Red Writing Hood – Beautiful Shoes
by Cheryl, posted on August 28th, 2010 in Red Writing Hood
This is a fictional piece based on the prompt “An art opening at a lavish downtown gallery. A car crashes through the plate glass window. The driver’s door opens, and an eight-year-old girl steps out” for the Red Writing Hood.
The four-inch stilettos hurt. I’d forgotten how much.
It’d been so, so long since I’d squeezed my size 10 feet into these gorgeous gold shoes. I’d forgone my morning carmel frappuccinos for months and months to afford them.
I shifted my weight from left to right, right to left, trying to relieve the pressure.
There would be no sitting down and surreptitiously slipping them off under the table like the last time I’d worn them. I remembered how I’d reached down and massaged my feet, pointing and flexing and trying to will the blood to repopulate my toes.
We’d been at Solomon’s that night.
Kyle had just sold one of his paintings and he was feeling flush. Enough so that he agreed to a babysitter and we dined at a real adult restaurant, with no crayons on the table or macaroni and cheese on the menu. And there was a glass votive in the center which sent amber flickering light dancing across our faces.
Kyle looked younger, the angles of his face softening.
We ordered champagne.
I’d pushed off my shoes and my foot, hidden by the crisp white tablecloth of our tiny table, traveled up inside Kyle’s pants leg. He held my gaze, daring me to move higher. I did.
He leapt up, grabbed my hand and threw a pile of bills on the table.
“Let’s get out of here.”
And we ran, dodging waiters and decorative columns as we rushed through the dining room. I swore everyone could hear my heart pounding and I could feel their eyes judging our flight.
I forgot my shoes.
We waited at the valet for our car and I felt the cold concrete seeping through my stockings. I asked Kyle to go back, to get them, but the car was here and he wanted to leave. They were $350 Louboutins and I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.
“Babe, they’re just shoes.”
“No such thing,” I said. “Please? I can’t go back in there.”
“Fine,” he said, his jaw clenched.
And then he spun on his heel and headed back into the restaurant.
A light mist made sparkling diamonds on my hair before I ducked into the Volvo and cranked up the heat against the sudden chill. And there was Kyle, swinging my strappy gold shoes from his fingers.
He dropped them into my lap before hitting the gas. But the tension was no longer hot and full of promise. Now it had morphed into something uncomfortable in the silent ride home. He walked the babysitter, our neighbor’s teenage daughter, back to their house before returning to our kitchen, where I waited.
Kyle did not glance at me as he walked by and firmly shut the door of his studio. I climbed the stairs and checked in on Charlotte, snoring softly under her Hannah Montana comforter. Our bedroom was quiet. I knew I’d be sleeping alone, wondering what it was that set him off this time. I hurled the shoes to the back of my closet, their worth now diminished. And there they hid until tonight.
I took a glass of sauvignon blanc from the passing tray and watched Kyle as I took a sip. He was talking to a tall, rail-thin woman with cascading auburn hair. I couldn’t see her face but I didn’t need to. Kyle was at his best at these things. His paintings surrounded him and the gallery was packed with women in short black dresses and men in jeans.
He came alive, as animated as the bright slashes of color in the piece he was discussing with the woman. He gestured and tilted his head while she spoke, his gold hair falling into his eyes.
And she laughed.
I remembered how he used to make me feel like I was the only person on the planet, how his grey eyes pinned me and it was like he saw something in me that no one else could.
I felt the stirring of desire for him, something I didn’t think was possible anymore. I turned and stared at the large plate glass window in the front of the gallery. It was dark outside. I couldn’t see the snow start to fall, only my reflection.
Dark-brown hair, shoulder length, straightened into submission by a flat iron. Brown eyes highlighted by black liner and lots of mascara. Pale lips. A simple silk scarlet sheath. Legs toned from miles and miles running. And the shoes.
Why did I dig them out? It was actually Charlotte. “Remember, Mommy?” she’d said. “The fancy ones with high high heels? Wear those, Mommy. They’re so pretty and I bet Daddy would take you dancing if you wore those.”
So she’d crawled to the back of the closet until she disappeared behind the dresses with the tags still on them and reappeared, triumphant, a shoe in each hand.
I’d put them on and we twirled around together, my beautiful girl and me.
And as I stood in front of the window, I wondered if Kyle even saw me anymore.
Then there he was. Next to me. We stood, together, in front of that window, my dark to his light, the sound of conversation fading behind us.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m done.”
I nodded. I wished, at that moment, for something shocking. Headlights cut through the window and I imagined a car crashing through, shards of glass shattering onto the hardwood floor. Maybe Charlotte would step out and then her father would be forced to pay attention to her.
To us.
Instead, I felt his absence as he disappeared back into the crowd, until I was again standing alone in my beautiful, painful shoes.
cristina Says:
Kyle is a hot mess. He’s a moody arteest.
Elissa Says:
Cheryl Reply:
August 28th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Yep. The shoes, however gorgeous, brought her nothing but pain..
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