by Kay Brandt
Most of Melinda's last pregnant trimester with me, her only child, was spent keeping watch over Jonathan while he worked, having lost all trust in her husband. She refused to give the cheater his space or privacy—no matter how badly he'd plead and beg for her to leave.
“He couldn't stop, Rolie,” Aunt Grace would elaborate on the tales. “The affairs were part of the job. I don't think he cared for any of those women. You can thank your asshole grandfather for that.”
“Thank him for what?” I'd ask.
She'd chain smoke while I ate, her misty eyes ignited by a strange fire. “For sticking his tool where it didn't belong.”
“Like in a light socket?”
“Yeah, exactly.” And then her mind would drift off, probably from the Quaaludes or whatever she was on. “It's not that he was some gifted romancer with the power to seduce.” For some reason Aunt Grace thought I should know this. “He was generally clumsy and awkward in his intimate dealings,” she hissed, and then caught herself. “At least that's what I observed when I worked for your parents that summer.”
Back when my grandfather was in command of the store, William took pictures of the shoes he created for his insatiable clientele. In those faded black and white photos from the 1960's there's proof of the multitude of wealthy women who'd developed crushes on the quietly handsome man responsible for customizing their vanity footwear. One pair of female legs after another laid before William on the plush, reclined fitting chair. Their feet were held, stroked, measured and fitted during the painstaking process of original shoe creation.
“The women were cool at first, and Jonathan tried to keep things professional, but the rich get what they want.” Aunt Grace stated. “They demanded to be worshiped by the infamous master shoemaker as if they were the only ones he serviced... even if Jonathan was the master's inept son. They'd call him William, you know, and he let them.”
“Huh?” I asked, having no idea what she was mumbling.
“The clients that returned after William was killed.” Emotions didn't come naturally for Aunt Grace. She popped pills to control her mood swings while I choked down her badly prepared meatloaf. “They called Jonathan by his father's name. They pretended he was him.”
“Oh.” I'd reply.
She'd continue, “A few of those ugly bitches claimed to be descendants of William's mistresses,” Aunt Grace's facial expression would warp from angry to devastated when she'd recall her days working at the store before Melinda and Jonathan died. “They didn't know I was listening, but I heard every nasty word they said to your mother.”
“What's a mistress?” I'd inquire.
“A mistress is nothing, Rolie,” she'd explain. “Melinda would shrug off what they said. She knew what was up, and that there was nothing she could do about his affairs.”
“Hmm,” was my other clueless reply during her emotional moments.
“Melinda was much nicer than I could ever have been, if I'd been her... you know what I'm saying.”
I'd shake my head, held captive by Aunt Grace's need to regurgitate the same stories night after night.
“I would have killed them, one horrible bitch at a time, until they were gone and I had my husband back.” Her thoughts would drift, but what was in her eyes gave me chills. “But he wasn't my husband... he wasn't even Jonathan at that point.”
****
My grandfather William was a womanizer without shame. He was an ego-driven, alpha male with an unnatural gift for shoe making. His craft was, and still is, rather obscure, yet his business took on a life of its own shortly after he went public with his designs. The store was first run from my grandparents' home in the 1960's. My grandmother, Tilly, would serve tea and cookies to a small group of women who had the wherewithal to afford custom footwear. It was a pleasant family-run operation, but as demand grew the clients overwhelmed their humble abode.
The store was opened in an urban location, newly populated by an affluent class. Like Melinda with Jonathan, my grandmother was clueless to William's affairs until she dropped by the store with her closest girlfriends, unannounced, wanting to show off her husband's talents, and got more than she bargained for.
“Tilly finding out about William's infidelity had nothing to do with their murder,” Aunt Grace informed me one night while I sat on my parent’s bed after their demise. She hastily emptied out their closet, throwing stuff into boxes. “Your grandparents bodies were found hung by hooks in the stockroom with spiked heels plunged into their hearts.” The coolness in her voice was unnerving, even for a morbidly depressed kid who'd recently lost his parents. “An ugly way to go, Rolie,” she'd said, “whoever did it hated them.”
William and Tilly's killer wasn't caught. And the only stolen items from the store were single shoes―not pairs. One each of William's eight most prized shoe designs went missing. There weren't clues left behind over why singles and not pairs, either. The murderer wasn't after cash or expensive tools. My grandparents' blood was spilled for eight single shoes—something no one could make sense of, then or now. The horrible black spot on my lineage could've been for nothing—a meaningless, stupid prank with devastating, long-lasting effects.
Till this day, the stockroom floor holds the gory reminder of where their bodies hovered. Dark brown, sloppy circles stain the cement, and serve as a grim memorial.
****
“I have a dream.” My mother often shared her personal thoughts and feelings with me, like I was her best friend—her only friend, but I was just a kid. “Before I'd married Jonathan, I wanted to return to my childhood home on the east coast and raise my children.”
“You have other children?”
She laughed, petting my head, and kissed my cheek. The loving way Melinda would gaze at me was my salvation—the one connection to anything good. “No, just you, and you're enough, my sweet Roland.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I'd still like to take you there someday, to where I was raised, before my father headed west with me and Grace. I miss it so much.”
We didn't get there. And Aunt Grace shunned any talk of their east coast upbringing. Apparently, it wasn't as good for her as it was for my mother.
Melinda continued to play her role as the suffering wife until the day she died. She'd serve coffee at the store to the “other” women during their appointments, and endured their hostility towards the overbearing spouse who made it clear that Jonathan wasn't for purchase. My mother's need to control Jonathan's cheating wasn't up for discussion, and his clients didn't appreciate it at all. They showed it with their dollars and stopped giving him their business.
Eventually, and mostly for financial reasons, my mother was forced to release her hold on Jonathan. She and I retreated to our apartment where she slipped into wine-induced, doomed housewife status. And every quite, boring second she was home, especially when I was at school, chipped away at her sanity, knowing Jonathan's affairs had resumed. The jealousy ate her alive.
****
When I was five, after taking many months off from showing her face, Melinda took me by the arm and dragged me to the store. Fear had kept her up for days, deeply worried about Jonathan, who hadn't been home in weeks. He wasn't answering the store phone and when she drove by, the sales floor lights were off. She worried for his well-being and sobered up just enough to drive us there. It was the 1970's and everyone drove drunk or stoned, at least that's what Aunt Grace told me.
The store was in bad condition, and so was my father. I had imagined him like a doctor, performing surgery in a sterile room, making his master creations. Those naive thoughts were smothered by the sight of a grease-covered, bruised, bloody and bandaged man. Looking crazed, hovering over a mountain of material and half-made shoes, Jonathan had overloaded himself with an insurmountable work load. He hadn't eaten, or bathed. Melinda burst into tears seeing his terrible state. Me, I just stood there, noticing a twitchy ankle boot hiding in a corner of the room, moving as if it was a puppet pulled by strings.
“Jonathan? Oh my god. Honey, what's happened to you?” Melinda held me close to her trembling hip, more for her own benefit than mine.
He looked at us like we were strangers, completely out of it. Not a drinker or a smoker, he'd evolved into a compulsive workhorse with no concept of when he'd pushed himself too far.
“Jonathan?” Melinda approached him cautiously. In one hand he held an intimidating metal pick, and in the other, a single black strappy heel stuck with pins and needles. “Honey, it's us, your wife and son. Are you in there?”
I watched my father weave back and forth, his face without expression. The shoe in the corner mocked him, although at almost six years of age I didn't really know what “mocking” was. Watching that twitching boot, like it was making faces at Jonathan, made me laugh. My laughter caught Jonathan's attention, but he looked right through me, raising the sharp end of a pick in my direction.
“No! You're not going to hurt him, Jonathan!” Melinda shrieked, jumping in front of my body. “Put the pick down and get a fucking grip!”
He kept coming at us. She grabbed a weighty chunk of discarded wood from the floor and threw it at him. It smacked his head, hard, but he didn't flinch. And then my mother lost it. “Jonathan! I'll kill you if you hurt him!”
I hardly knew my father, as he was rarely home and the store was off limits. Hiding behind my mother's legs, clinging to her, I didn't comprehend the seriousness of the situation, but I was terrified. Jonathan's actions seemed almost comical and unreal, and the boot already had my nerves jumping.
Melinda held back terrified tears and her voice was loaded with emotion. “Stop it, Jonathan! Not another inch!” He didn't stop, and she held her claws up, having nothing else for defense.
Jonathan wobbled, and then dropped like a rag doll. Melinda fell with him, taking the brunt of the fall. She yelled, slapped, and kicked him a few times. And then a few times more.
“Mommy? Is daddy sleeping?” I whispered, with no understanding of death.
She stormed to the phone, failing to calm herself before dialing the operator and pleading for help.
Jonathan spent two weeks in the hospital, suffering from severe dehydration and malnourishment. He had three broken fingers, one broken rib, a few deep and infected lacerations, and a large bump on his head given to him by his wife.
Melinda told me during her drunken stupors she saved his life. “Without me knocking him senseless,” she'd say, “he would've been a thousand times worse,” and then she'd weep.
When Jonathan was discharged, he spent a month at home recovering. For a brief blip in time, the three of us were a normal family. Melinda nursed him back to health, cooked and cleaned, and Jonathan read me stories before bedtime. That was the peak, our happiest moments, and my best childhood memories.
And then the evil shoes found me, or rather, I found them.
CHAPTER THREE
“I've stayed away too long,” Melinda stated to me while cleaning the breakfast dishes on the morning Jonathan decided to return to the store. “And he screwed it all up.”
Jonathan wasn't allowed to go back to work without her. Promoting herself to store manager, Melinda had a new plan in mind. Together, they would make things better as a team. “This whole incident with your father is a sign. He can't survive without me.”
In a blink, she quit being the hushed and forgotten wife relegated to staying out of view and reported for work. Assigning herself the massive task of cleaning, organizing and running the daily operations, Melinda found a new purpose.
“Who's going to take care of me?” I'd asked Melinda, fearful of being abandoned.
“You're coming with me, Roland,” she said with her special gaze.
“I don't want to go to the store, mom!” I whined, but my protest had no effect.
On the blood-stained cement floor of the stockroom is where I sat, watching Jonathan shake and tremble. He couldn't put a single tool in his hand without dry heaving. It was awful to witness his process falling from recovery back into the dark hole of madness.
Removed from my beloved television-babysitter, I was allowed a handful of small, plastic, silent toys to pass the excruciatingly slow hours.
“Dad demands a quiet environment, and we need to keep our noise to a minimum,” Melinda instructed me, giving me the “look” if I dared to make sounds out loud while using my stunted imagination.
Emptying out the stockroom cabinets, Melinda found an unexpected collection of Polaroid pictures—all featuring female legs adorning Jonathan's freshly made footwear.
Pangs of jealousy ripped across Melinda's heart, seeing one too many sexy shots of long legs, hiked up skirts and pretty faces, smiling for the shoe creator. The stockroom felt icy—that's what I recall, and I shivered watching their exchange.
“Wow, honey, so many clients since I was last here. Business has really grown. Why did you not tell me how successful you've become?”
“I don't feel successful.” Jonathan mumbled.
“There are at least a hundred pictures here. What prices are the shoes selling for?” Melinda's wheels spun, attempting to make sense of the financial sinkhole otherwise known as the store.
“I don't know.” His feeble response triggered her anger. “I take what they give.”
“I remember setting prices, depending on style, details, amount of material.” Melinda looked at him curiously. “We increased the price from what William used to charge. A pair of mid-calf leather boots were priced at three hundred and fifty dollars. Satin or silk flats with beading or embroidery ranged from eighty to a hundred and fifty. For the other styles, we set prices, too.”
He didn't respond. Instead, he stuck the tip of weighty cutting shears into a piece of scrap material, testing their sharpness.
With a panic stricken look, Melinda demanded more information. “What happened to the price list?”
Jonathan was unmovable, stubbornly silent, and then, “I don't recall a list, Melinda.”
Melinda patted her chest, as if she couldn't breathe. Her mind was racing, but somehow she managed to change her approach, and spoke in the same tone she used on me. “So, what do you take then, for let's say, a fancy pair of heels? When we found you, there was a black shoe in your hand, embellished with diamond and pearl studs. How much did you ask, or were you going to ask, for those?”
“I didn't make those.” His guiltless admission was alarming. “The heels were not of my creation.”
“No?” She asked, fighting a panic attack. “Where did they come from?”
“The drawer, Melinda. They came from the drawer.” Silent acknowledgment passed between them. She knew what he was talking about—she knew.
Melinda continued. “Jonathan, please, what's the point of working yourself to death if the only people benefiting are the bitches ripping you off?”
Jonathan broke focus with the scrap material to look at his wife. “I don't care about the money.”
“Don't care? What kind of bullshit is that, Jonathan?” Having never seen them fight before, I was totally enthralled with the intensity of my mother. She wasn't afraid to fight—not when money was involved.
“How could any self-respecting businessman not care?” She rattled him with her disgusted tone. “The money is what keeps this business alive. It's what keeps Roland and I alive!”
“I'm not a self-respecting businessman, Melinda!” He fired back. “I'm an artist, a brilliant craftsman! Isn't that what you used to say?”
“I've never said that, Jon,” Melinda clarified, her eyes wide, analyzing the stranger he'd become. “The guy I knew was a mechanic.”
As if shot in the gut, Jonathan coughed, hacking up something from his chest.
She went on, ignoring his sickly condition. “We have to make money with the store. We've all suffered enough.” Then she cried, awkwardly reaching to hug him. He didn't embrace her. Instead, he stood with his hands at his sides, motionless.
Grabbing his face, she pleaded, “You can't keep
working at this pace, Jon, and not charge for what the shoes are worth! You're letting the clients get away with murder. We're all getting cheated!”
“The money was what my father was after!” Jonathan cried back. “The money and the fame. His shoes were nothing compared to what I create!” Tears poured down Jonathan's dirty face. “I'm not him, and I don't want to be.”
“I don't want you to be him either! I never wanted you to keep the store!” Melinda yelled, frantically pulling more and more pictures from the drawer. “But you aren't YOU, Jonathan! You've become someone else!”
I quickly scooted back from my spot, not liking the middle ground. The situation felt weirdly unsafe, and I slipped behind a stack of boxes.
Melinda switched from character assailant to business strategist. “Look, you can't deny that this store has always catered to the wealthy. We could triple the prices and these women you take pictures of wouldn't bat an eye! Feeling guilty about charging a fair price for what's in demand is ridiculous and you know it!” She had his attention, and finished with, “You and your shoes are not charity, Jonathan. They're worth the price.”
An uneasy tension filled the stockroom. I gripped nervously on my quiet toys.
“Do what you want.” That was all Jonathan had to say, cutting fabric aggressively.
Melinda's anger cooled, replaced by a gentler tone. “I think it's best if I set up a new price list. Once it's established, it will be non-negotiable. The same fees will apply across the board to all the customers, no matter if they're new, frequent or involved on some other level with you.”
Jonathan couldn't argue with her plan. He nodded and turned back to his desk.
“I love you, Jonathan,” she whispered.
Again, he nodded, not looking at her.
“I love you, mom,” I reassured her, crawling out from my hiding place.
