Shoe Addicts Anonymous

by Beth Harbison

  Unfortunately Lorna was a little bit short when it came to paying the bill, and the boyfriend had dumped her a few weeks later, after cheating on her rather spectacularly with her best friend at her own birthday party; she’d spent the summer working miscellaneous temp jobs indoors, so the tan had never materialized; and her hair had grown out to a light brown that was lank and flat from the artificial environment of office buildings, rather than the spun gold she’d pictured blowing fetchingly around her face as she stood on the bow of the boat, sailing comfortably toward happily ever after.

  But come fall she met a new man—one who loved salsa dancing. The footwear was magnificent. Stilettos, strappies, the man was a dream come true. It wasn’t cheap, but who could put a price on a dream?

  Of course the dream ended, and Lorna woke up and finished her college education as a single girl. Which isn’t to say there weren’t great shoes along the way—she got credit for taking ballet (she didn’t make it to toe shoes, but the slippers were fun), jazz (there were full-sole and split-sole jazz shoes as well as boots), and tap (noisy patent leather!). She was a terrible dancer, but the shoes—the shoes!

  So Lorna had marched steadily on toward her future in one pair of appropriate footwear after another, hope springing eternal that she would finally find the Prince Charming that went with the shoe. In turn, Lorna would lead the easy upper-middle-class life she’d grown up with—two or three kids, a golden retriever, a walk-in closet in her bedroom, and no money troubles.

  It hadn’t worked out that way. Boyfriends came and went. And came and went. And came and went, long beyond the time when people stopped saying, “You’re young, you should play the field!” and began saying, “So…when are you going to settle down?” When she’d dumped her most recent boyfriend—nice, but dull dull dull George Manning, who was an attorney—her coworker Bess had all but called her stupid, saying, “He may be boring, but he wears Brooks Brothers and pays the bills!”

  But that wasn’t enough for Lorna. She couldn’t stay with the wrong guy just because he offered financial security, no matter how tempting that financial security was. So she’d lived as if some answer—some miracle that would wipe her slate clean—was going to turn up around the next corner. The solution was always coming right up, in her mind.

  Therefore, Lorna hadn’t done nearly so much as she should have to find her own solutions and stop her spending problems before they got out of control. Like the gambler who kept doubling the bet with the idea that the big payoff had to come, statistically, Lorna kept doubling her troubles until finally, now, she realized she was holding a losing hand no matter what she did.

  She was in a very real crisis. If she didn’t change something, and quick, she was going to go broke.

  Not just I can’t buy these strappy sandals broke, and not even beans and rice for dinner for the next few months broke, but honest to God, corrugated cardboard is warmer in subzero temperatures than plywood, so hang out behind Sears and get a refrigerator box before all the good ones are gone broke.

  She had to do something.

  Fast.

  Chapter

  2

  So you’re taking birth control pills and letting him think you’re trying to get pregnant?”

  Helene Zaharis snapped to attention. The question wasn’t directed at her, but it could just as well have been. In fact, it was so completely accurate that for a moment she wondered if someone had figured her out and sat down at her table to blackmail her.

  But no, the conversation was between two twenty-somethings at the table next to hers at Café Rouge, where Helene was meeting Senator Cabot’s wife, Nancy, for lunch.

  Nancy was late, which was fortunate, since Helene found the conversation next to her far more interesting than the conversation Helene and Nancy would invariably have about who was going to the point-to-point races in Middleburg in October and what political figure was the latest to propose what preposterous tax cut.

  Or tax hike.

  Or whatever other hot button was lately of interest to those inside the Beltway.

  None of it was of much interest to Helene.

  “It’s not exactly like suffering.” The woman who was evidently on the pill giggled and sipped a pink drink. “He just has to try a little harder…and a little longer.”

  Her friend smiled, like she loved being in on this particularly delicious secret. “Then you’re going to stop taking the pills?”

  “Eventually. When I’m ready.”

  The second woman shook her head, smiling. “You’ve got some nerve, girl. You just better hope he doesn’t find the pills in the meantime.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Where do you hide them?”

  Duct-taped to the back of the drawer of my bedside table, Helene thought.

  “In my purse,” Pink Drink woman answered with a shrug. “He’d never look there.”

  Bad move. Rookie mistake. Men respected that particular boundary only until they got a small inkling something was up. Then it was the first place they checked. Even the stupid ones.

  If Helene hid anything in her purse, Jim would find it right away. He’d passed that point of courtesy a long time ago.

  She shuddered to think what he’d do if he found out she was foiling his attempts at reproduction.

  But Helene was firm on this. She didn’t want a child. It would absolutely be unfair, primarily to the child, since the only reason Jim wanted a baby was so that he would have the perfect little family to trot around during campaigns.

  Camelot 2008.

  She’d had baby dreams once. The longing to hold a warm little body, to kiss fat little fingers and fat little toes. To make peanut butter–and–jelly sandwiches for lunch every day, and to slip a little I love you into the bag.

  Oh, yes, Helene had had baby dreams once. And family dreams. And a whole lot of other dreams that had been churned up and spit out as waste in the Washington Political Machine.

  She didn’t ever want to bring an innocent child into this now.

  “Can I get you something to drink, at least?” the young waitress asked. She had the nervous twitch of someone starting a job and wanting to do it right, yet having no idea what that meant. Helene recognized that. Fifteen years ago, that had been her.

  “No, I’m fine, thanks. I’ll just wait for my—”

  “Miss!” a boozy businessman barked from a couple of tables over. He snapped his fingers, like he was summoning a dog. “How many times do I have to ask for an Irish coffee before you bring the goddamn thing to me?”

  The waitress looked uncertainly from Helene to the man and back again, tears forming in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve been checking, but it isn’t done yet.”

  “Quality takes time,” Helene said, with her most charming smile. The jerk didn’t deserve any indulgence at all, but if someone didn’t run interference, he was going to have this poor girl’s job. “And a lot of us are putting in bar orders today. It’s not her fault.”

  As predicted, the man laughed, revealing ugly yellow teeth. Helene would have bet her last dollar he was a cigar smoker. “You are one hot number. Let me buy you a round.”

  Helene smiled again, as if she were absolutely delighted to have this hunk of manhood’s attention. “One more, and I won’t be able to drive home,” she lied. “This nice girl has run back and forth to the bar so many times, she must be getting dizzy.” To the waitress she added, “I don’t need anything now. Thanks.”

  The girl looked confused but profoundly grateful as she turned to go.

  “Hey, how about you and me get together later,” the man started to suggest, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Helene’s lunch companion.

  “Helene, dear, I’m so sorry I’m late. I had such a time getting through Georgetown this morning.”

  Helene stood, and Nancy Cabot kissed the air on either side of her cheeks, wafting the heavy old-fashioned scent of Shalimar as she moved. She glanced at the yellow-toothed man,
who must have recognized Nancy because he grimaced and winked at Helene.

  “It’s not a problem at all,” Helene said to Nancy. They both sat down. “I’ve just been sitting here, enjoying the atmosphere.”

  “It is a lovely spot, isn’t it?” Nancy gazed out the window, where the Washington Monument was visible in the distance, under a pale blue sky.

  For a moment, Helene thought Nancy might be on the verge of saying something philosophical about the majesty of the city, so fixed was her gaze into the distance.

  Not the case. “I just wish we could clear out the dilapidated old buildings over there.” She pointed south, indicating what was admittedly a slum, but one that the residents were working hard to improve.

  “Give them time,” Helene said, treading lightly so as not to show how deeply she cared, lest it clash with her husband’s proposed policy this week. “The urban improvement program is going extremely well.”

  Nancy laughed, clearly thinking Helene was being sarcastic. And that it was amusing. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you. I think we’ve finally found the right venue for the DAR fund-raiser.”

  “Oh?” Helene tried to arrange her features into a look of interest, rather than the sleepy detachment she felt. She was no more interested in the DAR than Nancy was interested in urban renewal. The difference was, Helene was obliged to feign interest, though she would have loved to come out with a great, hearty laugh as Nancy just had. “What do you have in mind?”

  “The Hutchinson House in Georgetown. Do you know the place? On the corner of Galway and M.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s beautiful.” She didn’t know the house, but she knew that if she confessed her ignorance, she was in for a long lecture on the history of the Hutchinson House, the furniture in the Hutchinson House, the people who had been to the Hutchinson House, and, of course, the cost of the Hutchinson House. Frankly, Helene wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep the polite stillness in her expression.

  “Now, about the silent auction,” Nancy began, but they were interrupted by the arrival of the waitress.

  “I’ll have a Manhattan,” Nancy said, then raised her eyebrows to Helene in a way that indicated she did not plan to drink alone.

  “Champagne cocktail,” Helene said, thinking it was the last thing in the world she wanted right now. “And a glass of water,” she added, with good intentions to concentrate on the water and not the champagne. “Thank you.”

  A busboy passed their table, and his wide-eyed gaze lingered on Helene for just a moment.

  “The men do notice you,” Nancy commented in a voice that was distinctly disapproving.

  For a moment, the quiet sounds of silverware against china and hushed voices murmuring the latest gossip from inside the Beltway filled the air and seemed to become louder.

  “I ordered champagne,” Helene said lightly. “That always makes people wonder what the celebration is. That’s all they’re noticing.”

  That seemed to please Nancy well enough. “Back to what we were saying. The celebration is for finding the perfect place to hold the fund-raiser. Now. Let’s talk about your part in it, shall we?”

  Helene was not in the mood for this. She had always hated this kind of conversation, all about a cause she didn’t support and how she could lend a hand to help it. But she had no choice but to do her best, to offer the most she could, and to bring no shame or negativity down on the Zaharis name.

  Sometimes that made her hate it even more.

  When the waitress brought their drinks, Helene lifted hers in a toast with Nancy to the current president of the DAR—a toadlike woman who had once told several people that Helene was “once a shopgirl, so always a shopgirl”—and took what she intended to be her only sip.

  After twenty minutes of Nancy’s subsequent soliloquy on past DAR presidents, Helene gave in and finished the cocktail.

  Why not? It gave her something to do other than nod stupidly at Nancy and pipe false laughter at her tedious jokes.

  It was surprising how often Helene had these conversations, given how deeply uncomfortable they made her. Even more surprising was how oblivious everyone seemed to be to her boredom. Nevertheless, small talk was a huge part of her life, and as Jim continued on his path toward higher and higher political offices, it looked as if there was no end in sight.

  So Helene accepted this lot in her life as peacefully as she could. People in Jim’s circle ran on their own self-interest. It was very rare to meet one—no matter what age, sex, race, or sexual persuasion—who wouldn’t run over their own grandmother in cleats to get to their goals.

  Anyone who said Helene wasn’t paying the price for the housewife deal she’d made was crazy.

  Nancy continued talking.

  Helene continued smiling and signaled the waitress for another champagne cocktail.

  Later there would be hell to pay for turning off her cell phone.

  Helene leaned back against the stiff faux-leather chair in the shoe department of Ormond’s—her reward for her two-hour audience with Nancy Cabot—and turned the thought of her husband’s anger over in her mind, like a piece of jewelry she was considering buying.

  He hated it when he couldn’t get in touch with her.

  She, on the other hand, had grown to hate it when he could. And he did, more and more lately. No matter where she was or what she was doing, it seemed her phone would ring at the worst possible moment.

  When she was dropping off canned foods at the Greek Orthodox church for the community food drive, she’d paused for a moment to admire the peaceful beauty that was the new stained-glass window, with a round icon depicting the Annunciation, and her phone had rung.

  When she was balancing four paper bags of organic foods—all Jim would eat these days, though it would probably give way to the next newest trend soon—along with her purse and keys, while struggling up the long brick walk from her driveway to the front door, her phone had rung, but it was set on vibrate, so the unexpected vibration startled her so much, she dropped the bag with the eggs in it.

  When she was taking homemade chicken noodle soup to the bedridden at the Holy Transformation Home, she’d been passing a just-microwaved bowl of hot soup to an elderly patient with diabetes when her phone had rung, startling her into spilling hot broth on both the patient and, less important though still aggravating, her Bally pumps.

  Even today he’d called during her lunch with Nancy, turning one pointless lunch conversation into two, by telling her that he was having a late meeting and wouldn’t be home until well after dinner, and that she should just go ahead and make do without him.

  Nancy thought—and said repeatedly—that he was a dear for calling, but then again, Nancy didn’t speak Jim’s language. She didn’t know “late meeting” was code for coming home smelling of someone else’s perfume and dirty martinis.

  The hypocrisy was worthy of psychological study.

  Jim Zaharis (real first name Demetrius, but he’d decided it was too ethnic for American politics) was the charismatic junior senator from Maryland, but he was preparing for an aggressive sprint toward higher office. In a town like Washington, everything a public figure—and his wife—did was fair game, and he did not want Helene embarrassing him.

  Yet, like many brilliant but stupid men before him, he believed his own indiscretions to be invisible, while at the same time he was very concerned about what Helene was doing while she was out in public.

  She’d never, ever done anything that even hinted at scandal since she’d been married to him. No pool boys, no lesbian affairs, no insider trading…nothing.

  Which was not to say she didn’t have secrets. But at least she kept hers buried.

  Meanwhile, she’d made a deal when she’d married him, though she’d been too naïve to see it at the time. It wasn’t the housewife deal; it was worse. It was the Trophy Wife Deal, wherein she was required to look good; perform the occasional high-profile good deed; occasionally join the Ladies Who Lunch at the count
ry club; take up a local charity as sponsor; and, most important of all, keep quiet while little pieces of her soul disintegrated.

  Helene had grown alarmingly good at all those things.

  “Helene!”

  She was yanked out of her reverie by a bright, cheerful voice. She turned to see Suzy Howell, the county councilwoman, along with her teenage daughter.

  “Suzy.”

  “You remember Lucy, don’t you?” Suzy said, gesturing toward the sullen-looking teenager with limp black hair dyed into dullness by too many applications of those edgy hair colors they sold these days.

  The girl looked completely out of place in the shoe department of Ormond’s, and what’s more, she looked like she felt it, too.

  “Yes, I do.” Helene had forgotten the girl’s name and was glad Suzy had mentioned it. “How are you doing, Lucy?”

  “I’m o—”

  “She’s doing marvelously well,” Suzy interrupted, flashing her daughter a look that would have been more effective if she hadn’t Botoxed the expression out of her face. “As a matter of fact, she’s applied to Miami of Ohio. You went there, didn’t you?”

  Oh, no. This wasn’t a conversation Helene wanted to have at all. Especially not now, when she was still tipsy from her lunch with Nancy Cabot.

  “I did,” Helene said slowly, hoping they couldn’t smell the champagne on her breath. Then, because it looked like Suzy and Lucy might know a lot more about the place than she did, she added, “For some of my college education.”

  “Oh, you didn’t complete your degree there?”

  “No, I went for my freshman year only. Ages ago.”

  “Ah.” Suzy looked disappointed. “Where did you graduate from?”

  Helene knew she should have been taking notes on her fabricated history. “Marshall University,” she said, because David Price had gone there and she used to visit him enough to know the campus pretty well.

  David Price, who was the love of her life until she’d decided she could do better and left him.