by Gina Messina
Charlie tried to think fast then catapulted back, “I have a better idea. Why don’t you put them on? And, don’t think for one minute I haven’t noticed all the new magnificent shoes you’ve been wearing lately, Dr. Harrison.”
Dr. Harrison beamed proudly and looked down at her newest acquisitions, stunning Stuart Weitzman slides. She looked grateful that Charlie had finally acknowledged the makeover of her feet. Charlie laughed at the irony. Somehow, she highly doubted Dr. Harrison would be caught dead wearing clogs now! She’d become a shoe snob and Charlie had no one to blame but herself.
With any luck, maybe she can now stop that annoying rhythmic foot tapping she incessantly does, hoping to draw my attention to each new pair, she thought.
“This isn’t a test or a competition Charlie, it’s an important exercise. An essential part of your ongoing therapy. So, what do you say?” she optimistically asked, trying to sound as upbeat and enthusiastic as possible.
“Yes, well I’m thinking about it,” Charlie noncommittally answered, her eyes averted and her chin resting on the palm of her hand.
She started to think, weighing her options and contemplating what her upper East side friends would think if they saw those hideous abominations on her feet. ‘Sean must have cut her off,’ she imagined them gossiping during an intimate lunch at the Waldorf Astoria. ‘Money problems?’ they would snicker questionably among themselves, as thick as thieves, as they picked at their Tuna Nicoise and twenty-seven-dollar Cobb salads with the bacon and blue cheese dressing on the side. The rumors would be endless! What a humiliating shit show it would be! And what would Sean think? Maybe he’ll be happy when he sees them? she imagined to herself. Maybe he’ll look down in awe and finally see the awesomeness of me?
“You’re cured!” he might exclaim while gleefully picking her up and swinging her around in the air with a relieved expression on his face, before putting her back down and telling her that he had an important dinner meeting that night but is going to cancel so he can spend the entire evening with her.
Maybe he won’t leave me for Lizbeth? she cautiously thought.
“Lizbeth,” he might say, “Charlotte and I are giving it another go! She’s been working extremely hard in therapy for the past nine months and she no longer has the unexplained urge to spend three grand a week on shoes. I’m sorry, but you will just have to get an abortion. No, no, you can keep everything that I bought for you. Yes, yes…including the handcuffs. You just can’t keep the baby!”
Charlie eyed the Payless box warily for the next forty-five minutes.
“Time’s up!” she suddenly heard.
Have we really been sitting in silence for forty-five minutes? she questioned in disbelief. What a waste of Sean’s money! She grabbed her things and got up to leave but was stopped dead in her tracks just as she was reaching for the doorknob.
“Charlie, the shoes!” Dr. Harrison forcefully said while nodding toward the shoebox.
Does she really expect me to put them on right this minute?
She pointed to the Payless box and then to the gold, ostrich skin Jimmy Choo’s that were on Charlie’s feet and beautifully complemented the Cavalli silk blouse she was wearing. Charlie was stunned into silence and thought, How can I possibly wear those twenty dollar clogs with a five hundred and ninety-five-dollar designer blouse?
Before she completed her thought, her doctor picked up the box and brought it over to where Charlie was sitting.
She wants me to put them on right now? I can’t believe she’s really serious!
Charlie didn’t find this funny. Not even remotely amusing. I’ll probably wind up with a blister or a bunion! Or even worse, a corn or that dreaded foot disease! Yes, that’s what will happen, I’ll get Athlete’s Foot and then Dr. Harrison will be sorry that she’d thought up this insanely crazy and demeaning scheme.
“I’m so very sorry, I was wrong,” she would have to admit in a shamefully remorseful way, when Charlie showed up two weeks later and pointed out the oozing sores that had cropped up on the soles of her feet.
Charlie looked up and sighed in utter frustration. But then, after much consideration, she knew she was cornered. Feeling defeated, she masked a brave front and decided to put on the clogs. It took all the courage and determination she could muster. The thought of giving birth to quintuplets or trading a year of community service at the local soup kitchen as an alternative to the deed, briefly crossed her mind. But hearing Dr. Harrison grovel apologetically might just be worth it. Charlie kicked off the Choo’s and grabbed the Payless. With shaky hands and a gargantuan lump in her throat, she put one clog on each foot and tentatively stood. Of course, her poor feet immediately began to wildly sweat. How could they not? There was nothing natural about those clogs. They were made of vinyl!
“My feet can’t breathe!” she whined in agony while simultaneously gasping for air like a fish out of water.
Charlie was slowly suffocating from her feet up! Dr. Harrison watched her standing in the middle of the office for what felt like an abnormally long time. She could sense her psychiatrist’s eyes sadistically resting on the vile Payless clogs and then admirably down at her own two feet, while she tolerantly waited for her patient to take the first step.
Charlie was only able to take six baby steps before she had to hurl them off. She tossed them in Dr. Harrison’s direction. I’m never going to be able to last two whole hours a day, she told herself, Never!
Dr. Harrison cleared her throat. “Now, Charlie. Pick up those shoes and put them on…unless you’d like to go home barefoot,” she warned with a deadpan expression on her face.
“It would be much better than wearing this poor excuse of a shoe in public!” Charlie spewed out hatefully.
“Suit yourself, but the sidewalks of Manhattan can be brutal and the soles of your feet are unlikely accustomed to the pavement. There might even be glass or worse yet, excrement,” she said, then paused before adding, “You wouldn’t want to step in a pile of dog shit, barefoot, would you?”
“You’re a sick twisted bitch, you know that?”
If Charlie was hoping for a reaction, she didn’t get one. In fact, Dr. Harrison didn’t react at all. Instead, she grinned and calmly replied, “I can assure you, I’ve been called far worse.”
Fuck you, Charlie thought to herself as she slipped the clogs on for the second time and limped out the door, leaving the ugly box behind.
On her way home, she limped into the Michael Kors boutique and treated herself to the designer’s latest platform stilettos. They had just been touted as the hottest shoe of the season by Anna Wintour and all the star’s in Hollywood were wearing them. She figured it was the least she could do to placate her feet which had never before been subjected to such abuse, except for maybe when she’d been forced to wear those saddle shoes with the moldy wonder bread soles at the innocent age of three. I’ll start my homework tomorrow, she reasoned to herself.
Those Michael Kors were so delectable; Charlie wore them right out of the store. She had been mortified when the saleswoman winced and immediately copped an attitude, noticing the frumpy clogs she was wearing when she sat down to try on the sexy platform’s. No doubt she felt her valuable time was being wasted by a loser who wanted to feel like a rock star for a fleeting moment.
“You do know these are fourteen hundred dollar shoes,” she stated, then suggested that Charlie might want to check out Macy’s which should have something more affordable, but similar in style.
“I’ll take them,” Charlie responded then asked to speak to Julian, the store manager. It was obvious that the saleswoman was a new employee. After all, Charlie was a regular at Michael Kors and one of their best customers. Everyone there knew she was Mrs. Sean Murphy and had endless resources. She’d probably paid half of the staff’s rent with all the business she gave them, for heaven’s sake. Charlie felt she deserved a little more respect and a lot more recognition, so she was going to make sure that bitch’s first day on the job would a
lso be her last.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet.”
Christian Dior
“So how was your vacation, Dr. Harrison? Charlie asked with a seemingly happy tone to her voice even though she was actually more than a little bit jealous. She hadn’t had a vacation in years. Her visions of exotic trips to Italy and shopping expeditions to Prague had never become a reality. Except for the infernal summers in Manasquan, she hadn’t been anywhere notable in years.
“It was lovely. Thank you for asking. And the family reunion was wonderful! I connected with quite a few distant relatives I’ve never met before. But more importantly, Charlie, how did the last two weeks go for you?” she questioned while taking notice that Charlie seemed particularly upbeat and she was not wearing the clogs she had given her two weeks before. Instead, Dr. Harrison noticed that she was wearing a stunning pair of Dior patent leather pumps that were so shiny, they created a glare.
“You mean with the humiliating Payless pleather clogs?” Charlie looked down and admired the new patent Dior’s she’d rewarded herself with yesterday for having successfully completed her demeaning assignment. They almost made up for the two weeks of misery she had barely survived.
“Did you do your homework?”
Charlie nodded her head up and down.
“The entire two hours a day?” she asked with her eyes squinted in a suspicious manner.
“Yes, Dr. Harrison! The entire two hours a day and I’m happy to say that it was a success. So far I haven’t been plagued with athlete’s foot or a corn or some other horrific foot malady, so I guess I was wrong about that part! Though there were a few really unsettling moments.”
Charlie couldn’t even contemplate telling Dr. Harrison about her run in with Marco! Of all people to spot her wearing Payless shoes, it had to be her personal shopper! What are the fucking odds? she asked herself, though she did take full responsibility as she should’ve known better than to wear them downtown to the West Village where Marco lived. She still didn’t know what she’d been thinking. Charlie had known that there was no way she could do her ‘homework’ anywhere near her own ritzy neighborhood. The risk was just far too great. If one of her friends spotted her running around the upper east side, doing errands in Payless shoes, well she just cringed at the chain reaction it would have surely started. The phone calls and emails that would have ensued would have probably numbered in the hundreds!
So, Charlie had decided that she would take a cab downtown, where the chance of her bumping into someone she knew was far less likely. After some serious thought, she settled on the West Village. She should have known better and instead taken a trip to one of the outer boroughs where she definitely didn’t know a soul.
Instead, she arrived in the West Village and meandered up and down some of the quaint side streets, window shopping and minding her own business. Everything was going according to plan until she turned onto Christopher street and heard someone calling out her name.
“Charlie? Charlie Murphy?”
Charlie immediately started walking faster, with her head down low, hoping to get as far away from the voice as was humanly possible. But, before she could escape, she felt someone grab her by the elbow! When she stopped and turned around, she found she was staring directly into a familiar face: Marco.
“Charlie!” he shouted with a huge welcoming smile. “I thought that was you! What are you doing downtown and…uhh…what the hell do you have on your feet?” He immediately shielded his eyes with his hand, as if just looking at the clogs any longer than necessary would cause him to become blind, transform him into a pillar of salt or some fate even worse. His face went from a smile to a grimace to a display of utter repugnance within mere seconds.
“Marco! I’m tired of wearing...err, uncomfortable shoes,” she blurted out in an effort to cover her ass and her withering reputation. In a desperate attempt at justifying herself, she then added with a tsk, tsk, “I can’t believe you haven’t heard of this new trendy look, Marco! You, of all people! They’re imported, I’ll have you know and they’re made of very high-tech materials. My best friend Janie, picked them up for me when she was overseas visiting her brother last month. Every foreigner is wearing them!” She neglected to say that they were from China, not Europe as she’d insinuated and that they were made of pleather, not state of the art materials. But then again, she reckoned geography and chemistry never were her strongest subjects in high school. “You have no idea how long I had to wait to get a pair!” she announced with flair, knowing that anything that was imported and hard to come by, had to be something special.
Marco’s ears perked up at that. “How long?” he asked. In this world, anything less than three months wasn’t worth its weight in leather.
“Over six months!” she exclaimed victoriously. “If my girlfriend hadn’t been overseas and spotted them in my size, I’d still be waiting!”
His eyebrows arched in suspicion.
“But they look so dull, and boring, Charlie! And, aren’t your feet sweating buckets in those…things?”
“Not at all. I feel like I’m walking on air!” she lamely replied in a moment of profound humiliation and then sprinted off, shouting over her shoulder that she was running late to pick up Layla at dance recital and she really had to get going if she wanted to be on time. She knew he was on to her.
“More like…sloshing through puddles!” came Marco’s skeptical answer.
She should have thought this out more clearly. She should have listened more closely. She hadn’t grasped the full ramifications of the homework assignment.
The next day, Charlie decided to take the subway to Queens instead. She was confident she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. None of her friends would’ve been caught dead in Queens, or any of the outer boroughs, for that matter The only person she knew who lived there was Izzy, her maid, who happened to be conveniently visiting her family in Ecuador that very week. Charlie only had a small window of opportunity before Izzy was due to return. She carried the clogs in a plastic bag and didn’t dare put them on until the train pulled onto the platform in Flatbush. Charlie hadn’t been on a subway in over five years and would have normally taken a cab, but, it seemed only natural to take the F train because cheap clog’s and subways went together like a hot dog and soggy bun.
After she put them on, she wandered up and down Jamaica Avenue for two hours, (they really were quite comfortable!) and strangely felt right at home! Practically everyone she passed was wearing cheap shoes! She even stopped to grab that hot dog with sauerkraut from a food truck, which she later regretted.
A few hours into her pilgrimage, she couldn’t believe it when she actually walked by a Payless store on the corner of Merrick Boulevard. She halted dead in her tracks in front of the large glass picture window and eyed all the shoes with a sick fascination. There were rows and rows of shoes that she wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing-not even to her own funeral!
I wonder if Dr. Harrison will give me extra credit if I go inside, she thought.
Bracing herself, she hesitantly entered the store and started perusing the stock. All of the shoes were displayed on metal racks according to size. Charlie was dumbfounded when she noticed that there weren’t any sales people to help the customers with sizing and selection. They don’t have a Marco? she questioned in horror. She couldn’t believe that people were meant to help themselves. What kind of store does that to their customers? She wandered over to the rack with a sign displaying her size. It was overflowing with all sorts of grotesque styles which made it impossible for her to focus on any one pair.
There was a young pregnant girl standing in the aisle with a baby stroller that held a sleeping toddler. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. She looked over at Charlie and said hello. Charlie nodded back then heard her commen
t, “I like your clogs. Did you get them here?”
“Thank you,” Charlie replied, feeling herself swell with profound humiliation before she briefly explained that they were a gift from a friend. She didn’t make a habit of talking to strangers, especially ones who shopped at bargain basement stores, and she didn’t plan on starting at that moment, so she tried to keep things as short and sweet as possible without being rude.
“Well, they’re awesome!” the girl enthusiastically voiced. “I’ve been looking for a pair of plain black clogs for ages! It’s so hard to find comfy clogs. And, now that I’m expecting my second,” she proudly declared while patting her protruding belly, “I really need to find something comfortable. My ankles swelled two sizes with my first pregnancy.”
Charlie wanted to rip them off her feet and give them to the girl right then and there, but was afraid that Dr. Harrison might want them back once the assignment was successfully completed. So instead, she just smiled back at her and wished her good luck, then wandered further down the aisle.
What a nice kid, she told herself. Not like the bitchy women I normally run into while shopping at Saks. And those people were supposedly her friends! They’d often tell her how much they loved what she was wearing, only to talk about her the second she turned her back.
Charlie decided to go out on a limb and try on a few pairs, but had a hard time finding a shoe that didn’t turn her stomach. Every one she picked up was more dreadful than the next. She did, however, have to admit that it was such a peculiar, eerie feeling that she was experiencing, while mingling with all the other bargain shoppers. It was almost as if they were sharing a bizarre form of camaraderie; a quasi-military camaraderie born from facing a common fate; a grim fate. There is power in numbers, she consoled herself. And, for the briefest of moments, she actually felt like she fit in!
