A Shoe Addict's Christmas

by Beth Harbison

  “With Paul or the baby?”

  “Paul, of course.” She laughed. “He cannot wait to have a first Christmas to beat the band. Anyway, Lex told me you were making noise about worrying about eating my food, but I’ve got to tell you I have baby-mama brain and haven’t been ordering as well as I should. If you can eat some of that stuff, you’d actually be doing me a favor. Especially the cheese. I got carried away thinking about cheese plates and went a little nuts. Oh! There are spiced nuts, too. To go with the cheese. Trust me, they’re amazing. And top the Brie with some of the balsamic cherries in the flat white container in the fridge.”

  “Thanks, Gemma.”

  “Will you be okay? Do you need me to come up with a few simple recipes? I think everything should be easy for you to find.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told her. “Honest. And I’ll eat some cheese.”

  “Good! And sorbet! There’s fresh raspberry sorbet in the freezer. I got a lot of that after trying a sample in Chelsea Market.”

  “Sounds fabulous.” And it did. “Now go Christmas Eve-ing with your family and don’t worry about me.”

  “Okay.” She sounded doubtful. “If you’re sure you don’t need anything else from me.”

  “Honestly? I need you to let me go so I can do some shopping.” The truth was, it was comforting to hear her voice, but I didn’t want her wasting her night on me.

  Plus, I knew she’d understand that shopping thing. “Well, then! Go to it! Have a blast.”

  I thanked her and told her I would. Then I told myself the same, because this was no time to feel trapped or sorry for myself.

  So I spent a good forty-five minutes trying on clothes in a scene that looked like the ones from so many chick flicks. Only I didn’t have a best friend or love interest there, goading me along and clapping with approval at every look that worked or was hilarious. And, believe me, I had both. Let’s just say caftans are not my style, and I don’t know what yacht I thought I was going to be sitting on, eating berries with mimosas for breakfast, wearing one.

  I did, however, find a bunch of things I did want, and I made a pile and left it on the counter.

  Then I went to the bedding department to choose my bed for the night. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but I was really pretty psyched about that part. My bed at home sagged in the middle, and I spent every night feeling like I was trying to crawl up a ravine, but so far I’d just been too lazy to get a new mattress. If I got a new mattress, I’d want a bigger one, which meant a new frame, which meant me disassembling the one I had, and—ugh. It was just more than I felt like dealing with, so I stuck with the same old bed for now.

  The beds at Simon’s, though … wow. Top end.

  “Who’s been sleepin’ in my bed?” I asked no one, as I threw back the thousand-dollar Belgian linen sheets on Bed Number One. God, they were luxurious. I didn’t know how rich I’d have to be in order to justify such a purchase without thinking about the hundreds of other necessities I might have gotten with the same money, but I sure wasn’t there now.

  The only problem with the bed was that it was kind of out in the open. Granted, no one else was in the store, and I knew it, but I also knew I’d feel vulnerable trying to sleep there.

  So I went to another bed, this one bordered by a wall and topped with rose-gold silk sheets. They were almost as expensive as the linen, truth be told, and the latest sales angle was that silk kept your skin from wrinkling and kept your hair smooth. Well, who wouldn’t want that?

  I got in the bed for a moment and reveled in the luxury. “And this one was just right.” Thank goodness the security guard wasn’t there, because if he’d come upon me, I would have sounded like a lunatic. But I was having fun. What the heck, right?

  I left the bed turned down, half wishing some magic housekeeper had left a chocolate on my pillow. This was about as close as I was going to get to staying in a four-star hotel, and I wanted to enjoy every minute.

  I smiled to myself. This really was fun. Another person might have freaked out at being trapped—hell, another me might have freaked out at being trapped—but with the cheerful holiday music playing (it was Andy Williams and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” right now), it was hard to feel anything but festive.

  Next up was the lingerie department. I needed a nightgown and robe. Well, needed … maybe I didn’t need them, but I couldn’t see myself sleeping comfortably if I just stripped down to my undies, and I sure couldn’t see myself walking around in this potential fishbowl in a T-shirt, in case the roads cleared and the world came back to life.

  Besides, I didn’t actually have a nice nightgown and robe (see “T-shirt” above—that’s what I usually sleep in). It seemed like a good idea to have at least one in case I ever had company or, God willing, any sort of romantic life. So I picked them out and went into the dressing room to change.

  Did I mention this was fun?

  It was really fun.

  I took the tags off and added them to my pile of clothes at the casuals department cash register.

  “The Christmas Waltz” came on, and I began dancing goofily to it, sweeping past the window with its view of the snowy outside, and feeling lighter and happier than I could remember feeling in a long, long time. This was it—this was the “holiday spirit” everyone talked about. I’d been meh about it for so long, year after year, but at this moment, it didn’t matter that I was alone and that I didn’t have any big plans for tomorrow; all that mattered was that I was in a magical place, and for the rest of my life no one would ever be able to ruin this moment or take it away from me.

  That’s when it happened.

  There was a tremendously loud crash in the shoe department, about fifteen yards away, past Men’s Suits and Juniors. Not a “Hm, something fell off the wall, that’s strange, it must not have been on very securely” crash, but more of a “Good lord, the wall must have just caved in!” crash.

  Then a shrill, worried exclamation. I’m pretty sure it was “Zooterkins!”

  I was not alone.

  Chapter 2

  I stopped dead in my tracks and listened, like a twitchy doe, for one more hint that I should run for the hills. Only there were no hills, even on a good day when the doors would open, and running could only take me as far as a corner to be, well, cornered in.

  My mind raced. Zooterkins. It was hardly a menacing word. And the voice that had uttered it had been … fussy? Female for sure, now that I thought about it. But not tough New Jersey Mob Wives female, more like an elementary school teacher. My grandmother. Anyone’s grandmother.

  But what was I to do? I mean, I was barefoot, in a satin nightgown and robe, miles from my phone, and the only thing I could use as a weapon, if need be, would be a stiletto. Which wasn’t a bad idea. I grabbed a Ferragamo spike-heel pump from the display table and headed toward the back room of the shoe department, where the noise had come from. Once I got as far as the counter, I could pick up the phone there. It was better than a mobile because the minute I hit 911, emergency crews would be on the way. Assuming they had sled dogs. But I couldn’t afford to think about what could go wrong.

  I moved as stealthily as possible. Interesting side note: Satin makes a whole lot of noise when you are otherwise in silence and want to remain that way. Still, I made it to the phone and picked it up. So, with phone in one hand and shoe in the other, I stood at the door to the back room and called, “Hello?”

  Pause. “Oh, hello.”

  It sounded like an old woman—but so stereotypically like an old woman that I could picture it being a big, burly man with a gift for mimicry.

  “I have the police on the line,” I said, then hit the CALL button to be sure I had a line out. I did; it hummed so loud I had to hit the button again to turn it off. “They’re on the way.”

  “Oh, dear.” There was an unidentifiable bustling sound. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go at all.”

  If that wasn’t genuinely an old woman, it was a damn good imi
tation. I relaxed fractionally.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked. “How what was supposed to go?”

  Worried sounds came as an answer, then, “I’ve blown it. Just like last time.”

  I had no idea what to do with this. “Um … ma’am? Can you please come out here?” Then what? What would I do?

  “I could, dear, but who would clean up this mess?”

  “Mess?” I remembered the sound that had brought me in this direction and took a tentative step in. “What mess? What on earth happened?”

  Then I saw. There were shoes all over the floor, mismatched pairs lying haphazardly. The huge metal shelf that had held them was leaning against the wall opposite where it usually stood, at an angle forming a virtual steeple over what looked, indeed, like an elderly woman in a high-necked dress and the kind of boots Mary Poppins wore. Her white hair was an unkempt bun, leaving tendrils of pale gray to frame her moonlike face. She looked like the kind of person who smiled frequently, but she wasn’t smiling now.

  She was looking downright fretful. Cartoonishly so.

  “What happened?” I asked again, setting both the phone and the shoe down and going in to assess the damage.

  “My hat,” she said, indicating the floor a few feet away, where a small pile of pink fabric sat with a feather poking out of it, askew. It was surrounded by shoes. “When I came in”—she gestured vaguely upward—“it got knocked off on the top of the shelf, and I was going back up to get it. Climbing up, you see, because I just don’t present as well without it.” She sighed and knitted her brow, looking around at the wreckage. “You can see exactly what happened.”

  “Are you saying,” I began, unable to believe it. Surely she wasn’t. Or was she? “That you were climbing the shelves to try to retrieve your hat?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Of course, I realize that sounds silly now.”

  “It sounds insane.”

  “Oh, Zooterkins, I know it does.” She looked at me plaintively. “I don’t have a better explanation than the truth, though, do I?”

  “Okay…” Lord, the mess. I was not in the mood to deal with a batty old lady and two thousand mismatched shoes. Five minutes ago I was freaked out at the idea of being alone here; now I was freaked out at the idea of not being alone.

  It felt like I was supposed to be tested this Christmas Eve one way or the other, and I’d taken being locked in too much in stride, so God or Santa Claus or whoever had thrown something else my way.

  “Who are you?” I asked her. Someone must be waiting for her, worried about her. Some grandchild, maybe, or even an old man sitting outside in an ancient rear-wheel-drive Cadillac that was getting increasingly buried in snow.

  “Oh! That! That’s easy. I’m your guardian angel!”

  Oh boy. My guardian angel. This was obviously a fan of holiday movies. “Is anyone waiting for you? Expecting you? Should we make a call?”

  “Only one way to make a call to my boss.” She widened her eyes, pointing upward, then put her hands together as if in prayer. When she smiled, it made her round apple cheeks go red and her watery blue eyes damn near twinkle.

  This was immediately tiresome, not because it wasn’t charming—it was—but because it wasn’t true, and the truth needed to be discovered because there were probably some people out there worried to death about her.

  “What’s your name?” I tried.

  “Call me Charlie.”

  Great. “Okay. I’m Noelle—”

  “Oh, I know that. Christmas in July, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I answered automatically, then realized that wasn’t something a stranger should know.

  “I learn that sort of thing before taking on a job,” she explained. “It helps me prove to you I’m telling the truth.”

  I wasn’t sure what it proved besides that she was an exceptionally lucky guesser. Exceptionally. But that was hard to buy. A good guess would have been that I was born at Christmas, or that it was my mother’s favorite holiday, neither of which was the truth. I supposed “Christmas in July” was guessable—it is an expression, after all—but still …

  “Don’t worry, dear,” she said. “Goodness, you look so fretful. It’s difficult to strike the right balance between reassuring someone and alarming them. I apologize if I’ve alarmed you.”

  Now she just sounded like an old lady again. Absolutely typical, nothing scary. It was easy to let go of the uncomfortable question of how she knew the origin of my name and to return to the idea that she needed to be accounted for somehow.

  “What’s your last name?” I asked her.

  She shrugged, not a care in the world. “Don’t remember. Must have had one once, but I don’t anymore. I’m just known as Charlie around the clouds, so that’s what you can call me. Unless you want me to make up a last name. I can do that.”

  “All right, why don’t you?” Chances seemed decent that she might “make up” her own real last name and I could call Lex or Sandy or someone to have them figure this out.

  “Let’s see . .” She tapped her finger against her chin, then looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Smith?”

  I shook my head.

  “Jones.”

  “Nope.”

  “Moneypenny!”

  “That’s from James Bond.”

  “Oh, but it’s such a fine last name. All shiny and coppery. I do love it.”

  I sighed.

  “Carpenter.”

  “That’s my last name.”

  “I know, dear. You see?” She tapped a pudgy index finger against her temple. “I did it again, slipped it right in there.”

  “How do you know my name?” Then it occurred to me—the company newsletter. Maybe she was a relative of someone who worked at Simon’s, which would explain why she was here, and she’d seen my picture and maybe even heard a story from someone I’d had an unlikely conversation with.

  “I really think we should contact your family to let them know that you’re all right.”

  She looked bereft for a moment, then said, “I don’t have family here.”

  “In town?”

  “On earth.”

  It was obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this line of questioning, so I gave up. “Fine. I’ll call you Charlie, and we’ll forget the last name for the moment.”

  “Excellent. Noelle.”

  I looked again at the shoes. What a mess. It was going to be a long night. “Do you want to try to help me put these back, Charlie?”

  “Of course! I’m the reason for the mess, after all.” She bustled over to the pink hat and set it crookedly atop her head, then gave me a nod as if to say, Now I’m ready to work!

  “So first let’s just match up shoe styles, then size, then find the boxes, how does that sound?”

  “Like I’ve created a heck of a mess.”

  “You have.” I laughed. “But we’re going to fix that.”

  We set about collecting styles and pairs, which wasn’t as bad as it had seemed like it would be, since of course everything had fallen straight off the shelves and onto the floor in front of where it had been. It wasn’t as if shoes had ended up thirty feet away from each other.

  “So what do you do for work?” I asked Charlie casually.

  “Angel,” she said. “Not a very good one.” She was focused on picking up shoes, with not a hint of self-consciousness in her voice or facial expression. “I’m working on guardian angel.” She glanced at me. “You’re my first. They always give the klutzes like me to the nice ones like you.”

  I was momentarily flattered until I remembered that what she was saying was nuts. “What did you do before that?”

  “I can’t say I remember.”

  “You can’t remember?”

  “My life here, on earth. That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.” This was too weird.

  “I don’t remember it. I did once, but I’ve been gone a long, long time. At least by your standards.”
r />   The idea of that being true—though I totally wasn’t believing it—struck me as inestimably sad. A whole life forgotten?

  “Oh, it was a long time ago,” she said, as if reading my mind. “I’m surrounded by my loved ones now; it’s just that no one can remember who was what.” She chuckled heartily. “Now and again, I have had the feeling I was a seamstress, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Or a cook.” She shrugged. “I’m very picky about both. The hem on this dress”—she gestured—“it just makes me bonkers. The stitches are too big, too loopy, and so the hem isn’t right.”

  I looked at her hem, but nothing was obviously shoddy.

  “Then again…” She sighed. “I do love to eat. I haven’t eaten in ages. Absolute ages.”

  I hadn’t either, come to think of it, and I remembered Gemma’s description of the cheeses in the kitchen. “Want to go grab a bite in the restaurant?” I asked her.

  “What? Is it open?”

  I laughed. “Well, no. The entire store is closed. Which is why I was so surprised that you’re here.” I felt like I should ask again if anyone was looking for her, but, honestly, she seemed a lot more like some poor soul who had gotten stuck and wanted to make a good story of it than a kook who didn’t know who or where she was. She was going a bit heavy on the guardian-angel bit, which made me think she’d probably watched a few too many Christmas movies and found the perfect way to occupy herself on an otherwise-lonely Christmas Eve.

  She was certainly occupying me. I have to confess, I was kind of enjoying playing out my little Christmas story.

  “Let’s go grab a bite, then come back and finish up here.”

  “Very well,” she said, following my lead as I walked out into the brightly lit store. “Is my hat okay?” she asked.

  I turned and looked at her. What had been a pink blob on the floor, with a crooked feather, was now a pink blob on her head, with a crooked feather. “It’s perfect,” I told her.

  We made our way to Filigree, a little Mary Poppins/Cherry Tree Lane of a spot, with twisted white wrought-iron gates and delicate tables and chairs, and a commercial kitchen that was equipped to cook for a legitimate army.