The Comfortable Shoe Diaries

by Renée J. Lukas

  “What?” Penny wailed. “I mean it. She could shoot me any day.”

  “Me too,” I admitted, already feeling better.

  Debra stood dumbfounded in the kitchen. “Wow. That’s…cool.”

  “It really works,” I said. “You should try it next time you two, you know.”

  “I told you, there won’t be a next time.” Debra didn’t believe herself.

  Maddie hiked up her pants like Don Knotts and took another beer out of the fridge.

  “Wow,” Debra said. “You girls certainly have plenty to drink.” Her nervous giggle either came from awkwardness or judgment.

  “That’s the plan,” I replied. “If the movie doesn’t help me forget, the beer will.”

  Some of us laughed.

  And there we were, all gathered around the TV, watching Cinderella go to the ball and find her Prince Charming. It was an odd choice for a group of lesbians. But Debra didn’t have any Terminator or Jodie Foster movies—not even old Charlie’s Angels reruns.

  “This is so romantic,” Penny cooed.

  “Yeah,” Debra sighed.

  “It’s crap,” Maddie spat. “More Hollywood bullshit that teaches little girls to wait around for a man. What if the girl turns out to be gay?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Sometimes I’d give anything to see them make one with a Princess Charming.”

  Maddie thought a second. “Yeah.”

  “It’s a cartoon!” Penny hollered. “Y’all read too much into it.”

  “Cartoon, music video, it’s all the same sexist crap. Why can’t Cinderella stop being a victim, tell off her bitch of a stepmother and make Charming prove he’s husband material first?” Maddie folded her arms. She really needed her own talk show.

  I popped one of Debra’s crab-stuffed mushrooms into my mouth. “Damn, this is good. It’s a little bite of heaven.” I moaned a little too loudly, I guess.

  “Are you having an orgasm?” Maddie asked.

  “If you tried one of my mushrooms, you’d understand.” Debra was quietly offended that Maddie hadn’t touched an appetizer yet.

  “No thanks,” Maddie said flatly. “I’m not interested in touching one of your mushrooms.”

  “These mushrooms are from a gourmet cuisine website!” Debra huffed.

  “I’m just not into them, okay?”

  I laughed, but Debra didn’t get the joke. She was still upset.

  “Will you guys stop!” Penny hollered. “We’re supposed to be here for Sydney. It’s her night, right?”

  Penny had shamed everyone.

  “Sorry, kiddo.” Maddie gave me a hug.

  When the slipper fit Cinderella, there was a collective sigh of relief that we could shut it off.

  “It gives me hope,” Penny said, tearing up.

  “Are you still looking online?” Maddie asked.

  “Yeah,” Penny answered. “Not everyone on there is bad.”

  “Oh yes, they are,” Maddie exclaimed. “Look at all the nuts you’ve met at the airport.”

  “So,” Debra said, standing up, “did we get your mind off Valerie?”

  “Văldemort,” I corrected.

  “What happened with y’all?” Penny asked softly.

  “We just fell out of love,” I responded.

  “I never understood that,” Maddie said. “If you once loved someone, how can you fall out of it unless you didn’t really love them to start with?”

  “I did in the beginning,” I said defensively. “I know it seems kind of weird. But that’s what happened.”

  “So you guys don’t do the club scene?” Debra asked, trying to get me out of the hot seat.

  “It’s just not fun,” Penny said. “The music now is pounding, like listening to a wreckin’ ball, so you can’t hear what anyone is screaming in your ear.”

  “The songs suck now too,” Maddie said. “It’s techno shit. You scream for hours, trying to have a conversation. Then you just go home, crawl into bed, and the only tongue you get is from your dogs.”

  “Eww,” I groaned.

  Maddie realized she was talking about herself and saw everyone staring at her. “Well, you’ll go home to your computer.” She was looking at me and Penny. “A cold, flat comfort in the night.”

  “Uh, you know, thanks.” I stuffed my face with chips.

  “Clubs are more occasional for women our age,” Maddie told Debra. “I don’t know what you do in the straight world, if it’s really like Sex and the City, where you sit around drinking Cosmos all day. But when lesbians get older, they quit the bars and start having cookouts.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Is it true?”

  Maybe Maddie was an authority on lesbians.

  “Think of all the friends we’ve had who have coupled off,” Maddie continued. “We never see them anymore unless it’s a cookout. Barb and Sally? When did we see them last?”

  I thought about it. “Their Fourth of July…cookout.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Wow.” For Debra, it was like taking a class in Lesbians 101.

  It felt good to laugh. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe. I never wanted the night to end.

  Chapter Two

  “‘C’ is for Cookie”

  The next morning, I woke to the sounds of dishes clanking in the kitchen. I realized I’d never lived with Debra before. Was she a cheerful early riser who sang in the shower?

  Cookie trembled in her cat carrier. She wouldn’t come out since we’d moved. She was black and white, a fat cat who was nearing her dotage. She looked like an Oreo, so she was named Cookie. Ironically, I’d gotten her as a Christmas gift for Văldemort. When we split up, Văldemort refused to keep her and threatened to take her back to a shelter. So I had no choice but to keep her out of guilt. Me, who wasn’t a cat or animal person, whose throat closed up if I ate dinner near her while she was licking herself, who couldn’t pet her without washing my hands—yes, I was the perfect choice to be a cat mother.

  It wasn’t just my animal issues, either. I did like animals, but from a distance. At least the gorillas at the zoo had a bullet-proof partition between you and them. Unlike Dian Fossey, I wasn’t about to go lying in the jungle for an afternoon nap with a family of gorillas. And those movies showing regal horses galloping through the countryside—they never reveal the truth: that in real life, up close, horses smell really bad, the kind of stink you can’t even describe, it’s so bad. No one ever talks about that. But if you do, people look at you strangely like you must be a heartless person who squishes baby chicks in your spare time. I’m not like that. I feel sorry for dogs and cats locked up at the pound. I can’t even watch the commercials with their sad faces. That must mean something.

  My Aunt Rita was always sending me emails about the plight of dolphins and the inhumane treatment of chickens locked up all their lives before being slaughtered. I tried to buy cage-free eggs at the store. But I had to tell her I couldn’t be a vegan because I don’t like beans. That one stumped her.

  “You’d need a source of protein,” she’d commented over the phone. “Let me get back to you on that.”

  She never found a solution but kept sending me pictures of abused dogs. I felt terrible and depressed, as if somehow it was my fault.

  Honestly, Cookie was a scary cat. She hissed at everyone. And because she wasn’t declawed, she scratched everything. Like all animals, Cookie was unpredictable. I was a little scared of her myself. Even though she’d purr on me and all of that, I’d never approach her from behind or she’d think it was a sneak attack and rip my skin off. I always came to her gently, cautiously, from the front, letting her sniff me first, even though she’d known me for ten freaking years, before attempting to pet her. She was psychotic, and my sister Joanne hated but tolerated her. I felt sorry for Cookie, that she couldn’t do better in this life than having an owner with OCD, someone who was possibly as neurotic as she was. Maybe that was why she was so mean. If she’d been human, she’d probably tell me off whil
e smoking a cigar, then throw her martini in my face.

  On the other hand, maybe we were meant for each other in some weird, cosmic way. In between the hissing and biting, there were those moments of total peace when Cookie slept in my lap. She made a soft rumble like a weak motorcycle starting. But the moment her back leg went up and she dove into her naughty place, I’d throw her off my lap so fast and run to the bathroom to disinfect myself. It was a strained relationship, full of love, disgust, fear and sometimes hate.

  But Val’s words to me the last time I spoke to her were so strange and eerie, not like the Val I’d known, the one with integrity and a sense of responsibility.

  “She’s your cat!” I shouted.

  “Fine. Then I’ll make arrangements to have her taken to the local shelter.” This wasn’t Val’s voice; it was a fembot. Someone had possessed her mind, most likely her new girlfriend. The only way Val would have made sense to me in the end would have been if her head had spun completely around and she’d started to barf up green goo. Then I would have said, “Oh, she’s just not in her right mind. She’s possessed.” But this new version of her was strangely cold and disconnected, as if she’d never known me or the cat she’d held like a baby every night for a decade. I guess that was what she needed to do to start her new life, to sever any connection to the past. But for me, the past gets woven into the tapestry that makes up your whole life. Whether you disconnect from it or try to run miles away from it, it’s part of you and makes you who you are today. You can’t get around it by changing personalities or not taking phone calls. For me, facing the past was the only way to move forward.

  Not that it was comfortable for me to face, either. Thoughts of Val were more like a minefield of cringe-worthy emotions I had to tiptoe around. But I had to come to terms with my role too in order to move on. I was no saint. I’d burned more bridges than I cared to count. But for me, it was better to leave the scabs alone and let the wounds heal rather than to run around trying to pick at them and start some new flaming infection of toxic emotions. I’d save those for my therapist.

  Cookie went to her bowl and I heard the tiny sounds of crunching. How strange, I thought. We’re in the middle of so much turmoil—I wondered if she sensed it. No matter what was going on, she didn’t seem to care as long as she had food and a place to sleep. I marveled at how simple and clear Cookie’s priorities were. I prayed she wouldn’t get sick and need any expensive treatments. She would have been better off with a lawyer like Val who could afford any kind of drops or pills an older cat might need—not with someone who had just been cut loose from the Titanic without a lifeboat. I petted Cookie softly, to let her know things would be all right. I wasn’t sure how they would be all right, but I wanted her to believe it.

  Chapter Three

  “Little Miss Sunshine State”

  Still tired, I stumbled out into an apartment that was Martha Stewart clean, not the trashy mess of beer cans I’d last seen.

  “Sorry I didn’t help clean up,” I said.

  Debra was scrubbing down the kitchen counter.

  “Forget it,” she sang.

  “I should’ve helped.”

  “No,” Debra said. “You needed to get some rest. You were exhausted. It was a great night, you know? I learned something about all of you.”

  “We’re gay?”

  “Besides that.” She flipped a waiting egg in a pan. “You guys are no different from me and my friends. When there’s a breakup, everyone understands the pain. Some are better at consoling than others. Some say all the wrong things and make it worse. But you’re friends, so you stick together no matter what.”

  I smiled at her, glad something good came out of the evening. Then I glanced out the big living room window, at the buildings and buzzing streets below. All at once I remembered that I had no job. Except for Debra, I hadn’t told my friends about that or the bankruptcy. I was too embarrassed. Suddenly I was a deadbeat. A loser. After all, this kind of thing didn’t happen to me. I’d done everything right, having a job, paying my bills. But unemployed? That kind of person was someone I’d heard about on the nightly news, not the someone staring back at me in the mirror. I was in such a deep hole and without a clue how I was going to get out of it. If I didn’t do something fast, I’d only sink deeper.

  I spent my first unemployed week visiting the unemployment office, where I tried not to make eye contact with anyone, furiously sending résumés with cover letters to companies I used to make fun of explaining why I’d always wanted to work there and yelling at a Congressman on TV who said that people were unemployed because they wanted to be.

  I slumped on the bed in the spare room and stared at the ceiling until I saw faces of old, scary men with beards in the paint patterns. They were staring down at me, calling me a loser.

  I could hear Debra out in the living room talking softly to someone who I was sure was Kurt, and I knew their reunion would be coming soon. I’d need another place to live fast. Of course this sent my anxiety levels rocketing higher than ever, so I actually took some of the medication my therapist had recommended.

  I ran through my options. I couldn’t live with Maddie and her seven dogs. Okay, maybe she only had three, but it felt like seven. Her house smelled of dog pee, but she never noticed it. Penny might have been a good choice, but she only had one bedroom. My New Age friend Ariel smoked like a chimney—not good for my asthma. I was running out of ideas.

  There was a soft, tentative knock on the door. My heart sank to my knees. I knew what was coming.

  “It’s open,” I called.

  Debra entered with a guilty face. “Sydney,” she began. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Let me guess. You forgave him again, and I need to move.”

  She stepped back, indignant and surprised. “No, I was going to say we’re out of bread. You mentioned a sandwich for lunch, and I’ll have to go get bread.”

  “Really?”

  She put her head down. “Well, that, and yeah, Kurt’s moving back. But not right away! Stay as long as you want!”

  I sat up, familiar hot flashes fluttering up my spine. Another anxiety attack. “What does he care if I’m here? You guys share a room anyway.” I was so low my shoulders hung over my head.

  “This is usually his music room. But he’ll deal with it.”

  “Will he?” My eyes filled in spite of myself. The last thing I wanted was to show any emotion. I envisioned Xena and took my warrior princess stance.

  “He knows you need to stay a while. It’s just…” She trailed off.

  I stood up, Xena pumping through my veins. “It’s just he’s the self-centered kind of guy who doesn’t care if you’re helping out a friend. The guy you always fight with for being self-centered, and then you take him back even though, oh…he’s still self-centered!”

  “Please, try to—”

  “Save it! You know what? You’re not a real friend. Real friends don’t let each other down.”

  I stormed out in a huff, my pride underneath my shoes.

  I drove around Connecticut for hours, my eyes blinded with tears. I didn’t know where I was going, what I’d be doing. And frankly, I was more terrified than I’d ever been. The last time I was this scared was during a freak seesaw accident in first grade.

  I stopped off in Danbury to visit Penny. I must have looked like a mess because her expression was one of horror when she opened the door.

  “Aw, hon, come on in.” She closed the door behind me and led me straight to the bathroom. “You should take a bath. It’ll help you relax. I’ve got fresh towels in here.”

  I was crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. Just seeing a kind face set off the waterworks and there was no stopping them. Everything seemed out of my control.

  Sitting in the bathwater, I thought of my dad, how he hated baths. He was very fastidious and said that taking a bath was like lying in your own filth. I missed him.

  Then I went over everything that had hap
pened, just like they tell you never to do. It rained the day I got laid off. I remember seeing my boss’s lips move, but his words sounded more like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoon strip: “Wah, wah, wah…downsizing…wah wah severance package…wah, wah, wah.” I shivered at the memory.

  My ego was trampled. How dare they fire me. I’d won awards! I wasn’t some lazy person hanging out in the breakroom gossiping, someone to be cast out like yesterday’s trash. But the bomb dropped on me anyway.

  It had rained so hard. I sat in a stairwell afterward and looked out the window. My first thought was that this was the break I’d always wanted. Now I’d have time to be like J.K. Rowling and write that thing that was going to put me on the map as a writer. I was getting burned out anyway, I’d told myself. The truth was, it was a good living. And the odds of writing that thing—well, my work was once described as more suited to an independent film. No boy wizards or vampire babies. I was screwed.

  I’d picked up my journal the first day after getting laid off. All I could write were sad tales of women losing their jobs, stuck in their forties and suddenly, frighteningly, single again. It read more like a Lifetime movie about a midlife crisis. Yeah, audiences would flock to that.

  “You okay in there?” Penny knocked on the door.

  How sweet, I thought numbly; she’s making sure I didn’t drown myself.

  “Yeah,” I called. “For now.”

  “That’s not funny, Syd. Considering your…state of mind.”

  I had no state of mind. I had no state. Suddenly it occurred to me. Without my job, there wasn’t much point in being in Connecticut. Now I truly felt homeless.

  The bath helped me escape for a while. I could stare at the bubbles and watch them float and see how long it took before they popped on something. Kind of like life—you’re going along, floating higher and higher, but something will always stop and pop you. I realized I could put a negative spin on anything. Just wait until I got to the shampoo.

  When I emerged a cleaner version of myself, Penny put a hot cup of tea in my hand. I didn’t drink tea, but it was the universal sign of comfort. We sat on the couch.