the talented business woman with the Audrey Hepburn panache we saw when Chloe first appeared on GH. This is not a woman who dances in the moonlight and waits for "happily ever after" to come along. That sort of fairy tale magic went out of her life with Jax. She has every intention of rescuing herself, with or without Stefan's assistance. I have to say that, in the process, she has reminded me of why I was initially enchanted with this character.

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