Shoe Addicts Anonymous (22 page)

“Are you okay now?” Helene looked at her closely. “Because if you need money, I’d be glad to help out. Really.”

Lorna felt warm inside. “That means a lot, Helene, but actually—I’ve got to knock wood when I say this—I think I’m starting to get it under control. I rebudgeted the other night and put a few pairs of my babies online for sale—”

“The Gustos,” Sandra breathed.

“Yup.” Lorna remembered how psyched she’d been when
Shoegarpie (1)
had bid on the shoes, and how amazed she’d felt when some new person,
shoeshoesheboogie (0),
had swept in and outbid her, taking the Gustos up to an incredible $210.24. “Sorry you missed out on those. But honestly, I only paid one seventy-five for them at an outlet in Delaware. No tax even.”

“I see a road trip in our future,” Sandra said, then, thinking better of it, she added, “The distant future, that is. Once you feel comfortable buying retail again.”

Lorna nodded. “I need to get a new job. That should change everything. Or at least make it so I can buy an
occasional
pair in a box.”

“In the meantime, though, you started this group,” Helene said, nodding. There was admiration in her eyes, rather than the judgment Lorna might have expected from someone—someone like Lucille—upon being told that incredible sum of debt. “That was good thinking.”

“Yeah, it would be, if I weren’t also bidding against Sandra for shoes on eBay and giving up meals to save for more shoes anyway.” Lorna laughed and shook her head. “I’m truly an addict.”

“Me, too,” Helene said, resigned.

“Me three,” Sandra added.

“Um…I’m not.” That was Joss. She was looking at them with wide eyes and pink cheeks. “If it’s time for admitting secrets, I’ve got one of my own.”

Lorna’s heart skipped a beat. Surely she wasn’t going to say she didn’t like shoes!

“Well, for one thing—” She took off the Miu Mius she’d gotten from Sandra last week and took a wad of tissue out of the toe. “—I’m a size six.”

“But—” Lorna wasn’t sure what to say. “That can’t be comfortable!”

“Actually, it’s not as bad as some of the SuperMart shoes I’ve worn. I can see why you guys like these. I just never had the opportunity to wear good shoes before. I joined the group because I needed to get out of the Olivers’ house on Tuesday nights and a shoe meeting sounded better than a sexual dysfunction group.” She cast a sly glance at Sandra. “No offense.”

Sandra laughed out loud. “You made the right choice.”

“I did.” Joss’s expression grew earnest again. “I really did. But you three are so wonderful, I just don’t know what I’d do if I hadn’t met you!”

“Well, we’re not letting you go now, size six or not,” Lorna said. “But where on earth did you get all those fabulous pairs you brought with you?”

“Thrift stores, vintage stores, Goodwill.” She looked at Helene. “When you said you’d had a pair like those green shoes, I was absolutely terrified you might have given them to Goodwill and I’d bought them and brought them back.”

Helene laughed. “Oh, no!”

Joss nodded. “I was!”

“Well, we had no idea those weren’t your own treasures,” Helene said, still looking surprised at Joss’s admission. “What did you do with the shoes you traded from us?”

“I’ve got them all in my closet at the Olivers house. I’m like a magpie with all these pretty things I’ve collected. But now that I’ve come clean I’ll give them back to you, obviously.”

“I’d say you don’t have to, and you don’t, but what else can you do with them?” Lorna said. “Though I wouldn’t mind having those Miu Mius of Sandra’s.” She nodded at the pair Joss had just taken off, then looked at Sandra.

“Take them,” she said. “They’re yours.”

“Maybe you can loan me a pair of socks to wear home, Sandra.” Joss handed the shoes over to Lorna, and everyone laughed.

“I’ve got one more secret to tell,” Helene said when the group quieted down.

“Oooh! Do we go around again?” Lorna asked.

“I hope not,” Sandra said. “You guys do
not
want to know what I did with Vice Principal Breen’s championship golf ball in seventh grade. What is it, Helene? Give us the scoop.”

Helene looked from one to the other of them, with a strange expression of mingled happiness and what looked like fear. “I think…,” she began, then took a long breath and tried again. “I think I’m pregnant.”

I
n Felling, a woman going to the drugstore for a pregnancy test was something that got noticed. Inevitably the cashier would know her, and word would spread through town about who it was, where she’d gone. It probably wasn’t quite so attention-grabbing here, Joss thought, unless
four
women went to the drugstore for a pregnancy test.

But that’s what they did, flanking Helene like her own super Secret Service protection. Anyone watching wouldn’t have been able to tell exactly who the test was for, and that’s the way they wanted it.

They went back to Sandra’s apartment with two double-packs of EPTs, and fifteen minutes later, four positive sticks sat on the side of Sandra’s sink.

“So that’s definitely positive?” Joss verified.

“Look at the picture.” Lorna passed one of the instruction sheets over to Joss. “One line negative, two lines positive.”

“There are eight lines here,” Helene said dully, staring at the tests. “It’s true.”

“How did this happen?” Sandra asked. “I thought you were on the pill.”

“Jim threw them out when he found them.” Helene continued to stare at the pregnancy tests. “I got more, I couldn’t have missed more than three days, and I doubled up but…I guess that wasn’t good enough. Obviously that wasn’t good enough.”

“I’ve read that even if you miss one day, you’re way more vulnerable and should double up protection,” Sandra said.

“God.” Helene covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t even
want
to make love with him.
Especially
after what he did.” She took a shuddering breath. “It was just easier to comply and let him get it over with than to argue.” She shook her head. “Spoken like a really foolish woman, huh?”

Lorna came over and gave Helene a squeeze. “Look, we
all
do things we don’t want to sometimes just because it’s the path of least resistance. Life is hard enough—no one wants to add arguments on top of everything else. You can’t blame yourself for it.”

“Of course I can,” Helene said with a little laugh. “I have to. It’s my fault.”

“Forget all that,” Lorna said. “It doesn’t even matter anymore. The question now is what do you want to do?”

Helene swallowed. “I don’t know.”

“I’m about to be out a job,” Joss said. “I can help you out. Honest. I’ve got loads of experience with babies.”

Helene looked at her gratefully. “I’d like that.” Then she looked around at the rest of them. “Should we get out of the bathroom?”

That broke the ice, and they went back to Sandra’s cushy sofa and settled in, moving in close to Helene.

“This does complicate your plans for your marriage, doesn’t it?” Lorna said.

“That was my first reaction,” Helene said. “And the truth is, I’m not sure what to do about that. Either way the marriage is over, but is it better to stay in the same house for the sake of the child?”

“I think it’s better to do whatever is going to make you feel the most peaceful and happy,” Sandra said. “If a child grows up in a strained environment, that has a lot more impact on him than growing up in a happy environment—or two—where he visits his dad on alternate weekends and has two sets of everything.” She sighed. “My parents had a very tense marriage. Separate rooms, which they never explained, stony silences, Dad had a lot of late nights out
at work
. Now I wonder.”

“Gosh, that and the feeling that Tiffany was their darling must have made it really rough on you,” Joss commented.

Sandra shrugged. “A lot of people had it a lot worse. If I’d been stronger, I wouldn’t be such a neurotic mess now.”

“But you’re not!” Joss hated to see Sandra say that kind of thing, especially now, when she seemed to be getting so much confidence, maybe for the first time in her life.

“No, you’re just slogging through the stuff life has dished out,” Lorna agreed. “We’ve all got some of that.”

Helene looked at Lorna for a moment, frowning. Then she looked from Sandra to Joss. “I’ve got an idea,” she said, and it was clear that some positive force—hope, optimism, whatever—was coming into her. “I might have a really good idea.”

“About slogging through life?” Sandra asked.

“Actually, in a way, yes. Lorna, you need a new job, right?”

“Amen.”

“Joss, you’re about to need a new job.”

This sounded really promising. “Definitely.”

“Sandra? I know you’re okay with your work, but would you be interested in a little entrepreneurial venture on the side?”

Sandra looked curious. “With you all? You bet. What have you got in mind?”

“I was at a party a few weeks ago at the Mornini house—”

“Ooh, partying with the mob?” Lorna asked.

“Those stories are
not
true,” Helene said. “Probably. Anyhow, Chiara took me upstairs and showed me the most exquisite shoes I have
ever
seen, bar none.” She described the shoes in great detail, and Sandra and Lorna squealed at the description. Joss was just lost. Shoes were shoes. She loved these women, but she’d never completely understand why they were so nuts about shoes.

“Where do we get them?” Lorna asked eagerly.

“That’s the thing,” Helene said. “The guy needs financial backing. And an American distributor. Chiara wanted her husband to get involved, because she was sure it would be a hugely profitable business, but he didn’t want to be associated with that particular kind of business. Not manly enough, I suspect.”

“And you think we can do it?” Lorna asked. “Really? That sounds like something that would cost a hell of a lot of money.”

“So we get a loan,” Joss said, remembering her Incorporation 102 class. “We incorporate, get a loan, set up the business as a separate entity, and we’re safe. Of course, that’s a little easier said than done, but that’s how we’d do it.”

And suddenly a strange excitement came over Joss. She’d come to D.C. hoping to get a taste of life in the big city. Nannying was just the first step in her plan. It wasn’t the end; it was only the beginning. She was going to orient herself in the town and find new opportunities to build a bigger life than she’d have if she stayed in Felling and married one of the boys she went to high school with.

This was just exactly one of those opportunities.

She did, however, have to fight a feeling of failure at not having been able to stay on and at least try to help fix some of the things that were so clearly wrong in Bart’s and Colin’s lives. They received no gentle adult guidance from their parents, no warmth, no affection. And without someone steady there to run interference and shield them from the freak show that was their parents, they were bound to pick up some bad influences.

Bart had shown such sweetness now and then, such vulnerability…. Joss shuddered to think of him losing that and becoming exacting and demanding like his mother. Or emotionally detached from his family, like his father.

Or—terrible possibility—both.

But Joss had done everything she could. There was no question that if she continued on there, things would get worse. No doubt. So this new business was—what was the word?—
serendipity
. It couldn’t have come at a better time, or with better people.

Helene was talking now, more excitedly than ever, about the business opportunity she’d proposed. “I have plenty of contacts within local stores. I’ve had to tap them repeatedly for donations and so forth. I’m almost certain the big five stores around here would want to carry Phillipe’s shoes. I’m certainly willing to pitch them.”

“What about home parties?” Sandra suggested.

“What, like Tupperware?” Lorna asked.

“Well…yeah. Or any number of things. But direct sales with the right clientele. That could go even faster than retail.”

“Better still if it’s in
conjunction
with retail,” Joss said. She was beginning to like this idea.

Helene yawned.

Sandra picked up on that immediately. “Okay, girls, it’s been a long and eventful night. God knows. Let’s reconvene tomorrow, okay?”

“Yes,” Lorna said.

“Absolutely,” Joss agreed. “As long as it’s after eight
P.M
.” She looked to the others. “Can you guys meet that late?”

“I can,” Helene said.

“If you can make it closer to ten, I can, too,” Lorna said, and looked relieved when everyone nodded.

“Done,” Sandra said. “In the meantime, can anyone find out what would be involved in getting a bank loan for start-up money?”

“I could probably squeeze it in in the morning,” Helene began.

“No,” Lorna interrupted. “You need your rest. I don’t go to work until noon tomorrow. I’ll go to the bank first. I have a contact there anyway. Sort of.”

And with that, Joss’s future began to change.

All their futures did.

Helene couldn’t sleep.

It was a lot to take in. Not only her husband’s betrayal, which was legion and worthy of weeks of contemplation if it weren’t for more important circumstances, but the more important circumstances.

She was pregnant.

It wasn’t what she’d wanted. When she’d done the first test and seen the double lines, indicating a positive result, she’d toyed with guilt. But as she’d continued to dip the sticks and read the subsequent three pregnancy tests in Sandra’s bathroom, she’d come to the conclusion that it didn’t matter what she wanted. She was pregnant and, unless she decided to terminate the pregnancy, she was going to remain pregnant until she gave birth.

So far, she hadn’t decided what to do.

As a result, she’d spent the longest night of her life struggling with the turmoil of trying to answer a question she had, until recently, been positive would never be asked.

In the murky swirl of thoughts that kept her from falling asleep, she kept returning to her own childhood. The life she’d left behind. The life, in fact, that she’d sworn off.

It hadn’t been all bad. The trees, the creeks, the fact that she could smell the color green every spring when the grasses started to come up again. The dramatic winter nights so filled with stars you couldn’t be sure which one was the Eastern Star that led the wise men to baby Jesus.

Those were the thoughts that pulled her out of bed at 5
A.M.
, like strings on a marionette, and led her to her car for the drive north. She didn’t look to see if Jim was home before she left. She didn’t care. She just got into the fussy little Batmobile he’d insisted she drive, and she’d beaten the rush hour traffic onto River Road, the Beltway, 270 north, 70 west, and finally, the road she never thought she’d travel again, 340 west into West Virginia.

The main roads had changed. There were gas stations and food stops and souvenir shops where once there had been green trees, dark shadows, and dirt roads. Signs all around pointed to Harper’s Ferry and various hotels and motels and fast food restaurants from which to appreciate what had once been a majestic view of the hills, the trees, and the river below.

Helene felt an unexpected surge of pain, as if it had been her personal responsibility to keep this landscape pristine and, by leaving, she had let Mother Nature down.

Or maybe it was just the personal feeling of loss, at having spent so much time away that she didn’t even know this development was taking over the land, that brought her so close to tears.

In any event, she drove on through the misty morning toward the house she’d grown up in. Her mother was long gone, and she’d heard from a neighbor when she was working at Garfinkels that her father had died in a car accident with a tree. It hadn’t surprised Helene. And it hadn’t grieved her either.

The most melancholy thing for her was thinking about David Price. Funny, cute David, who threw snowballs at her when they were ten, passed her notes in school when they were twelve, kissed her badly when they were fourteen, and coerced her out of her virginity when they were sixteen.

Actually he’d done that pretty well.

The last time she’d seen him he was nineteen, and she was leaving for less green pastures in the city. For all the things that she didn’t remember from long ago, and all the memories she had that were foggy with time, she could see the heartache in his sweet brown eyes when she’d told him things were over.

Now, as she drove through the semi-familiar landscape, wondering if he still lived around here, she had to ask herself if she’d been right to leave and completely lose touch with the one good thing from her past.

Her old house was still there, remnants of the log facing still apparent in front. But several additions had been built onto the place, and there was a minivan parked in the gravel driveway. It looked insanely out of place, like a space shuttle superimposed on a Civil War picture.

Good. The place had brought nothing but bad to her as a child. She was glad it was different now.

She got back into her car, marveling at how little she felt when she looked at the place where she’d spent almost the first two decades of her life.

There was another place that would bring the emotion, though. And she had to see it, even though she knew damn well it was like touching a bruise to see if it still hurt.

David’s house.

She drove through the little town center, which now had a coffee shop and video rental in the block that used to house a low-roofed warehouse with broken windows. Left on Church Street, right on Pine, and straight down the long, winding road to the lone house at the end.

Only it wasn’t the lone house anymore. An entire development had cropped up, with tiny trees and big signs announcing
SINGLE FAMILY HOMES FROM THE LOW $300S!

Helene drove in openmouthed amazement, straight to the end where she was astonished to see David’s house still stood.

Of course, it had always been a pretty nice house, reputed to have belonged once to George Washington’s brother. David’s parents had been much better off than Helene’s, and there had been talk even back then of designating the place as a historical landmark, for tax purposes.