I ease myself in with the visitors who stroll the Michener Museum for the Stuart Weitzman collection of historical shoes. But my thoughts keep returning to you. Your death has stunned me. After a lapse of several years, hearing about you is unexpected. My chest tightens and my eyes fill with tears, not so much for you. More for me. Don’t gloat. You’re like an old relative I was once close to. Still, even in death, it’s just like you to intrude on those moments when I am absorbed in something other than you.
I focus on where I am, try to clear my head and keep moving. The inertia of the displays changes when I pause at black velvet slippers, and I hear your sarcastic masculine laugh. I torment myself with my gullibility back then. You parked slippers under my bed during the three years we lived together. You made me think your being there was a privilege, and I was too young to recognize a narcissist. But you knew that.
Lower voices become almost reverential as I move from one part of the exhibit to another, pausing to read the show notes and push you from my consciousness. In the theatrically dim lighting, my eyes focus on displays of everything from sexy high heeled peek-a-boos to absurd wooden clogs. An aroma of age permeates the air that thrusts me back in time as I try to reorient myself.
I study a pair of glitzy, clear plastic sling backs, and more recollections resurface. What a great dancer you were. We looked like John Travolta and what’s her name the actress as you spun me around in those thrilling disco days. Ever the actor, your life was always a performance, each step calculated. Those embossed tee straps like dancers wear in the highlighted case remind me about the gossip I overheard about your seducing this Rockette or that one, stepping all over me as one of our so-called friends kindly mentioned before we split. Another suggestion of our troubled past.
A long time ago, I walked away from what had been us. No, I didn’t walk, I ran. As painful as it was, even then I knew leather shoes wore better than the glass slippers I fantasized about. Once shattered, those shards cut deep. Shoe show—shit show. Only now do I see the irony of being here, right now.
You were a lying, cheating bastard in life, and for me will remain so in death.
I feel a sense of relief. I survived that part of my compulsory education, a required course since most women seem to attend the same school. I guess I should thank you for that.
Someone calls my name, and I boot you from my thoughts. In this hallowed hall of memories, I look down at my sneakers. The cushioned soles are laced tight and I am sure-footed as I assume my social face to walk towards an old acquaintance.
Joanne Sutera’s poetry, short stories, and flash fiction reflect today’s crazy world. She is published in U.S.1, The Kelsey Review, Paterson Literary Review and US1 Worksheets. Her poem, ‘What Do I Want,’ had been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Lawrence.
