Rita Hayworth's Shoes (20 page)

“Really? After all this you think there
isn't
a future with this man?” snapped Lauren.

“I don't know what to think,” said Amy.

“Who cares what you think, Amy,” said Grant. “What do you
feel
?”

Zoë started shaking her head. “I really don't really understand any of this. I mean,” she said, looking at Hannah, genuinely perplexed. “Who knew that
you
were going to matter so much in all of this?”

“Zoë! Nice girls—”

“I know, I know. Nice girls give props where they're due,” she smiled a little toothless grin. “So, Hannah, I'm really glad you're with us. One of us.”

“Thanks, kid,” Hannah smiled. “Gooble gobble.” And Zoë gave her a high five and a great big hug.

“So all's well that ends, well, eh Dr. Miller,” said Joshua. “How
does
it feel?”

“I knew you would do it, Amy,” said Deck. “I'm so sorry I couldn't be there.”

“That's okay. I guess it all makes sense now. And you were there,” she said, stroking the daisy pin. “In the way you could be.”

“Nice pin,” he smiled back at her. “Happy Birthday.”

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his gaze.

“Me too, Amy. I really wanted to be there.”

“Oh Hannah, are you kidding? Look at all of this,” Amy said, her eyes welling with tears. “I just don't know to thank you.”

Hannah looked around the room, and stopped at Grant, who was eyeing her with interest. Hannah smiled at him and while he didn't smile back, he didn't look away either. “You could invite me to stay,” she said.

“Of course,” said Amy.

“And maybe you could loan me those shoes sometime.”

“I'll even give them to you,” said Amy. “But not just yet.”

“Well,
Doctor
Miller?” asked Deck. “You never answered the question. How does it feel?” he asked.

Amy smiled warmly at Deck as she tried to take it all in.

“Like being in love!” Morty shouted.

Amy took a deep breath. “It feels pretty good, actually. I mean, it's all a little confusing and overwhelming, but I think it's good.” Her parents gave her an enormous hug and she cried in their arms.

She pulled away from them finally and looked at Deck. “I really don't know what to say.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” Enid said. “Can't you see that Kojack loves ya, baby?”

“Can we just stop with all the bald references already? We get it,” snapped Amy.

“So you do care about me?” Deck said, and she looked away.

“Oh, sorry, dear,” Enid said. “But you know, for a doctor, you're not very smart.”

“Ah, the way he looks at her,” Clarabelle, gleefully twirling her goatee. “Just kiss that boy already,” she shouted.

“I… uh…” Amy stammered, not able to decide what she should do next. Deck took her face into his hands, looked into her eyes, and said, “Amy, you're wonderful,” he said, and he brushed her two-toned bangs out of her eyes. “And you were the worst assistant I ever had.” Everyone laughed, expect Amy, who burned bright red. “But talk around campus is that you're going to be one of the best lit professors there ever was,” he said. “And I'm
so
incredibly proud of you.” She smiled at him, and he asked. “So forget what you think you should do. What do you
feel
like doing?”

Amy paused for a moment. Then she pulled up and kissed him and everyone cheered.

Deck gazed at her seductively. “I think I know just how to celebrate,” he said.

A soft “Oh?” lodged in her throat.

“But first,” he began, as he raised a glass and turned to the rest of the group. “A toast,” he said, and all the others raised their glasses. “To Amy. To the classics, who now have a new champion. And,” he said, with a sly wink to Amy, “To this, the best of all possible worlds,” he said. And she couldn't help but agree.

##

Several days later, after some much-needed rest—and with liberal amounts of sunburn cream and chamomile lotion generously and lovingly applied, not to mention being grateful beyond belief that his enormity had ensured he had not contracted malaria from his thousand mosquito bites—Dr. Decklin Thomas finally began to heal from his jungle adventure. And one afternoon, he and Dr. Amy Miller, entered the Bronx Zoo pushing a large dolly. Strapped to the dolly was a selection of plastic storage containers in various sizes. Drs. Thomas and Miller proceeded to the Reptile House, where Dr. Fish, a smallish man with greasy spectacles and a salt-and-pepper beard, greeted them with a warm smile and a couple of big handshakes.

Later that day, Drs. Miller and Thomas exited the Reptile House, without the dolly and the containers, and stepped out into the warm late afternoon sun. Dr. Miller, especially, was pleased to know that her babies could at last live in a proper home, each in their own naturalized environment, and that Sparky, especially, would have an enclosure with a proper closure to keep her safe and sound.

Still later that day, Drs. Miller and Thomas held hands as they headed towards his car, she standing nearly as tall as his shoulder as she clicked along at a fair pace in a very cute pair of red high-heeled shoes.

“So now what?” she asked.

“Now?” he replied. “This is only the beginning.
Everything
is now,” he said. He swooped her up in his massive arms and enveloped her in a luscious kiss that showed just how much he meant it.

It was an unseasonably warm afternoon in the middle of winter as a multitude of elegantly dressed guests began filing into an ancient church, which boasted the most beautiful stained glass windows in the entire city.

Each of the Building Boys were there, dressed to the nines in carefully tailored Italian (naturally) suits. And each walked with a pretty young woman at his side. Except for Tony, who had opted instead to bring his mama.

Colleagues from the university had turned out in droves. Not present, however, was either David, who had left town shortly after Amy dazzled with her defense, or Liz, who was now embarking on a twenty-year sentence at a women's prison in Upstate New York, separated by three states from the women's prison that housed the woman who had stolen her heart, and as an unfortunate side effect, her freedom.

Aunt Enid and Aunt Clarabelle arrived, escorted by Uncle Morty and Grant, hugging a now-smiling Ava close to him, followed them in. Just behind them, a nice-looking man, sixtyish and dressed in a fireman's full dress uniform entered and took a seat on the groom's side, right in the first row.

And just as the back doors were about to close to allow the ceremony to begin, an incredibly old yet strikingly-dressed woman slid into a pew in the very last row. A satin turban was wrapped around her head, held in place by an amazing gem-encrusted dragonfly pin. A single red curl spilled out the front of her turban and adorned her improbably smooth porcelain-toned forehead.

Organ music began to play as Decklin Horatio Thomas walked to the front of the church, escorted (though this time not in handcuffs) by his good friend, Detective Oliver Franks, himself dressed in his New York finest. Deck hugged the fireman in the front row and then took his place at the top of the altar.

Next, proudly donning a white satin yarmulke, edged in tiny white pearls, Joshua Austen-Rabinowitz escorted his lovely wife, Lauren, who wore an exquisite beaded gown, to the front of the church. Their angelic granddaughter Zoë, nestled between them, lovingly sprinkled delicate rose petals as they walked.

Hannah Lindstrom, glowing in silver satin, came next. She caught Grant staring at her and she waved at him and Ava as she passed them—and they both actually smiled and waved back. And then Jane Austen-Rabinowitz, whose own silver gown wrapped her small frame so exquisitely, she looked to be about six feet tall, followed Hannah. When Jane reached the top of the altar, she leaned up and kissed Deck. She and Ollie shared a warm glance as the organ music became louder and more powerful and everyone in the church stood and faced the back.

It was then that Amy Miller, bride and recent Ph.D., sashayed into the adoring fray. As she swooshed down the aisle of the ancient church in a sweeping white gown, glorious streams of sunlight beamed through the exquisitely crafted stained glass windows and made all the tiny sequins on her breathtaking (new) gown sparkle to life.

Flanked on either side by her parents, Shirley and Eric Miller, Amy took long, confident strides, as family and friends shielded their eyes from the heavenly rays as they bounced off her goddess-like visage.

She sashayed to the massive altar, where the man of her dreams stood, trembling at the amazing luck he had been blessed with to have made this ethereal being gliding gracefully toward him actually have agreed to marry him.

And if it was wrong for a bride to wear red shoes under her gown, well, she just didn't care.

Rita Hayworth's Shoes
is a project that's been in the works for about ten years (and another twenty years before that if you count all the experiences that inspired it). But it could not have been possible without the group of muses, angels, and impresarios that helped me bring this, the final version, to life.

The first of these are Shawna Mullen and her daughter, Isabelle Dow. Izzy was about five or six when I started writing this book, and the most gorgeously precocious child I had ever known at that point. She was indeed the inspiration for Zoë—and she even named Deck! Her mom is the inspiration for Jane, but so much more. Shawna has put up with an incredible amount of narcissism and nonsense from me, returning only support and inspiration, guidance and glamour, smiles and Sancerre. Plenty of Sancerre.

Thank you to my amazing husband, Christopher LaSala, for taking my author photo—but more than that, thank you, sweetie, for
always
coming through for me. Talk about someone putting up with a lunatic! (And I must also admit that some of Deck's best lines first sprung from his mouth.) A special thank you also goes to my children, Madeleine and Juliana, for inspiring me daily—and for all their delicious distractions.

A huge thank you to the amazingly talented Tricia McGoey for creating an awe-inspiring jacket design. I literally can't look at it enough. And to Anne-Marie Rutella for finding and fixing flaws with skill and wit.

Thank you to all who read drafts of this manuscript, and weighed in with opinions and criticisms, insights and encouragement, including my parents, Paul and Francine Hornberger, my mother-in-law, Dr. Marie-Agnes LaSala, my aunt Rose Marie McHugh, as well as Judy Jacoby, Dolly Chugh, Karen Costoso-Fernandez (who also helped with the cover copy), Christine Mayer, Diana Shafter Gliedman, Karen Alcaide (with those eagle eyes of hers!), Shane Briant, and Erika Tsang.

This book could not have been possible without the help of so many that lent their support. To all who joined my Facebook page and fan group, for their generosity and faith in me, a huge thank you is in order, especially to Steve Maraboli, who inspired me to “dare” to get out of my own way, and to Virginia Patterson (who also has genius ideas for marketing), Christina Van Tassell and Maria Tahim (for years of necessary shoe-mocking), Stephanie Garcia (for further shaming me into style-consciousness), David Hughes, Maria Yakkey, Michele Contegni, Karen Theroux, Sheila Noone, Derek Hornberger, Don Mochwart, Josh Silber, Laura Chekow, Jeremy Jones-Bateman, Kathi Guarino, Cheryl Meglio, Melissa Hammer, Alison Brew, Denise Gelb, Gia Peterson, Lauren Berkowitz, Pina Adessa, Lee Hornberger, Jonas “Baby Genius” Marijosius, and all who helped crush the final hurdle after we went to press. A special thank you also goes out to Roger Cooper for asking me “the tough questions,” which I never seem able to answer, but for always being on my side anyway.

A huge thank you to the folks at Diversion Books, for adding
Rita Hayworth's Shoes
to their list and believing in the magic of the story!

Lastly, thank you to my high school English teacher, Bob Albert, who first encouraged me to write, and to all my former college lit professors for opening my eyes to an amazing world of imagination and interpretation, most especially Dr. Morgan Himmelstein, who first introduced me to
Candide
. I was listening, I promise. I was always listening.

It was the kind of day that made Mina Clark feel every breath of her forty-two years—and then some.

It would have been bad enough that the hot water heater had blown out the night before and that today, neither she nor her two-year-old daughter Emma would be able to wash up properly. A problem for Mina who hadn't taken a shower since Tuesday…or Monday? And it was already Thursday. Or Wednesday? No, Thursday.

But a bigger problem for Mina's tastefully decorated home as during a regretful moment's distraction on Mina's part, Emma, with her improbably nimble tiny fingers, had managed to trip the lock on Emma's husband Jack's ancient art supplies. Delicious and dear, dark and demonic, Emma had not only managed to open the long-locked cabinet, but had also managed to unscrew all the tops of Jack's acrylic paint tubes, and was now awash in color, from head to toe. And, alas, so were myriad walls and carpets, fixtures and furnishings. It was as if a Jackson Pollack painting had come to fiery life and “burned” through the bedroom, the hallway, and the living room of the Clark home. A trail of destruction that, like the water heater, there was no budget to correct.

What could she do? Could she wrap the child in plastic garbage bags, haul her down to the community gym, and sneak her into the locker room showers in the locker room where she could rinse them both off? She considered this the only option for a minute until she remembered that her car was in the shop. Again. Hit and run. Again. And she had no means to collect it from the shop until the insurance adjuster cut her a check.

This time, it had happened in the parking lot of Emma's elitist nursery school. Mina had taken Emma to her classroom, and when she finally emerged after enduring a twenty-minute struggle with separation, she saw that someone had crashed in the passenger-side door of her car. Scum apparently knew no social station. The last time, Mina's car had gotten rear-ended as she sat waiting for a red light to change to green. Without missing a beat, the driver of the other car slammed into reverse and took off. The blood-curdling screams that came from the backseat following the crash, a child seemingly unharmed but frightened beyond words, could have woken the dead. Mina considered that perhaps they had, and that maybe all the bad luck she'd been having lately was the work of one such disturbed spirit who was hot with revenge at being having been disturbed. And she also knew that was ridiculous.

Terrified, Mina had bolted right to the pediatrician—without calling the police or trying to chase after the driver who hit her. It seemed like Emma would never stop crying and Mina was convinced that something was terribly wrong.

Dr. Swenson, a kindly gentleman in his late fifties, had carefully examined the screaming child and concluded: “She's just scared.”

“Scared?” Mina near-shouted, as she tried to pull a wriggling, writhing Emma into her arms to console her. A raging octopus with chainsaws for tentacles. “Just scared?”

“Just scared,” he said, sweet and soft-spoken, surprisingly audible over the cacophony.

“Well how do I make her less scared?” Mina asked, and they both sized up the still-screaming tot, the mother with a face frantic with worry, the doctor with a cool, matter-of-fact gaze.

There was a long pause before he spoke. “Benadryl,” he said.

“Medication?” Mina gasped. “But if you say she's okay, why am I medicating her?”

And just at that moment, Emma stopped had stopped screaming. She gave a little shudder, a big sniff, and she let out a sigh. The drama was over.

“Well, she isn't crying anymore, is she,” Dr. Swenson said, and gave Mina a warm, friendly tap on the back. “The Benadryl would have calmed her down. Even knocked her out,” he whispered, with a wink and a warm smile.

“Oh,” was all Mina could muster.

Later that day, she had sat down with her neighbor, Esther, and told her what had happened. Esther gave her the same warm look and assured, “There's just no way I could have raised my five kids without Benadryl.”

Suddenly what the doctor had said made sense. Mina had no idea what she would do without Esther, her octogenarian next-door-neighbor. Esther had been so kind to them. And Emma loved her so much. Her fashion sense arrested in the 1960s. Her curiously black beehive hairdo. Her amazing costume jewelry collection—each day a new piece!

And suddenly, Emma knew just who she should call to help straighten out the mess. Esther Erasmus. The only person who made living where she did bearable.

But as Mina approached the phone, the thing that ruined her day, every day, every week, every month for what seemed like decades. It rang. She checked the caller ID and just as she had suspected, an identifiable 888 number. Her heart stopped, as it did. Her breath trapped in her throat as she watched the phone, praying for the ringing to stop. The machine would have picked it up if it wasn't already filled with messages she couldn't bear to listen to. Messages from people angrily making demands she couldn't honor.

With every ring she was reminded why she couldn't replace the water heater. Why the dryer leaked through the kitchen ceiling. Why her car was still in the shop.

On top of it all, her rear, bottom-left molar was throbbing in pain, and had been for weeks. She hated that she was going to have to make an appointment to see her dentist because she absolutely despised going to the dentist. But more than that was the dread she felt at how much it would cost, the same sense of dread she had felt over not being able to answer the phone. Whoever it was on the other end of that phone wanted money. And Mina had none.

If you looked around Mina Clark's suburban home, the fact that she had no money would make no sense at all; the expansive, well-appointed space pretty much screamed the idea that wealth lived here.

For one, the home was located in the very exclusive enclave of Easton Estates, a gated community of soulless McMansions that all looked pretty much the same—and God help you if you didn't like it that way.

Step through the carved-mahogany double-door front entrance and you encountered a foyer the full height of the house, complete with a dramatic skylight, which splashed sunlight on the terrazzo marble floor and sparkled off the speckled silver bowl with the cobalt blue dragonfly pattern resting on the foyer table. Mina knew she'd had that bowl for years, long before living at Easton Estates, but she had no idea when she had gotten it—from whom or even why.

Downstairs, a fully finished basement was used for pretty much nothing, and again, Mina had no idea why. It was yet another puzzle she was taxed to solve as she wandered daily around this strange house where she lived, desperate to piece back together the life that existed that she couldn't remember before the past two or so years.

To the left of the foyer sat a richly appointed dining room and behind it, a fully outfitted modern kitchen, sleek and cool with cobalt cabinetry and stainless steel appliances. Mina didn't particularly like her kitchen, though. It reminded her somehow of being in a submarine.

Behind the kitchen was a small alcove Mina had gated off and made into a playroom. She wasn't exactly sure why she hadn't decided to make the basement a playroom, except she didn't like having Emma so far away from her. Ridiculous, yes, as there was already the distance of nursery school three hours a day, three days a week. In any case, the room was a crazy, colorful jungle of colors and soft things, a crazy juxtaposition to the submarine kitchen. Already awash in Day-Glo, it now took on a whole new level of color thanks to Emma's “artwork.”

To the other side of the foyer was a formal living room, then a family room, and then behind that, another alcove that was purportedly Mina's “office”—though she rarely did anything in that room but surf the Internet and listen to her tapes. She could have paid bills if she had money to pay them. She could have gotten some work done, if she knew what work for her was.

Mina entered the small room and headed for the cassette player. She pressed play and she moved back through the house, heading back to the kitchen to try and call Esther again.

“What do you believe?”
the man's voice emphatically implored throughout the house from the state-of-the-art speaker system.

“I have no idea,” Mina absently answered.

“What do you
want
to believe about
you
? What do you want to believe you are?”

Mina wanted to believe something about herself. That she was something—was someone. That she had once done more with her life than sit around her house and try and remember who she was, and chase around a maniacal toddler.

“Who do you
believe
you are?”

“I don't know,” she said softly. “I don't remember.”

The no memory thing was tough and seemed only to get worse by the day. As hard as she tried, Mina simply could not remember anything that had happened in her life before Emma was born. Even Emma's earliest days were a fog. She had no recollection of the pregnancy—whether it was “easy” or not, whether she was sick or not. The birth. The other mothers always wanted these answers. They were obsessed with natural or epidural, vaginal or caesarian, breast or bottle—and they were also obsessed with bonding with the mothers who had done things just as they had, and obsessed with belittling, tormenting, alienating any mother that had done it differently. Mina hated The Mothers.

“You can be WHO you think you are. If you think it, you can believe it!”
the voice encouraged.

Then there was Jack. Her “husband.” The phantom presence that shared this house and this life with her when he wasn't working late and weekends, or traveling for business. She didn't quite understand how they had no money if he worked as hard as he did; she didn't want to think about what else he might be doing. Mina could not remember meeting Jack or falling in love with him. She could not remember their wedding day—any of the planning or preparation involved. It was hard to get a sense of him even now. She couldn't remember if she loved him, if she ever really loved him. Though she felt she had—and that she still did. Even in the small pockets of time they spent together, she could feel a warmth, a crackling flame, a shared affection and a desire, even if it was seldom if ever acted upon by either of them these days.

“If you feel it, you can know it to be true!”
said the voice on the tape, and Mina took a deep breath and as she repeated the words under her breath.

Perhaps the saddest thing of it all was that she had no idea where she came from. No recollection of childhood, of family. She had been able to piece together that there was no one left. But who was her mother? Her father? Did she have any brothers or sisters? It was these questions and a million more like them that distracted Mina daily—and opened the door for Emma to do crazy things like get into paint and ruin the furniture.

“Out! Out! Out! Monny I want out!” Emma shrieked from her “prison,” and the phone started ringing again. Mina hoped it was Jack but when she saw it was a different 888 number, she angrily picked up the receiver and slammed it down again. Anyone who she wanted to speak to could call her on her cell phone, she rationalized. At least the vultures didn't know that number. At least not yet.

“If you could, just think for a moment if you could….”
The voice paused and started up again with great passion and fury.
“If you believe you could be what you want to believe, would you finally… Would you FINALLY… Would you finally believe in yourself?”

“Not likely,” Mina surmised and dashed over to the playroom to collect Emma. Except she had forgotten to mop up a large puddle of water that had formed under the ceiling from where the dryer was leaking and she slipped, old-film-wipe-out-on-a-banana-peel-style on the Italian ceramic floor.

“Monny! MONNY!”

“I'm coming!” Her whole body hurt as she tried to get up. And then the doorbell rang.

“What do you believe?”
the man's voice demanded of her.
“What do YOU believe?”

“You bad monny. Bad, bad monny. I gonna hit-choo bad monny!”

Mina picked herself off the floor and headed for the door.

“I gonna hit-choo in the head!”

“What do you believe the Universe owes you?”

The toddler just kept screaming. The phone started ringing again and now the doorbell. “Oh fuck, alright, I'm coming!” she said.

“If you know what you believe you need, the Universe will bring it to you! But first you must know what you believe you need!”

“MONNNNNNNNY!!!!”

“I'm coming baby. Hang on!”

“I want-choo now monny! Now! Now! Now!”

Bedraggled, limping, covered in dried paint, Mina pulled open the door. And there, on the other side, stood her opposite. Serenity, manifest in a small-framed, advanced-aged “savior” known as Esther Erasmus, holding a covered plate that held the promise of something sweet, and today wearing a bright, bejeweled pin that reminded Mina of a Tiffany stained glass lampshade. Esther had arrived, as if beckoned by the Universe itself, and now Mina could finally breathe.