Rita Hayworth's Shoes (13 page)

She giggled. “True.”

“Not to mention that at least they weren't alone—that they lived happily ever after with their freak show of a makeshift family.” He placed the book down. “And seriously,” he continued, “how could anyone get through any of the crap of life if they didn't believe that what they were living in was indeed the best of all possible worlds?”

She considered this for a moment. “I guess you're right,” she said. “But it still doesn't all add up for me.”

“No, of course it wouldn't,” he laughed.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it,” he said. “Hey, why don't I get us a drink while you get reacquainted with all your old chums,” he said. “Where's the kitchen?”

“That way,” she pointed and he headed in the direction indicated.

Amy pulled more books out of boxes as Deck rattled around for a while. He returned with a tray laid out with her antique teapot and two of her little china cups.

“What do you have there?” she asked, delighted that he had not only found her collection but decided to use it.

“A literary tea party, of course. I think there's plenty of madness to go around when it comes to you and I,” he smiled. “But no madeleines.”

“I must have run out.”

“Now how will we properly remember and share things past without our madeleines?”

She grinned. “I'm starting to think the past is overrated.”

“So is Proust,” he said, as he poured out two cups, offering her the one with the little green flowers. She couldn't help but smile as she watched him take up the other tiny cup in his substantial hand, pinching the delicate handle between two massive fingers. He looked very much the part of Gulliver in Lilliput. “Let's see. What else do you have here?” he asked, scanning through her books with his free hand. “What really gets Amy going?” He looked up. “And why are you staring at me?”

“No reason,” she said.

“Fair enough,” he said as he shuffled through. “If you don't mind me saying so, I think this is more Faulkner than one person should be allowed to own. No wonder your brain doesn't work right.”

“Faulkner's a genius,” she said. “He's difficult maybe. But once you understand him, he's incredibly satisfying.”

“I guess I have to agree about the genius part. But I never found him to be that difficult. They're really great stories, but they're pretty basic when you get right down to it.”

“Are you kidding me?
As I Lay Dying
was such a complex, tragic novel. Brilliant really.”

“Tragic?” he asked, almost mockingly.

“Yes,” she insisted. “And brilliant.”

“I'll give you brilliant,” he said, and gave her a serious look. “But Amy, you
do
know this is a comedy, right?”

She gasped. “It is not! How could you say such a thing?”

“Think about it.”

“What's there to think about? Their mother is dead and the family sets out on a pilgrimage to bring her home and bury–”

“They're mountain folk and they're sitting around waiting for her to die,” he said. “Her name is Addie Bundren. Get it? Added burden? You don't get it. Okay. Let's go through it.”

“Addie's dying and her only request is that she be buried with her family.”

“And not the group of yahoos she gave birth to,” he laughed.

“So her husband, Anse, builds her a coffin, and sells some of their belongings to finance the trip.”

“Why wouldn't he just sell those things to buy her a coffin and just be done with it?” he said.

“And then they head to Jefferson and all kinds of terrible things happen.”

He giggled. “They lose the coffin in the river.”

“The barn burns down,” she said, shaking her head. “And that poor tragic girl.”

He smirked. “Who tries to get an abortion from the pharmacist and ends up sleeping with him, too?”

“And the little boy and the buzzards.”

“After a week and a half with no embalming and a good soak in the river, I'm surprised there weren't more buzzards.”

“I still don't see how any of this is funny.”

“Amy, they have no teeth. They have backwards ideas about everything.” She regarded him with a horrified stare. “Oh, man. You really don't get it, do you? You're much too serious.” He shook his head. “You're missing out then,” he said, holding up the book. “Because it's fucking hilarious.”

She stared at him silently for a few moments, a blank expression on her face. “There's something wrong with you.”

“Maybe. But I know funny when I see it.”

“Maybe we should just drop it.”

“Tell me what else drives you. What makes you think?” he asked, moving closer to her. “Fuck that, actually. Tell me what makes you
feel
.”

She inched away from him. “I guess…” she paused, unsettled and intrigued at once. “I guess these do. My books. The words. You know?”

“I might,” he said, and picked up a collection of poems. “ee cummings?”

“ee cummings is beautiful,” she scowled. “These poems are deep and they are exquisitely written and they are nothing to laugh at.” She snatched the book out of his hands. “You're not going to ruin this for me, too.”

He gazed at her for a moment before he spoke, “I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands.”

She froze. She could feel his eyes on her as he spoke these beautiful words, ones she had always wanted to hear like this. His eyes bore right through her. But she couldn't look at him. She couldn't breathe. She felt a familiar electric current flowing through her and she was very confused. This was all quite unexpected, but then, in a way, not.

“The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses,”
he continued, and he moved closer to her, lightly touching her hand. His touch set off a surge of tiny tingles under her skin.

He kneeled in front of her and stroked her face, and only then could she look at him, confused and elated as she was by the terror and delight and comfort she felt, all mixed together, all happening at once.

“Nobody,” he whispered, “not even the rain, has such small hands.” And then he kissed her. Gently. Sweetly. So many precious emotions tied into one simple gesture. And she kissed him back, feeling a different kind of passion, an all-encompassing passion—a kind of passion she had never known before.

And just as suddenly, he pulled away and clutched his chest.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped.

“Now you're trying to kill
me
?” he said.

“No. Oh God, no. Are you okay?”

He smiled and pulled her close. “Never better,” he said as he kissed her again.

##

Amy had been to some strange places in her life. Before today, she would have said that the strangest place she had ever been was the Northern Berks Reptile Show when she'd gone with David to Pennsylvania one summer . They admired specimens and collected some to add to his menagerie; to their family. But the event was a freak show in and of itself, having nothing to do with the snakes and the lizards and the baby alligators all up for sale. Amy had never seen more mulleted hair. More throwback feathered roach clips. More heavy metal T-shirts and rhinestones in one place. It was as much an event for an anthropologist as a herpetologist; it was hard to say if the reptiles or the humans peddling them were more interesting.

But never in a million years could she have seen herself in the place she was just now. In her own bed, with this enormous bald man quietly snoring beside her.

There was more to it than the visual, though. It was somewhere newly traveled, gladly beyond any experience she had ever had. It was a new feeling of calm. A luscious mix of exhausted bliss and sweet serenity. A place she had only been to with Deck.

Watching him sleep, feeling the way that she did, she knew this was different than anything thing else. And she never wanted to leave this place.

Amy nuzzled into Deck's shoulder and closed her eyes. He opened his, and gently stroked her shoulder with his thumb. “You're not going to report me, are you?”

“I guess it wouldn't look good if the dean found out, no.”

“Does that change anything for you?” he asked. “I mean, you could stay working for me and we could forget any of this ever happened. Or…”

“Or I could quit and have more time to prepare for my defense.”

“I could never ask you to do that.”

“That's okay. I think I'm ready to do just that. We all know I suck at that job and I think this was just the push I needed.”

“Good,” he said, and lightly kissed her forehead. “Because you are pretty terrible at it. And defending your dissertation will be a breeze, comparatively speaking. I'm sure they'll be so blown away, they'll offer you a new position on the spot.” He lay back down and began to drift off again into a peaceful sleep.

“Do you really think that?”

“I told you I read it. There's very little to defend.”

She smiled and nuzzled up to his shoulder. “Will you be there?”

“I don't think I'll be allowed on the panel, no,” he said, gently stroking her arm. “But I can't think of a single thing that could keep me away.”

Amy smiled as she grazed his chest lazily with her fingertip. She was so amazed at the texture of this man. Smooth as glass. Then the tip of her finger rubbed against something wiry, something that bristled her finger as she skimmed it. She jumped up.

“Deck! You have hair! Look! A hair!”

He glanced over and smiled sleepily. “I know.”

“But how?” she shrieked with delight, bouncing up and down on the bed. “And why?”

He smiled warmly at her and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “It's because of you,” he said and he closed his eyes again. “Thank you.”

“Me?” Amy pulled away. “I don't get it.”

“You will,” he said, and he took her back into his arms.

Amy managed to make it to work despite the exhaustion she felt at having slept about an hour and a half as well as the conflict and confusion, the ecstasy and the elation, the morning after had inevitably brought. But life was strange like that, or at least it was now.

Barely twenty-four hours ago, she was feeling freshly heartbroken and devastated after colliding with David and Liz. And then all those strange feelings for Deck started to emerge. Then he had ended up in her home and, incredibly, in her bed. And she was really happy about it. But she was cautious. Because despite the magic of the night before, a small slice of David was still inexplicably wedged in her head and her heart. It was all so confusing. Not to mention that Deck was still her boss. And now she was going to quit her job on top of everything else?

Now she was riddled with doubt. What the hell was she thinking sleeping with him? How was she going to play it with him now? How was she supposed to act around him? Should she be cool and aloof and pretend as though nothing had happened? Act as if despite the fact that the very earth shook when they were together, that whatever had happened between them didn't matter that much? Or should she take another approach, and just take what she wanted, pouncing on him the minute he came in? So many questions.

When he'd finally left her place around four, he'd given her a tender kiss, and when she asked him to stay, he'd said he had things to take care of, but assured her he would be back. If he had stayed the night, would she have felt more secure today?

That the light was on in Deck's office threw her as she was sure she'd have beaten him in. She stalled a while, still undecided about what to do. Then Deck came in through the front door, still dressed for the outdoors and carrying his briefcase and two coffees, further confusing her.

“Good morning,” he beamed, presenting her with one of the cups. “How are you today?” he asked and gave her a quick, gentle kiss on the cheek.

She relaxed. “I'm good,” she smiled. “A little sleepy, but…”

“There's a lot of that going on around here this morning, isn't there,” he said.

“Yes.”

He started walking to his office, then stopped and nodded for her to join him.

“Sure,” she said, and followed him in.

“You're looking strange,” a woman's voice said, and Deck froze. “I'd heard about the hair, but I guess it's something you really have to see.”

He spun around, shock and fear and that dark something again apparent in his face. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same,” she said as Amy entered the office and looked to the guest chair. She now saw that the source of the voice was a gorgeous woman in her early- to mid-thirties.

“I'm working,” he snapped.

“For Heimlich. Even though you–”

“Heimlich's dead,” he cut her off. “And I thought you were, too.”

“Thought? Or wished?” The tan and radiant woman  had shoulder-length, improbably shiny black hair, green, catlike eyes, and lips so round and voluptuous, Amy surprised herself wondering for a quick second what it would be like to kiss her. “And who's this?” the woman asked, looking Amy up and down with an amused expression on her face.

“Marny, Amy. Amy, Marny.” He looked at Amy. “Marny is my ex-wife.” He looked at Marny. “Amy's just my assistant.” Amy wasn't sure which of those blows had hit her harder or hurt her more.
Just his assistant?

Marny stood and she was like a vision. Ava Gardner in her heyday. A true goddess. Her hair cascaded like silk over perfectly straight shoulders. A sleeveless Lycra dress clung to her improbable curves like it had been cut and sewn around her. Wrapped around her right arm was an elaborate jasmine flower tattoo that reached from her shoulder to the top of the hand that she extended with impossible grace as she spoke. “I'm his wife, sweetie,” she said, and looked at Deck. “We were never divorced.”

“You're still married.” Amy said, very innocently, very confused.

“That's not my fault,” he barked.

“Fair enough,” said Marny, dropping Amy's hand like it was a bag of worms. “It's a pleasure to meet you,” she said, though no one bought it.

Looking as though he'd like to snap her in half, Deck glared at Marny. “What do you want,” he asked through clenched teeth.

“I think you know what I want,” she said.

“You know I don't have any money,” he said.

“Stop playing stupid, Deck. You know Heimlich didn't keep secrets from me.”

“Where's Lee?” he coughed.

“Didn't work out,” she purred. “Couldn't give me what I wanted. And you know I always get what I want, Deck. So why don't you just give me what I want?”

“What does she want?” Amy squeaked, her eyes filled with concern and confusion and naïveté.

“This is a bad time, I think,” Marny said, now eyeing Amy suspiciously. She looked back at Deck and then at Amy again. “I'll come back later, when you're alone. Or maybe I'll pass by…”

“No!” Deck and Amy shouted in unison, of course for different reasons.

Amy was immediately embarrassed. “What I meant was,” she stammered, “What I meant was I can go. Don't worry about it.”

“Whatever you have to say in front of me, you can say in front of Amy,” Deck insisted, confusing both women, though for different reasons.

“Oh,” said Marny. “I see how it is…”

“No!” Deck and Amy shouted again in unison, and shot each other annoyed looks.

Now it was Deck's turn to speak. “What I meant was,” he said, and took a long pause as he looked back and forth between the two women. “What I meant was that, Marny, we have nothing left to talk about. And what you have to say to me is so insignificant as far as I'm concerned, that I don't care
who
hears it,” he said, meaning perhaps not what Amy had perceived:
That she was insignificant to him.

“I gotta go,” Amy said, choking back tears. She couldn't believe that he had betrayed her like this. In front of
her
. In front of Marny. In this way. As she stumbled backward, she caught the heel of her special shoes on the leg of a chair and broke it right off the shoe. “Oh, shit!” she said, as she knelt to retrieve it. “Oh, shit.”

“What a shame,” Marny smirked. “Those were so cute.”

Now panicked, Amy took off the other shoe and tossed them both in the wastebasket before she darted off.

##

“Not again!” At the very moment that Amy's shoe had split in two, an old shopkeeper in a second-hand store in the eastern part of Queens, New York, clutched her chest and fell off the stool she had been standing on as she searched for an old, dusty clock on a high, forgotten shelf.

Later the diagnosis would be made that she'd suffered a mild heart attack. But for now, as it had been before, the only explanation was that the poor woman's heart had broken in half.

##

Amy made a mad dash for Jane's apartment and didn't stop until she got there.

“I need a drink and I need one now,” demanded Amy from the doorway, looking crazed and sad and somewhat homeless in her bare feet.

Jane motioned her in. “It's only ten o'clock,” Jane said.

“Please, just a drink,” Amy insisted.

Jane looked down at Amy's feet, bruised and dirty and bleeding. “Of course,” she said. “Come on in, kiddo. It's noon somewhere.” She watched Amy hobble over to the couch as she headed to the kitchen, opened a bottle of white, and joined Amy on the couch.

“What happened?” Jane wondered, and Amy gave her the whole sordid tale, from the David and Liz dropping off the books to the poetry to the sex to the betrayal.

“This is a lot to process all at once like this,” said Jane, sipping her wine.

“Everything's happened so quickly,” Amy said, shaking her head. “I can't believe any of this happened at all. Dammit!”

Jane squinched her face. “Are you sure he was dismissing you though? I mean, it seems so out of character. It makes no sense.”

“I guess he got what he was after. I must have told you about all his remarks. Always reading into things?”

Jane shook her head. “I don't think he meant anything by that. It was just him thinking he was flirting. I don't think…”

“Well, he got what he wanted so that's that,” she said, and downed her wine.

Jane didn't know what to say; luckily, Amy wasn't finished. “It just seemed so different with him, you know?” Amy burst into tears and Jane took her in her arms as she cried.

“Maybe there's more to it,” said Zoë, who just appeared, and who tapped her loose tooth with the tip of her tongue after every other word. “He always seemed like a nice guy to me.”

“You only met him once.”

“Sometimes that's all you need,” said Zoë, as she continued to prod away at her tooth. “I mean, I met Uncle David like a hundred times and I never liked him.”

“Zoë.”

“What? Well, no one liked David. It isn't any big secret.”

“Nice girls don't remind their friends of their romantic mistakes, especially in the throes of another one.”

Amy caught her breath and looked at Jane. “Then you do think Deck was a mistake?”

“I don't, actually,” said Jane. “It's just the situation. You know I only got to talk to him the one time. You know, at the party. But Ollie's known him for so long. He really thinks the world of him.”

“What do you know?”

“Probably more than I should,” and she put up her hand, “but I'm not sharing. She's a nutjob, trust me.”

“She was so confident and elegant.”

“And manipulative and crazed.”

“And beautiful. Like shockingly beautiful. Like magazine beautiful.”

“What makes you think she has anything on you?”

“Seriously?”

“Put it in perspective. She took off. He loved her and she ditched him.”

“I saw him look at her. He still loves her.”

“Do you still love David?” She looked down. “I don't see where you're going with this,” she lied.

“All I'm saying is that it takes time. Always. No matter what the circumstances were. He says he hasn't seen her since she left. You, at least, get to run into dickbag from time to time.”

“Mom!”

“I'm sorry. Douche bag. I mean…whatever. You know what I mean. Look, maybe you could give him the benefit of the doubt?”

“For what? So I can lose another seven years of my life when I already know I should be walking away now.”

Zoë climbed into Amy's lap and gave her a big hug. “From what you told me, it seems like that woman played a lot of games with him, Auntie Amy,” she said. “Maybe he's just confused…dammit!”

“Zoë!”

“Sorry. It's just this tooth. It's making me absolutely incensed,” she scowled, as she pushed against it with her tongue. “Argh! I'm never going to shake this thing loose,” she whined. “It's such a horrible nuisance.”

##

Later that day, wearing a pair of borrowed socks and sneakers from Jane, Amy arrived at her building. And just as she was dreading, there were all the Boys, standing on the stoop, and looking right at her.

“Nice shoes,” said Angelo, as she approached.

“Where's your boyfriend?” sneered Tony.

“You don't mince words,” she said.

“We just like to keep an eye out for you,” said Frankie.

“Yes, Brendan told me,” she quipped. “Thanks for that.” They shrugged their shoulders. “How could you know that something was going on with me and Deck?”

They all exchanged glances. “We know he didn't leave last night,” said Frankie.

“At least not before we all turned in,” Mario added.

“And we know you're not shy about bringing men home,” Tony accused.

“What we don't understand is why you look like that,” said Angelo. “If it was such a good night.”

“And it seemed like it was,” said Frankie, jabbing a scowling Tony with his elbow.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It's like you just lost your best friend,” Mario said.

Amy looked at the guys and burst into tears.

“I don't know why you get yourself involved with all these inferior men when Tony could give you just what you need,” said Tony.

“I think she's got it bad for the bald guy. Leave her alone,” snapped Mario.

“I guess.”

“Head upstairs,” said Angelo. “I think you'll feel better about things if you go upstairs.”

“Thanks, guys. I think I really just need to go to bed.”

Tony stepped forward, a hopeful look on his face.

“Alone. But thanks,” she waved as she headed inside.

As she climbed the stairs, she noticed flowers resting on her doorstep. She got closer and picked them up, a giant bouquet of daisies, with a card attached that read:

I know that was horrible for you. I'm so very sorry. I'm taking care of it. Trust me—and please forgive me. All will be well.

—D

 

And now she was more confused than ever.