Goody One Shoe

by Julie Frayn

  “How about the social life?”

  Billie winced. “Does the cat count?”

  Doc shook her head. “So no new friends, no boyfriends. Not even one date?”

  “No ma’am. Unless you count the sweet sticky things in the grocery store.”

  “Have you tried the tips I suggested? Volunteering, singles groups, support groups?”

  Billie stared at her.

  “Ok, then. You’re still active at church, I imagine, so that is something.”

  Billie bit her lip and looked at her lap. “Actually, I don’t go there much anymore.”

  “What’s not much?”

  Billie shrugged. “Never? Well, once. A couple of weeks ago. Before that it was a few months.”

  “But not since.” It wasn’t a question. The doc was ruminating on her disappointment. She picked up her lilac pad. “Well, if you’re not going to get out there and look for support and you insist on staying off the meds,” the doc eyed her over the rim of her glasses that hung on for dear life at the tip of her nose, “you’ll need therapy. Consistent, ongoing therapy.” She turned to a fresh sheet and scratched out a few words, ripped the page off and handed it to Billie. “Three other therapists to consider.”

  Billie stared at the names, looked up at the doc, a tear burning the corner of one eye. “You’re dumping me?”

  “Dumping you? Of course not. But maybe you need someone new. I figured since you’d avoided me for so long, you could stand some fresh ideas.”

  “I wasn’t avoiding you. I was avoiding everything.” Billie wadded up the paper and tossed it on the coffee table. “I don’t want anyone new or fresh. I want you. But I don’t want drugs. They make my skin crawl and itch. My stump is itchy enough already.”

  Doc smiled. “All right, then. Let’s ease back into it. How about every third Thursday? We can take it from there.”

  Billie tapped her real foot against the area rug. “How about I come back in two weeks?”

  Doc nodded. “Two weeks it is. See you on the fourth.”

  The Following Monday

  BILLIE SPREAD THE NEWSPAPER across her lap. The subway rocked and jerked as it always did, an annoying reality that brought a sense of uncomfortable comfort. Some sameness and predictability to her increasingly unpredictable days.

  She scanned the headlines, rolled her eyes at misspelled words and inconsistent capitalization. She froze when she read “Couple Gunned Down In Alley.” It was a small article, near the bottom of page seven, tucked away like it didn’t even matter. She ran her fingers down the column and devoured the text. Young family out for a matinee on a Saturday, they left the theatre by the back exit and were robbed of wallet and purse. The muggers shot the parents and took off. No leads. Children traumatized. Father dead. Mother clinging to life in the hospital.

  Billie closed her eyes. They were going to get away with it. Like the monsters that killed her family. Those poor children. Maybe she should visit them. Talk to them.

  Goddamn bullies in the world can’t leave good people alone. Have to harm them, steal from them, push them around. Snuff out their lives. And where’s the justice system? Sitting back and watching, scratching its balls and flexing its scrawny biceps. Stupid cops and stupider courts with all the rights afforded the accused and none left for the victims.

  She blinked her eyes open and unclenched her fists. She smoothed the crunched up corners of the newspaper against her lap. Her inner fury prevented her from noticing the band of teenage hoodlums who were too lazy to walk home from school milling around her. Bat Head, his shirt gray and batless, smirked in her direction.

  “Hey, cripple. Nice shoes.” His posse laughed and one of them slapped his back, congratulated him on his prowess at insensitivity. His awe-inspiring superpower to be mean for no reason.

  “I am not a cripple,” Billie said through grit teeth.

  Bat Head tapped her prosthesis with the toe of his lime-green kicks and leaned in. “Cripple,” he sneered.

  The car descended into silence except for the rustling of newsprint somewhere at the back and the clomp of heavy footsteps up the aisle. “Leave her be, boy. She’s not bothering you.”

  Billie blinked at the sound of a man’s voice that rumbled like a bass tuba with a handful of gravel caught in the bell.

  Humanity on the subway. Go figure.

  The boy turned on the man, but when he had to look up a good five inches to meet his gaze, his bravado faltered. He held up his palms. “It’s cool, dude. Just playin’ with the gimpy chick. No harm, no foul, right?”

  The man took a step forward. “She’s not gimpy, and she’s not a chick. So yeah, dude.” He poked the boy in the chest. “Harm.” He poked the boy again. “Foul.”

  The subway pitched and braked. The boy lost his balance. He grabbed for the pole but his fingers slipped and he landed on his denim-clad ass. The car exploded with laughter and applause. One of his friends helped him to his feet. “C’mon Nick. Just drop it.”

  Nick jerked his chin at the man. “Another time, old man.”

  The man laughed. “Bring it, shit-for-brains.”

  When the doors opened, the boy and his crew scrambled out and ran down the platform. Passengers that filed past the tall, broad man patted his shoulder, gave him a thumbs up, mumbled “way to go” and “atta boy” before disappearing out the open maw of the subway car.

  Billie smiled up at the man. “Thank you.” Her cheeks warmed at the sight of his crooked nose and rugged chin, darkened by the shadow of afternoon beard scruff.

  “You’re welcome. If you don’t stand up to the little bastards, they’ll walk all over you. Or worse.” He trundled away, plopped his bulky frame into the seat he’d risen from, picked up his own newspaper, and shook the crease from it. He caught her eye and winked, the corners of his mouth upturned.

  Billie looked at her lap. That’s exactly how that story should read. She wouldn’t edit a thing. Except maybe her own fear. Not of the boys, of their insults and their callous mocking. She was used to high school bullies. No, she’d strikeout her fear of holding the man’s gaze. Her fear of what might happen if she found the nerve to speak to him. Fear of rejection, of being tossed aside like damaged goods. She cut her eyes to his face.

  He was absorbed in the paper, ignoring her angst.

  She folded her newspaper and read the headline. Another horrific crime. Another criminal off on a technicality. Cops didn’t get a proper warrant before searching a vehicle. Her father was probably rolling over in his grave. And the useless public servant prosecutors rushed through the trial, didn’t do their due diligence on behalf of the victims. She mentally edited the piece, at best, a piss-poor excuse for journalism. It read like it was written for a grade four language class. Must they pander to the lowest common denominator?

  She huffed a breath at the misspelling of informant, dug in her purse and pulled out a red pen. She filled the article with proofreading marks, deleted unnecessary words, corrected spelling, undangled participles, and closed compound words. What newspaper reporter worth their salt spells it “news paper?”

  Once the proofing was complete, she went back to the beginning. She edited for content. For plot. It seemed unreasonable, unlikely — or at least a damn sight unfair — that the depraved clowns who had raped an eleven-year-old boy in the back of a van, then tossed him out like so much trash on Tuesday morning, should get away with it. And in this case, “clowns” was literal. Two schmucks dressed in full pancake makeup, neon-wigged, oversized red-shoe regalia. They abducted the boy from the corner after they’d performed at a four-year-old’s birthday party just up the street.

  Goddamn clowns. Nothing sucked more than clowns. Except maybe Batman.

  She struck out an entire paragraph, wrote her own conclusion in the margins. A gruesome form of justice meted out to the most deserving of pedophilic scum.

  “Yeah, I didn’t like how that one ended either.”

  She started and looked up into the face of tall, d
ark, and stalwart. She blinked. Her tongue refused to cooperate with her brain and just sat there, mute and dry. A witty retort died on her lips. Just as well. It was probably lame. He would have laughed at her.

  He sat beside her and scanned the paper. His eyes moved side to side when he read, like there was a tennis match being played out on the page. He poked out his lower lip and nodded. “I like what you’ve done with it.” He tapped the paragraph she’d rewritten. “Incarceration is too good for them. So is death. Public castration, now that’s creative.” He grinned and held out his hand. “Bruce.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. Maybe she could edit his name. Randall. Or Dennis. Even Chester. Anything but Bruce. What was his surname, Wayne?

  Her cheeks warmed and she looked at the paper. She held her hand toward his. “Billie.”

  He shook her hand. “Billie? Isn’t that more of a guy’s name?”

  She willed the heat in her cheeks to subside but failed miserably. “Short for Wilhelmina.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “Yeah, Billie’s better.”

  The subway jerked to a halt. Bruce slid on the hard plastic seat. His thigh brushed against hers. A heat she wasn’t accustomed to burned where their clothing met.

  “Well, my stop. Stay safe, Billie. Edit a few more endings and make those bad guys pay.” He winked, stood, and was gone from her life in a single beat of her heart.

  2001

  LEAVES RUSTLED OVER BILLIE’S head. The cool breeze of early fall cleared her brain and let her creative juices flow. She’d sat on her favourite bench under her favourite oak for more than an hour, engrossed in the third edit of the fourth short story she’d written that month. It wasn’t even extra credit work. She wrote them for fun. For release. For companionship. She was well on her way to completing her bachelor’s degree in English in almost half the time her fellow students would take. Then onto a master’s. Perhaps a PhD was in her future. She was devoted to her studies, to her writing. Especially to editing. Editing was the best part. That’s where she truly shined.

  The bench shook with the weight of an intruder who dared to plop down beside her. Billie ignored whoever was encroaching on her space, invading her privacy. Trying to muscle in on her loneliness.

  “What are you writing?”

  She shot a sideways glance at the poacher and rolled her eyes. George something. He always sat near her, tried to make small talk. He came off as thick as a redwood’s trunk and just as dense. Her constant rebuffs failed to deter him. Like spilled coffee on a Scotchgarded sofa, her rejection didn’t sink in, just rolled off him. And he came back for more almost every day.

  She pulled her binder cover half-closed so he couldn’t read the pages. “Short story.”

  “We’re supposed to write a story?” He dropped his books on the bench.

  She threw him a scowl. “Not for any class I’m in. It’s just for me.”

  “You do extra work for nothing?” He leaned back on the bench and draped his arms across the backrest, his right hand resting against her shoulder.

  Billie sat up and his arm slid down her back. She glared at him. “Hands off.”

  “Shit, sorry. Man, you’re jumpy.” He withdrew his arm and bounced one knee up and down. “Can I ask you something?”

  She sighed, closed her binder, half-turned in her seat, and tried to stab him with her best piercing stare. “What?” Despite his intrusive behaviour, his average grades, and his rather large proboscis, she had to admit he was kind of cute.

  He licked his lips. “I wondered if maybe, sometime, you and me could grab a coffee or something.”

  She gritted her teeth. “You and I.”

  “Yeah. Us. Coffee.”

  “No, I mean… Never mind.”

  He squished his lips together and raised his eyebrows. “Is that a no?”

  “Yeah. It’s a no.”

  “Can I ask why? You already have a boyfriend?”

  She huffed. “Are you trying to be funny?”

  His brows descended and furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

  “Haven’t you heard? I’m a freak.” She yanked up her pant leg and flicked her prosthesis with her middle finger.

  “I know about your leg. How does that make you a freak?” He tugged her pant leg down.

  “See? You can’t even look at it. You think I’m a freak too. Just like everyone else.”

  “Billie, it doesn’t bother me. It’s just that you’re being kind of loud and people are staring.”

  “So let them stare.”

  “Fine, you want to make an ass of yourself, be my guest.” He gathered his books and stood. “You need to chill out. Maybe let somebody past that iron wall you’ve built around yourself.”

  “Screw you.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a shame too. You’re so smart. Pretty behind that angry scowl you wear. Cute but crazy. And I don’t need the crazy.” He walked away and didn’t look back.

  And he never bothered her again.

  Tuesday evening

  BILLIE SAT IN FRONT of her laptop, interlaced her fingers, flipped her hands until her palms faced out, and straightened her arms. The crack of knuckles in the quiet apartment left a satisfied grin on her face. She twisted her neck until it snapped to attention, straightened her teacup so the handle was at just the right angle for easy access when the desperate need for a shot of sweet warmth jumped up and bit her, then opened Annabelle Wright’s — her first client’s — manuscript. All four authors she’d approached for references had sent glowing reviews, and Annabelle happily accepted the offered rate. Perhaps Billie should have come in higher? No matter, it was a start. And a start meant everything.

  Step one, format the document. She adjusted the margins, modified normal style to be double-spaced with Times New Roman twelve-point font. She went on a search and destroy mission for the dreaded double space after periods and replaced them with singles.

  With that finished, she set Word to track changes and launched into the work. It was a historical romance with dystopian elements. Not exactly Billie’s cup of Earl Grey, but it was a paycheque. Three pages in and the author’s crutch words were jumping off the page. Just. Smile. The objectionable overuse of that. And ellipses. What makes a writer think dot dot dot more than once on a page is a good idea? Heck, twice in a chapter, maybe. Five times in the whole manuscript, tops.

  Seven pages in and Peg Leg decided it was time for a break. He mewled at her until she bundled him onto her lap. He crawled onto the countertop and made a move for her keyboard. “Peg Leg, no!” He got one paw on it before she snatched him up and dropped him back to the floor. “Darn, look what you did.” She hit undo until his less-than-professional edits disappeared and she was back where she left off. She saved the document, something she hadn’t done since she opened it, and closed the lid.

  He mewed at her from the floor, his tail swishing side to side.

  She sighed and scratched his head. “You’re right. Time to stop.” Her mental red pen drew a fourth leg on his sleek body. If only it were that easy. She’d draw herself a new leg too. And a new life.

  Billie awoke to the clink of coins. She scanned the sidewalk to either side of her, panic rising in her throat. She ran her hands over her nightgown and found loonies, toonies, and quarters in her lap. Her eyes darted about and landed on her sneaker-clad foot and her bare at-home prosthesis.

  Her gut hollowed and she swallowed the urge to vomit. What time was it? And where the hell was she?

  She gathered the coins and inched her way up, her back against a brick wall. She took a mental inventory of her body parts and ran her hands over what she could without looking perverted. Why was she wearing workout shorts under pyjamas?

  At the corner, a cab turned right and headed her way.

  Her head down, avoiding the gaze of passersby, she held her nightgown close to her chest and bolted for the curb. She held up one hand and whistled.

  The cab veered across two lanes of traffic and screeched to a stop beside
her.

  She climbed in and gave him her address. She watched the unfamiliar buildings slide by the window. She tapped on the Plexiglas barrier. “How far a drive is that?”

  He eyed her in the rear-view. “Don’t you know where you are, lady?”

  She shook her head. “Is this Wednesday?”

  He nodded.

  “The twenty-seventh?”

  “Yeah. You okay? You need a hospital or something?”

  “No, I just need to go home.” And to get out of this disgusting car. Her bare prosthesis crunched against dirt and her sneaker stuck to the car mat. “How long?”

  “About half an hour.”

  The blood drained from her face and she nodded. A half hour by car. How long had she walked? Or perhaps she needed a midnight jog. In her sleep? Without her blade?

  If the cabbie knew all she had was about ten bucks in change to pay the fare, he’d boot her out right there in the middle of God-knows-where. She shrunk down in her seat and held her stomach.

  “Lady you don’t look so good. You puke in my cab and I’ll have to charge you extra.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “Just hurry up.”

  Ten minutes later, familiar landmarks popped into view. They crossed Sixty-Seventh Avenue just a few miles from Grandmother’s old house. When the taxi pulled up in front of her apartment, she hopped from the back seat and approached his open window. “Here, take this, it’s all I have.”

  He counted it, then looked up at her, his cheeks afire and his eyes bulging. “That’s about twenty short lady. You get me the rest or there’ll be cops on your ass in two minutes.”

  She held her palms up. “Give me five and I’ll be right down with the rest.”

  “You trying to rip me off?” He snatched his radio from its dash-mounted holder.

  “No! I would never, ever, do that. I’ll be back right away. I promise.” She bolted into the building and raced up the stairs, past Mrs. Rogerson, who gaped at Billie with her mouth hanging open.