Shoe Addicts Anonymous (26 page)

She was hopeful—even foolishly hopeful—but she wasn’t
stupid
.

Mike’s face colored. “You’re not gay.”

“And you are.”

He nodded and put his hands over his face, groaning, “Sandy, I am
so sorry
.”

“Why on earth did you think I was?” Her disappointment was scooting its chubby little butt over to make room for self-deprecation. “Am I that undesirable to men?”

“No, of course not! No, no, and even if you were,” he added, “that wouldn’t mean that you were automatically attractive to lesbians.”

There was something that aggravated her about him, and now she could admit it. She hated how he always had to be so politically correct about things. He could never just let a generalization go.

“But that’s not the point,” he said quickly, redeeming at least a few sensitivity points.

“No, the point is all this time I’ve thought we were dating and you were trying to set me up with some
woman
.” Sandra sniffed. “She’s not even that attractive.”

“Margo thinks she is.”

“Margo? Margo is her girlfriend?”

“Well…no. Margo is…Margo’s
my
girlfriend—”

“But I thought—”

“She used to be called Mark.”

Sandra looked at him in silence for a moment, trying to remember if she had accidentally popped a pill that said
EAT ME
, which then led her to this bizarre world.

Then again, even if she
had
found one of Alice in Wonderland’s
EAT ME
pills, she wouldn’t have known exactly who it was addressing or what it meant….

“Okay. I’ve got it.” She didn’t really. “You’re saying that Debbie is a lesbian—”

“Correct.”

“—and
you’re
gay—”

“Undeniably.”

“And Margo used to be a gay man, but now she’s a heterosexual woman, and she’s with you. Even though she’s now technically a woman and you’re a man.”

“Y-yes.” Mike nodded his assent. “I suppose you could look at it that way. Although actually, I just did that for a change, hoping it would work out so my mother would be more accepting. The truth is, I usually like my men way more butch.”

“I do, too,” Sandra said. Oh, God, she couldn’t believe this. But she didn’t want to insult Mike. After all, it wasn’t
his
fault she’d willfully ignored who he was. Sandra splayed her arms and shrugged. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get it all straight.”

Mike suppressed a smile. “I don’t think that’s going to happen with this group.”

Sandra tried to resist, but she couldn’t help smiling with him. “Okay, okay, but what I don’t get is how you could be so incredibly wrong about me. I mean, I thought you and I—?”

He held up a hand. “I know, I know, I feel just awful about it. What can I say? The gaydar was off. I think when you said, years ago, that you were dating women, I assumed you meant that’s what you do. I sat back on fifteen years of assumption instead of looking at what was right in front of me.”

“When I said—
what?
” She couldn’t believe this. Had Mike been thinking she was someone else all along? On top of not being in love with her—or even interested in her giving him a blow job—did he think she was LeeLee McCulsky or something?

“You said you were sick of men and you were going to try women for a while.”

She looked at him, blank. “What the hell are you talking about, Mike?”

“That time after gym class. Eleventh grade? No, maybe it was twelfth. You were hoping Drew Terragno would ask you out, and he didn’t, so you said you might as well go for Patty Reed.”

Drew Terragno she remembered. And, yes, she
had
had a crush on him. Like a million years ago.

She joggled the facts in her mind. “Drew was dating Patty, right?”

“Yup.”

“And I said…” She remembered all at once, though truth be told she
still
didn’t remember that Mike had been there. “I said I might as well go after Patty—”

“That’s right.”

“—because that was the closest I’d get to Drew.”

To his credit, Mike listened and comprehended. Then nodded. He got it. “Sarcasm,” he said.

“A little bit.”

“And I’ve spent all this time thinking we had so much in common.”

“Apparently not enough to actually date
each other
.”

He laughed and put his arm around her. “I had no idea that’s what you wanted. I’m really flattered.”

She scoffed.

“No, seriously,” he said, looking completely earnest. “I mean it. A guy would be lucky to have a girl like you.”

“Unless he wants a guy like Margo,” she finished, then immediately regretted her bitterness.

Fortunately, Mike got her. Just like she had thought, all this time, he
got
her.

He just didn’t
want
her.

“If I didn’t want Margo, if I didn’t want a guy like Margo, I’d want a girl like you,” Mike said kindly, putting his hand up to caress Sandra’s hair. “Honest.”

And, for some reason, that helped her. No, it didn’t make up for the entire heartache, but it made her feel a hell of a lot better. Maybe because it proved the fact that Mike’s rejection wasn’t about
her,
it was about
him,
and the fact that he wanted something that she could
never
give him.

Sandra had spent a long time with poor self-esteem, but she was wise enough to be realistic. If Straight Mike rejected her, there were about a million things she could point to by way of explanation.

But if Gay Mike rejected her…well, there was only one thing she could point to.

“All right, then.” Sandra slapped her palms against her thighs in a
let’s move on
gesture, and said, “So Margo is dating you and not Debbie. Is there anything else I should know?”

Mike nodded. “Debbie has gotten back together with Tiger,” he said, very seriously.

And if he hadn’t been quite so serious, Sandra would have given in to the impulse to laugh. Instead, she dug her fingernails into her palms privately and asked, “Tiger?”

Mike nodded. “Her ex-girlfriend. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. They’re back together.”

So…Debbie wasn’t available either.

Sandra was
that
much of loser.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” she said. “Let me get this absolutely straight. You were not only trying to set me up with a woman, but you were also planning to essentially put an end to that imagined relationship tonight because she’s dating someone else.” She couldn’t believe this. She’d had some bad turns in her life—the time she’d hit a guy dressed as a taco and smashed the windshield of her brand-new VW Beetle as she was driving it out of the lot, came to mind—but this
really
sucked.

She was being dumped by a woman she’d never dated and by a man she wanted to date except for the fact that it turned out he was gay.

Mike gave a gorgeous, humble, and ultimately homosexual nod of agreement. “I’m afraid that’s the way it is.”

And until he said it right to her, she hadn’t entirely believed it. Like a fool, she had continued to hope her instincts were insanely wrong.

“Hey,” he said. “We’re just all trying to live, love, laugh, and get laid every once in a while. It’s the only way to get through this life.”

S
o he was trying to set you up with a lesbian,” Lorna said, trying to sum up the incredible story Sandra had just told them.

“Yes. Yes, he was. Is it time to rinse my hair yet?”

Helene looked at her watch. “Five more minutes. I still think you should have gone to Denise.”

Sandra shook her head. “As soon as I realized I looked like a green-haired lesbian, I couldn’t spend one more moment out in public. Besides, it’s been a few weeks. It’s probably safe. And if it’s not, how much worse can it be to have a crew cut? At least it won’t be green.” She shuddered. “God. I cannot believe this.”

“You had
no idea
he was gay?” Lorna asked.

“Well, in retrospect, I suppose there were some pretty obvious signs. The eyebrow plucking. The exfoliation.” She sighed. “The fact that he watched
Pride and Prejudice
with me three times.”

Lorna raised an eyebrow. “Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, or Laurence Olivier?”

“Firth.”

Lorna sucked air in through her front teeth. “That’s a flag. Men with good taste in other men is
always
a red flag.”

“Cheer up,” Joss said. “At least you have Carl.”

Sandra blushed. “Though you’ve got to wonder what kind of guy
he
is if he wants a green-haired lesbian.”

“But you’re
not
!” Joss objected. “In ten minutes your hair will be Autumn Chestnut again.”

There was expectant silence in the room.

“Oh! And you won’t be a lesbian,” Joss added with a giggle.

“You know, Sandra,” Helene said, observing her. “You really seem to be okay. I would have thought you’d be devastated by this. I mean, almost anyone would be.”

Sandra nodded. “I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s like…Okay, at first I was hit hard. It’s disappointing when your dream guy isn’t interested in you, but then again, if he’s not interested in
any
women, that takes a little bit of the sting out of it.”

“That’s true,” Lorna said. “You can’t ask yourself what you could have done because, short of growing a penis, there isn’t anything.”

“Right.” Sandra nodded enthusiastically. “This is one time I really and truly know it’s not personal. But also, I don’t know, I’ve changed. So much has changed for me recently, and gotten better, that I’m starting to trust that things
do
work out by themselves sometimes.”

“Which leads us to this Carl guy,” Lorna said. “Who is he? Are you holding out on us?”

“She’s been totally holding out on us,” Joss said excitedly. “Carl lives upstairs and he’s really cute and he’s crazy about Sandra. You can see it in his eyes.”

“Has he asked you out?” Helene asked. Seeing the changes in Sandra’s life and confidence was actually making Helene something of a believer in fate, too. She was eager to hear more good news.

“He asked her out the other day,” Joss said.

Sandra shot her a good-humored look. “Am I going to be allowed to talk?”

“Sorry.” Joss smiled, and added in a smaller voice, “But he really is cute.”

“So he asked you out and you’re going, right?” Lorna raised an eyebrow.

Sandra shot Joss a silencing look, then said, “He asked me out and I said no because I didn’t want my gay boyfriend to get jealous.”

“Ooh.” Lorna clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Bad call.”

“As it turns out,” Sandra agreed.

“So tell him you made a mistake,” Helene suggested. “Tell him you’ve been thinking about him and you really want to get to know him better.”

Sandra looked at her with admiration. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

“Do it!” Lorna urged. “To hell with your gay boyfriend.”

“Amen. Which reminds me, I have something to show you all.” Helene reached for her bag and started rummaging through it.

“You’re like Mary Poppins there,” Sandra remarked. “Are you going to pull out a lamp?”

“Better.” Helene produced a photo of a dark-haired man. His bone structure was like something carved in marble, his eyes the deep bedroom brown of the luckiest Italians. He was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. “This,” she said triumphantly, “is Phillipe Carfagni.”

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room.

Then a bell dinged.

“Time to rinse,” Lorna told Sandra, still staring at the picture.

“All right.” Sandra got up and tightened her terry cloth robe around her as she stepped over Joss. “When you see me next I’ll be—what was it?—some sort of chestnut.” She disappeared into the back.

“Let me see that picture,” Lorna said, and Helene handed it to her. “You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

Helene nodded. “Get him in front of the public eye. I’m already on it. There’s a huge dinner at the Willard next week. It always attracts the movie stars, which attracts the press, and I’m trying to get him to come to town for that.”

“We need to send press releases out, maybe make up some cool story—” Lorna stopped. She had an idea. A great idea. “Wait a minute. There’s nothing people like better than juicy gossip, right?”

Helene frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“Maybe we could leak a blind item in the
City Paper
? It’s not the
Post,
but it’s not bad.”

Helene paled. “A blind item about what?”

For a moment, Lorna couldn’t figure out what was upsetting Helene; then she remembered. “Oh, not about
you,
” she assured her. “I mean we could say something about Phillipe.
What handsome young shoe designer is rumored to be coming to town for some grand event….
That sort of thing. We’d have to come up with something better, but that sort of thing.”

“I like it,” Joss said.

“But how are you going to get someone to write it?”

Lorna gave a laugh. “Have you read that column? Sometimes it resorts to political
dogs
. Literally. They’d be glad to have some juicy real-person tidbits.” She’d just make some up if necessary.

“So we make him a romantic figure,” Helene said.

Lorna gestured at his picture. “What else
could
he be? He’s Romeo. Which”—she turned to Joss—“is where you come in.”

“Me?” Joss put a hand to her chest. “Do you want me to pick him up at the airport or something?”

“Actually, that would be good.” Helene laughed. “But what we need is for you to be his date for the dinner.”

“Oh, come on,
me
?”

Lorna and Helene exchanged glances, and Lorna said, “What’s the matter, Cinderella? Don’t you want to go out with Prince Charming?”

Joss looked at the picture of the living god. “There is no way I can go out with a guy who looks like that. I would melt. Just melt. I’d be Jell-O in my cheap shoes.” She shook her head. “No way.”

“You’d be perfect,” Helene said, then to Lorna, “Can you see it?”

Lorna nodded knowingly. “You two will look great together. The photographers are going to go nuts.”

Joss’s face went scarlet. “
Photographers!
Do you know who you’re dealing with? Let me show you my driver’s license picture.”

“Don’t bother, they’re paid to make you look bad,” Helene said, taking out her cell phone. “I’m getting you an emergency appointment with Denise. The sooner we get you out in front of people as our spokesperson, the better. Then, when Phillipe shows up.” She snapped her fingers. “Magic.”

It
was
magic.

The moment Joss laid eyes on Phillipe Carfagni, she felt something she’d never felt before.

Lust.

She was standing outside in the main terminal of Dulles airport, holding a sign with his name on it and a big outline of a shoe—a touch Lorna had insisted upon—searching the crowd for his face.

When he emerged, she saw there was no reason to search. It was like looking for the moon in a starry sky. He was even more beautiful in person than his photo had been, and the crowd parted around him slightly, perhaps so they could get a better look.

When his eyes landed on Joss, he smiled, and approached her with a light, melodic laugh. “The shoe,” he said, his thick accent evident even in those two small words. “Is nice. Good.”

She smiled back. “Good.”

“You is…Jocelyn. Yes?”

The way he said her name sent tingles down her skin. “Yes. Phillipe?”

He smiled. Dazzling. Dizzying. Did she hear music? “Phillipe Carfagni.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips, holding her eyes with his own. He stepped back and looked her over, stopping, of course, at her feet. “You have thirty-eight feet?”

Her cheeks went hot. “No? No. Two.” She shuffled her feet awkwardly and held up two fingers. “Two.”

He smiled again, and raked a hand through that glossy dark hair that curled down over his collar. “No, no,
cara mia…misura.
” He lifted his foot and tapped it.

She didn’t understand. “Misura?”

“Scarpa.”
He held his hands up, like he was telling her the size of the fish he’d caught. “
Numero
.”

“Numero…Oh,
size
!” She slipped her shoe off and pointed to the
6
stamped on the bottom. “Size. Six. Not thirty-nine.” Good lord, how big would a size thirty-nine foot
be
? Obviously he didn’t really think that was her size. He was just making a joke. A weird joke.

So what? He was gorgeous.

He frowned, a small dent marring that otherwise-perfect forehead, and shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter,” Joss said. “Good shoes never fit me right anyway.”

“Don’t…fit?” he echoed, shaking his head.

She nodded and did the fish gesture, then made it bigger. “Too big.” She remembered tenth-grade Spanish and took a chance that it would be close enough.
“Grande.”
She made a face and shook her head.

“
Grande
?” he laughed. “No,
bella
. My shoes…for you.” He kissed his fingertips. “
Perfezione
.”

That, she understood.

And the fairy tale had gotten it right all along. When the shoe fits, you find Prince Charming.

Only in her case, she had to find Prince Charming in order for the shoe to fit.

By the time Helene headed back to town at lunchtime, it had already been a
long
day. So many emotions, so many questions, so much
business
…she was exhausted.

So she probably should have just gone straight home and gotten into bed, but she thought it was best to stop at Jim’s office first and tell him exactly what was going on. If he knew what she was planning, businesswise, and she knew what
he
was planning, politically, maybe they could still work together to create a good enough façade to fool everyone a little longer.

It wasn’t Helene’s first choice, but now she had a child to consider, and maybe it was better for the child to have some semblence of a Mom–Dad household in the early years than to grow up in a Mom-only house.

That’s what Helene was thinking before she got to Jim’s office, anyway.
Façade.
That was good enough for now.

But when she got to his place of work the front office was completely empty. Anyone could have walked right in, laid a fistful of anthrax on the desk, and left.

Given the idiotic giggles that were coming from behind the executive office door, Helene wisely guessed that not quite everyone had left. She had a pretty good idea of who had not, too.

She expected rage—anyone would have—but it didn’t come. Instead she felt a deadly calm. This answered all of her questions. She dismissed, entirely, the idea of creating a façade of a life with Jim.

The problem wasn’t
just
that he was fooling around with his assistant, or Chiara, or whomever else he’d had along the way—that had ended the marriage, of course, but it wasn’t the reason she was unwilling to even pretend.

No, it was the complete and total lack of respect that went into being this indiscreet that tipped her over the edge.

She burst into his office—unlocked, of course—and found him, pants around his ankles, leaning a girl who looked about eighteen up against his desk.

He looked so shocked to see her that Helene had to laugh. “I gather you weren’t expecting me,” Helene observed.

“
Shit!
Helene, what the hell are you doing here?”

Like it was her fault.

“The reason I came by doesn’t really matter anymore,” she said calmly. “This changes things.”

He fumbled to pull his pants up.

“Oh, don’t bother with that,” Helene said. “This won’t take long. Then again, as I recall, neither would
that
.” She looked at the girl, one she’d never seen before. Probably a new intern. “Sorry, honey, but could you cover yourself and get the hell out for a moment while I talk to my husband?”

The girl nodded frantically and looked around for her clothes. She didn’t even try to get dressed, she just held them against her and ran out of the office.

Helene turned her attention back to a decidedly withered Jim. “I want a divorce.”

“
What
?” He looked at her, mouth agape.

“Surely you’re not surprised!”

“Do you know what this could do to me politically?”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Now, now, dear, don’t worry, you’ll learn to love again.”

“This will ruin me.”

“Oh, it will not,” she said. “What you and your colleagues need to learn is that people understand normal human situations, like divorce and maybe even infidelity. It’s the
lying
we hate.”

“You knew there were others.”