Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes (4 page)

B
ut getting a day off from Squeaky Qlean was not as easy as I thought.

“If you absolutely need to be sick,” Stella said when I called her up with my lie, “then be sick tomorrow. We've got four jobs today and I need all squeegees on deck. Tomorrow there's only one.”

This turned out to be not such a bad thing because, while eating my cold Amy's Cheese Pizza Pocket in the van after I'd finished the inside of the second job, I was struck by inspiration.

On the bench between the driver's seat and where I was sitting, feet propped up on the dash, lay Stella's bible: her scheduling book. In it, were listed the names, addresses and phone numbers of the jobs for each day we worked. She usually left the prices out, perhaps for fear that if we ever actually knew how much she was bringing in, The Girls From Brazil and I—The Golden Squeegee, I might add!—would demand a higher hourly wage.

Quickly, feeling very Nancy Drew, I flipped through Stella's bible. She always tore off the corner of the page once the day was done, so it was easy work for me to find the page from the day before, on which was listed Elizabeth Hepburn's name, her address and her no-doubt unlisted phone number.

I found a pen on the seat and grabbed a parking ticket Stella was never going to pay anyway out of the glove compartment, and was just shoving the piece of paper into the pocket of my khakis when Rivera sauntered up.

“Yo,
chica,
” she said.

From time to time, I wondered if
chica
was actually a Portuguese word or if they just liked to play with me. A part of me was tempted to sneak onto Hillary's computer that night and look it up on Babel Fish but then I decided I really did not want to know.

“What's The Golden Squeegee doing now,” Rivera asked, “looking through Stella's book to see what time we might get off today? Damn, it's a hot one.”

“Heh,” I nervously laughed. “That's exactly what I was doing. Heh.”

Five hours later, home, grimy, exhausted, I picked up the phone, punched in the number on the parking ticket.

It didn't take more than a brief description, certainly there was no persuading required on my part, and Elizabeth Hepburn was on board.

“Are you sure?” I said. “We'll be taking the train and no one said we're actually going to
buy
anything.”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed. “I've been waiting for an offer like this for
years
—road trip!”

“Tell me again why we're taking Elizabeth Hepburn to Jimmy Choo's with us?” Hillary asked the next day just prior to pulling her red Jeep into Elizabeth Hepburn's circular driveway.

“Because she's old,” I said, “and we'll be old one day, if we're lucky, and we'll hope to be invited out. Because she's lonely and she's fun.”

“Good enough.”

But, apparently, there was something about me that was no longer good enough for Elizabeth Hepburn.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” She tsked as I got out of the car.

It would have been annoying but it had been a long time since anyone had cared enough to tsk-tsk me. My late mother had been a great tsker, but since then…

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“You don't want to go into the city looking like a…
ragamuffin,
do you?”

“That's exactly what I told her!” Hillary said.

“Who are you?” Elizabeth Hepburn demanded.

“Hillary Clinton.”

A slow smile rose on Elizabeth Hepburn's soft features. “Of course,” she said.

“What's wrong with the way I look?” I asked again.

But before they could answer, I could see it for myself. Hillary, as always, was dressed impeccably. Riding the rails into the city on a hot summer day, she had on a sleeveless peach sundress with a wide-brimmed straw hat and flat gold sandals that were pretty damn attractive, even if they weren't Jimmy Choos. As for Ms. Hepburn, she had a slightly more modest aqua sundress on that brought out the color of her eyes, a straw hat with a big floral band à la the late Princess Diana and open-toed spectator pumps that matched her dress. For an octogenarian, she had a great set of wheels.

While I had on…

“All right already!” I said. “I get the point! But isn't it true these days that so long as you can afford the price tag or pay the restaurant tab, no one cares how casual you look?”

“I care,” Elizabeth Hepburn said, drawing her spine up to its full acceptance-speech glory.

“Well, it's a little late for me to go home and change,” I said.

Besides, I was thinking, what's so wrong about jean shorts, a T-shirt and my Nikes? With ten million people or so in the city, there would be plenty of people who looked like me, probably be a lot more people looking like me than like these two garden-party missies. And, hey, my T-shirt was clean.

“I can fix this,” Elizabeth Hepburn said. Then she crooked a finger at me. “Come.”

Five minutes later, I was back on the gravel drive. Gone were my shorts and T, replaced by a fairly pretty peasant blouse and long skirt.

“What we wore back in the sixties,” Elizabeth Hepburn said, “it's all come back again.”

The amazing thing was, having caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the way out, I didn't look half-bad. It was a bittersweet pill to swallow, the idea that I looked better in an old lady's clothes than my own.

“Sorry about the shoes.” Elizabeth Hepburn directed her apology to Hillary as though I wasn't there. “But mine are all too small for her. I did always have such tiny feet. It was one of the things Rudolf Nureyev used to say he loved about me.”

Rudolf Nureyev? Wasn't he—?

“That's okay.” Hillary shrugged as she studied the tips of my Nikes as they peeked out from under the long dress. “We'll just tell the salesgirls at Jimmy Choo's that she's our country cousin and that's why we brought her in, because she needs their help…
bad.
”

“Gee, thanks,” I said. “Maybe you two should just go on without me.”

“Now, now.” Elizabeth Hepburn rubbed my arm. “Where would we be without you? You're the glue, Delilah, you are definitely the balls of the operation.”

A short time later, as we boarded the train, Hillary tossed over her shoulder, “Will you be able to manage a day without Amy's Cheese Pizza Pockets for lunch?”

“Very funny,” I groused.

But, of course, I had my own doubts.

Later, as we exited Grand Central Station, she said, “We never did decide which Jimmy Choo's we should go to, the one on Fifth or the one on Madison?”

“Oh, definitely the one on Madison,” Elizabeth Hepburn put in quickly. “It always reminds me of the time I slept with the president.”

“Which president?” I asked.

“Why, President Madison, of course,” she said huffily.

“She thinks she slept with President Madison?”
Hillary and I mouthed at one another behind her back.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe Elizabeth Hepburn had never slept with Ernie Hemingway after all.

“Besides,” Elizabeth Hepburn added, leading the way, “I never slept with anyone named Fifth, so what'd be the point of going there?”

I would have fallen in love with the Jimmy Choo's on Madison even if it weren't for the shoes, because walking into that cool air-conditioning after the August heat of the New York streets was like walking into a peppermint breath of…

Okay, really, it was the shoes.

There they were, at last, in all of their architectural-marvel glory.

And I'll admit it: I was like a kid in a candy store or a chick in a Choo store.

“Ah,” said Elizabeth Hepburn, holding up the Momo Flat, its color matching her outfit, its latticed star cutouts lending elegance to an otherwise ordinary flat.

“Ooh,” Elizabeth Hepburn said, asking the salesgirl to get her a pair of Fayres to try on. They were gold evening sandals with a midsize curved heel that had ivory-colored oval stones set in the toe and ankle straps. “At the Academy Awards next year,” she said, admiring her feet in them, “I'll finally outshine that Lauren Bacall. Who cares if I trip on the red carpet?”

Having thought she wanted the Parson Flat most, the shoe Hillary really fell in love with was the Pilar Flat.

“Where will you wear it?” I asked. “If you try wearing it to work, your clients will think you're too out-of-touch wealthy to understand their problems.”

The Pilar Flat was a metallic aqua, with a spaghetti X-strap across the front and about a yard of strap wrapped a gazillion times around the ankle. It looked exactly like the sort of sandal shoe Cleopatra would have worn if she had a passion for aqua. Look out, Marc Antony!

“Who cares?” Hillary said, transfixed by the sight of her own feet. “I'll wear them while watching Jon Stewart if I have to. I'll
make
places to wear them.”

But then her attention was drawn back to the Parson Flat. It was a gold leather traditional thong sandal with a big red jewel at the center, surrounded by green stones with more jewels suspended from gold threads.

“It really is more me,” Hillary said.

And, really, Cleopatra would have gladly worn that shoe, too.

Elizabeth Hepburn and Hillary were so busy staring at their own feet, they almost forgot…

“Hey,” they both said at the same time, “I thought we came here for
you.
”

This had, of course, been the original plan. But now that we were here, I felt dwarfed into insignificance by the magical footwear around me. Sure, Elizabeth Hepburn and Hillary would be able to find places to wear their purchases, but what would I do with any of these shoes—start wearing Stella's penguin suits with these on my feet as I wielded my golden squeegee? It was just too sad a picture and I said as much.

“Oh, come on,” Hillary said, “you took the day off from work to come here.”

“You've come this far,” Elizabeth Hepburn said. “How can you stop now?”

“Here,” Hillary said, holding up a shoe. It was a green high-heeled evening sandal with a V of diamond-shaped gold and crystal jewels cascading down from the twin chain strap: the Asha.

And yet, suddenly, I felt as though I could resist the Asha. After all, how many clothes did I own that would match with that green? It was way too impractical.

I was just about to tell them that they should buy their shoes and enjoy them with my blessing, but that I was going to pass, when I saw the salesgirl return a previously unseen floor model to the display.

The shoe she placed down, as if it were
just another shoe,
was another high-heeled sandal, only this one was copper-colored, more pink than bronze, with diamond-shaped sapphire-colored stones encrusted with crystal stones across the toe strap and more sapphire and crystal bejeweling the intricate mesh of chain around the ankle with three straps of chain anchoring it to more copper leather at the back.

It was the Ghost.

And while I might have even resisted the draw of that most perfect of all shoes, sapphires had been my late mother's favorite stone. If nothing else than to do it in her honor, I had to at least try on that shoe.

“May I?” I tentatively asked the salesgirl.

She must have been a true professional, not like these rude people you sometimes read about in books, because she didn't even flinch as she watched me remove my scuffed Nikes and workout socks, sliding the desired shoes on my feet and patiently helping me figure out the straps.

“Do you have a job where you stand on your feet all day?” the salesgirl asked with a vaguely European accent.

“How could you tell?” I asked. “Are my feet that awful-looking?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “I think you have the most beautiful feet I've ever seen in here. They are ideally suited to this shoe.”

It's odd to think of a person's life as being transformed by a shoe, but I swear I felt an electric shock, a magical shock, as the salesgirl slipped the Ghosts on my feet, as she strapped them on, as she stepped back so that she, along with everyone else, could appreciate the effect. And, oh, was there an effect. I swear, it was as though pixie dust was swirling all around my feet, spreading upward around my whole body.

And it wasn't just that the shoe was achingly beautiful, although it was certainly that; it was that I, for once, felt beautiful. With those shoes on, I could do anything, leap tall buildings with a single bound, balance the national budget, find my prince, you name it. I could be normal and special at the same time. I could be like other women, and then some.

It was my Cinderella moment.

I had to have that shoe.