At Van Dyke & Bacon there were only shoes, salesmen, and mothers and kids similar to my mother and me. I flopped down onto the red leather bench seat with a weighted sadness over the fact that my summer was now absolutely, and entirely, over.
My mother grabbed a salesman and brought him to me. He wore a green apron and had a mustache that made him look like a walrus. In his hand was the flat silver foot measure.
“Right foot,” he said, laying the measure on the floor before me.
I kicked off my flip-flop and stood on the cold metal runway. The salesman outlined my foot with the sliding fins. “Uh-huh,” he said. I stepped off and he flipped the plank around and waited for my left foot. “Uh-huh,” he said again as he measured.
“She’s grown this summer,” my mother said. “Did you see how her toes hung off the edge of the flip-flop?”
“I didn’t notice.” He patted the red leather bench seat. “Sit.”
I sat down and he slipped a small nylon sock on each of my feet. His hands were almost as cool as the measuring plank.
“It’s the sun,” Mom said. “She started out with her toes way back there.” She picked up a flip-flop and put her finger in the spot where she imagined my toes had been at the beginning of summer. I couldn’t remember if she was right.
“Uh-huh.” The salesman wasn’t interested. “Roland Park Country School, right?” he asked me.
“Yes,” my mother said, and he walked away. Each private school had their own shoe requirements. As far as I’d seen, Van Dyke & Bacon was the only shoe store in town. Though I wondered if, like Night Train Records, there were amazing, hip, fun shoe stores in Baltimore that my mother would never enter.
“Let’s get you new church shoes too,” my mother said. “You could wear them to the homecoming dance as well.”
“Um, can we get those later?” I asked. My trips to Van Dyke & Bacon in the past had seemed uneventful. It was easy to find shoes I liked. But now that I had been shopping with Sheba, I saw the stock differently.
The salesman returned with two boxes and sat on the the stool in front of me. Just as he was slipping the saddle shoes onto my feet, Beanie Jones entered the store. She was wearing a bright pink headband that pulled her thick blond hair away from her face. The headband was the exact pink of her dress, a honeycomb-patterned shift that fell above her tan knees. Her fingernails and toenails were painted the thick white of whole milk. The pink band of her sandals crossed her bronzed feet. All I could think was I’ve seen you naked.
“Hello, you two!” she said.
“Oh, hello!” my mother said, too cheerfully, I thought. When I didn’t respond, she shot me a look.
“Hi, Mrs. Jones,” I said.
“Are you getting school shoes, Mary Jane? I hear this is where everyone gets the latest fall styles.” Beanie Jones picked up a pair of oxfords on display.
“Mary Jane’s at Roland Park Country; the girls there can only wear two kinds of shoes,” my mother said. I doubted Beanie Jones was interested.
The salesman double-tapped the back of my calf like I was a horse that needed prodding. I jumped. I’d forgotten he was there. “Stand,” he said.
I got up and walked in a circle.
“I remember the saddle shoes I had to wear at Rosemary Hall.” Beanie Jones looked down at my feet, smiling. Then she put a hand on my mother’s upper arm. “Oh! Did you hear?”
“Feel good?” the salesman said to me.
“Hear what?” My mother glanced between my feet and Beanie’s face.
“Yes, perfect,” I said.
“Though I don’t know why I should be shocked, considering what went on at the Cones’ this summer,” Beanie half whispered, like she was trying to keep a secret but not really.
The salesman bent down and pushed on the tip of the shoe to see how much space there was between there and my big toe. “Now the oxford.” He horse-tapped the back of my calf again. I sat while he removed the saddle shoes. I couldn’t take my eyes off Beanie Jones.
“Oh, dear. What is it?” My mother took a half step closer to Beanie.
“Bonnie packed up, took Izzy with her, and moved into one of those dinky little row houses in that Rodgers Forge neighborhood.” Beanie shook her thick blond hair as if to let dust fly off it.
“Up.” The salesman calf-tapped me again. “Walk.”
My head and my stomach felt thick and curdled as I walked a slow, close circle around Beanie Jones and my mother. Beanie Jones pooh-poohed the row house Mrs. Cone and Izzy lived in as well as the idea that Mrs. Cone would leave Dr. Cone all alone in that big house. And then she said, “I’m pretty sure there was some canoodling going on between Bonnie and Jimmy.”