if the shoe fits
by kate reynolds

Recently I made a pilgrimage to New York City. It’s always a bittersweet journey – New York was my home for nearly two decades. Most of my adult romantic dramas were played out against those same photogenic backdrops that give “Sex and the City” its visual sizzle. Drinks in the Village, ‘La Boheme’ at the Met. A heartbreakingly cinematic farewell on a snowy day in Central Park. Ahh, living large. It was all about attitude. And, of course, the shoes.

Yes, like the fashionista heroine of the hit comedy, back in the day I liked to wear very wicked high-heels. You know, four inch Fredrick’s of Hollywood creations, satin pin-up girl @*#!-me pumps and stilettos with ankle lashings that were surely inspired by the Marquis de Sade. They made my legs seem a mile long. The precarious balance gave me a definitive wiggle when I walked. They looked fabulous… they hurt like hell.
Most of my relationships were like that too.

I don’t know if I can blame it all on New York, but the flavor-of-the-month mentality that permeates both the social and shopping scenes doesn’t exactly engender commitment. There were just SO many choices. Midnight blue slings for Jazz at Birdland with Richard. Black leather biker-chick bitch boots for perusing the Soho galleries with Eric. Chili pepper red skyscrapers for going way uptown to dance merengue with Omar.

I had a steely rhythm then. There was something so urbane about the staccato click of my skinny heels on the pavement. I was a young professional in a power suit. I’d rush around midtown in the middle of February sporting a pair of patent leather spectators. I couldn’t feel my toes but, damn, I looked good.

Not surprisingly, I also suffered through many romantic entanglements that pinched and pained. But they were so beautiful, these men that distracted me, I couldn’t help but try them on. I would become entranced by the idea of someone – the artist, the athlete, the musician – and try to make him fit. Cinderella in reverse. Sometimes it would take for a while. Once I even slipped into a pair of strappy white sandals and walked down the aisle. It was a round trip.

But, by and large, my amours burned fast and hot – the kind that leave blisters but not scars. So I wasn’t quite paying attention when the big exception made his entrance. I was in the midst of sweeping the debris of my latest debacle into an empty shoebox (the prior tenants, alas, the victims of those fiendish subway grates). It took awhile before I realized that he was there at all.

The father of one of my co-workers and more than 20 years my senior, he wore tasseled Italian loafers. Following our brief introduction, Mr. R took to phoning or popping by to see Michael rather more frequently than paternal concern would demand. Somehow, we would always end up having a chat, usually followed by an invitation for coffee or drinks. I would politely demure. He seemed nice enough. Actually, he was kind of cute in that silvery, older guy way. But I was dubious. After all, he worked in the car business. And he lived in New Jersey.

It’s important to understand that, to a hard-core New Yorker, the only reason to leave The City is to go to Europe. New Jersey is the land of the “bridge and tunnel people” —those poor souls who invade Manhattan for work and play and then slink back to their less sophisticated environs. The women have big hair. During their commute, they wear sneakers with their work clothes and change into pumps at the office. It is simply beyond the pale. I know – I grew up there. It took Herculean efforts to remove every strain of joisey from my accent and every pair of “Candies” from my closet.

But Mr. R, the Jersey car dealer, would not desist. OK, I agreed, we’d have brunch next Sunday. Brunch is the clever single girl’s refuge. Early enough in the day that you can claim to have an evening engagement if the date is a crash and burn. He arrived on the dot and held my arm as I navigated the brownstone steps (I had on classy little velvet spikes with a grosgrain rosette). At the curb he opened the door of a substantial German sedan and offered his hand. “It’ll be a bit of a drive,” he grinned. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Drive? Go somewhere that I couldn’t escape from in a cab? I eyed him suspiciously. He gave no outward indications of being a psychopathic ax murderer. No doubt the worst I could expect was the Brunch Buffet at the Hoboken Ramada. What the hell – I climbed in.

Our destination, I discovered, was beyond Jersey. As the city, then the suburbs diminished, the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania unfurled around us. We followed the course of the Delaware to the unlikely village of Lumberville, where a little Colonial inn nestled on the banks of the waterway. It smelled of wood smoke and beeswax. The staff greeted him by name.

I can’t recall exactly what we talked about at that little table by the river, but there was much laughter and much champagne. Afternoon melted into early evening before we made our way across the gravel parking lot to the car. I picked my way carefully, steadying myself on his obliging arm, and sank gratefully into the front seat.

Mr. R slipped behind the wheel. He paused for a moment, exhaled, then reached over, took my hand and lifted it to his lips. I giggled. He smiled broadly. “We have a long ride ahead of us,” he said, nudging the car into drive. “Why don’t you take your shoes off and relax?”

Kate Reynolds and her husband Bob moved to Asheville from Key West, where she was usually barefoot. Her closet now contains Birkenstocks, hiking boots, and clogs. She does, however, retain a tasty pair of black lace overlaid spike heel mules from the Paradise Bootery in Times Square, just in case of emergency.