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My overgrown bangs fall in my face. ‘Oh.’ I grab the headband I took off because it was giving me a headache and slide it back in place, pushing my hair back. It’s taken nine months for my bangs to finally grow out long enough to become manageable. ‘I keep for—’
‘Forgetting? Yeah, I noticed.’ Bell places her hand on my back, ushering me out of the dimly lit storage room and into the bright light of day. Or rather, Moore’s shoe department.
The space, though huge and nearly windowless, is lit up like a summer’s day by the many crystal chandeliers hanging from twenty-foot ceilings. Like a busker coming up from the subway, it takes a minute before I can fully open my eyes to the light.
‘Susan is waiting for you.’ Bell eyes the new Saint Laurent display. ‘I’ll catch up in a minute.’ She hustles off in search of more death-defying heel heights.
I only manage to take two steps before a woman dressed in cropped, raw-hemmed jeans, a silk blouse and shiny slip-on Gucci loafers hands me a Jimmy Choo, her Cartier watch glinting in the chandelier’s glow.
‘Can I see this in a size seven?’
Out of habit I take the shoe and note the inventory number on the sole’s tag. ‘Of course.’
Raymond, the head floor manager, seemingly comes out of nowhere to take the heel from me. ‘Allow me,’ he says to the woman, waving her toward an empty chair.
‘Well now.’ The customer brightens at Raymond’s formal manner, and probably his silver-fox looks. ‘Thank you,’ she says taking a seat.
Raymond lifts his head in Clarissa’s direction, my one-time co-worker, and the subtle nod has her scurrying forward to help.
‘Sorry.’ I’m not sure why I feel the need to apologize to Raymond about trying to help a customer, but I do. Or maybe I feel the need to apologize to myself when I catch my reflection in a mirrored pillar and realize I’m wearing the uniformed suit of all Moore’s salespeople when I was hired to sell shoes here five years ago.
I thought by wearing a blue shirt instead of white, and sans name tag, I was making a smart economical decision on updating my wardrobe for my new position. But I guess not.
Thomas’s words from all those months ago reverberate in my ears. She’s the one from the shoe department.
Raymond merely gives me a small smile, then, as if I’m also an expensively dressed customer with money to burn, leads me a few display tables down, where Susan stands next to a stack of shoeboxes.
‘Sit.’ Susan points to the chair on the other side of the shoeboxes.
I sit. Though Susan and I were both on the sales floor – me in shoes and she managing women’s luxury goods – I’ve spent more time with her since being promoted to an administrative department due to her involvement with Bell and Chase’s wedding.
Unveiling the first pair, baby blue wedge sandals with thin buckle straps, she sits on a shiny new shoe-fitting stool, prepared to slide them onto my feet. ‘Let’s try these on first.’
I dutifully try on the sandals, being careful to take the shoe from her and slip them on myself. It feels weird being served where I once worked. In a place I can’t afford. Bell is the one buying all the bridesmaids’ shoes for the wedding.
‘You are the only bridesmaid left to pick out shoes. And without shoes I don’t know what dress to put you in. I had to order three different dresses in your size just so you’d have one in time for the wedding.’
I cringe. ‘Sorry.’
Susan arranges the next pair, platform stiletto pumps with rhinestone details, next to the worn ones I slipped off.
I fiddle with the tiny gold buckle. ‘I thought people usually pick the dress before the shoes?’
Susan shrugs, somehow still looking ladylike while perched on the low stool. ‘Maybe, but doing it this way is more fun for me.’
I stand in the sandals, the straps making me feel more secure with the higher-than-normal-for-me heel.
‘If Thomas is going to let me run rampant and choose whatever dresses my little heart desires for the bridal party, then you bet your skinny backside I’m going to pick as I please.’
I wobble in the heels at the mention of him.
Susan arches a brow as I steady myself, then gestures for me to walk. ‘Just be glad I’m letting you have a say in your shoes.’
I’ve heard of a bridezilla, but never a stylezilla. I make a little turn between display tables, shut down the part of my brain fixated on why Thomas Moore is so involved in a wedding he seems to have nothing but disdain for.
My small circle takes me past the very table the shoes on my feet are displayed on. I wobble once more at the price.
I’ve spent my entire life living frugally, living paycheck to paycheck. And though I work at a store dedicated to expensive high-end goods, I’ve only ever spent what I absolutely had to on functional, long-lasting clothes. Part of the reason I loved my job as a shoe salesperson was the uniform. Clothes were one less thing I had to worry about.
