The Comfortable Shoe Diaries

by Renée J. Lukas

  “Thanks,” I said, holding up the mug.

  “Ariel got it for me. It’s ginger something, supposed to release toxic emotions.”

  “Of course.” I smiled.

  Ariel was our bisexual, New Age friend who was big on astrology, Tarot cards and energy fields. Penny broke up with her last girlfriend because Ariel mentioned the girl had negative chakras. I had no idea what chakras were at the time. I thought it was a venereal disease.

  “I’m going to have to move out,” I finally said. “Debra’s taking Kurt back again.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope. Wish I was.” I took a sip. “Penny, there’s something I haven’t told you. I lost my job.”

  She nodded wisely. “I know.”

  “You know? How?”

  “Debra told us the other night when you went to the bathroom.” Penny lowered her eyes. “None of us wanted to say anything until you said something. Then Maddie was all, you know, because you told Debra and not us. But we told her to shut up about it.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” I said. “I just felt really bad.”

  “I know.” She patted my leg. “So what’s with Debra and Kurt?” I was grateful for her changing the subject.

  “Oh, you know. The woman has no sense.”

  “How many times does she have to get screwed over?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant she has no sense, being straight.” I smiled at my weak attempt at a joke.

  “Glad you haven’t lost your humor.” Penny touched my hand.

  “My sister’s straight. Of course, she’s crazy too.” I zoned off into the distance when my cell phone rang. Like telepathy, it was Joanne, my sister. I exhaled dramatically. “You mind? It’s Joanne.”

  “No, no.” Penny headed outside. “I have a garden full of tomato plants that aren’t going to grow themselves.”

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Where is she? I’ll come up there and bitch-slap her!” Joanne’s raspy voice made my phone tremble. I knew it had been a matter of time before the news reached down to Florida.

  “Well, hello to you too.”

  “How can you be so calm about this!” Her voice hit an octave that could break glass. “That bitch! And when were you going to tell me about this? Next Christmas?”

  “No, I just needed some time to figure out where my next paycheck is coming from. I don’t really know the answer to that, though.”

  “How convenient. Suddenly, you’re not making any money, and she decides to leave.”

  “No,” I insisted. “Seriously, Jo, it was mutual.”

  “It’s never mutual.” She sounded like a rabid dog.

  “It was, believe it or not.”

  “Really?” Joanne persisted. Why was it so hard for everyone to believe? “But you did have a place together. And how convenient, she could just walk out and leave you with everything to deal with. She knew with this economy you’d never sell that dump.”

  “I happen to like that place.”

  “Oh please, Syd. The walls were peeling.”

  There was silence. I was tired of defending myself. Maybe I didn’t call her right away because I didn’t want to relive it or start to cry and feel stupid again.

  “I’m sorry, Syd,” she finally said. “But you’re my sister. Someone hurts you, they hurt me. And right now, ugh! I could just…ugh!”

  “I get it.”

  “You know how I found out? From Mom.”

  “I figured.”

  “Is it because you’re up there? Are we not as close as we used to be?”

  Joanne was very dramatic, like everyone else in my family. But it was true. I knew things would never be the same since the first time I spoke to her on the phone after she had her first baby, Cabbot. I was telling her about jumping off a cliff, leaving my secure job to become a writer someday, and her response was, “No! We don’t eat that! Damn. Cabbie chewed on the plant again. You know I’ve called Poison Control four times?” From then on I knew it would be a struggle to stay on her radar.

  “Sometimes, I guess. I still want to talk to you.” I tried to steady my voice.

  “If you need anything,” she said, “you know you can come down here and stay with us.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  There was no way I’d move back to Florida. Joanne and her husband Nathan lived in a Stepford Wives enclave in Tampa. Everyone was conservative, had at least two-point-five children and a dog. It was a requirement. And Joanne fit all the requirements. Now I had two nephews, Cabbot and Tayler, and visiting Joanne always reminded me of how broken my life seemed, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that would never quite fit together. She had a house that went on for miles with granite countertops, a pool, a garage for two cars and a boat if they should decide to buy one and more than one guest room. I could actually choose which spare room I wanted.

  Most of all, Tampa, like the rest of Florida, is hot. Everyone is a little crankier down there because they’re so hot. When I used to live there, I would have thoughts of killing someone at least once a day—someone in traffic, in the grocery store parking lot—not real murder, but dark, evil thoughts because I was so hot and irritated. These things just weren’t normal.

  And we never had seasons, so it was harder marking time and memories. Thanksgiving was eighty degrees and sunny, just like Halloween. Houses were cookie-cutter and so was the weather. There is something unnatural and overly man-made about the whole state. It was originally a swamp that wasn’t meant for humans to inhabit. But instead we came and conquered, like everything else, putting up condominiums, ignoring the threat of hurricanes, alligators and sinkholes. And worst of all was the swarm of red ants that attacked me once just because I stopped riding my bike on the sidewalk and put my feet on the ground for a minute. When I looked down, my left leg was red and crawling. I screamed and ripped my pants off right out in the open. But that’s another story for my therapist.

  All of those were reasons enough not to return. But the real reason was that I didn’t want to go back in time. Going back would make me wonder, what was it all for?

  Sure, you learn and grow from all your experiences, blah, blah, blah. But returning to the sameness of your youth gives you this sense of running in place, like a hamster on a wheel, never going anywhere. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I think that was my real objection to returning to Florida. After all, who are we kidding? The state is more beautiful than a postcard.

  “You’d be starting fresh,” Joanne insisted. “It’s not going backward.”

  “It is!”

  “Is that what you think of me? That I’m going nowhere?” There she was again—defensive Joanne, always just under the surface, waiting to burst into the conversation and make it about her.

  “This isn’t about you,” I said calmly.

  “I have a very happy life, you know!”

  “I’m sure you do! I didn’t say you didn’t!”

  Did she protest too much? It was hard to tell. Joanne always seemed irritated lately. I thought it was because she lived in Florida.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just sick over this.” She was a human sponge, absorbing everyone else’s stress and pain—so she barely had time for herself.

  Her husband, Nathan Hutchins, wasn’t around much. When I visited, he would stare blankly at me and try to get along with me because I was Joanne’s sister. At least that’s how it seemed.

  He was no stranger to money; he came from a wealthy Southern family. He grew up in Georgia, where his dad, Owen Hutchins, owned practically all of Augusta. He, in turn, had sold his soul to a business that was doing better than anyone expected, a clothing store chain called Wholesome Threads. It was based, he said, on the idea that everyone really wanted to get back to simple values again, the basic beliefs of our founding fathers. Well, some of our founding fathers were adulterers and slave owners. When I joked that he probably didn’t want to put those beliefs on any shirt, I got another blank s
tare.

  His stores’ shirts had sayings about being proud to be Southern or proud to be a “family man” or “family woman.” I thought it was code for discrimination, and the success of his business scared me a little. I do believe that if it wasn’t for Joanne, there would be some unwholesome threads in there for sure. My biggest supporter, she insisted there was nothing homophobic in his store or she’d divorce him.

  I came out to my sister when I was twelve. The words “I’m gay” sounded too startling, so I revealed my secret by saying that The Bionic Woman was more than a TV show to me. It was my reason for living. Correction—Jaime Sommers, a.k.a. Lindsay Wagner, was my reason for living. Then I learned that Joanne had been watching The Bionic Man because of Steve Austin. Why would anyone waste their time on Steve Austin running with his collar and chest hair bouncing in slow motion? It made no sense to me. When we realized we’d watched those shows for completely different reasons, we laughed so hard we couldn’t stop. It was a laugh that lasted for days.

  Joanne never judged me. She never said, “Ew, gross” or “You’re going to hell.” What she did instead was the most common reaction in our family—guilt. She told me she supported who I was but added, “You know this will kill Mom.”

  Mom’s reaction is one I save for my therapist.

  Before we hung up the phone, I said, “Thanks for the offer. But I really do want to get my life back together my way. Can you understand?”

  “Yeah, I guess. But you’re sure it’s nothing you just don’t want to tell me because you’re afraid it’ll hurt my feelings?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You really like my husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s the dog? We can keep Sergeant out back while you’re here.”

  Sergeant was their black Labrador, who sometimes bared his fangs at me. Nathan insisted he only did that when he was startled. And I guess every time I reached for the remote control or went to the bathroom, it startled him. Yes, I could just picture them keeping him in the backyard during a classic Florida lightning storm.

  “It’s not the dog,” I lied. It was partially the dog. But the getting-my-life-together part was completely true.

  When Joanne was satisfied that my decision not to accept her offer wasn’t based on her husband, her dog, her children, her neighborhood or her own personality, she hung up, vowing to work toward legal rights for lesbians.

  “I love you,” I said. “You’re the greatest sister a girl could ever have, you know.”

  “Same here, Syd.” There was a pause. “Don’t feel like any of this is your fault. Sometimes bad luck comes in waves.”

  “I know.”

  I shut off my phone and stared at it a while. I really missed Joanne. The lump in my throat was swelling.

  When Penny offered, I accepted. She’d just gotten a new pullout couch, and I’d be sleeping there. I felt like a refugee, looking for someone to take me in, all the while completely embarrassed. Who wants to be that friend that other friends get together and talk about and worry about? That was a role I really didn’t want to play.

  Then one night I decided I was ready for another role. I was going to make my big leap back into the dating scene.

  Chapter Four

  “Sex Out of the City”

  Penny and I spent many nights on our laptops. When I wasn’t combing the want ads, I’d post a comment underneath some controversial article and wait for the flurry of responses from anonymous people dumping on me.

  “How’s it going with the Kansas girl?” I asked.

  “Great. She’s talking about flying in this weekend.” Penny was giddy, typing faster.

  “Uh, so, where would you like me to go?” Penny’s one-bedroom apartment was small, but there was a basement. It was dank and scary, and if you added a few flying moths you’d have Silence of the Lambs.

  “It’s okay if you’re out here on the couch,” she buzzed excitedly.

  Oh no. Unless I got some earplugs, there was no way.

  “Okay,” I lied calmly. “You really feel good about this one?”

  “Oh, yeah. We have so much in common. We both grew up in Tennessee. We both like country music. And we both think Faith Hill is a hottie.”

  “Well, you can certainly base a relationship on that.” I sounded like a bitter, sarcastic old lady who lives alone, sitting on her porch, rocking away and wondering where she went wrong in life. “I’m really happy for you,” I quickly added.

  Penny came into the living room and plunked down opposite me. She had a look of dreamy stars in her eyes.

  “Is this how it works now?” I asked. “I mean, look at me. I’m forty. I don’t know how to date anymore. Have all the rules changed?”

  “Not really,” Penny answered simply. “You could go online and see hundreds of hot women.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Why? Why are you such an online dating snob?”

  I wasn’t comfortable advertising myself like a product on eBay.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You put your picture up. What if a psycho sees it?”

  “There’s a risk with everything.”

  * * *

  That Saturday, Maddie limped up the driveway in her pea-green Chevy Nova, which was on its last legs. She honked the horn, and Penny dashed out, with me reluctantly following. This would be our sixth trip to Bradley International Airport in the last two months.

  “I really appreciate y’all doin’ this for me,” Penny said as she scooted into the backseat.

  “You say that every time.” Maddie pulled out of the driveway.

  It was a drizzling, gray day in April with a slight chill in the air. As we headed up I-91, I got distracted again by patterns of rain on the window.

  “How have you been?” Maddie asked.

  “Hanging in there,” I replied. “Penny’s been great.”

  “Aw,” Penny said. “It’s been nice havin’ you as a roommate.”

  “Until your dream girl shows up.” Maddie’s remark was directed at me; she was offended that I didn’t bunk in with her. I would never, ever tell her about my dog thing. Instead, whenever I visited, I’d listen patiently to her struggles with their kidney transplants and incontinence. I’d dutifully pet them in front of her before going to the bathroom to wash the skin off my hands. She didn’t understand the depths of my OCD, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  “That’s not true,” Penny argued. “I wouldn’t kick her out if anyone moved in. She’d always have a place. And I’m gettin’ the basement finished.”

  “You’ve been getting it finished since you got the place,” Maddie snapped.

  “I’m not like her so-called friend Debra,” Penny insisted.

  “I know that,” I said.

  Maddie smirked and glanced at me. “Have you heard from her since?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it. But I really thought our friendship was doomed by her choice of the boyfriend over me.

  “Sure, you can’t have some friend staying indefinitely,” I said. “But if one of you were in a crisis, I wouldn’t tell you that you had to move out. I never saw that side of her.”

  “You’re so naïve.” Maddie struggled with the sticking windshield wipers. “Some of these straight girls would sell their mothers if it meant they could get a man.”

  “That’s so not true,” I exclaimed. “My sister would never do that. If anything, she takes in everyone, even people she shouldn’t.” Joanne had a little trouble saying no. She was the one who let our Uncle Bill with a gambling problem stay for two years before she had to pretend that one of the kids had a serious, contagious disease to kick him out. And she was a telemarketer’s dream. She once signed up for the “Meat of the Month” club. They had to buy an extra freezer for their garage, which started to resemble a slaughterhouse. She quit only when there was no place left to store any more there either. She just couldn’t hang up on anyone. She had a heart as big as a side o
f beef.

  “Well, that’s been my experience.” Maddie grew silent, something rare for her.

  “You’re always in a bad mood,” Penny commented. “You need a girlfriend.”

  I laughed.

  “I already had the best,” Maddie said softly. “Anything else would just be a disappointment.”

  Ever since Holly, Maddie didn’t want to date. She seemed content to give all her love and affection to her dogs.

  “Holly was the best?” Penny asked in disbelief.

  “You don’t know.” Maddie turned toward Windsor Locks and tried to change the subject. “So what does this one look like?”

  “Dark hair, dark eyes.”

  “You need to get another type!” Maddie exclaimed.

  “She can’t help who she likes,” I said.

  “Well, obviously, this type isn’t working for her.” Maddie turned up the ramp toward the airport.

  We pulled up to the curb, where Penny started to climb out in the pouring rain.

  “I see her!” she cried, making a dash for the doors.

  Maddie and I watched the scene unfold like a movie. There was a tall, dark-haired woman with cocoa skin and a face that could be on the cover of a magazine. Penny came up to her. Smiles were exchanged, some talking. Then Penny turned around and returned to the car alone.

  In the backseat she sat with her head down; all you could see was the glistening top of her wet blond hair.

  “What happened?” I finally asked as we pulled out.

  Penny had spent many disastrous weekends with strangers she’d met online, most all of them ending in heartbreak. But we’d never seen one end before the woman even got in the car.

  “She didn’t think we had any chemistry,” Penny said sadly.

  “In five seconds?” I shrieked.

  “It’s true,” Maddie agreed. “You can tell if someone’s getting in your pants in the first few seconds. It’s a proven fact.”

  “What!” I was incredulous. “What about friends who grow to become more?”

  “That’s only in the movies,” Maddie replied. “You either feel the lightning bolt or you don’t.”