Rita Hayworth's Shoes

by Francine LaSala

  “Yeah well, not much damage done. Sure I get a little snappish sometimes, but I think that’s more to do with my age than my youth.”

  “So then, it’s just you and Chuck?”

  “Pretty much. I did have an uncle actually. My real dad’s brother, but—”

  “What?”

  “You know what? Let’s save that shitstorm for another time, shall we? I think you already know too much about me as it is, and here I am knowing nearly nothing about you.”

  “There isn’t much to know.”

  “What are some of the fucked up things they did to you? You must have had some problems with your parents.”

  “Oh, no. Not really. They were kind of free-spirited and flaky, but they were there for me.”

  “Were?”

  “Yes,” her voice cracked. “They disappeared in Brazil. On vacation a few years back. Presumed dead.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “The worst part of it is I kind of feel like it was my fault,” she said, dead serious. He started laughing. “Why is that funny?”

  “It’s funny, because…it’s kind of your calling card, huh? Innocently walking around, killing people?” he laughed some more.

  “This is funny?”

  “I’m also laughing because like most intellectuals, you think way too much and you drive yourself crazy thinking yourself into things that probably aren’t even true.”

  “You’re an intellectual.”

  “By default, really. But I don’t know a lot of intellectuals. I mean, for someone who went into this line of work. I basically grew up in a firehouse.”

  “Strange,” she said.

  “That I grew up in a firehouse?”

  “There’s that. Yes. But I meant because I don’t think I know anyone who isn’t one.”

  “Not me. Seriously. You could fit all the intellectuals I want to associate with in a rowboat.”

  “Am I in the rowboat?”

  “Do you want to be?”

  There was a long pause before Amy screwed up her face and let out a shriek. “Oh, my God. Eeew!”

  Deck shook his head and looked away. “Hey, that’s okay. You can just say no. You don’t have to do me any favors.”

  “No,” she panted. “Not that. On the table. Right next to you!”

  He looked over his shoulder, still confused.

  “A spider! A spider!”

  He finally spotted the offending arachnid, ready for a tarantula or black widow at the very least, and unimpressed by the small spider that sprawled almost lazily across a student’s abandoned copy of The Turn of the Screw.

  “This?” he taunted, gently lifting the book and holding it before her like a tray. “This is what gets you all riled up?”

  “Oh, God!” she shrieked. “Are you going to kill it? Kill it!” she screamed. “Kill it!”

  “Quite the sadist, aren’t you?” he joked, as he carefully balanced the spider on the book, walked over to an open window nearby, and gingerly lowered the spider onto the outside sill.

  He placed the book back on the table and he smiled at her. “Despite my brief era of terror in my childhood, I’m actually kind of a big pussy,” he said.

  “And I guess I’m the sadist, then?” she said, bitingly, her arms crossed in front of her.

  “Forget about it,” he laughed. “It was only a joke.” She stared blankly at him. “You know. Joke? Ha, ha and all that?” he shook his head. “Okay, so you don’t. No biggie,” he said. “Should we head back?”

  They made the walk back to the English department in silence as Amy stewed and Deck smirked. By the time they arrived, Amy had cooled.

  “Hey, do you still have that box?” Deck asked, as they passed his office.

  “Box?” she asked.

  “Heimlich’s trunk?

  “Actually, yes,” she said. “No one wanted any of his things, actually. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just something Chuck told me. An Elvis song I wanted to hear. Is it here?”

  “It’s in my cube,” she said. “Do you want me to get it?”

  “Nah. No worries. I don’t need it now.”

  Deck stepped into his office and Amy stopped at the door. “It’s a little strange, don’t you think? How no one came to claim any of his things? That in the end, no one wanted to hold on to even a small piece of him?”

  “I’m not that shocked about it, actually,” Deck said, sliding behind his desk.

  “But all those people at the funeral. His family. Surely someone would have wanted something. Even a small memento?”

  “For one, Heimlich was about as popular with his family as he was around here. Tolerated, and that’s about as far as it went for the mean old crankasaurus.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Look, all I’m saying is that people get weird around death. It’s not always real, what happens at a funeral. Some people just like the drama of it,” he said.

  She considered this. “So, why didn’t you like Heimlich?”

  “Let’s just say he complicated my life.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, because of him, I almost didn’t get my PhD. He brutalized me at my defense, and not in a good way. He was a…how do I say this gently? He was a total dick.”

  “He was a real ass, wasn’t he?” she mused, leaning into the door frame.

  “In ways you will never know,” he said and he sighed.

  She folded her arms around herself again, but this time not defensively. “You’re so much nicer to me than he ever was.”

  He smiled. “It can’t actually be a secret that I got the hots for you?”

  “Oh,” she stammered, a little shaken by his directness. “I just don’t think it’s appropriate,” she lied, her flushed face clearly giving away her deception—to him and to herself.

  “Appropriate?” he asked, cocking his head. “Or appealing?”

  ###

  Amy was confused about what she imagined was starting to happen between her and Deck. She knew she wasn’t attracted to him, and yet, there was something about him. Something that seemed so reassuring. Something that put her at ease, but also intrigued her. She was both shocked and honored that he had shared such a dark secret with her, and she couldn’t help but want to know more about him. She was filled with questions.

  But she couldn’t get past the most significant question, which was why did she care so much? He wasn’t her type. And he was her boss. And yet…she couldn’t deny that she was starting to feel something for him. She was still conflicted over David, yes, but with Deck, something stirred. Except the last thing she needed right now was to have more complications in her life. So she decided to bury herself in the tedium of her work and hoped that it would all somehow go away.

  Except her work wasn’t tedious anymore and her thoughts were still with Deck. How could they not be, especially as she sat here, organizing his conclusions on Tolstoy, his words echoing with meaning as she drank in his interpretation of a story she loved, but for different reasons than he did. She was so caught up in it, in fact, that she hadn’t even noticed David standing over her until he spoke.

  “Hello, Amy.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, not looking up.

  David cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologize for the other night. It was a little awkward.”

  “I know,” she said. “Anything else?”

  He cleared his throat. “Uh. Yeah. Word around here is that you’re going to go through with your defense?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Uh. Hannah,” he stumbled and she narrowed her eyes. “I mean, not directly or anything. I overheard her talking to someone.”

  “Well, what if I am?”
she asked, without emotion.

  “Uh, nothing. I mean, well, that’s pretty cool. I guess. I mean, if you think you’re ready and all.”

  She glared at him. “I’ve been ready for years,” she said coldly, and looked away again.

  “Scruffy… I mean, Amy…are you ever going to stop being angry at me?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  He shuffled from one foot to the other, awkward and uncomfortable and not really sure what to say next. “Okay, well, I have some of your things.”

  “You have most of my things.”

  “I meant your books. I mean, some other things, yeah. But you probably need your books to prepare?”

  “You think?”

  “We packed up so quickly, I guess I didn’t pay attention to what was mine and what was yours.”

  She sneered at him. “Let me make it easy for you,” she said. “All the sci-fi novels and biology textbooks—yours. All the good books, mine. Not so hard.”

  “Right. Well…”

  At that moment, Liz stomped over with a box. “Where can I get rid of these?” she snarled, looking at Amy.

  Liz was here, making deliveries? Had he really thought this was a good idea?

  Amy pointed to a small corner of her cubicle. “Just over there is fine.” Liz nodded at Amy and looked away. Amy continued to watch her. Was she looking for something? “Right there’s good,” Amy said.

  Then Liz looked at David. What Amy had not noticed, because her eyes had not left Liz since she arrived, was that David’s eyes had not left Amy, and were fixed in a gaze that was more than a little uncomfortable for Liz. “David,” she called, but he didn’t seem to hear her. So she whistled to him, like he was a dog.

  “Huh?” he said.

  “A little help?” she snapped.

  “What? Oh, yeah. Right.”

  “Thanks,” said Amy halfheartedly, as she turned back to her computer screen and slipped on her headphones. She shuffled through the selections on her iPod before settling on an especially angry No Doubt song and blasted the volume as high as it could go.

  Exactly how many trips Liz and David each made back to her cubicle, Amy hadn’t a clue. So when she finally turned around after about the fifth or sixth song, she gasped. There must have been forty boxes stacked in the corner and overflowing out to the hallway. “Shit,” she said as Deck returned from a lecture.

  “Moving in?” asked Deck, scratching his bald held incredulously.

  “My books.”

  “Ah,” he said and they were both silent for a while. “Why are they here?”

  “David brought them.”

  “Oh,” he said. “He brought them here?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “He couldn’t just bring them back to your apartment?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Nice guy,” he said. “So how are you planning to get these home?”

  “I have no idea,” she said and they both looked at the boxes again.

  “I guess I could help you. I have a car. I could drive the boxes over in my car,” he said, seeming a bit nervous. “And you, too, I mean. I mean, if you don’t mind me coming to your house. I mean…”

  She turned to look at him. “Deck, are you sweating?” she asked.

  Deck smirked. “I am.”

  She squinted her eyes at him. “Why are you sweating?”

  “Uh,” he stalled. “You know. No hair to hold it back. Just one of those things.”

  “I see,” she said. “But that doesn’t explain why you’d be sweating in the first place. So, why are you sweating?”

  He looked point-blank at her. “Don’t really know.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, suspicious.

  He motioned to the books. “So?”

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Why not?”

  “Great!” he said, with an enthusiasm inappropriate for someone who has agreed to help someone else move four tons of books. He caught himself and cleared his throat. “Let’s get to it.”

  11. How Most Everything Amy Ever Accepted as True Got Turned on Its Ear

  Amy’s apartment building stood out in her neighborhood of quasi-suburban tree-lined streets, which more commonly featured houses—albeit two- and three-family houses. But it was unusual for a six-story anything to be found here. “Progress” could not be faulted for the building’s presence on this block though—nor for its sister structure across the street, a mirror reflection of its rundown, dilapidated twin, as both buildings had stood since before the second World War. And neither had so much as been painted since then. The only way to discern one from the other was that there were different street numbers on the front doors. And, of course, there were the Boys, forever planted on Amy’s front stoop. Which was where they were just as Amy and Deck arrived.

  “Friends of yours?” Deck asked.

  “I guess you could say that,” she replied, admittedly nervous about how this was all going to turn out.

  Deck expertly squeezed his old Volvo station wagon into a tiny spot right in front of the building, impressing Amy and apparently also some of the Boys, who appeared to be collecting money from some of the others.

  As soon as he stopped the car, Deck got out, walked around and opened Amy’s car door for her. They headed to the trunk and Deck and Amy each grabbed a box and headed for the stairs. Though Amy had become increasingly uncomfortable as the Building Boys glared at Deck and she hoped Deck wouldn’t notice them staring at him.

  “How ya doin’?” Deck smiled as he approached them.

  They nodded to him suspiciously. “Everything okay, Amy?” asked Tony, protectively as he edged up to her.

  Deck turned to Amy and said, “Why don’t I go on ahead?”

  Amy smiled embarrassedly. “It’s C-9,” she said and handed him her keys. “I’ll be right behind you.” Deck grabbed the keys and walked inside and Amy turned to face the Boys.

  “He looks like that guy, from that show,” said Tony.

  “Yeah, that’s right! That old show,” said Mario.

  Angelo began nodding wildly. “The one on cable all the time. With the bald guy. What was that called again?”

  Amy shook her head in her hand. “The Addams Family. And that isn’t very nice,” she chided, crossing her arms in front of her.

  The guys looked back and forth at each other. “The freaking Addams Family?” asked Angelo.

  “What’s an Addam’s Family?” asked Tony.

  “The Commish,” Mario shouted out, like he’d just answered the winning question in a game show.

  “Oh yeah,” said Frankie. “I love that fucking show,” he gushed.

  “What the fuck is an Addams Family?” Angelo wanted to know.

  “Before your time,” said Amy, not really bothered by how old this may at one time have made her feel.

  Angelo walked toward Amy. “Seriously though, who is that guy?”

  “He moving in?” Frankie asked.

  “Yeah,” said Mario. “What’s with all the boxes?”

  “Kind of a freak, if you ask me,” sulked Tony.

  Amy was angry now. “First of all, he’s my boss. And he isn’t a freak. He has alopecia.”

  “Alo-what?”

  “Alo–” she started to explain, but was interrupted by a shrill, girlish scream coming from her apartment.

  “Now what?” she left the Boys standing there, worried that David had been back after all and perhaps Liz had left a stool sample on the floor…

  She raced up the stairs and pushed open her front door. There was Deck, frozen in the center of the living room, still holding his box. “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “What the hell is that?” he asked, with a false calm.

  “What?” she asked.

  “That.”

  Amy
finally saw what had terrified him. She was annoyed. “Sparky! She’s out again?” she said. “Shit. You just can’t trust these Eastern milks. Total escape artists,” she said, bending over and picking up the snake without flinching. “Totally sneaky.”

  “That’s a snake!” Deck shrieked.

  “Yes?” she replied, as casually as if he had said, “That’s a sandwich.”

  “There’s a snake running loose in your apartment,” he said, now barely able to breathe.

  She found herself amused at his terror. “Snakes don’t exactly run, you know,” she giggled. “They—”

  “Why is there a snake loose in your apartment?”

  “You know, for such a big guy, you’re kind of a chicken,” she laughed. She took a few steps toward him to see if he wanted to pet it, but when that caused the last remaining drop of color to vanish from his face, she thought better of it.

  Instead, she headed to the other side of the room, where she pulled open a curtain to reveal a whole wall of snakes, stacked neat and tidy in a series of plastic bins in a variety of sizes. Without blinking an eye, she moved the lid Sparky had tripped and poured the snake back into her enclosure. “Deck, meet the babies. Babies, meet Deck.”

  “What the—”

  “My ex was a herpetologist,” she said. “You know this.”

  Deck cocked his head and began shaking it. “He took all your books but he left the snakes.”

  “He was being nice,” she said. “I guess he knew how attached to them I was and—”

  “Sounds like a real prince,” Deck said, clutching his box of books like it was a specialized snake deterring shield.

  “Honestly, they aren’t that bad,” she said. “They’re just snakes. Are you sweating again?”

  “Just tell me this. Would they be here if it wasn’t for him?”

  She looked at them. “Dunno.”

  “Huh,” he said, calming slightly. “So what do they eat?”

  “What? Oh yeah. Uh…” she looked away. “Mice…”

  He was aghast. “You drop live mice in there?” He looked around wildly. “Where do they live? In the bedroom? What kind of a person—”

  “Hey, slow down a minute,” she soothed. “The mice are not alive and they are frozen.”