February Flash Lit 10 - If the Shoe Fits

And now, if e’er by chance I put
    My fingers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
    Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
    A very heavy weight,
I weep…

Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 8

 

 

 

Butterfly locked the bathroom door behind her and leaned on it.  There were no tissues because Clive thought it was a waste of money.  “And people just steal the boxes anyway,” he said.

 

You probably do, she thought, but the rest of us don’t necessarily want to wipe our noses with the cheap, non-absorbent toilet paper.  The little oblongs scratched the corners of her eyes as she wiped away the tears.  It could have gone worse, she mused.  It wasn’t like she expected a parade or anything.   Somehow she had figured her twenty years in this job meant something.  Silly to cry about not having a card or a cake.

 

She flushed the wad of paper down the toilet, rinsed her face with water, and dried it with coarse brown paper towels.  Then she returned to her desk, put her coffee mug and her Beaches of the World calendar and her mostly-dead African violet in an empty computer paper box.

 

“It’s not five yet,” Clive said.  “What are you doing?”

 

“Leaving,” she replied.  “What are you going to do, fire me?”  It felt childish, but also satisfying.  “I’ll take my final check, please.”

 

He gave it to her.  Too cheap to buy a stamp, she thought.  She put the envelope in her purse and walked out fifteen minutes before five.

 

It was getting dark already.  Butterfly breathed in the twilight air and considered how she felt:  afraid, for sure, but also just a little bit curious.  For once, she did not know what would happen next.  She passed the dry cleaners, the nail salon, and then stopped at the lighted window of the shoe store.  Rain boots for children in bright colors and animal patterns lined up toe to heel along the window ledge.  Behind them, she saw various sneakers and boots and some very fancy heels.  She could feel her toes, pinched in her professional pumps.

 

The door opened with a jingle of bells.  She set her box down on one of the chairs, kicked her pumps underneath another, and padded around the shop in her stockings.  The bored kid behind the counter snapped her gum and did not look up from her texting until Butterfly approached the counter with one red Converse high top in her hand.  “I’d like to try these on.”

 

“Size?” the girl said.  “Men’s size, that is.  That’s how they come.”

 

Butterfly said, “I don’t know what size I wear in men’s shoes.”

 

The girl rolled her eyes.  Butterfly was humbled to think that this scrawny person who typed entirely in emojis knew more than she did about shoes.  That’s Bonnie thinking, she told herself.  “So I wear a six in women’s shoes.  How does that convert?”

 

“Four,” the girl said, slumping down from her stool and slouching to the back.  She returned with the box and shoved it at Butterfly.

 

Butterfly pulled the tissue out of the toes of the shoes, laced them up most of the way, and slid her feet inside.  They fit, with room to wiggle her toes at the end.  She paid and left the shop wearing her new shoes, the box left behind.