Secrets of a Shoe Addict

by Harbison, Beth

“Kate, stop!” Tiffany yelled, but Kate didn’t even slow. “Katherine Dreyer, you stop right now!”

  She stopped. She knew what it meant when her parents used her whole name. Unfortunately, Jacob Murphy did not, and he ran smack into her and they both fell onto the hard linoleum.

  “My knee!” Kate wailed.

  Jacob’s face went red. “Sorry,” he said guiltily.

  “You didn’t need to run right on top of me!” Kate snapped back at him.

  “Kate.” Tiffany went over and leaned down to pull Kate up. “If you can bark at Jacob like that, you can’t be too hurt. Let me take a look.”

  Kate whimpered and pointed to her knee, which was exactly the same pale shade as her other knee.

  “She’s awright,” Jacob groused.

  Parker hung back, clearly wanting to remain distanced from any trouble.

  “Yup. I think she is,” Tiffany said.

  “And I think these kids need to eat so they don’t whine all the way back to D.C.,” Loreen added, behind her. “You know all they serve on airplanes these days is Cheese Nips and pretzels.”

  “They had a cheese platter on the way over,” Tiffany pointed out. “Although it was just American, Swiss, and Whiz.”

  “I’ll take them to get pizza,” Abbey volunteered.

  “Let’s all go,” Tiffany said. “I think we could all use a bite.”

  They went, and they pooled all their remaining cash on pizza, salads, and Cokes before returning to the gate to wait for their plane to board.

  Loreen seemed off, Tiffany noticed. She was edgy, pale, and she wasn’t making eye contact. It seemed like something was wrong, but Tiffany assumed it was a hangover. That is, until Loreen approached her.

  “Can I talk to you a minute?” Loreen asked in an urgent whisper.

  “Sure, what’s—?”

  The look on Loreen’s face stopped Tiffany from questioning her further until they were alone, several feet away.

  “I made a terrible mistake last night,” Loreen said, tears welling in her eyes. “I can’t keep it to myself anymore.”

  So did I, Tiffany thought, imagining that in a few minutes both their burdens would be lighter for the sharing. “What is it?” she asked sympathetically.

  “It’s . . . the PTA credit card. Last night I thought it was mine. I have the same Visa, only my personal one has my middle initial on it, which is how I usually tell them apart. But last night, I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly. . . .” She swatted away her tears impatiently. “Tiffany, I used the PTA card last night.”

  Oh, that was cute. Typical of honest Loreen, worrying herself half to death because she accidentally made a charge on the wrong card. Of course, there would be paperwork, and that would be a bit of a drag, but it wasn’t anything to get too upset over. “It’s okay, honey, what’s the damage? Forty?” She was being generous. “Fifty?”

  “Five thousand,” Loreen said without missing a beat.

  Which was more than could be said for Tiffany’s heart. Five thousand! “You’re kidding, right?” Only half a second passed before her nerves tightened like guitar strings. “Loreen, tell me you’re kidding.”

  But Loreen only pressed her lips together and shook her head.

  “How?”

  “I got cash advances on the PTA card all night long until I finally hit the limit.” Loreen sniffed. “I thought they’d just increased my credit or something. It never even occurred to me that I was using the wrong card, because I hardly ever even take the PTA one out.”

  “Oh, Loreen . . .” They were in big trouble.

  “I know. I’m so sorry! I can’t even tell you how sorry I am. Obviously I’ll pay it back, somehow. . . .” She went pale. “I don’t know how. Five thousand . . . but I will. I will. Right away. I’ll just get cash advances on my other cards—”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” Tiffany didn’t mean to be short with Loreen, but this, on top of her own debt, was just too much to think about before getting into a multiton Tylenol capsule that would somehow have to rise into the sky and take them home.

  Desperate and broke, and feeling like her world was closing in around her, Tiffany did something she usually did only in an emergency.

  She called the one person she knew who always had her shit together, and always seemed to know what to do.

  She called her sister, Sandra.

  Chapter

  5

  Sandra Vanderslice regarded the scale under the bathroom sink like it was a sleeping bear. She could continue to tiptoe past it and pretend it wasn’t there and couldn’t affect her, or she could just wake the damn thing and let it do its worst, thereby stripping it of its power over her.

  Except that that wouldn’t strip it of its power, because there was always the horrible possibility that after working her ass off—literally—to lose twenty-six pounds last year, then falling off the chuck wagon, she might have gained back more than she’d lost in the first place.

  That kind of news would be just too devastating to take. She wasn’t sure what she’d do. Probably eat a Twinkie, or four, and wallow in self-loathing. No, she didn’t eat a dozen eggs for breakfast or tuck into a shoulder of beef every night for dinner, the way fat people were often portrayed, but emotional eating was a real problem for Sandra, and when she was upset—ironically, it was usually when she was upset about her appearance—she really could down half a dozen snack cakes or eat a pint of ice cream, in minutes flat, all the while feeling horrible about herself.

  She hated that she was so wrapped up in her appearance that she couldn’t enjoy the real successes in her life—she was a founder of a very promising shoe-importing business, and, thanks to a clever purchase and renovation, she had almost seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of equity in her Washington, D.C., apartment in the trendy Adams Morgan neighborhood. She had so much to be proud of.

  But she was thirty-four years old, and she’d never had a real boyfriend. The last guy she’d gone out with, Carl Abramson, had been as sweet as pie, but they’d had only four or five dates before his biotech company transferred him to Omaha.

  Sandra wanted a boyfriend, she really did, but she wasn’t desperate enough to up and move to Nebraska to try to keep one.

  So they’d said good-bye, and apart from the occasional e-mail that eventually petered out to nothing, they hadn’t spoken since he’d left, eight months ago.

  Before that, there had been Mike Lemmington, a Greek god of a guy she’d gone to high school with (though in high school, he’d been more of a Michelin Man of a guy). They’d spent several happy months going out together before Sandra realized (1) they weren’t actually dating, because (2) Mike was gay. (3) Resoundingly so.

  She may have been dating him, but he was only hanging out with her. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel, totally different interpretations of Robin, the Boy Wonder.

  Which, like everything else that had ever gone wrong in her life, all led back to the scale. Sandra was good at denying the obvious. And even better at avoiding the truth.

  This had to stop.

  She was lonely.

  It was hard even to think of it in such honest, simple terms, but it was true. Sandra spent virtually all her time alone. There were things she enjoyed throughout her days, of course—she liked her work, had a few TV shows she enjoyed, that sort of thing—but there was always the thought in the back of her mind that if she swallowed a forkful of boiled chicken wrong, she might choke and die alone and no one would know until the neighbors called the super about the smell.

  And she wanted someone to bitch about Bill O’Reilly with; someone to drape her legs across on leisurely Sundays during the Redskins games. (She wasn’t all that into football, but she’d grown up with that being the sound of Sunday afternoons, and there was something comforting about it, and besides, when else could she wear her burgundy and gold Chuck Taylors?) She wanted somebody to remind her that the world wasn’t always fair at the end of a hard day but that things would get better; som
eone who would tell her that he loved her no matter what.

  She wanted the kind of best friend you shared your whole life with. She had no illusions that he had to look like Brad Pitt—truth was, if he did, he’d probably be a jerk anyway. She didn’t actually care what the guy looked like anymore, as long as he didn’t scare small children.

  She just wanted him to get her. And to love her for that.

  So it wasn’t just pure vanity that made her want to lose some weight. It was realism. She knew that men looked at a girl’s face and figure first, and even some really nice guys might initially dismiss a girl who was a little too heavy.

  Or a lot too heavy, as the case may be.

  So what was the choice? To keep indulging in Parmesan artichoke dip and Hamburger Hamlet’s Those Potatoes, and a host of other little things that, on the surface, didn’t seem that indulgent but which added up to trouble? Or to take the most reasonable—if not easiest—diet approach and limit absolutely everything she loved with the hopes of slimming down and . . . and what?

  Not attracting her soul mate, because if he was really her soul mate, she wouldn’t need some sort of movie star or model figure in order to catch his eye.

  But maybe it was reasonable to think that if she lost weight, she might at least stop repelling her potential soul mate. Because, honestly, no one was attracted to grossly overweight people. Right or wrong, it communicated a lack of self-care to other people.

  She didn’t need to be skinny, but she needed to be healthy.

  Sandra pulled the scale out and laid it flat on the cold tile floor, and took off her new white Sigerson Morrison peep-toe medium platforms. (They had cost $368.95 at Zappos.com and were worth every penny, especially after she got a French pedicure.) The shoes were fabulous, but she wasn’t going to add their weight to hers, though it occurred to her that, depending what the scale said, it might be better if she could blame the shoes for anywhere from one to six pounds.

  Then again, if she put on towering heels, really great stilettos, like the Hollywould ones she’d just gotten, could she possibly justify offsetting her weight by adding inches?

  It was tempting. And she was ready to vow to wear heels every day for the rest of her life, if that’s what it took.

  Then again, maybe she needed chunky heels, like they always advised in the Style Network shows about how not to dress fat. A chunky heel can de-emphasize a chunky ankle.

  Right.

  But she knew she had to be honest and face the whole ugly truth.

  She stood over the scale for a good minute or two, considering the possibilities. As if one of them was to stay off the scale and thereby not gain an ounce since her last successful weigh-in, so many months ago.

  Do it, she told herself, like a kid trying to talk herself into diving into a cold pool on a hot July afternoon. Just do it. Face the truth. Get it over with. You can always join Weight Watchers again. It worked once; it will work again.

  She took a deep breath and stepped onto the scale. The spinner lurched and bounced, and she stepped back quickly.

  No. No, no, no. She couldn’t do it.

  She backed against the wall and slid down, then sat face-to-face with her enemy, the scale.

  It was just plain unfair. There were a lot of people who never even had to think about what they ate; they were just naturally slim and gorgeous, no matter what they scarfed down.

  Sandra’s sister, Tiffany, was one of those people. Where Sandra was short and mousy-haired, with nondescript hazel eyes, Tiffany was tall, blond, and slender, with eyes so insanely blue, they looked like they had to be contacts. In some ways—okay, a lot of ways—it had been absolute hell to grow up in Tiffany’s narrow shadow.

  You’re Tiffany Vanderslice’s sister?

  Come on, seriously?

  Is one of you adopted? Turned out one of them was, though Sandra had only learned that last year. Tiffany was adopted and had known it for years, all the while feeling a little bit inadequate compared to Sandra, their parents’ biological child. It was ironic, since Sandra had felt the same inadequacy in comparison to Tiffany, whom she perceived as “the golden child” to her “black sheep.”

  Yet it didn’t make Sandra feel any differently about Tiffany, or about Sandra’s own big fat doughy comparison to her.

  To be fair, Tiffany was not one of those people who went around proclaiming that they could not gain weight “no matter what I eat!” She was the very definition of disciplined. She was the sort of person who could eat one Christmas cookie.

  She could even resist them altogether, if she feared her waistline was exceeding its twenty-nine-inch limit. (Or whatever, Sandra wasn’t actually sure what Tiffany’s measurements were, only that they were more flattering than her own.)

  Tiffany had, all her life, opted for water over Coke, plain milk over chocolate, and she actually preferred her salads without any dressing whatsoever.

  Sandra was always tempted to point out that it was actually more nutritious to eat those greens with a little bit of fat—she’d learned a few things from Weight Watchers—but she was afraid it would sound like sour grapes.

  And in a sibling relationship that had always been a little bit strained, Sandra didn’t want to add any sour grapes.

  Unless they were in the form of wine.

  But who was she kidding? Tiffany probably never even had more than a glass with dinner, if any at all. Far be it from Tiffany to lose even one iota of her legendary control.

  Which is why it was such a surprise when the phone rang and it was Tiffany, calling from what she described as “the floor of the crappiest, dirtiest part of the dirty, crappy Las Vegas airport.”

  “Why are you on the floor of the airport?” Sandra asked, immediately alarmed, yet intrigued.

  “All the flights are running late because of thunderstorms or something. The place is mobbed.” She made an exasperated sound, then said, “But that’s not why I called. I need a job. Fast. And I was wondering if you and your shoe people were hiring.”

  “What?” Sandra couldn’t process this that fast.

  “Your company,” Tiffany said. “Are you hiring?”

  A year ago, Sandra and some friends had met every Tuesday night to swap shoes in an effort to, if not get rid of their shoe addiction, at least make it cost less. Eventually, in a move that turned their addiction to actual profit, they pooled their money to support the work of a brilliant young Italian shoemaker named Phillipe Carfagni. Now their company paid for the manufacture and import of his work, and had gotten it into an impressive number of stores, boutiques, and online shoe sites. But the company was still young and, as such, still struggled to make ends meet with the few employees it had.

  “Why?”

  “I need a job.”

  “What? Why do you need a job?” Sandra asked, shocked. “Are you and Charlie splitting up?” Oh! Bad mistake! Tiffany hadn’t said a word about leaving Charlie, but Sandra had leapt all over it like Are you finally leaving the bum?

  Which was how she really felt.

  “No!” Tiffany barked. “God, Sandra, can’t I just ask you about a job without you leaping to crazy and insulting conclusions?”

  “Well . . . yes, it’s just . . . you just said you’re on the floor of some Las Vegas hotel—”

  “Airport.”

  “—right, airport, and you’re obviously in the middle of something more demanding than, say, sitting around doing your nails while watching The Price Is Right and deciding you want a new hobby. So . . . seriously, Tiffany, why are you asking about a job now?”

  “It doesn’t matter why,” Tiffany said, an edge still sharp in her voice. “Maybe I’m just bored waiting for my flight and thought of it. Maybe I’m just trying to make conversation. Maybe—”

  “Okay, now I know something’s up,” Sandra said. She’d had more than her share of liars over the phone these past few years, and she could pick them out within seconds. “You should have stopped at the bored-and-waiting-for-your-flight p
art. I might have bought that.”

  “Would you buy in-debt-from-buying-too-many-clothes-and-shoes?” Tiffany shot back.

  Sandra laughed. “No way. Try again.”

  “It’s the truth,” Tiffany said. And this time her voice was different. Serious. Broken.

  “What? You got into financial trouble buying clothes? And shoes?”

  “I know it’s not like me, but it’s the truth. I accidentally spent thousands of dollars on these stupid, impractical designer clothes. Then there was a mix-up with the plane tickets home, so I had to get a first-class seat at the last minute for a nine-year-old who can’t be separated from the group, and the whole thing’s a mess, and if I don’t make a lot of money fast, my marriage is going to be in really serious trouble. So I was wondering if you needed any part-time workers for your company.”

  Sandra listened to this with disbelief. Tiffany? Spent thousands of dollars on clothes? It didn’t make sense, but the one thing that was obvious was that it didn’t have to make sense right now. Right now Sandra needed to listen.

  She just wished she could do more to help. “The company is really still in its infancy, and I can’t hire people unilaterally, and besides, you wouldn’t make that much that soon even if we were hiring, which we’re not. Maybe I could loan you the money, if I tapped into my retirement. How much—?”

  “No! You can’t do that. I wouldn’t let you, so don’t even think about it. I was just desperate, honestly, and I thought you might have some sort of idea. . . .” Tiffany sniffled. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sandra said, meaning it sincerely. “If there was anything I could do, I’d—wait a minute. You just want work? For money? Fast?”

  “Yes.” The answer was more of a question, and Sandra could picture Tiffany sitting straighter on her square of linoleum, listening for the potential answer to her problems.

  And maybe Sandra had it. “There is one thing I can think of, one way to make good money fast. . . . If you’re really serious, that is.”

  “There is?” Hope was clearly rising fast. “What is it? Does it take some special skill or education or something?”