Chapter 5. What’s so different?

“No peeking!”

I covered by eyes with both hands and pretended to be excited. “Can’t wait!” I couldn’t wait to get out of here. I can’t imagine that Nancy would have improved my feet that much. I guess a little touch up would be nice considering that there was almost 30 years of wear and tear on my feet. Broken toes, callouses. Whatever.

“This is my job, you know,” she said as she was cleaning up and carefully placed something on my feet.

“I know! And you’re doing a great job. So far, I’m not screaming and throwing a tantrum… although it did come close.”

“Drumroll please!” and she began to throttle her tongue.

Get this over with please.

“And… VOILA!”

I looked down.

“Um… hello - there are some things that are blocking the way.”

She smiled knowingly and said “Oh, oopsie! My bad,” and she brushed the pink rose petals and other flowers that were obscuring my toes.

I looked down and saw one remaining flower.

I flicked it away. Ok, so I have pink toes. Big deal.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Is it a good start?”

“It’s a great start. I love it,” I lied. “Ok, step 1 down and now step 2.”

“Nope, it’s all a process just like it was explained to you.” I sunk down in my chair disappointingly. “I’m just going to give you some moisturizer and a bottle for your reference in case you would like a second coat… or just need a reminder of what color you chose.”

“You mean, what color I was FORCED to choose.”

“Give me a break. Nobody made you choose… what’s the name of the color?” she took back the bottle. “Bikini-so-teeny.”

She looked at me and I looked right back at her.

“It’s just a color. It’s pink. End of story.” I looked at my watch and the digital arm said it was late. “Also, end of day so… see you in a couple of days.”

I stood up and plodded over with my bare legs over to the side of the wall where the two duffle bags that I had brought in were. But only one was there. I bent down and grabbed the one with my Nikes and sweat socks.

“I remember coming here with two bags…” I said to myself. I held up my gym bag. “Where’s the other one?”

I turned around to shower her that yes indeed, I had only one now.

“Relax, we’re not going to steal your disgusting shoes,” she said as she walked over. “Now put it down and come on this way,” and she opened up the door to the hall and I followed her. I almost bumped into woman who was probably a client and smiled at me and I smiled back. But as I passed by, she softly commented “nice color.” And I realized that she was smiling at me because I wasn’t wearing any shoes and socks and they probably thought had some weird thing about pink toes. What a bitch.

After a turning left and going down a few doors, Nancy said “Here’s the showcase room.”

Showcasing what?

And she opened up the door and we walked in. It was a fucking shoe store. I mean it was a fancy shoe store no doubt because instead of rows and rows of payless style shoes where basically you pick out your size and pay for it. This was like they were showcasing the shoes. Which makes it pretty obvious why they call it the showcase room.

“You mean Shoe case room right?” I waggled my eyebrows.

“You are the first person to tell me that!” she said alarmingly.

“Oh really?”

“Of course not,” and she took me over to a few stylists who were part of the package deal that my girlfriend and I had signed up for. Style consultants they said they were. One was casual, one was professional, one was entertainment, etc etc etc. They seemed all interchangeable, but in a good way. All friendly, all really polite, all really genuine. They were good people and they were nice. We got along great.

“Hey, look at you! Looking all pretty,” an obviously gay man greeted me and then he looked down at my toes and jokingly slapped me against my chest, “Oh honey!”

“Ha ha, very funny,” I said back. “You know they made me choose this color, don’t you? Jesus…”

“Oh really? Was it the script for ‘long day at the office’ or was it ‘trip to the masseuse?”

Someone else chimed in – “Or was it ‘give me a piggy back ride?”

“Or hot summer nights?” and everyone laughed.

Nancy came over and said, “Nope – it was chilly at the beach.” And she elbowed me in the ribs. “And he did great. Look, we’re here to help you do the best thing you can do for your family and for your girlfriend. So we can have fun can’t we?” and she looked around at the group and they all nodded affirmatively. “And we can also be serious.”

We all gathered together near some of the shoes and I was offered a drink and I accepted it. It was a glass of champagne – to cool your nerves, someone said as I grabbed it and sipped.

We talked about the blah blah stuff, like commitment and intimacy and empathy and change and when asked if I was serious, I said – 100%. This was important to me.

“Ok, well good news and bad news for you,” Nancy said as she got to the point. We did some quantitative data about the personality tests you’ve taken –“

“You mean the ones that took over 8 hours to do?”

“Yes, the ones that took over 8 hours to do. And you’ll see that it’ll pay off.”

“We did the data analysis and we also got some feedback from some interviews with your girlfriend about who you are… you know – who you are, to your girlfriend. What kind of person are you according to her. From her point of view. Anyway, we got her feedback.”

“Basically, the good news is that you get to choose the shoes. Total carte blanche. The bad news is that your selection has to be from here and it has to be from specific categories of shoes that we’ll help you out on.”

“That sounds amazing. I can’t believe that after all the testimonials, that this is the outcome.” I sighed with relief. “I can’t believe that I get to have that kind of autonomy. It sounds like the best thing that could happen.”

“Of course it’s the best thing that could happen. This is our company policy – the best possible outcome.

One of the consultants came over and handed me a pair of white sweatpants. “Around that corner is the dressing room so put on these pants and come on out. You’d be surprised but this is actually good to have when trying on our shoe. Sweatpants are very versatile.”

“Sure – sweats it is,” I said and I took them and around the corner. I got in an locked the changing room making sure there weren’t any cameras. At least the ones in plain sight. None.

I took off my pants and then I caught myself looking in the mirror at my newly pointed toes.

I felt so stupid for this whole thing. It’s just a month, I said as I changed into the baggy and oversized sweatpants. I looked again at the mirror and felt a little better, but still a little self conscious.

I pulled up my sweatpants as much as I could ans I psyched myself up and marched over to the crowd. And they all gave little golf claps.

“Ok, should we go from easiest to hardest?” Nancy started.

“Definitely,” I agreed.

“Let’s talk Sandals.”

“You mean flip flops.”

“Sandals. And they’ll be your new best friends. They go well with everything. Out on the town, sandals. Out at a restaurant, sandals. Lounging around? Sandals. See?”

“Perfect, let’s do it. Sandals.”

“And you also reminded me! Flip flops too!”

“Awesome. How many pairs of sandals you think we need to get you?”

“How about 1.”

“How about 8?”

“JESUS CHRIST. I don’t need 8 pairs of sandals. I can’t imagine a time when I’ll ever need 8 pairs of sandals,” and I thought about when I would ever need 8 pairs of sandals. One day, I’ll have to sit down with my friends and show off all of my great pairs of sandals.

Consulting with the consultants, the pairs started adding up. One of them said I needed a pair for lounging around in and I tried on a pair of sandals.

I grabbed the plainest ones I could find. “Check out my toes, dudes!” I said as I put a pair on and showed the group.

“You need one for walking – maybe you can even wear one when you go outside today and walk home.”

“Walking sandals.” Another pair that looked pretty boring. I hiked up my sweatpants to my upper leg and I tried them on and walked a few steps. Ouch.

“Yeah, you’re going to hate yourself after like 2 blocks with that. How about this one?”

I took a look and sneered at the shoe.

“You don’t want blisters and besides” – she whispered – “it’s totally detachable.”

“Say no more,” I said as I tied one pair’s buckle onto the back of my ankle.

Boom another pair! Hitting homers with these bozos, I said silently to myself.

Nancy chimed in. “You’ll need one when you’re at the beach – remember those cold nights? So think about what would look good with a bathing suit.”

I got sick of trying on so I grabbed a pair that I thought would look good with blue trunks or whatever.

The romance consultant also added – “You’ll need a pair probably for vacation – you know something that will look good for both walking and a little smooch you might want to give Molly spontaneously.”

I grabbed a yellow one and thought about how that kiss would go.

I missed delivering kisses like that and felt both sad and thrilled that we were doing this.

“We have only two pairs of flip flops left and congrats – they are yours. They’re designer so consider yourself the owner of a pair of very desirable flip flops.”

I nodded and they were added to the list. I wasn’t a huge flip flop person – just for long car rides

And on the beach of course.

From the athletic and “streetwear” consultant, I got some cool high tops

And even some cool kicks that I think even Molly has the same kind if you can believe it. One day we’ll have to both wear them on the same day.

“You’ll need boots!” someone chimed in.

“Boots for when you wear long pants…”

“And boots for when you wear shorts.”

“Yeah, but who wears boots when you have shorts on?” I said thinking about someone wearing boots with shorts on.

Whatever works, I thought. I got sick of trying on these items that eventually I just ended up agreeing to much of their recommendations. There weren't a lot of options and from what they offered me, it seemed nothing too showy. Utilitarian is what I was aiming for. I even picked out a pair of boots that looked pretty good and would probably be described as "military" boots if you had to pick a word. Those were coming home with me and it would look good with an old pair of jeans.

I had an option for rain boots to go with something either more conservative and "normal" looking

Which would have totally made sense given a guy like me, but then Nancy and a stylist convinced me to go with a more colorful kind saying that they would also throw a matching pair for my daughter. I thought about how fun it would be to actually have something to share with my daughter, beyond DNA. Well, in any event, it would be a cute photo op.

I paused as I was considering what I was doing.

"Thinking about something?" one of them asked.

"Thinking about my daughter I said," and we paused and talked about feelings and perseverance and it felt great to get some insight from a group of consultants who thought about things beyond style. We talked about what kind of father I was going to be. Whatever, if one day that my daughter and I could go for a daddy-daughter hike and we're both wearing boots that look alike, then I call that a fucking win. The group agreed.

"I thought about how excited I was that my girlfriend and I were expecting a baby and then I learned that it was a girl. You'll never believe this but little shoes were the first things I bought for her."

I thought a little.

"If this works and we have another baby, I'll be thrilled. I bet this time around, my girlfriend will surprise me with baby shoes. I bet by the time we have a second kid, I'll have a beer belly.

Just silly even thinking about it.

The group was happy and said that there were a few more decisions to be made. Another pair of shoes was plopped right near my feet. Nancy could tell by the way that I was rubbing my feet that I was just exhausted from trying on so many shoes.

They smiled with sympathy and said that they would promise that they would make a good decision about the remainder of my shoes and that I shouldn't worry because I was in good hands.

I believed them.

They counted up all of the shoes that were going home with me and made sure that everything was in order for dropoff on the next morning. While they were doing whatever paperwork, I went over to the changing room and

"Which one you going home with?" one of them wanted to know.

My eyes looked towards the sneaker selection, but Nancy came over and said "there are two ways to show your girlfriend that you are committed to this."

I nodded and went for the shoes that best showed off my new toes. I did remove the ridiculous bow though. Off to a good start, no doubt.

"Congratulations. We're done with day 1. Now let's find Molly."