If the Shoe Fits

by Megan Mulry

  “Widgets?” She wasn’t annoyed exactly, but his blasé attitude toward his own interests might wear on her over time. She liked to joke and have a laugh as much as the next person, but when certain topics always elicited a quip, she began to wonder.

  “Nothing exciting.”

  “So bore me.”

  He started to reach for the remote control and she stilled his hand, holding his wrist gently in her smooth, warm fingers. She picked up the remote control and turned the television off. “Talk to me a little bit about what you do. It’s not fair that I am this open book professionally. I mean, you can Google me.” His guilty smile told her he already had. “And yet I know next to nothing about your real life.”

  He wanted to blurt out that he was rapidly coming to the terrifying conclusion that she might very well be his real life, but he stuffed that back down. Hard.

  “I’m not really comfortable talking about myself… professionally. I hate when guys are all on about what they do…”

  “But I’m asking. Nicely.”

  He looked at her, then out the window at the cityscape. It was almost dark again, even though it was barely the end of afternoon. The October days were short. He was stalling.

  She continued, “Look, I’m not going to be a shrew about it. If you don’t care much about what you do during the day, nine to five and all that, I guess, whatever, but I just don’t see that. You have such an intensity—” She blushed.

  He laughed and kissed her cheek.

  She tried again. “It just seems curious to me that you’re not fully engaged, since you seem to live your life—what little I’ve seen, granted—with a kind of purpose. Even your repartee has a kind of design to it.”

  “Interesting choice of words.”

  “Which?”

  “Design. I guess I am a designer of sorts. I’ve always enjoyed patterns and puzzles, codes… designs. But there were extenuating circumstances. I refused to be an academic.”

  “I can relate to that!” she chimed in.

  And she was so open and honest and wanting him to just be whoever he was, that it all sort of fell away and he told her all the bizarre, convoluted machinations—the designs—that had constituted his so-called secret life. The inventions, the mathematical equations, the inability to be anything but the faux-earl younger brother when he was out in society. He thought she must think him mad or immature or egomaniacal: hiding what must be, ultimately, an overinflated sense of his own importance.

  “You are so perverted!” she squealed with glee, clapping her hands together. “You’re a closet genius! I love that! Anonymously spreading your bits of brilliance around, like little crumbs across the Internet, across the world. Tell me more about the project you’re working on here. Specifically. Did you invent the widget? Tell me!”

  He looked at her in amazement. He didn’t know what he had expected, but this sparkle of delight was not it. He told her about the arrogant architect who had let his own flawed design (“a gimmick,” Devon added with disdain) overrule Devon’s commonsense engineering. And all the details that he thought (that he knew) to be boring, she found hilarious or provocative or wonderful. She got up to check her cell phone, then came back into the boudoir, still smiling at him.

  “You are a secret lover! It’s so fantastic. Most people, I mean, take me for example—I am a veritable exhibitionist, whoring my shoes around the world. I don’t want any personal glory—okay, maybe just a tiny bit—but really, deep down, I want to see a woman walking down the street in a pair of shoes I designed and to see that look in her eye: that she is power or she is lust or she is anger, whatever she might be at that moment, and I think, I am a part of that. I did that!”

  He continued to stare at her. Her robe had loosened; her hair was wild; she held her cell phone in one hand and the door frame in the other. She was transitioning away from him. Getting ready to gear up for her dinner plans.

  “What?” she asked all of a sudden, then, looking down at herself: “Oh, I am a fright.”

  “You are many things, but you are certainly not a fright.” He started to get up from the daybed. “Let me get out of your way. I’ll head back to the hotel—”

  “No!” she barked. “I mean—” softer now—“You should really stay. Why be holed up in one measly hotel room? I am just going out to dinner with my parents and some friends of theirs, so I should only be gone a couple of hours. I mean, if you want,” she added shyly. “After about a halfsecond of seeing you through the plate-glass window of the storefront last night, I realized it was the height of absurdity that you even got a hotel room in the first place. But…” He certainly wasn’t making this very easy for her. “Well, you do what you like.”

  He settled back into the comfortable cushions, put his feet up where she had been sitting, clicked on the television, skipped back to the history-of-war-machines channel, and continued to look at the screen when he said, “I shall be right here when you get home from supper.”

  She walked over to where he was reclining and gave him a brief, tender kiss on the lips. “I’m glad.”

  An hour later, she came through the door from the bathroom. He had spent the entire time half-watching an interesting documentary about a new lightweight metal alloy and listening to the charming sounds of Sarah in preparation mode: drawers opening and closing; hangers sliding across the closet rod (no… no… no… yes); the shower turning on, the hinges of the glass door as she must have been stepping in; her light humming of the refrain from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg floating out and over the steam; the shower off; the sink on and off; the blow-dryer; the jars and wands and sprays of makeup and perfume clicking open and closed.

  And there she was. Transformed.

  From the wild, wanton tyrant to the perfectly turned-out daughter.

  “How do I look?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “No. I fret more about my appearance when I have dinner with my stepmother than I do before the hottest date. Not that there have been many hot dates, but still.”

  “Well, you look… immaculate. I want to rip you to shreds. At least I am no longer jealous. There’s no way you would be dressed like that for a man.”

  Sarah felt a zing of feminine pride: he had been jealous? Then she looked down at herself through his eyes. Her hair was as straight as she could make it, the black pencil skirt was a serviceable wool Armani, her top was a vintage Yves Saint Laurent black and white, silky chiffon blouse of her mother’s that tied at the neck, off to one side. She had on opaque black tights and a pair of her own Sarah James black patent-leather platform pumps that made her feel invincible.

  “Much worse than any man… my stepmother.” Sarah’s shoulders shifted to defeat, almost imperceptibly. “I am a bit of a disappointment to her.”

  “In what way?” Devon had stood up to say good-bye and was dangerously close now, circling her like a hungry animal. He used one finger to move the straight fall of her hair to one side, then kissed her at the nape of her neck. “You are hardly disappointing here,” he purred in her ear, then his hands made lazy circles on her behind. “Nor here.”

  “Oh, Devon. You are sadly mistaken. My bottom is utterly disappointing. My chest is too large—my stepmother even offered to give me the name of a doctor who specializes in breast reductions.”

  “That would have been a tragedy of Euripidean proportions.” He was behind her and tracing his hands around her breasts, not wanting to wrinkle the fabric (well, wanting to very much, but refraining).

  She leaned back into him and gave herself up to one more moment of his utter lack of disappointment. Her nipples were starting to ache. “Please, stop,” she whispered.

  His hands fell away and she had to catch her breath for how much she wanted them back. She took a very deep, slow breath. “I will think about how you like me there when Jane shakes her head in dismay at the dessert trolley. Because I am going to order dessert, and I am going to eat every bite… and think of you on my lips.”
She kissed him again, then went through the door to the hall landing and started down the stairs. “Wait, do you want a key or the security codes in case you want to go out?”

  “Sure. Probably should. I was going to have someone from the hotel bring my stuff over, but I might as well go for a little walk and retrieve it myself.” He was leaning over the banister, shirtless, and she was looking up at him.

  She reached into her purse, pulled out the single key, and reached up to hand it to him. “And I’ll turn off the security system when I leave. Wait up for me.” She winked and continued downstairs.

  Her coat closet was on the same floor as the kitchen and living room. With the unseasonably cold October wind in mind, she chose a long, raccoon cape that Letitia had given her when she left Paris (telling her pragmatically that Chicago and Moscow were probably the only two places left on earth that one could wear such a thing without fear of tomato soup being hurled).

  It took her longer than she thought to hail a taxi, so she was the last to arrive, even though it was still a few minutes before the reservation. Jane had left a phone message confirming that she had, luckily, been able to get the kitchen table at Charlie Trotter’s for the nine o’clock seating, that the Cranbrooks were not able to meet for drinks beforehand, and to be prompt. Sarah was always prompt, so she didn’t understand why Jane always made a point of saying so. Probably because Jane and Nelson were always early. Her father and stepmother were standing by the maître d’s podium, having already checked their coats, but the other three, Eliot and his parents, were standing there in the crowded front area of the busy restaurant, still in their coats and bumping up against one another.

  Jane took one look at Sarah in that enormous, ratty old cape and nearly shuddered. Eliot Cranbrook saved the day.

  “You must be Sarah.” He was obviously American, with his square jaw and easy smile and thick, sandy hair with all those sun-kissed golden highlights, but the years of living and working in Geneva had given his voice a European cadence. The only word Sarah could think of was debonair. She was fidgeting with the braided clasps sewn deep within the fur panels of the cape and then looked up to see him waiting attendance upon her, to remove the fur from her shoulders when she was finished.

  “Vintage Fendi, is it?” he asked.

  Jane blinked back her confusion, then smiled approvingly at Sarah. So that was all it took? Sarah marveled. The attention of a desirable male? All this time, she had thought that Jane was voicing her own strongly held and well-thought-out opinions, when in actual fact, she was merely scanning about for someone else to approve or disapprove of Sarah and to follow suit accordingly. Since Nelson James had never shown the least inclination to approve or disapprove of his only child, Jane had erred on the side of mild disapproval. It wasn’t even disapproval, Sarah had to concede; it was more that Jane took the view that Sarah was improvable.

  Sarah made a mental note to thank Eliot for that kindness; by legitimating the beloved Fendi raccoon cape, Eliot had somehow made Jane like her a little bit. Sarah thought he might have trailed his hand along her shoulder when he took it off, then she thought she was probably just in a state of heightened everything from all those hours of being Devon’s plaything. Her face flushed at the memory and Eliot caught it and smiled. He had grazed her on purpose after all, and now he thought she bloomed like that from his slight touch.

  How professional I must seem, Sarah thought ruefully.

  She shook herself free of any Devon daydreams and turned to reintroduce herself to Mr. and Mrs. Cranbrook, with whom she had apparently had dinner when she was eight.

  “Penny and Will, please. Do not make us feel so old and call us Mr. and Mrs. Cranbrook.” It was Penny talking, which seemed to be the way of it. Will gazed lovingly at his wife of forty years and she just talked and talked.

  Sarah excused herself so she could properly greet her father, giving him a brief kiss on one cheek, then leaned down to touch her cheek against Jane’s.

  “Don’t you look lovely, Sarah. Doesn’t she look lovely, Nelson?”

  But Nelson, despite decades—generations, really—as a successful retailer of women’s clothes, could never really give Sarah the time it took to appraise her appearance. “Quite nice,” he offered, rather effusively for him, thought Sarah. She would never know that the sight of Sarah at that moment reminded him so profoundly of his first wife that Nelson James had to look away for fear of embracing her in an emotional crush.

  After an hour at the kitchen table of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant, only a truly depressed person could resist the mellow joy and bursts of excitement that punctuated the whole experience. The busy staff was in a blurry state of perpetual motion, whisking, frying, snapping paper orders, tossing aside copper saucepans. And, in the midst of it all, six lucky people were fawned over and regaled with plate after plate of gastronomical bliss. Jane had directed the seating, which must have caused her endless hours of etiquette trauma, since there was no possibility of seating Sarah next to Eliot (the whole purpose of the exercise) and separating husbands and wives and adhering to the boy-girl-boy-girl dictum.

  Jane must have finally decided to forfeit the boy-girl portion of the equation, announcing with politically incorrect levity that they were going to be doing Taliban seating: the women on one side of the table, the men on the other. Sarah had Penny to her right and Eliot to her left, then her father on Eliot’s other side, Will Cranbrook next to her father, then Jane between Will and Penny.

  Nelson asked Eliot to choose the wine, “Since you are the only one of us living near Burgundy these days,” and the rest was a whirl of the restaurant’s choosing.

  The food came in waves and the conversation bubbled along. Eliot spoke to Sarah’s father with an open admiration that never slipped into fawning. He spoke to Sarah with an obvious knowledge of her business success and respect for what she had accomplished in such a short time, and a provocative hint of something more—or that he might wish for something more—unprofessional.

  Talk about feast or famine. Would she have even acknowledged the low simmer of Eliot’s gaze two weeks ago? Was it all Devon’s doing, this ratcheted-up version of herself? Or, more likely, had this Sarah always been there, lying in wait? Whatever the chronology, and as much as she hated to be a traitor to the good, warm man who waited on Oak Street at that very moment for her to return, she couldn’t help seeing Eliot for what he was: a strong, intelligent, successful grown-up.

  Magnetic.

  The white Burgundy was cool and tart against her tongue. She let it rest in her mouth when she took the first sip. She thought that Eliot had been talking to her father, but he must have turned his attention to her when she was enjoying that sip (enjoying it too much) because he was looking at her with appreciative, conspiratorial humor in his eyes as she opened hers.

  “A particularly good white Burgundy, no?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, after her throat made an involuntary gulping sound. And I had a particularly good green apple earlier today, she thought to herself as she smiled with a little guilty grin at Eliot. It seemed men (if not stepmothers) enjoyed seeing a woman enjoy her food and drink.

  About halfway through supper, Penny indicated that she was going to venture out in search of the ladies’ room and gave Sarah a nod of invitation. Sarah excused herself from the conversation she had been having with Eliot about Moratelli, the Italian leather manufacturer he’d just acquired. (Jane was in her element fawning over Will Cranbrook and didn’t have the time or inclination to censor Sarah’s lapse into professional conversation… and Eliot had started it, she thought peevishly.)

  When Sarah and Penny were getting ready to leave the washroom, Sarah pinching her cheeks and giving her hair a quick brush in the mirror, Penny turned to look, a curious expression on her face.

  “You are so much like your mother, Sarah. Your father must remark on it all the time.”

  “I’m sorry?” She was flummoxed.

  “You must know you take
after her? Your hair, your eyes, your very…” The chatterbox was unable to grasp the right word. “… essence! I only met her a few times, but she had the same love of every little thing that you seem to have. She was easily cheered.”

  Sarah stared at this woman. “It’s… I… my father never tells me anything about my mother.”

  “Oh dear, have I upset you?”

  “No. Well, in a good way, I guess. I can’t very well go around asking for lengthy recitations of my mother’s goodness with Jane standing dutifully by. It doesn’t seem fair… to any of us.”

  Penny smiled, encouraging her to continue.

  Sarah went on. “Well, it’s been fourteen years since my mom died, and it’s just such a long time. I have these wonderful memories, but they’re starting to fade from real, tangible, tactile memories—her smell, the sound of her charm bracelet coming down the hall—to my version of the recounting of the memory. Does that make sense?”

  “Of course it makes sense. Let’s have lunch the next time we are both in town and we can talk all about her. Here is my card.” Penny Cranbrook handed Sarah a small white calling card with her name and telephone number on it in raised navy-blue engraved script. “It’s my cell phone, so feel free to call anytime.”

  “I love how you have taken your modern cell phone ways and woven them into your refined Emily Post world.”

  Penny smiled and linked her arm through Sarah’s. “See? Easily cheered. Now let’s go back to the table and enjoy the spectacle of my son falling in love with you.”

  Sarah nearly tripped over her own feet, then laughed it off with a merry, if nervous, chuckle.

  By eleven thirty, the kitchen was starting to wind down. The happy group of parents and adult children were rosy and riding the wave of epicurean pleasure. Jane was particularly pleased that the evening had turned out even better than she could have hoped.

  The Cranbrooks and Sarah’s parents were a few paces ahead of them, on their way out of the kitchen into the main part of the restaurant, when Eliot put his hand, tentatively—just his fingertips, really—at the small of Sarah’s back.