The Comfortable Shoe Diaries

by Renée J. Lukas

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then what is it?” I was too paralyzed by my own shock to hear anything. After what we’d just shared, how was I supposed to think of us now? How could I trust her wanted to take a long, hot shower to feel clean again.

  “On that Venus Meet, no one would’ve contacted me if I said I had—”

  “Oh, so you just lied,” I interrupted. “And I was your girl-on-girl experiment.”

  “I wish you’d let me explain,” Ellie said.

  “There’s nothing to explain. As long as you have a husband, there’s nothing to explain.” I hadn’t felt this stupid since high school, when my eyeglasses-and-braces-wearing situation overlapped for a year.

  She went back to Massachusetts alone, and I hitched a ride with a sweet older couple, ironically from Minnesota, who rattled on about their grandchildren all the way back to my car. When we pulled up to Ellie’s driveway, she wasn’t back yet. I imagined she must have made a stop somewhere to pick up some other unsuspecting lesbian. I was bitter—not your usual bitter, but the shriveled up, never-going-to-trust-the-human-race-again bitter. I went straight to my car and sped away as fast as I could. I wouldn’t be returning to Massachusetts.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Going with the Flo”

  I returned to Connecticut and insisted my friends not ask me any questions about Vermont.

  “I never want to talk about it ever,” I declared.

  Maddie kept filling my glass with wine, hoping I’d spill every detail.

  “Did she do something freaky in bed?” Maddie asked.

  “No. I’m the freak, the freak who agreed to go anywhere with her!” I left the room, knowing they were dying of curiosity. I sat out on the small deck off the kitchen. I sat under the full moonlight, mad at myself for wondering if she was looking at the same moon through the beautiful, tall pines that surrounded her house. I was mad for fantasizing about sharing that house with her someday. I know, I know. I did that thing where I got ahead of myself just like Penny.

  I went out to clubs with my friends, night after night. I became a regular at Flo’s. I got so discouraged with the job hunt—the interviews and everything that always went with them.

  Before long, it had been a month since I’d seen Ellie. No more calls. No more emails. I’d pass houses, rows and rows of pumpkins on porches, wishing I could go back to September, when I still had hope of something special with her.

  One day Joanne called and woke me from my fog.

  “Where does she live? I’ll come up there and kick her ass!” Joanne was barking every time I heard from her. I almost thought she wanted any ass to kick. Maybe she wanted someone to pay for something she herself was unhappy about. I wasn’t sure.

  “There’s no point,” I answered. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “No one messes with my little sister.”

  “I appreciate your support. I really do. But you can’t swoop in and fix everything like you…used to.” We both knew I was referring to an ill-advised relationship with a young woman with whom I moved to Ohio because her job had transferred her. We’d hardly known each other very well, but I couldn’t wait to set up house. So there I was, carefully placing juice glasses into a cabinet, staring at the Ohio winter through the windows. Joanne came for a visit and helped me come to my senses. It was no one’s fault. I was emotionally immature.

  That’s the part in the lesbian handbook they never tell you about. You spend your days in high school dating the wrong gender. By the time you’ve reached your twenties and know it’s women you prefer, you don’t have the social skills to date them and understand who fits best with you. I’d always thought of dating like trying on shoes—you try on several pairs until one feels really right. But when you’re already in your late twenties and all of your straight friends are getting married, you feel it’s time for you to settle down, too. So the first woman you’re attracted to ends up being “the one” in your mind. You move in together and attempt to start a whole new life with someone who should have been a few dates in one chapter of the book of your life.

  Even though you went through puberty in high school, you spent more time suppressing your feelings than learning how to act—or not act—on them the way your straight friends did. That was my personal theory as to why so many lesbian relationships didn’t last until the women were at least in their forties.

  But here I was, forty and frightened. I wondered if it was possible for there to be no Ms. Right at all. Everything is a fantasy, even the fairytales we learned as little girls and even if they involved princes to come and rescue us. Where was our princess? How did she fit into the picture?

  “I want you to come down for a visit,” Joanne insisted. “Please? I need to see you, and you definitely need to see me. So come on. What do you say?”

  “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing major, but it has been a year.”

  “I know. I just have to find a job.”

  “Job shmob! I’ll pay your way.” She loved to say that. It was the solution for everything. Only Joanne never had to be the recipient of the charity. She didn’t know what it did to my sense of pride. She didn’t know how humiliated I already felt. She couldn’t understand, because money was not her biggest worry as it was for me.

  “I can’t.” It killed me to hurt her or even disappoint her. But I had no choice.

  The next day I had an interview at a local newspaper in Danbury. I met with the editor in a busy newsroom. I’d dressed in my most professional attire and practiced in front of the mirror all morning long. What was my biggest weakness? Working way too hard, sometimes staying late and having no social life—I’d repeated the lie so many times I’d begun to believe myself.

  “You’ve been writing ad copy?” He grunted, chewing on his pen. He was totally underwhelmed, with a faded yellow shirt, dangerously receding hairline and touches of gray around his ears.

  “Yes, but I worked on the newspaper in college. It won awards.” I was chirping like an eager bird.

  “Why advertising? Why didn’t you go into journalism?” It was a fair question. His eyes squinted at me in judgment. I had to have an answer. And it had to be good.

  “I had some personal issues,” I began carefully. “I was offered a good deal of money. But that’s not usually my motivator! It just was…at that particular time. Then, you know how life takes over and you start moving up the ladder…” I drifted off, certain I’d lost the job already.

  “I understand.” He sat back and smiled slightly, even warmly. “Don’t apologize for taking a good offer. Money’s moved me before, and anyone who says it doesn’t is a liar.” He scanned my résumé too quickly; I can’t imagine what he actually read. “Opinion pages? Well, you won’t start there. We need more basic reporting. If the grade school has a track and field day, we need you there. I know it’s crap. But it’s a start. And if you show us a good work ethic, there’s lots of room to move up, like say, to obituaries.”

  “That’s great,” I lied. But it was still a writing job. Could this be the beginning of some good luck?

  “Just one thing,” he added. “We’re a small-town paper, a small family paper. We cover local neighborhoods. We don’t go in for a lot of wacky stuff, if you know what I mean.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “We don’t cover stories like that girl who wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. Keep it family-oriented. Kids, school, PTA meetings, that kind of stuff.”

  I was frozen. This was the ultimate test—to be broke or give up all of my principles and have money.

  “You know why?” he asked, leaning forward.

  I shook my head.

  “Because newspapers are dinosaurs!” he thundered. “We’re a dying breed. Everyone gets everything on the Internet. Now our core customer base are the old folks, eighty-year-olds. You put some shocking story in there, you’ll give ’em a heart attack.” He seemed troubled. “They don’t care what you or I think
about current events. Only reason I bring this up is because we had a gal in here two days ago for this job. We hired her. Then she wanted to do something about lesbians and pride parades. I don’t have a problem with it. But our readers might, you see? I don’t even think I need to tell you about this. You don’t seem like it would be an issue.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You look like there’s a boyfriend somewhere in the picture.” He tried to smile, even chuckle, while noticing no rings on my fingers.

  “I’ll have to get back to you,” I said like a true coward. “It sounds great, but I’m going to have to talk it over with family.” I scooted out my chair.

  “Well, listen, we hope to see you here Monday morning early.” He shook my hand. I had the job. It was in my hands. I just had to accept it. And I needed the money. It was probably a no-brainer for any sane person.

  That night, everything on the news was like my conscience screaming at me. A gay Congresswoman: “Every time the LGBT community is omitted from the media or classroom discussions, it’s as if we don’t exist. It keeps us invisible.”

  But this was a small-town newspaper. It wasn’t setting out to change the world. It was a simple reporter job, writing copy about lemonade stands and other crap. I scrolled through my emails. There were no other interviews. Hundreds of résumés had gone out, contacts had been contacted and there were no other prospects. And there was the car insurance bill, the car payment—I couldn’t let go of those in my bankruptcy unless I wanted to lose my car. They’d have to be paid somehow. And I told myself I’d already stood up for my rights by turning down what could have been the most lucrative job ever with Anne Hirsch Cosmetics. My principles sure weren’t paying the bills. Me and my principles were getting lonelier and more stressed out with each passing day.

  Life isn’t like the movies. Staying true to your convictions doesn’t always win in the end. Sometimes it gets you nowhere or poor and homeless with no teeth. No, I said to myself. Principles be damned. Just because the editor made a stupid comment didn’t mean I couldn’t take a reporter job for as short a time as possible until something better came along. After all, I wasn’t going to be the poster child for fighting homophobia. That wasn’t my role in life. I kept telling myself that.

  I lay in the couch bed and the silence screamed at me that I was a traitor to my people, a coward! How could I take that job? But I would. I would so I wouldn’t have to spend another night sleeping on someone’s couch bed.

  I told my friends I got the reporter job and didn’t mention the little bit about swallowing my spine to get it. I couldn’t bear the judgment I’d get from Maddie or the sad look on Penny’s face. Maddie didn’t have those concerns in a hospital. There were too many people for the whole place to have a shared viewpoint. And Penny was in sales, surrounded by gay men who, I can only imagine, made each day fun to go to work. Neither of them knew the life of a struggling writer.

  Okay, the pity party was getting old. I turned to my blog, where I publicly flogged myself. It would only be a matter of time before Maddie and Penny let me have it.

  Maddie came over for breakfast on Saturday, and Penny made a buffet of egg-white scrambled eggs that didn’t taste like eggs and fake bacon strips that mushed in your mouth, very unlike bacon.

  “I guess you read the blog,” I began, bracing for the backlash.

  “Yeah,” Penny said, handing me a fruit plate. “Do you realize you got hundreds of followers now? It’s pretty huge.”

  “No, I didn’t. I never look in the corner there, where the stats thing is.” I took a sip of coffee and studied Maddie’s face, while she chewed the bacon over and over again.

  “What the hell is this?” she finally asked, pointing to the fake bacon strips.

  “It’s made of soy but tastes like bacon,” Penny answered cheerfully.

  “The hell it does.” Maddie shook her head and washed down the aftertaste with strong, black coffee.

  “So, Maddie,” I began. “Go ahead. Say it. I know you read my blog.”

  “Uh-huh,” she grunted.

  I knew they read it. They knew my pen name. There was no hiding.

  “Say it, whatever you’re thinking, that I sold my soul? I have to make ends meet!” I protested.

  Maddie held up her hand. “Hold on. No one’s judging you. We’re your friends.”

  “Come on. You always judge me.”

  “Not this time.” She continued chewing her fake eggs. “Hell, I slept with someone to get that rotation at Johns Hopkins. That wasn’t an easy place to get in, you know.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I barked. “You’re just saying that.”

  “Dr. John Samter might disagree with you.” She sipped her coffee, her eyes shifting to Penny.

  I couldn’t believe this. Where was the lecture? I expected more from them, from myself. If I was going to be a coward, surely they weren’t going to condone it.

  “Are you really Maddie Kimball?” I demanded.

  She pointed her fork at me. “You’re a hell of a writer. Go do it.”

  There was silence. Nobody seemed to care. But deep down, I’m sure they did. They just felt sorry for me, being on the edge of poverty.

  “Okay,” Maddie finally said. “I didn’t sleep with anyone to get Johns Hopkins. But sometimes you have to suck it up just to support yourself. Anyone who says different is an idealistic idiot.”

  Like I used to be.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The Book of Revelations”

  My first assignment was a girls’ soccer game at Hancock Field—much further to the east of Danbury. The school they were playing was from south-central Massachusetts, just over the state line. It was the Hancock Ravens versus the Walten Warriors of Walten Middle School.

  I arrived with my notepad and photographer, Joe Ellis, a no-nonsense guy who bathed in Marlboros. But since we got to use his truck instead of my car, I didn’t care. We made the small hike up to the chain-link fence. I’d come a long way since the Clio Awards, now writing about something taking place among the cow pies in a field where only a handful of bundled-up parents were watching. It was a pretty sad scene, to be sure. The small crowd watching sat in those fold-out chairs with cup holders in the armrests. Some people were huddled over their thermoses filled with hot chocolate. We arrived on the field just as the game was getting underway. I approached the woman who looked like the head coach and one of the mothers.

  “Who is the star player on the Hancock team?” I asked.

  “They’re all stars in our eyes,” she answered with a forced enthusiastic smile.

  “Of course. I’m with the Danbury Gazette, and we want to do a piece about today’s game.”

  You’d have thought I said I had Cher waiting in a limousine behind me.

  She got so excited to hear we were the press, she gave me the name of every girl on the Hancock team.

  “How well have they been doing? Is there a championship game?” I asked.

  “They don’t really have the same number of games the boys do. We encourage them to play just for the sake of playing.” The other mothers smiled and watched excitedly as I took notes.

  “Really? No championship? How many wins have they had?” I persisted.

  “So far they’re unbeaten.” A husky, older woman waddled up to me and announced this very important fact.

  “That’s terrific! Now we’ve got a story.” I wrote frantically, while Joe took some action photos of the game.

  I noticed that not all of their shirts matched.

  “How can you tell who’s on whose team?” I asked. “Don’t they have uniforms?”

  “We don’t have enough money to buy matching uniforms,” the head coach replied. “We tell them all to wear red, but some forget.” Then she screamed, “Lisa! Get in there! Be aggressive!” She shook her head. “Poor girl, just doesn’t have that killer instinct. I think she really wants to be a violinist.”

  Now I felt like there was a reason I’d taken this
job. I could encourage all interested parents and teachers to help donate money for the girls’ soccer team. Encouraging young girls would surely be well received in the newsroom.

  As the sun started to set, Joe and I headed back toward his truck.

  “Sucks, doesn’t it?” he muttered.

  “Yeah, they’re unbeaten and no one talks about them. They can’t even get freaking uniforms!”

  “No,” he replied. “This school kids beat. It’s boring as hell, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I guess the challenge is finding the story where there doesn’t seem to be one.”

  He shook his head. “Trouble is, nobody’s gonna care about whether these girls have uniforms. It’s a waste of print.”

  “The boys have them,” I argued.

  “More people go to their games. So they get more money. That’s how it goes.” He climbed into the truck. He reminded me of the blue-collar friends my dad used to drink beer with. They liked to get together, play card games and not rock the boat. They liked to complain about the boat, but they sure didn’t want to build a new one. All were clinging to their jobs like they were life rafts, and they needed everything to stay as familiar as it was.

  I looked at Joe disdainfully. He had that same attitude, now spreading like a disease, as millions of people say that things just are the way they are. I guess that’s why change happens so slowly.

  “I forgot the coach’s card,” I told him and ran back onto the field. She’d mentioned having a card, but as we talked, I never got it.

  I rushed back onto the field toward the setting sun, which was turning the October trees a flaming crimson. I noticed the parents of the opposing team, especially one in particular. A woman in the crowd who had her arm around two of the girls looked a lot like…but it couldn’t have been.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to the coach. “I never got your card.”

  “Sure.” She handed it to me. “If you ever, ever have any questions or want to do a follow-up story, you call me, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Our next game is in Tolland.”