Rita Hayworth's Shoes (18 page)

Stratton University was established in 1884 as an institute of higher learning, but it had its roots as a much different kind of institution: A sanitarium. From the time the building had gone up in 1816, it had housed the castoffs of pre-Victorian society—the terminally insane as well as an assortment of “Nature's gaffes,” otherwise known as “freaks.” But with the boom of sideshows in the middle of the century, impresarios began putting a dent in the population of the hospital, instead offering these “gaffes” a profitable way to make a living and gain acceptance, and sometimes reverence in society. Queen Victoria herself was a passionate freak-ophile, inviting her favorites to the palace and bestowing upon them magnificent and opulent gifts.

A decade into the Queen's reign, having lost most of its population to the sideshow circuit, the institute could no longer sustain itself and closed its doors in 1880. It remained deserted until an entrepreneurially-minded entertainer added the property to his already impressive real estate empire. Charles Sherwood Stratton, more commonly known as Tom Thumb, perhaps the most famous little person who ever lived, bought the building so that people such as him could never be imprisoned within its walls ever again. It remained vacant until his death.

When Stratton passed away in 1883, his widow, Ms. Lavinia Warren, decided the building could be used for a higher purpose, in her mind, higher learning. So Ms. Warren financed an extensive renovation to transform the structure into a university, which she named in honor of her late husband. She also used a fair amount of his money to buy up some of the neighboring buildings and plots of land, confident that her husband's name attached to the university could conjure the same passionate interest as had her husband during his days as a performer. The university became accredited in 1904, and in the years since, it had grown to become one of the top universities in the area.

Now Amy Miller, Ph.D. candidate, sat on the very stage that had at one time showcased human anomalies in the interest of science, as she prepared to defend the dissertation that had defined her entire academic career. She watched as judges and supporters filed in. Jane and Zoë, dressed today in a for once age-appropriate cheerleader's costume, waved excitedly from the middle of the room. There they sat among her entire extended family, who had all come to lend their support, including the placard of Amy's parents, with mortarboard and tassels now stapled to their heads and bearing a sign that read: “Our daughter, the doctor!”

One glaring absence, of course, was Deck. While she was still conflicted and confused about how she felt about him and everything else, especially now having read his letter, she couldn't help but think about how big a role he had played in all of this. How his faith in her had helped her to finally have faith in herself. His absence became especially palpable when Ollie rushed in just before the doors closed with a giant panda bear, which he presented to Zoë, who shook her pompons and clapped and squealed with delight at the gift.

Amy rubbed her finger up against the daisy pin that she wore against her heart and thought about Deck. She hoped he would show today. If he really cared, as he wrote to her that he did, surely he would show today. And then, maybe then, she could start to believe in him, believe in them again.

Just before the last of the judges arrived, Lauren and Joshua approached Amy, and Joshua was holding a shopping bag in his hand.

“We're very proud of you, Amy,” said Lauren and gave her a big hug.

“We always knew you'd make it here someday,” said Joshua. “We have something for you,” he said, pulling a wrapped box out of the shopping bag.

“What's that?”

“Open it,” said Lauren and she did.

“The shoes?” Amy gasped. “How did you…”

“Long story,” said Joshua.

Amy couldn't help but smile seeing them again, beautifully restored and polished, their adorable daisy toes seeming to smile up at her. “That's why daisies,” she said out loud. “Of course.”

“What's that, dear?” Lauren asked.

“Oh, nothing,” she smiled at Deck's thoughtful gesture. “Thanks, you guys. This was really thoughtful,” she said. “But these aren't really magical. Apparently, Zoë made the whole story up.”

“She did?” said Joshua, seeming as disappointed as a kid who learns Elmo is actually a puppet. “But the woman at the store—”

Lauren cut him off. “You think they aren't magical?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Amy replied.

“You decide,” she said. “Think about the person you were before you decided you were worth having them. And think about how far you've come.”

“That's a very good point,” said Joshua. “Perhaps there isn't any shoe voodoo, uh, afoot…”

“Oh, God,” Amy groaned. “Really? Did you really have to go there?”

“Just think about it, Amy,” he said. “Where you are today. What you're about to do. You never thought any of this was possible before the shoes.”

“We're not saying it's the shoes, dear,” said Lauren. “They're just symbolic, really.”

Amy considered this for a minute.

“It's about finding yourself, your true self, and who cares how you get there, really? Indulging in a pair of expensive shoes. A night of knock your socks off sex,” Lauren said, and Joshua turned bright red. “It's all about deciding you're worth it and letting yourself have it.”

Joshua nodded. “It's not that
they're
magic, Amy. It's that they remind you that
you
are.”

Lauren smiled. “So you
do
get it,” she said to her husband.

“I'm not completely stupid,” he joked, shaking his head at his wife. He looked back at Amy.

“You're going to do great, sweetie,” Lauren said. “Your parents would have been so proud of you.”

“Thanks, guys,” Amy said, a bittersweet rush running through her.

“Knock ‘em dead,” Joshua said, and he and Lauren headed back to their seats. Amy sat down and slipped on her shoes. She stroked her daisy pin. And she waited to begin.

Within minutes, Professor Ann Bateman entered the room and addressed the group. “Good afternoon,” she said. “We're assembled here today to hear the defense of Ms. Amy Miller of her dissertation ‘Waste and
The Wasteland
.' Everyone please be quiet so we may begin,” she said and sat in the middle of the judges' table.

“Okay, now,” she said, ruffling through papers. “Dr. Heimlich is no longer with us. And it seems Drs. Hayes and Thomas have both stepped down over personal reasons, both claiming,” she read, and then looked up at Amy, “romantic conflicts with the defendant?” Amy smiled meekly and looked away. “And it seems Dr. French has, well, vanished,” she looked again at Amy. “You, again?”

“No,” she mouthed.

“Very well,” Dr. Bateman said. “So we'll convene with our skeleton crew of myself and Drs. Baron, Nellen, and McGoey, and standing in for our jilted romeos, Drs. Mayer and Mullen. Ms. Miller. Whenever you're ready.”

Amy scanned the room one last time looking for Deck, but he was nowhere to be found. So he was lost to her now. He was gone and she couldn't help but shake the creepy feeling that he'd found someone. Someone else. At least now she knew what he really was. That he was just an awkward vessel for beautiful, empty words, none of which he was true to. A man of letters and words and no action to back them up. A man with no real proof for her that what he said he felt for her was real. Her heart would surely have dropped if it hadn't been beating so fast as she stood and walked to the lectern. Now she shook off her disappointment, straightened out her notes, cleared her throat, and began.

It was a popular misconception that Don Corleone's restaurant was and continues to be a popular mob hangout, when it was simply a basic Southern Italian restaurant located in Eastern Queens, New York. It was decorated with plastic grapes on plastic vines and complete with trompe l'oeil murals on every wall of famous spots in Italy, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to the Coliseum to the Amalfi Coast. Really, just your average Queens Italian eatery. Except that it had received a certain level of unplanned notoriety for its name.

Anyone not familiar with the history of the restaurant might be led to believe that it was named to capitalize on the international success of
The Godfather
. But, in actuality, the restaurant was today owned by a guy named Frank Corleone, who was the grandson of the original owner, who was named, if you can't already guess, Donald—or “Don” as his friends knew him.

Don Corleone's opened its doors in 1958 and enjoyed modest success, serving basic Italian food to a local following, who were essentially all Italian immigrants desperate for a taste of home. But when
The Godfather
movies came out in the 1970s, Don Corleone's, at least for a while, had become more an amusement park attraction, a mob-hungry tourist magnet, than the simple eatery of its intention.

Thanks to the sheen wearing off the mafia in the past decade, Don Corleone's had gone back to being a neighborhood joint. Except for a short while when
The Sopranos
first came out. But an enterprising rival restaurateur opened Fat Boss Tony's across the street, where the tourists now flooded.

The grandson of the current owner, also Francis, happened to be one of Amy's Building Boys, which is why on this day of celebration, a different kind of family was seated in the back party room of Don Corleone's. A mismatched assortment of misfits assembled for the celebration luncheon thrown for their fostered foundling, Amy Miller, who had, that very morning, dazzled the faculty panel ready to pick apart her dissertation, giving more than a few of them something to think about and debate about for semesters to come.

“I have to admit, Amy—I read your dissertation all those years ago, and I really thought you did a fine job in explaining just what Eliot was talking about,” said Joshua, spitting out an olive pit. “But today, well, you really made it pop.”

“And that it could be funny,” said Enid, buttering a piece of bread and placing it on Grant's plate.

“That was surprising,” said Grant, who dutifully picked up his bread and took a bite. “Surprising, indeed.”

Amy smiled. “It was not my original thinking, no. But it seems to be what tied everything up in the end.”

“Well, I'm still not sure I understand any of it, but I like what you said,” said Morty, grabbing one of the loaves of bread from the middle of the table, tearing it in two, and taking the larger hunk for himself.

“I know I will never fully understand it,” Lauren agreed. “But it definitely makes more sense to me now.”

“It's true, sweetie,” said Jane. “You have a real gift.”

“Speaking of gift,” said Zoë, nudging her mama.

“Oh, right,” Jane reached into her purse and pulled out a box. In the box was a pen. And engraved onto the pen was a simple, poignant message: “Dr. Miller.”

Amy started to cry. “Thanks, guys,” she said. “Thanks for all your encouragement and support. You really got me through it. All of you. I wouldn't be here today without you guys.”

And while a cacophony of “No, really, it was you,” clamored back and forth in the room, a commotion in the front of the restaurant silenced everyone. A familiar shriek carried all the way back to where they were sitting, a request to the maître d' to “Let me back there!” Perhaps this was expected. It certainly wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities that Hannah had now returned from her expedition, found out about the party and decided she was supposed to be here.

Not expected, however, was the deep baritone of a man's voice that followed, bellowing an urgent plea to “Get back to that room!” Amy took a quick glance at Ollie, and Ollie quickly looked the other way. She panicked as the door to the party room flew open and there stood Deck. With Hannah. They were both still dressed in expedition khakis, and both were panting and sweating and beaming like idiots. Deck, especially, seemed worse for the wear, somehow now bright red and covered in what looked to be hives.

“What are you doing here?” Amy asked, looking back and forth between them. “And why are you together?”

“And why do you look so happy?” Jane was quick to add.

“And what are you wearing?” asked Zoë, who had crept up behind her mother and halfway hid herself behind the folds of Jane's elegant tea length black silk skirt.

Hannah and Deck smiled big at each other, and Amy immediately thought the worst. “Oh, no. Not this. Not you two. Don't even tell me this because I can't handle—”

“You tell her,” Deck told Hannah, giving her an affectionate tap on the arm.

“Are you sure?” Hannah asked.

“This is your show,” he said.

“Well, only in part. Really it was—”

“Go ahead,” he nodded.

“Alrighty, then,” Hannah said and looked around. “So, how is everyone doing today?” she asked.

The diners regarded her with blank stares. She turned to Deck who urged her on with another friendly, supportive nod. A little too friendly for Amy's tastes.

“I guess first of all, you may be wondering what I'm doing with this guy?”

“It had crossed our minds, yes,” Jane replied coolly.

“Well, you know how I went on that expedition?”

“Yes,” said Amy.

“But you never knew why!” she sort of sang. “I mean
really
why!”

“Okay…” Amy said, reaching for more.

“Well, in my research on indigenous tribes in Amazonia, I started to see this weird pattern emerging. A peculiar rash of abductions, not at all typical to the region.”

“Abductions?” said Amy, softly.

“Just what are you getting at?” Joshua asked, protectively edging closer to Amy.

“The more I looked into it, the more I began making all these weird connections to this tour company based right there in the rain forest,” she turned to Amy. “That's when I asked you about—”

“Jungle Jimmy's,” Amy whispered, and there was a loud gasp from the table as everyone looked over at the placard of Eric and Shirley. Clarabelle made a strange attempt to try and cover their ears with her hands.

“We don't talk about that,” said Lauren, rising and standing on the other side of Amy, looping her arm around her.

Hannah didn't seem to get the message and kept talking. “Well,” she continued. “I always thought it was weird, the way your parents disappeared like that. How they were presumed dead and the case was just closed and all that.”

“Be careful, young lady,” warned Joshua. “We're
all
family here.”

“No kidding. I know all about it,” Hannah rambled on. “I sit right over the wall from loudmouth over there,” she said pointing at Amy with her thumb.

No one spoke, so Hannah continued. “Anyway, I started to put it all together. And I realized this company and the abductions were definitely connected and I had to find out why. So I secured a grant to head to South America to investigate it.”

“You know what happened to my parents?” Amy gulped.

“Better!” shouted Hannah, leaving everyone understandably confused.

Deck stepped in. “Well, maybe not
better
,” he interjected. “But be patient. It all does add up.” He nodded to Hannah to continue.

“So anyway, where was I?”

Deck stepped in again. “Hannah got a grant and headed down to the Jungle Jimmy's headquarters in Brazil,” he said.

“And who do you suppose I found hanging out down there?” she said.

“Oh, my God,” Amy gasped. “My parents!”

“No, better!” exclaimed Hannah, pointing in the air. And then she caught herself. “I mean better within the context of the story. Just be patient. Please.”

“Marny was there at Jungle Jimmy's,” Ollie piped in. “And she wasn't alone.”

“Who's Marny?” Mort asked.

“That's Deck's estranged wife,” said Ollie.

“Who's Deck?” Morty asked.

“You mean the leper over there?” asked Aunt Enid.

“He's not a leper,” said Amy, though looking at him, all red and bumpy, she couldn't quite be sure she was right about this.

“You're Deck,” Lauren smiled, sizing Deck up.

“You
knew
about this?” Jane accused Ollie. “Why didn't you say anything—”

Ollie shook his head at Deck. “Neither of them is very patient, are they?”

Deck smiled, and looked at Amy, who was wearing a look of deep confusion as she hugged her arms around herself. “So, I don't understand. Who was with her?”

“A woman you might know, Amy,” said Deck. “A woman named Liz French.”

“Liz French?!” Amy, Jane, and Zoë all shouted at once.

“Yes,” said Deck. “It seems Marny and Liz had mended their old fences in interesting and, well, intimate ways.”

“And they were hatching a plot!” said Hannah.

“But how did you…”

“Oh, I had no idea they were there,” said Hannah, “or that Liz was involved with Marny in that way. In fact it wasn't until I friended Deck on Facebook that I even started to put it all together.”

“I'm on Facebook,” gushed Aunt Clarabelle. “I'll friend you!”

“Uh…sure…” Hannah said, and turned back to the group. “Anyway, Marny was after a map, a map of a very sacred place in Amazonia. A map that could only be found in one place.”

“And I knew where,” said Deck. “Well, I didn't know exactly. But Chuck told me something about my uncle, something special he had. Something…”

Grant looked at Hannah. “Something that…”

“His uncle had the map,” Hannah said.

“Yes, we get it. But the map to where?” asked Lauren.

Everyone looked around at one another, both impressed by the mystery and confused as to how any of it related to them or the celebration lunch that had been interrupted before the main course had been served.

Deck looked at Lauren, and then at Amy. And then he smiled at Hannah again, which made Amy's heart sink.

“The map to El Dorado,” he said.

Amy gasped. Aunt Enid shook her head. “I don't get it. Why would anyone go through all that trouble for a car?” she asked.

Amy shook her head. “No, not a car. A mythical city of incredible riches, thought to be located deep in the rain forests of South America. But no one ever knew where it was. No one ever found it, so people just assumed it didn't exist. Kind of like Atlantis.”

“Well, missy. Apparently, it does exist,” said Hannah.

“And apparently a famous French author knew exactly where it was,” said Deck.

“You don't mean?” Amy asked, and he nodded his big bald bumpy red head wildly. He was about to tell her everything when Ollie jumped into the conversation.

“Marny planted the seed that Deck was abusive towards her, and that she feared for her life so she could create a distraction to find what she'd come back for, and then have a clean-cut way to disappear without Deck coming after her to get it back.”

“Marny wrote that horrible note and passed it to Liz,” Hannah added, “who passed it to me. Then I passed it to the detective over there because quite frankly, I never trusted this guy,” she said, pointing with that thumb again, this time to Deck. “Seriously. I always thought he was up to no good,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, and I'm
so
sorry about that now,” she said directly to Deck, now tearing up. “Because this guy,” she choked up as she tried to wrap an arm around him. “
This
is a good guy.”

“Well, so far it seems like you've pretty much made up for it,” Grant piped in, nodding to Hannah.

She cocked her head curiously at him and smiled. “Have we met?”

Zoë let out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Grant, Hannah. Hannah, Grant. Grant's divorced and a total wet blanket.

“Hey!” he objected.

“And Hannah's also single and kind of a nosy-body who—”

“Hang on,” said Deck to Zoë. “Just wait till you see what else she uncovered. You might start to think her being so nosy is not such a bad thing.”

“Uh, thanks. I think?” said Hannah.

Zoë looked Hannah up and down. “I'm not so sure I—”

“Zoë, nice girls let people make their point and
then
judge them for it,” instructed Jane. Everyone turned in her direction and stared blankly at her. “I mean, you never judge anyone. But—”

Then everyone was uncomfortably quiet until Ollie spoke again. “We finally started to piece it all together after Liz took off,” said Ollie. “But it wasn't until we had the dolls back that we knew for sure.”

“The dolls?”

“Yep. It was all about Heimlich's dolls,” Deck said.

“You gave me some dead guy's dolls to play with, Auntie Amy?” shrieked Zoë. “That's so gross.”

“So what's the big deal about the dolls?” Mort wanted to know.

“Well, as some people know, Heimlich and I weren't exactly buddies,” Deck said. “But does anyone know why?”

“Sweetie, we don't even know who the hell
you
are,” said Enid, taking a sip of her wine.

“Heimlich was my uncle,” said Deck, as a collective gasp rose from the table. “His brother, now also dead, was my
real
father. Not the guy who raised me. That was Chuck,” he said, as if that last bit of detail mattered to anyone present but him.