15 Shades Of Pink

by Scott, Lisa

  “She’s already at the show.”

  Mrs. Robinson raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to go?”

  “More than anything, but I wasn’t invited.”

  She frowned. “I tell you what. I’m going to act like I never saw that ticket. I’ll tell her Cricket must’ve eaten it, if she was foolish enough to leave it under my door. You take it and go to the sale. But do not let your stepmother know I gave it to you.”

  Cindi took the woman’s head in her hands and kissed her cheek. “You are a fairy godmother. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” There were a few benefits of living in the swankiest apartment building in the city; the castoffs from Grimm Tower’s residents were splendid.

  She took the ticket from Mrs. Robinson with a trembling hand.

  She winked at Cindi. “Now go spiff yourself up and have a good time. Maybe you’ll find the shoes of your dreams!”

  ***

  Cindi changed into her favorite Dior knock-off dress, grabbed her cash and stuffed it into her fake Gucci. Then she looped her phony Prada shopping tote on her arm, slid on dark sunglasses, and tucked her hair under a floppy beret. She could not let her stepmother see her. Butterflies did the Mambo in her stomach as she took the cab to the hotel downtown where the trunk sale was being held.

  She caught her breath as she handed over her ticket at the door, and walked into the first room of the sale. Sliding off her sunglasses, she gazed around, taking it all in. The sight of so many gorgeous shoes almost made her dizzy. She took a deep breath. Now the challenge was finding a pair that fit. Most designers only had so many size fives in stock. Her tiny feet seriously tormented her sense of fashion.

  Turning in circles, she didn’t know where to start. What should she buy—a pair of practical pumps? Party shoes? Boots? Her heart raced with the possibilities. Then her eyes were drawn to the most beautiful shoes she’d ever seen. A pair of sparkly crystal pumps sat atop a display in the center of the room. She walked up beside the display and sighed. Now those were the shoes of her dreams.

  But what were they doing up so high where no one could reach them? Under a plexi-glass box? Standing on her tiptoes and then jumping, she knocked the box off and snatched them from their perch. She sat down on a bench to try them on. Wishful thinking, of course. What were the chances they’d fit? But still, she wanted to hold them and touch them and pretend for a moment she was getting ready for a magnificent charity ball that she’d planned, where she’d dance the night away in these shoes.

  She looked for a price tag on them, but couldn’t find one. She set them on the floor and slid her foot inside. A perfect fit! Putting on the other shoe, she sashayed back and forth in front of the bench. Please be in my price range, please be in my price range.

  A large, unhappy man in a dark suit approached her. She smiled at him. “Excuse me, can you find out how much these shoes are?”

  “Ma’am, please take off the display shoes.” He was quite gruff for a salesperson.

  “But I’d like to buy these. Maybe I could get a discount since they’re display shoes? I don’t care how many people have worn them.” She’d gotten a saleswoman to knock thirty-percent off a winter coat on display. Maybe it would work here, too. But truly, they were in pristine condition.

  The big man was not amused. “Didn’t you see the sign? These are one-of-a-kind shoes for display only.” He pointed to the front of the display table. Walking around to the front, she saw the sign explaining the shoes were not for sale.

  She knew she was blushing. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see that. I’ve never been to a trunk sale before. I … I …” she stammered, too embarrassed and disappointed to find the right words.

  “Take them off. Now.”

  Mortified, she went back to the bench, memorizing how her feet looked in those shoes, when another man approached her. He crossed his arms. “I never imagined those would fit anyone. They look great on you.”

  She smiled up at him and sucked in a breath. He was gorgeous. “Thanks,” she said in a voice sultrier than she’d intended.

  “Enjoy them for a few more minutes.”

  The big man stepped closer. “Boss, I’m not supposed to let anyone touch those. I stepped away for a minute because there was a tussle at the cash register and I come back to find this woman trying to take off with the shoes.”

  “What? Wait, no. I just wanted to try them on,” Cindi protested. “I wasn’t taking them.”

  “Why weren’t they locked up?” the tall blond asked.

  The big man looked down, turning red. “My mother stopped by and wanted to see them. I guess I forgot to lock them back up.”

  The other man jerked his thumb toward the room next door. “Bruno, go make sure no one’s fighting over the boots in the ballroom.”

  The big man shook his head and walked away.

  He sat down next to her. Mmm. He smells good, too.

  “So, you’re a size five.” He whistled softly. “Don’t see that very often.”

  “And you don’t see too many shoes in size five. I was surprised they fit.” She looked down at her feet and grinned.

  “They’re made from fused crystals and diamonds, with an invisible mesh inside to keep them flexible. They took weeks to create. We made such a small size to save money. Even so, they cost two-hundred thousand dollars.”

  She gulped, and picked her feet up off the floor as if to protect the little masterpieces. “You work for Jiminy Shoes?” A man who could keep her in shoes? Swoon….

  “Yes, I’m Henry Hubbard. Head of marketing.”

  Oh, he’s handsome and he knows shoes. She stuck out her foot and twirled it around. “These are gorgeous.”

  “They certainly are. But of course, they’re not for sale.” His voice was deep and soothing.

  She could only nod. How could she feel breathless just sitting next to him? Unless it was the shoes causing that reaction. “I couldn’t even afford the heel on one of them. But I’ve never seen anything so gorgeous.”

  “I know,” he said, staring at her.

  Her gaze locked on his in a perfect, blissful moment. Until a scuffle across the room caught their attention.

  He held up a finger. “Wait here just a moment. They’re probably arguing over the last peep-toe slingbacks. I swear this trunk show makes Black Friday look like the little leagues. I’ll be right back.”

  Cindi took one last look at her feet encased in true shoe love and sighed. Then she slipped them off and set them on the bench next to her. “Bye, bye my sweets,” she whispered. She looked up to see if Henry had the situation under control.

  Then she gasped. Her stepmother was gripping one end of a shoebox, tugging it from the hands of a pregnant woman. Gloria stood with her arms crossed, inspecting her nails.

  “Damn,” Cindi whispered. She couldn’t let them see her here. Grabbing her purse off the bench next to the shoes, she snatched the shopping tote from the floor, stumbled, then ran. She wasn’t sure if she was more upset to leave without a pair of Jiminies, or to leave without seeing Henry again. For pure eye candy purposes only, of course. Henry, that is—not the shoes. She could have made a life long commitment to those shoes. If she could’ve taken a mortgage out on those shoes she would have.

  She headed for the door and nearly bumped into Veronica with a gaggle of kids in tow. She counted them. Seven children? She hid behind a huge potted palm tree as she tried to make her escape. Palm trees aren’t nearly as big as they lead you to believe in the movies. She crouched down further, then froze when her stepmother marched in her direction, red-faced and shoebox-less. Cindi was thrilled she hadn’t won the battle.

  Luckily, she didn’t see Cindi and veered towards Veronica, instead. “What, is my daughter working for a preschool now?”

  Veronica rolled her eyes. “Hello, Mother. It’s been a while. No, this isn’t my job. I’ve found a perfectly wonderful rich man who happens to have seven children. He thinks we’re at the park.”

  The two older children
removed the harness from around their waist. “She’s bribing us to keep it a secret,” one of the girls said.

  “Stop it, you two!” Veronica barked, tying the kids up again.

  Hildy sighed. “Veronica, how many times have I told you that you don’t watch a man’s children? You get a nanny. Or you ignore them, like I did with Cindi.”

  “Mother, don’t worry. I won’t be watching them for long. I’ll find a nanny.”

  She patted Veronica’s cheek. “Good girl. Looks like you’ve finally come around to my way of thinking. Come on. Let me buy you a pair of shoes. Something you could wear at your wedding, perhaps? Maybe the third time will be the charm. I can’t believe that last one died and left you penniless.”

  “Oh, we’re not that close yet, mother. His wife recently died. These things take time, you know.” Veronica tightened her grip on the harness that linked the kids like reindeer on a sleigh, the poor things.

  Clearly, the wicked stepmother gene runs in the family, thought Cindi, gripping the edge of the concrete planter.

  “Well, soon enough you will be! You’re my daughter after all. We Midas girls know how to land a man. Unlike Cindi, who will probably be my burden for the rest of my life….” Her stepmother sighed dramatically as if she’d just remembered the burden she bore caring for her.

  Cindi’s gut twisted. What a horrible day. She had to move out of that apartment. She had to strike out on her own. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t bought a pair of Jiminies. She could use that five hundred dollars towards a deposit on an apartment. Still, as she fled the hotel after her stepmother and Veronica walked away, her heart ached for shoes loved and lost.

  ***

  By the time Henry refereed the fight over the patent mules—by pointing out that the shoes were half a size too small for the older woman trying to wrestle them away—he realized the beautiful blonde with the tiny feet was gone. He returned to the bench where she’d been sitting, and picked up one crystal shoe. Walking around the bench, he peered under it, but couldn’t find its mate. With one shoe in his hand, his eyes swept the room, searching for the girl.

  Bruno ran up to him. “I just spotted your friend running out the door with one of the shoes sticking out of her bag. She was in a real hurry. She hopped in a cab before I could stop the little thief”

  Henry frowned. “Why would she take just one?”

  “Even one is worth a hundred grand.”

  “Right, but if you’re going to steal them, you’d take both.

  “She’s a thief. Who knows how they think.”

  Henry shook his head. “She’s not the type.”

  Bruno poked a stubby finger in Henry’s chest. “You say that only because she’s your type.”

  He ignored Bruno even though it was true. “She’s a size five. She won’t be hard to find. I’ll go look through our preferred customer list and sort out all the size fives.”

  But half an hour later, he learned none of their preferred customers who’d been invited to the sale wore a size five.

  “How can we find her, boss?” Bruno asked him. “Want me to make some calls?”

  Henry shook his head. “On the off chance she did steal it, we don’t want to give her a heads up. A one-of-a-kind diamond Jiminy isn’t something you can unload quickly. I’m sure she still has it.” He rubbed his chin. “We’re going to have to go find her.”

  Bruno threw up his hands. “How?”

  “Grab the address list for the customers who received tickets to the trunk sale. We’ll have to conduct a door-to-door search—disguised as a contest.”

  “Do we go to the press with this?”

  Henry sighed. “Yes. Maybe she’ll see the report and turn herself in, or double-check her bags. It might have just fallen in.”

  Bruno gave him a look.

  “What? It might have. I’m hoping for a happy ending here.” And not just for the company, either.

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “I’ll handle this. Watch me spin PR gold, my friend.”

  ***

  Henry called a press conference, and all the news outlets showed up. A missing hundred-thousand-dollar shoe? That’s great water cooler stuff.

  He held up the shoe and explained how it had been made out of crystals and tiny diamonds, how it was an unusual size—and incredibly expensive.

  “Was the shoe stolen?” called out a reporter.

  Henry shook his head. “We think the person would have grabbed both if it was a theft. There was a woman at the sale who fit into these shoes perfectly. We believe she took it inadvertently. When we find her, we have a special gift to apologize for all this trouble.” What that gift was remained to be determined, but cops caught criminals all the time by offering free concert tickets or merchandise to people wanted on warrants. They showed up thinking they were going to get a free Blu-Ray only to get a free ride to jail.

  Not that this woman was a criminal. But a little incentive never hurt, did it? He’d had such an instant attraction to her; he pleaded with the universe to let this all be a big misunderstanding. Even at his most desperate moments as a child, when he and his mother and brother had nothing to eat, he wouldn’t have considered stealing. Was Bruno right? Was he too blinded by her beauty to face the truth?

  ***

  Cindi headed for her secret stash of chocolate when Gloria and her mom came home with bags of shoes and purses and other Jiminy Shoes goodies. Gloria paraded around the apartment, putting on a new pair every few hours.

  Cindi locked herself in her room and searched for twenty new party contacts a day for the next few days when she wasn’t busy scrubbing toilets and changing sheets at the hotel. Things just had to change; she couldn’t go on like this.

  Three days after the sale, the doorbell rang and she assumed it was another one of Gloria’s friends who’d come to see her new shoes. She’d had more visitors over the past few days than if she’d been showing off a new baby.

  But it wasn’t high-pitched cackles of her friends that she heard; it was a man’s voice. Cindi cracked open the door and did a double take—it was the gorgeous man from the sale. Henry Hubbard. What was he doing here?

  She opened the door a bit more, leaning forward to hear. Fortunately, Gloria turned off her music when the man arrived, so Cindi could see and hear most of their conversation.

  Gloria and her mother smiled like fools while the man explained the reason for his visit. “It seems we made a perfect match at the shoe sale. A mysterious woman fit into our beautiful diamond sample shoes. But she escaped before we could award a special prize—a modeling shoot with the shoes and a one-thousand dollar shopping spree at our store.”

  Cindi’s heart was in her throat. He was looking for her! But if she burst out there and said, ‘Oh, it was me, me, me!’ her stepmother would find out about the ticket, and lord only knew what she’d do to Cindi and Mrs. Robinson and her dog.

  “Of course! I remember you trying them on,” her stepmother said, elbowing Gloria.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Gloria blinked her beady eyes at her mother, confused.

  “Remember?” Hildy hissed. “They were a perfect fit on you, Gloria.”

  Henry looked doubtful. “Then please, try this one and we’ll see.”

  Even from far across the apartment, Cindi could see that Gloria’s big toe barely fit in the shoe. Yet Gloria persisted, plastering on a smile, and trying to force her foot into the poor little shoe.

  Finally, Henry pulled it away, probably out of concern she might break it. He frowned. “I don’t think you’re the one. I was really hoping to find that girl.”

  And that’s when Cindi leaned a bit too hard against the door and tumbled out, tail over teakettle.

  Three heads turned in her direction. When she stood up rubbing her sore head, Henry beamed. “It’s you. Size five, am I right?” He was as handsome as she remembered, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off that dazzling shoe.

  She grinned. “I am.”

&nb
sp; “Come, try on the shoe.”

  Her stepmother crossed her arms and sneered. “Oh, it can’t be her. She wasn’t at the show. She didn’t know anyone who could get her a ticket.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t forget someone like her. Please, come see if it fits.”

  She didn’t care what punishment her stepmother would come up with; she had to get that shoe back on her foot.

  She sat on the couch and held out her foot. Henry smiled at her, and slid on the sparkly, clear shoe. “Perfect fit,” he said, with his fingers circled gently around her ankle. She could imagine them sliding up her calf, over her knee and onto her thigh.

  The big security guard from the sale stormed in the apartment. “I knew it! Now hand over the other shoe or you’re under arrest.”

  Henry held out a hand to stop the man from getting any closer. “Bruno, we haven’t even heard her side of the story.”

  “My stepdaughter’s a thief? No surprise there.”

  Cindi’s hand flew to her throat. “What are you talking about?”

  Henry’s shoulders slumped. “We’re missing the mate to this pair. Bruno saw you running from the sale—with the shoe sticking out of your bag.”

  She could feel the blood draining from her face. She’d tossed the bag in her closet after getting home from the sale empty handed. “My bag’s in my room. I haven’t looked in it since I got home that day.” Her heart raced as she headed to her room—followed by Gloria, her stepmother, Bruno, and Henry.

  She pulled the bag out of her closet and sure enough, there was the shoe. She held it up and forced a smile. “Oops.”

  “It’s a pretty big oops,” Bruno said.

  Henry stepped in front of Bruno. “No harm done. It’s gotten us some good press coverage, actually.” Henry held out his hand for the shoe.