A Shoe Story - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jane L. Rosen is an author and screenwriter whose critically acclaimed first novel, Nine Women, One Dress, has been translated into ten languages. She lives in New York City and on Fire Island with her husband and three daughters.
 

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one

The Red-Bottomed Shoes

Esme Nash strolled across the Dartmouth Green, committing each sight, sound, and smell to memory. Set to graduate the next day, she had approached every moment of her last weeks of college with this sense of impending nostalgia. She'd savored her last scoop of Morano Gelato on Main Street, her last latte at the library coffee shop, and her final grade (an A+ on her senior thesis in art history titled "The Seven Muses of Gustav Klimt").

As she breathed in the scent of fresh-cut grass, Esme wondered if she would soon start feeling just as sentimental about the smells of NYC. She was pretty sure that New Hampshire would win the olfactory contest but thought New York might take the lead with her other senses.

Esme reached her destination, the Hinman Mail Center, to pick up the package that her mom had now asked her about at least six times. The last package, she noted sentimentally, of her college career. She was also hoping to purchase a poster tube large enough to safely transport the life-size replica of her favorite Klimt painting, The Kiss, which had hung on her walls since first-year student move-in day. The golden masterpiece had followed her throughout her four years on campus, and she wasn't about to leave it behind as she started her next big adventure.

Though Esme Nash grew up in a small town in upstate New York, she had always yearned to live in a big city, specifically Manhattan. In a few days' time her dream of doing so would become reality, and she was still pinching herself.

She handed the package notification to the mail clerk and pulled out her to-do list while she waited. Esme loved a good to-do list, or more specifically crossing things off one gave her a sense of control, however out of hand things were.

The frazzled mail clerk returned carrying a shoebox-size package wrapped in brown paper with her parents' return address in the corner. Esme immediately shook it, while the overwhelmed clerk searched for the delivery log.

"It's shoes!" she exclaimed to no one in particular.

"Wait, you have to sign for it," the clerk called out, still searching.

The box most likely contained a pair of Birkenstocks, her practical mother's ideal for walking in graduation. Maybe she had gone with black patent leather straps as opposed to nubuck, to mark the grandeur of the occasion, but Esme knew that would likely be the extent of her extravagance.

There was a small chance, though, that the box contained a pair of vintage Christian Louboutin pumps, specifically Pigalles, named for the risquŽ district in Paris. A used pair of the classic red-bottomed shoes were Esme's dream acquisition, and she and her mom had turned searching for them into a never-ending thrift-shop treasure hunt. They had spotted a few scuffed and scraped red soles in her size over the years, but Esme was determined not to settle for a single scratch that she had not personally inflicted on their shiny red bottoms.

Could her mom have hit the jackpot just in time for her college graduation?

"Sign here!" the clerk shouted.

Everyone was spent by the end of the semester, and this woman was clearly no different. Esme passed on asking for the poster tube. She didn't see any and was not up for waiting around for another search, too anxious to get back to her room and tear open her package. She signed her name, thanked the clerk, and shook her box again. On the way back to her dorm, Esme allowed herself to dream that the box actually contained the sophisticated black patent pointed-toe pumps with the sky-high heels and the trademarked bright red soles. The latter detail was the equivalent of a secret covenant for a future filled with glamour, excitement, and promise.

She pictured wearing the shoes after graduation, on the first day of her prized internship at the Hudson Payne Gallery. She imagined standing in them at the day's end, peering out the window, anticipating the arrival of her boyfriend, Liam Beck. From there they would wander along the narrow downtown streets, holding hands, before ducking into their local haunt for a bite to eat and a glass of merlot.

Liam and Esme had begun concocting their future plans in the earliest weeks of their relationship. Once she discovered that he shared her New York City dreams, Esme fell even harder for the clean-cut, handsome, baseball-playing Alpha Delta from Cape Cod, who she had first imagined to be just a fling. Their vast differences-him at his happiest shotgunning a beer, her at her happiest in the galleries of the Hood, Dartmouth's campus art museum-shrank in comparison to their similar life goals. Never mind that when he kissed her, even after nearly three years of dating, her heart still raced.

She pictured herself kicking off the red-bottomed pumps to climb the gazillion stairs to the fourth-floor Greenwich Village walk-up the two were set to share, even though her mother had gone on and on about the cow and the milk whenever she had brought up "living in sin."

"It's about being practical," Esme had explained, "so that I'll have enough money after rent to buy my own milk!" Practicality her mother understood. Exorbitantly expensive high-heeled shoes, not as much.

Esme couldn't take it anymore. She leaned the package atop one of the ivy-spattered brick walls that marked the old New England campus and ripped off the outer paper to reveal Happy Graduation gift wrap and a bright pink card.

Open the card first! she heard her mother insisting.

In typical Maggie Nash fashion, the note was long-winded and filled with praise for her only child: the joy she had given her, the endless pride she had in all of her accomplishments, and a lot of talk of the future and all the changes that were coming for them both. That part left Esme curious regarding her parents' plans for their fast-approaching empty nest.

It ended with:

A gift for walking into your future.

Love, Mom

Those are some lofty words for a pair of Birkenstocks, Esme thought eagerly.

Just as she was about to rip off the wrapping for the big reveal, her phone buzzed. She hoped it was her mom, excited to share the moment with her in real time. But the words Rochester General Hospital flashed across her screen, sending her heart pitching to her stomach.

"Hello."

"Is this Esme Nash?"

"It is," she managed.

"This is the intake nurse from Rochester General Hospital. Are you a relative of Henry and Margaret Nash?"

"I'm their daughter."

"I'm afraid your parents have been in an accident."

Esme walked across campus like a zombie, straight to her car, and got in. She didn't cry; she didn't call or text anyone to tell them what had happened. She just turned on the ignition, gripped the wheel, and drove straight home. Six silent hours later she arrived at Rochester General.

While the Dartmouth College Class of 2009 was walking in their commencement ceremony, Esme was sitting in a folding chair outside the ICU waiting to hear the results of her father's third surgery. The hospital social worker approached to discuss burial plans for her mother, before convincing her to go home and get a little sleep. She listened, thankful that someone else made a decision for her after a night of unimaginable ones.

Esme made her way through the hospital parking lot to her car and got in. As the door closed behind her she heard a...