Devonne Brown

Bells chimed when I opened the door to the shoe shop.

“Tips for a Tattoo,” were the words in calligraphy on the vase beside a picture of a rose. The gussied up jar had its own table with a white linen tablecloth in the center of the room, under a spotlight, no less. Very fancy for something so tacky.

“What size?” the girl with long brown hair hanging over her eyes asked me. 

“Tattoo or Shoes?”

The girl put her hand on her hip, rolled her eyes, “Uh, shoes.”

“Nine and a half medium, red,” I said. “I’m surprised your manager allows you to solicit personal funds in a public store.” 

The clerk looked at me with half a smile and a raised eyebrow. She was sixteen and a lot older. “What Mom doesn’t know won’t hurt me. She always comes in through the back anyway.”

I was sixty and spending money on what I damned well pleased. And it pleased me to want red, kitten heel pumps, with a little gold bar just above the heel that made me glisten when I walked. They cost more than the tattoo that wouldn’t make her glisten when she walked. If the sun hit just right, I could be blinding.

“You got a hot date?” she asked as she got up to go get the shoes out of the back room. I laughed. I had a very hot date. I was going to  my brother’s wedding, a biker’s wedding, at the biker’s club.

I respect most everybody’s hobbies and lifestyles. If it wasn’t for the wedding, I wouldn’t be even thinking about going to the bikers’ club, still might not go, but I’d gather my accouterments anyway.

 Red shoes don’t go bad. Every woman needed a good pair of low heeled red dress shoes in her shoe library, especially red shoes with a gold bar over the heel. One never knew when the occasion would arise to “dance the blues,” in red shoes, as David Bowie sang. 

The sales girl came out of the closet holding a box in one hand, and a crimson pump in the other. “What are you going to wear with these?” she asked. She was either nosy, or not very creative, I didn’t care which. 

“Just a black dress.” She shook her head. She was not only disappointed but bored. She wanted to hear something exotic. She needed to know more, like why an old lady needed red kitten heel pumps. Is this what life was going to be? Old ladies wearing red shoes to bridge or bingo? 

“I’m going to my brother’s wedding,” I said. The girl had a waxy look in her eyes, my comment brought her back from somewhere far away. I laughed, thinking of the bikers in all their leather glory: vests, chaps, and black. Their scarves would be tied around their shaved heads and their sunglasses pushed up to their bandanas no matter what time of day it was. That would be the uniform of the wedding. No tuxes. Some of the women would have on flouncy dresses under their leather vests that proclaimed “Property of Meathead” or “Property of Dogsass.” 

It didn’t matter if I wore jeans and a hoodie or a velvet evening gown. I’d be overdressed whatever I wore, so I chose red shoes to go with my long black dress. Like everybody else, bikers were fairly cool if you minded your manners, besides, you can’t go wrong with a pair of red shoes. 

“What happens if you catch the bouquet? You know what that means?” she asked. 

“Look Tiffany,” She looked and sounded like a ‘Tiffany’ to me.

“My name’s Destiny, not Tiffany, people make that mistake all the time,” she said.

“Destiny, the bouquet at a biker wedding is not something one catches. It might be a hubcap. It’s best to keep your purse in your car, and a drink in your hand at these things.”

“Why don’t you wear combat boots? They’re the right style, and they’re on sale,” Destiny was caught up in the romance of the biker mystique. “You might catch the bouquet.”

“Tiffany, they don’t go with my black dress. They aren’t me.”

She looked me up and down, and considered the red shoes. “I bet all the women have a rose tattoo somewhere. I read it was a thing with biker chics.” 

She didn’t notice that I’d called her Tiffany.

“She’ll probably have roses in her bouquet,”said Tiffany, she’d gone all wistful.

“Hubcap, in her hubcap,” I said. I wasn’t surprised she needed a reminder. 

“Do they?” she asked again.

“I don’t know if they throw hubcaps or not. I’ll ask my brother and get back to you,” I said, knowing she meant rose tattoos, also knowing I probably would never come back to this shoe store.

 It was dumb luck that I was here now, what were the chances I’d find red shoes with a gold bar above the heel that made me glisten when I walked. I stopped in here because of the tattoo jar. It looked regal on its linen pedestal under a spotlight. 

A shop this level of fancy could display any manner of wonder. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered it was a plea for a tattoo, a blue rose tattoo at that. I smiled because it reminded me of Kirk Douglas in the Glass Menagerie. He was charming with the cleft in his chin.

“You won’t ever come back, and I won’t ever get my tattoo.” Tiffany said.

She was right about me never coming back to the store. I had no need for more red shoes, and no desire to see Tiffany again. We weren’t meant to be buddies.

“How much more do you need?” 

She held my beautiful shoes hostage, “Twenty, no thirty,” her eyes glistened. I rolled mine, and stuffed a twenty in the jar. She rang up the shoes.

“Go, ink yourself, Tiffany.”