I have a rule about shoes at weddings. Nobody should be thinking about them. If a guest notices the bride’s shoes, something has gone wrong, either with the shoes or with the guest.
At 3:46, I carried a chartreuse box up the back stairs of Larkspur Hall and broke my own rule in every possible direction.
Ollie met me at the top. He was holding a clipboard I had never seen before. It had a binder clip on it, and the binder clip had a tab.
“Lorraine gave me a clipboard,” he said, with quiet awe. “I’ve been promoted.”
“Status.”
“Copy. Bride, bridesmaids, and Lorraine are all in the suite.
“Felix is outside the suite with a flashlight.” He lowered his voice. “He says it’s for heel caps. I think it’s also for emotional support.”
Behind me, Dee and Harriet came up the stairs with the six tote bags. Harriet had pinned a fresh label on each one on the way. They now said, in clean black capitals, KIKI — DUSK 1 — COMFORT 4, and so on down the line.
“I believe in labels,” Harriet said, before anyone could ask.
The bridal suite had been holding its breath for forty-eight minutes. When I came through the door, it let it out all at once.
“Okay,” I said. “Fitting. Line up by size. Sevens on the left, seven and a halfs in the middle, eights by the window.”
They lined up. It took four seconds. Lorraine had already arranged them in that order, according to the binder, in case I came back with a plan.
I set the laptop on the vanity and handed out bags. Dee read the names. Harriet passed them down the line.
Kiki got W-140, Dusk 1, fifty-five millimeters. She put them on and stood up and walked to the window and back.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, these are comfortable. Why are these comfortable?”
“Column E,” I said. “Comfort four. Tested over nine hours at a vineyard wedding with a hill.”
Bethany took W-131, Dusk 1, with the gazebo scuff. She looked at it closely.
“There’s a mark on the inside.”
“Gazebo, 2019. It’s on the inside. Nobody will see it.”
“I’ll know,” Bethany said, but she put them on. She walked a slow, careful lap of the room. “Comfort four point five,” she said. “I’m rounding up.”
June took the third Dusk pair. Roz got the gray-blue eights, which I had bought in 2015 during a period when I believed I might grow.
Nadia got the sevens, bought the same year in the opposite belief. Both fit. Both looked, under the soft light of the suite, like they had been chosen months ago.
“These are the mistakes of hope,” I told them.
“They’re perfect,” said Nadia.
“That’s what hope is for,” said Harriet, unexpectedly, from the corner. Everyone looked at her. She adjusted her label maker. “I’m a professional,” she said.
Felix knocked at 3:49. He came in holding a small flashlight, like a museum guard at closing time.
“Heel inspection,” he said. “The floors are—”
“1911,” said six bridesmaids at once.
Felix stopped. For a moment I thought he might be hurt. Then something passed across his face that might, on a younger man, have been a smile.
“Correct,” he said.
He had each bridesmaid walk past him, one at a time, while he shone the flashlight at the floor behind her. He was not looking at the shoes. He was looking for marks on his oak, the way a jeweler checks a stone. When he finished, he stood up slowly and looked at me.
“Every one capped,” he said. “Rubber. The good kind.”
“Column H,” I said.
“I would like,” said Felix, “to see column H.”
I turned the laptop toward him. He bent down and read it. Two hundred and fourteen rows, each one with a Y in column H. He scrolled to the bottom and back to the top again.
“You cap all of them,” he said. “Even the ones you don’t wear to venues.”
“All floors were here first.”
Felix straightened up. He looked at me for a long time, the way a man looks at someone he has misjudged.
“I’ll be in the hall,” he said, and left. On his way out, I heard him say it to himself, very softly. “Column H.”
That left two problems. One was sitting at the vanity. The other was standing next to it, holding a binder and trying not to limp.
I had seen Lorraine shift her weight twice since I came in. Then a third time. Her shoes were navy, very high, and very new.
“Lorraine,” I said quietly. “When did you buy those?”
“Thursday.”
“How long have you had them on?”
“Since nine.” She did not look at me. “They’re fine.”
“Corinne is fine,” said Corinne, from the vanity. “Corinne recognizes that tone.”
I opened the binder, which Lorraine let me do, which tells you something. I flipped to MEASUREMENTS. At the bottom, in smaller writing, was one more line. Lorraine: 7.5.
“That explains a lot about Corinne,” I said.
I knelt down. I slipped off my own W-162, Oat 3, comfort five, worn at forty-one weddings. I set them on the carpet in front of her.
“Absolutely not,” said Lorraine.
“You can put it in the binder,” I said. “Under Loans.”
“I don’t have a tab for Loans.”
“You have a tab for everything.”
She looked at me, and for one second I saw her consider making a tab for Loans.
“They go with navy. They have caps. They have been tested over more standing hours than anything in this building except Felix.”
“What will you wear?”
I nodded at Ollie. Ollie, who has worked with me for two years, did not need to be told. He went down the back stairs at a jog. He came back up holding one clear plastic box from the Trunk Library.
Inside were the duck rain boots.
Lorraine looked at the ducks. The ducks looked at Lorraine.
Then she sat down on the edge of the bed, and took off the navy shoes, and put on W-162. She stood. She did not say anything for a moment.
“Comfort five,” she said at last, very quietly, as if confessing.
She wrote something in the binder. I didn’t look. I was busy putting on ducks.
Which left the bride.
Corinne had watched all of it in the mirror. She sat perfectly straight in her ivory dress. The bouquet lay on the vanity in front of her. White ranunculus, pale green hellebores, and one sprig of brave green.
I set the chartreuse box on the vanity beside it. I took off the lid.
“W-117,” I said. “This is not a recommendation. It’s the only seven and a half I have left.
“I also have Oat 3 in the trunk, a flat, with a strap. It is a very sensible flat. No one would ever notice it.”
Corinne looked at the box for a long time. Then she looked at the bouquet. Then back at the box.
“What does column F say?” she asked.
I hesitated. “Someday.”
“Has anyone ever worn them?”
“No. Column I says zero.”
Lorraine stepped forward with the binder. She opened it to a tab I had seen a hundred times: OLD / NEW / BORROWED / BLUE.
Old was Grandma’s earrings. New was the dress. Blue was a ribbon sewn into the hem.
Next to Borrowed, there was a blank line. A small note in pencil said: Veil fell through. Think of something.
“Borrowed has been blank since March,” Lorraine said.
Corinne reached into the box. She took out the chartreuse pumps with the square gold buckles, and she put them on, and she stood up.
The bridesmaids made a sound I can only describe as a group inhale. The green caught the green in the bouquet. The gold caught the chandelier. It looked like the flowers had been chosen to match the shoes, instead of the other way around.
“Corinne,” said Corinne, looking down, “is not fine.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were shining. “Corinne is great.”
Downstairs, the string trio changed key. It was 3:59. Ollie touched his headset, which was connected to nothing, and said, “Places.”
I followed the bridal party to the top of the stairs in my duck boots. Through the landing window, I could see the gravel lot. A white catering van with a cartoon lobster on its side was pulling back in.
A man got out of the back with a hand truck. On it was a large white box. Even from the landing, I could read the label.
CHAMPAGNE — 6.
Up next: Times Worn: One
Continue to Part 6 →