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Secrets of a Shoe Addict

Page 15

by Harbison, Beth


  These seemed to be the magic words for Estelle. She said, “Go to one of the seats in the back. I’ll be right there,” and set out looking for every miracle product in the place to sell to this poor sucker.

  And this poor sucker was so ready for a makeover that she was willing to be late for her date on the promise that she might make a positive impact upon meeting him.

  An hour later, she had to admit, she did feel . . . well, if not stunning at least attractive. Estelle and Belinda had gone to work on her, lining this, highlighting that, until Sandra barely recognized herself in the little hand mirror they provided.

  She liked it that way.

  Of course, she left the store with more than two hundred dollars’ worth of new products, which she might or might not be able to use effectively at home. If she kept spending like this, she was going to have to go back to being a phone sex operator herself, just to supplement her income.

  She drove up Wisconsin Avenue, looking for the address her date had given her for “a cool little pizza joint in Bethesda.” She liked a guy who wasn’t afraid to suggest pizza for a first date instead of something ostentatious and pretentious, so she was able to work up some optimism for New2This, aka Zach Roisin. Additionally, he had no interest in puppetry, stage magic, or any other performance art. Sandra had felt him out on that first thing. Subtly, she hoped.

  Either that, or he was thinking of her as “the puppet hater.”

  Which, come to think of it, might not be a bad user name for her on Match.com. Then she wouldn’t have to ask the puppet questions, it would just be obvious for puppeteers to stay away.

  She couldn’t believe she was thinking about this.

  Lorna Rafferty, her friend and business partner and the original shoe addict, called when she was sitting at a stoplight.

  After a few minutes’ chat about a boutique chain in California that was going to carry the Carfagni fall line, Lorna asked where Sandra was on her way to.

  Sandra told her about the online dating and her reluctance to give it another try after the Puppetmaster, but told her she was heading for a pizza place now. “If they can afford a lease in Bethesda, the food’s probably decent at least,” she said.

  “True,” Lorna agreed. “What’s the name of it?”

  “Actually, believe it or not, he didn’t say. Or if he did, I don’t remember. But I have the address, and it’s an Italian place, so I should be good.”

  “Do you want me to call you in half an hour or so to give you an out if the date sucks?” Lorna asked.

  Sandra thought about it for a second before saying, “No, with my luck, he’d hear what you say and know I was faking. Or that I’d set up the call in advance. Either way, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Okay, but I’m on call if you need me. I’m just sitting here overlooking San Francisco Bay, drinking a mojito.”

  “Show-off!”

  “You could have come with me. I’m hitting New Mexico and Arizona in a couple of weeks. Come then.”

  It sounded tempting. If Sandra didn’t hate flying so much. “Maybe.”

  Lorna laughed. “I know what that maybe means. Come on, it’ll be fun. Get the acupuncturist to put a fear-of-flying bar thingy in your ear.”

  Sandra wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that her friend knew her so well. “I’ll think about it.” She pulled up to a light. “I’m in the neighborhood now, so I’d better start paying attention. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck! And, listen, in all seriousness, give the guy a chance. They can’t all be freaks.”

  “God, I hope not.” She hung up the phone and looked at the clock on her dashboard. She was ten minutes early. That should give her enough time to park. As luck would have it, she found a space right outside a camera shop on the same block, so she pulled in, did one last check of her makeup, and got out of the car.

  She walked along the block, looking for the restaurant. There was a strip mall, anchored by a Chuck E. Cheese on one end and a TCBY on the other, but none of the shopfronts had addresses. It seemed she really should have gotten the name of the place after all. What had she been thinking?

  She walked the length of the mall once; then, when nothing jumped out at her as being remotely Italian, she walked it again. Yogurt, office supplies, a frame shop, CVS, a toy store, Chuck E. Cheese. No Italian restaurant.

  She was flummoxed.

  “Sandra?”

  Hearing her name, she turned around to find a short—well, her height—guy with wispy blond hair and a mouth full of braces. That, in itself, wasn’t a problem, but he was so thin, she guessed he probably had to shop in the boys’ department, so she felt huge next to him.

  “Y . . . es?”

  “Zach Roisin.” He held out his hand.

  “Oh. Nice to meet you, too, Zach.” She shook his hand.

  “It’s Zach, actually,” he corrected, pronouncing it Sock.

  “Okay. Sock.”

  “Zach.”

  She was already tired of this. “Zsock,” she tried again, and was relieved that his face softened with apparent approval.

  Their hands fell apart, and Zach said, “So?”

  “So . . .” What? “I’m sorry if I’m late.” Was she late? “But I didn’t write down the name of the restaurant. Actually, it’s a good thing you happened along, because I don’t know what I would have done. Am I on the wrong block?”

  “Nope.” He made a grand gesture toward the Chuck E. Cheese.

  She nodded, waiting for him to elaborate. Then it hit her. “That? Chuck E. Cheese? That’s the little pizza joint?”

  “You got it!” He looked thrilled with himself. “Usually when I tell people I want to meet here, they think they’re not interested, so I’ve begun just calling it a pizza place. Because they do have the most fantastic pizza in the world.”

  Wait a minute, what happened to “New2this”? He’d actually met so many people here that he had a system for lying in order to lure them here? “I’ve never had it,” she said honestly.

  “Get ready.” He ushered her toward the door. “Oh, by the way, did you bring change?”

  “Change? Money? No. I have credit cards. Why?”

  “For the games. But most of them take tokens, so you can get those with your credit cards. Don’t worry.”

  Oh, yeah. That would alleviate the worry.

  He opened the door and she was immediately struck by the amount of noise. Kids screamed, laughed, and cried over loud music. There appeared to be an animatronic rat spotlighted on a stage, dancing and singing, though no one seemed to be paying much attention.

  “Isn’t it great?” Zach asked enthusiastically.

  “It’s—” What was the word? “—big.” But there was, undeniably, a festive air about the place. It was different—that was for sure. And, let’s face it, she wasn’t particularly in the mood for another quiet, awkward, blind date dinner.

  Besides, it was nice that Zach was willing to share his inner child with her on a first date. He was just going to let it all hang out, right up front. That made sense. She appreciated that.

  “Get some tokens,” he said eagerly. “We’ll play foosball.” He jingled his pockets, which were evidently full of tokens already. “I’ll save the table. Meet me there.”

  “Wait, shouldn’t we just use the tokens you have?”

  “These are my tokens,” he said, then gave a quick smile. “And they’re worth collecting, Sandy, because pretty soon this place is going to switch to rechargeable cards, like Butch and Blaster’s did, and these are going to be worth something.”

  “Who are Butch and Blaster?”

  He frowned for a moment. “You’ve never been to Butch and Blaster’s? The restaurant arcade where the fun has just begun?”

  No. But she could tell from the slogan that she didn’t want to go. “Oh,” she said, as if she’d just misheard. “Butch and Blaster’s! The . . . the place.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Hurry up and get the
tokens before someone else gets our table.”

  “Okay.” She watched him go for a moment. She was willing to be open-minded about his choice of venues, but it did seem a little weird that he had a bunch of tokens that he wasn’t willing to share. That he would, in fact, rather stand guard over a table while she fumbled with the token machine, just so he could keep his tokens to himself.

  Sandra’s phone rang while she was struggling to get the token machine to accept her card. She expected it to be Lorna, but it was Tiffany.

  “I need another word for cock,” she said without preamble.

  “I’m sorry?” The coins rattled into the dispenser, and Sandra gathered them, holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Just a change machine. What were you saying?”

  “I’m sick of all those Penthouse Letters sort of euphemisms for body parts,” Tiffany said. “There’s got to be something . . . more artistic.”

  “Well, you can work around them.”

  “How?”

  “You know, say things like ‘You’re getting me hot’ and ‘I’m so wet’ and—” She stopped. Good God, she was in a Chuck E. Cheese. She couldn’t say that kind of thing here! “You get the idea.”

  “It’s really very complicated work.”

  “You can do it.”

  The lights went down and a voice blasted from speakers that must have been hidden every three feet in the walls, “Liiive from our fabulous showroom. Here he is, the master of fun, Chuck E. Cheese!”

  “Sandra?” Tiffany asked.

  Sandra’s face burned. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on a date.”

  “But where? I could have sworn I heard—”

  She was interrupted by an invisible band winding up with a very loud variation on “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

  Tiffany gasped. “When Chuck E.’s band comes marching in! Oh, honey, are you on a date at Chuck E. Cheese?”

  Sandra’s humiliation settled on her shoulders like a heavy wet shawl. “Do not tell anyone.”

  “I will try my hardest not to.” Tiffany was laughing. “But I want to hear all about it later.”

  Sandra rolled her eyes and hung up the phone. She did not need Tiffany putting a weird spin on her date with a guy who was just—she reminded herself of what was becoming her new mantra—fun-loving enough to reveal his inner child on a first date.

  Unfortunately, it turned out Zach’s inner child was a competitive brat in need of some serious discipline. The fact that Sandra was not good at this sort of game only made things worse, and it turned out that Zach didn’t have a lot of patience for people who couldn’t keep up with him on the foosball table.

  When the stage show started up again, and strobe lights began flashing, things only got worse.

  “Just hit the ball back toward my goal!” Zach shouted. She preferred to think he was trying to be heard over the din of noise than that he might actually be ticked off that she didn’t have any points.

  “I’m trying!” She laughed.

  He did not.

  “It’s easy,” he said. “You just hit them with your players’ legs. Like this.” He spun one of his poles and, sure enough, the ball went flying toward her goal.

  She tried to rush over and maneuver one of the players to block it, but she was too slow.

  She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard Zach give an exasperated Sheeesh!

  “Maybe we should take a break and get something to eat,” she suggested, already planning to eat without regard to Weight Watchers. She’d worry about that later.

  “The game’s not over yet.” Zach leapt back, knocking the ball around. “Get back to your station!”

  She tried, she really did, but she wasn’t quick enough.

  And then, with a loud “Like this!” Zach whipped his pole around and sent the ball flying right off the table and into Sandra’s cheekbone.

  “Aaah!” She raised her hand to her cheek, which was already pulsating, sending blood north to form what would undoubtedly be a big, ugly, black-and-blue bruise.

  “Well, that’s not supposed to happen,” Zach said, as if the table had come to life and deliberately attacked her itself. “Why didn’t you duck?”

  “Why didn’t I—?”

  “You should have ducked. I mean, I can see you’re too heavy for, like, a game of touch football or tennis or something, but you’d think you could have at least gotten out of the way.”

  Too heavy? Was Peter Pan here actually insulting her weight?

  That was it.

  “Thanks for the game, Zach, I really enjoyed it, but I think I’m going to go home. And put ice on my cheek.”

  “I guess you should do that,” he agreed. “Can I have your tokens?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The tokens you just bought. Since you’re not going to use them, can I have them?”

  She reached into her purse and started to get out the five dollars’ worth of tokens she purchased, then stopped. “Look for them on eBay,” she said, then turned and left without looking back.

  Mostly because it hurt too much to move her aching head.

  Chapter

  14

  It was shortly after noon, Loreen had shown two houses that morning, and her client had been seriously interested in one of them. Things were looking up.

  So it was with great optimism that she logged on and decided to take a call or two before Jacob got home. She was going to turn this around and get good at it, like Tiffany and Abbey seemed to be.

  It didn’t take long for the phone to ring.

  “Hello?” That was a mistake. She modulated her voice and added, “This is Mimi. Who’s calling?”

  “Hey, Mimi, this is Caveman, calling for some fire.”

  “C-caveman?” No way, that was nuts. Two seconds in, and she’d already made another embarrassing mistake. “I’m sorry, I must have misheard you.”

  “Caveman,” he repeated. “What is this, did I call my fifth-grade math teacher?”

  “Were you . . . did you want to talk to your fifth-grade math teacher? Is that your fantasy?”

  This wasn’t going well.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  Um. Sure. “Whatever you want. Caveman.”

  “Aw, man. This blows.” He hung up the phone with a dramatic clatter.

  She’d failed again.

  And it should have been a no-brainer.

  Loreen considered it with skepticism. What if it was Caveman again, calling to yell at her? Then again, if it was, he’d be paying handsomely for the privilege, and listening to that would probably be easier than listening to the sexual fantasies of someone who called himself Caveman.

  The phone kept ringing.

  Finally, she grabbed it. “This is Mimi. . . .” She took a chance. “Caveman?”

  There was silence.

  “Hello? Caveman? Are you there?”

  “Mom?”

  She dropped the phone and uttered a word she would have grounded Jacob for saying. “What are you doing here?” she asked, knowing her voice was too sharp and her face was as red as a Halloween mask.

  “It’s a half day.” He put his Spider-Man backpack down. “Who are you calling Caveman?”

  “It . . . ah . . .”She had no answer. She had not one damn answer that could make sense to anyone, much less a child. Except . . . wait a minute, this was a child she was talking to. “It was GEICO,” she said, referencing the car-insurance company that featured cavemen characters that never failed to crack Jacob up.

  His face broke into a wide grin. “Cool!”

  Loreen cleared her throat. “Get washed up and go downstairs. I’ll make you a snack.”

  “Jack Bryson’s coming over,” Jacob said. “We’re gonna practice pitching.”

  “Great!” She meant it. She was utterly unprepared to have Jacob home, and she needed some time to recover fr
om the shock of him showing up, and the horror of what he could have overheard if she’d been any better at her job.

  Her poor performance was almost equally disturbing. As she dialed the number to log off of Happy Housewives, it occurred to her that she really wasn’t pulling her considerable weight in this endeavor. Every call required instant sexual banter, and while obviously she should be ready to do that, she wasn’t. She needed something equivalent to a musician’s fake book, a list of lines she could use as springboards for conversation.

  She needed to call Sandra.

  “I need to lose weight,” Sandra told Dr. Kelvin Lee. “Fast. So can you do acupuncture and auricular therapy?”

  Dr. Lee looked at her in that patient, unflappable way he always looked at her. She wasn’t sure if he was just used to her or if all his clients were this neurotic. Probably most people saw an acupuncturist for physical pain more than for mental and emotional needs.

  Still, last year he’d worked wonders in getting rid of her anxiety and agoraphobia, so she’d begun to think he was a miracle worker. She just couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of asking him about weight loss before.

  “Certainly,” he said, ushering her into room 4, which was the one without a window. She liked room 2 better. “But first, some arnica root would be helpful in healing that bruise.”

  She raised a hand to her cheek. Apparently her cover-up hadn’t worked so well as she’d hoped. Now Dr. Lee probably thought she was in some sort of abusive relationship. “I got hit in the face by a ball in an arcade the other day,” she explained. “It actually looks a lot better now than it did at first. So about the weight-loss auricular therapy? . . .”

  He nodded. “And we have some very effective homeopathic remedies, as well.”

  “I’ll try anything,” she said. “Everything.” And who, upon being insulted by a puppet and an overgrown, overcompetitive man-child, wouldn’t?

  “Very well, then. Lie down.”

  She climbed onto the table, and Dr. Lee walked to the end by her head and started manipulating her earlobes, looking for the spot for the needle.

  Sandra knew the ropes at this point.

  “Can you put, maybe, a larger needle in or something?” she asked. At this point she was willing to look like a Zulu tribeswoman if it meant she got to be skinny, too. “Is there a way to make it work faster?”

 

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