Regaining Her Footing

the prompt:

I'd like you to write about your character (or yourself) and a pair of his or her shoes.

Those shoes can be real or symbolic, they can hurt or be super comfy but I want to see what they say about the life of the person wearing them. It's a chance to use all those descriptive words I love reading.

I hope this post can stand alone, but if you're interested in Greta's backstory, there's a menu tab "Greta's Story" that can catch you up. The piece leading into this week's story introduced the red shoes she's wearing on her date with Drew.

With Drew in the restroom, Greta reapplied lip gloss, then blotted it impatiently on her napkin, carefully refolding the dark cloth to hide the pearl sheen left on the thin material.  Silently thanking the waitress for the generous pour of prosecco, she gulped down a swallow of wine, shaking her head.

Of course she was nervous, awkward even.  This was the first date she’d been on since her divorce.

Date.

Was it even a date?  Drew had asked about dinner so casually she hadn’t even really answered, until he had asked if she would rather meet him at the restaurant or walk over together from her apartment.  Even on the walk over, he seemed so relaxed she was still concerned he was simply being friendly.

Conversation flowed easily between them, almost in rhythm with the clicking of her heels against the sidewalk, but when he excused himself from the table after ordering, her doubts attacked her confidence.

“You’re only talking about running!” Doubt chided.

“That’s how we met,” she argued with herself.  “It makes sense to talk about something we have in common.”

“Just wait.  If he starts talking about chafing, you’ll know he’s filed you into the friend column,” Doubt warned.

Her fingers nervously slid around the stem of her wine glass again, the sensitive pads finding the seam in the glass before she pressed her palms against her thighs, comforted by the familiar denim, worn into flattering softness.

Looking up from the effervescence bubbling up in her glass, Greta caught Drew walking back to the table.  Without thinking, she crossed her legs, and her doubts dissipated like the bubbles floating to the surface in front of her. 

Unaware that she was watching, the movement of her legs caught his eye, and there was no mistaking the appreciative glance that followed the line of her jeans down to her impossibly high red shoes.

Greta raised her glass again, sipping instead of gulping, letting the bubbles sit for a moment on her tongue before sliding down her throat with a tickle.  His unguarded eyes, hopeful and anticipatory, saw her in a way that went to her head more quickly than the wine, relaxing her laughter into something welcoming and genuine. 

As if reading her mind, Drew steered the conversation away from running, finding new common ground, like the same second choice college, and some endearing differences.

“Philosophy?” Greta asked, trying to keep her eyebrows from flying into her hairline as she inadvertently swept her eyes over his casually expensive jeans and the rolled up sleeves of his gently starched shirt.

“I always thought philosophy majors were so full of angst,” Greta tried to explain.

“Hey.  I smoked cloves for a while, ok?” he defended, raising his eyebrows back at her as she collapsed into decidedly inelegant giggles.

“Would you like to walk down to the water for a while?” Drew asked, after deftly paying for dinner before she noticed the slim leather folio discretely placed on the table.

Greta grimaced inwardly, her feet throbbing a little, even though they’d been off their feet for almost two hours.  Torn between comfort and pain, she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.

Misunderstanding her pause, he fell over his own words, “Oh.  Sorry, we –"

“No…it’s just…these aren’t the best shoes…” her voice trailed off, and she cursed inwardly for not just saying yes and worrying about stabbing pain in the balls of her feet tomorrow.

Two sets of eyes rested on the glossy red leather resting against the ebony leg of his chair.

“They’re perfect shoes,” he said firmly, smoothly regaining control of the situation.  “Let’s go next door for coffee.  We can walk by the water next time.”