For The Sound Of New Shoes

 

 

by Milla Van Der Have

 

 

His life has been by the book. Married his high school sweetheart. Bought her a house and then a bigger, better one. Together they have raised two wonderful kids, give or take a temper tantrum or two. He has kept to the same company for over 40 years now, more than his father or his grandfather ever managed to do. In fact, he is doing better than the two of them put together and the chances of his son ever surpassing him grow slimmer with each college Mike drops out off. He has done everything right. It just doesn’t feel like it. Today is his daughter’s wedding and he wakes up with a headache that has nothing to do with last night’s wine, even if it was a little cheap.

 

He dresses in his study. The reason he gives Maureen is he wants to be alone, without all the fuss. Have a moment of quiet contemplation. In truth, it’s all about the shoes. He can’t even wait until he’s fully dressed. In shirt and briefs only, he reaches for the box, rips off the paper. Leaning against the heavy mahogany table, a heirloom from his mother’s side, he puts them on. They’re shiny, new and black. But the best part is hearing them. First, the sole on the wooden floor: tap. Then, soft voiced leather: krrr.  Not too soft. Not too loud. Just perfect. Tap. Krrr. He remembers  his own wedding day. And new shoes.  Tap. The joy of it. Krrr. He has got to wear new shoes for every memorable occasion in his life. The long walk down the aisle. The forbidding stone steps of school. Climbing the lectern at his father’s funeral. Tap. He walks around slowly, calculated.  There’s a hypnotic quality to it. Changing him. Into, well, a hero. Krrr. Gary Cooper, maybe. Tap. Yes. Gary Cooper. The strong, silent type. Krrr. The in control type.

 

For breakfast, it’s just him and Mike. Juliana is off to the hairdresser, Maureen is handling yet another emergency, pretending to be annoyed by all that needs to be done but secretly enjoying the thrill of it. Weddings are a women’s business. At least that much hasn’t changed.

 

He pours himself a coffee. Even if he is the only in the family who drinks it – the others prefer tea – Maureen always makes sure it’s there for him.

 

‘So, late night?’ he asks Mike. After yesterday’s family diner, there was a party Mike just couldn’t miss. Even if his sister was getting married the next day. Mike shrugs.

 

‘Meet any girls?’

‘I guess.’

‘Well, either you did or you didn’t, son. So?’

‘Dad!’

Quickly, to avoid further questioning, Mike stuffs his face with toast, so he has to wait before he can broach a more important subject. ‘When are you going back to school?’

‘I’m not.’  Mike looks up, daring him. They have done this before. The staring, the yelling, the unveiled threats. Just a repetition of moves. He knows better than to go there again.

 

‘You’re gonna get a job?’ He tries to sound casual, ads a question mark just in time.

 

‘Nope. We’re gonna travel. Me and Chan.’

 

‘Chan? His parents let him?’ An Asian boy, pre-med. Expectations couldn’t be higher. ‘No tiger mom for Chan, right?’ he jokes.

 

‘His parents don’t know.’

 

‘Oh. I see.’ He butters his toast, making sure he covers the whole surface. ‘And where are you planning on going?’

 

‘That’s the beauty of it,’ says Mike, lighting up with rare fire. ‘It doesn’t really matter. We’re thinking of heading to New York and then Chicago, but nothing’s sure. Though we’re both thinking of following On the Road. For a while, at least. We’ll make it up as we go along.’

He looks at his son gesturing the details of his dream over their kitchen table. He’s got this Sal Mineo thing going on. Well, on a good day. The lips. That Italian streak. Juliana has it too.

Nobody knows where it comes from.

 

Mike drives them downtown. Him, Maureen and the rest of the stuff Juliana couldn’t fit in her car. There’s Maureen’s dress as well, because she refuses to dress up before she has her daughter good and ready to go. That’s Maureen alright. Always someone else’s interest at heart. He smiles, reaching back   for his wife’s hand. It’s cold, jittery. Scenes of modern-day Manchester flash by. He has never really liked this place.

 

When they get to the hotel, Maureen’s parents are already there, checking in. They’re small town folk and even the hotel lobby is visibly overwhelming to them. He takes them in arm, dad to the left, mom to the right, both shaky and brittle. They’re glad to have him guide them. Funny. The older they get, the more they forget about how they thought he was too much of a dreamer, not fit for Maureen at all. He hands his in-laws over to Larry, who is already sporting two big wet blots under his armpits.

 

Of course, he doesn’t approve of Larry. Most likely, he wouldn’t have approved of any boy, but Larry here is pushing the limits. Look at him, oafishly wielding chairs, to get Maureen’s parents to the best seats. All around him, seats topple. If no one stops him, soon it’ll be three people standing amidst wedding wreckage. That’s Larry for you. A boy all grown up, eager to please, in a big dunce’s body. All in all, he is just another stray Julianna has brought home. But where big-eyed helplessness is cute in rabbits and kittens and the like, in a grown man it’s annoying. To say the least. Maureen doesn’t see it that way. ‘He’s so in love,’ she croons, whenever Larry’s there. ‘It’s so adorable. Remember, George, when we were like that?’

 

When he gets back, his own mother is there, doting over Mike. ‘Aren’t you a handsome young man,’ she says. Somehow, seeing Mike makes his mother lose all that New England chic she normally is so keen on.  She comes close of actually manhandling Mike, ruffling his hair, pinching his cheek, admiring every last inch of him. Then, finally, she turns to him. ‘Ah, George-darling, there you are.’ She air-kisses him and he wonders about her firmness, her vitality. He doesn’t like to dwell on it, but his dad’s passing away seems to have breathed new life into her. ‘Mike, why don’t you show your grandmother to the wedding room,’ he says, suppressing a sigh.

 

He wanders, somehow finding himself near the kitchen. From what he can hear, they’re busy with the cake and champagne for later on. There’s a grudging respect. Their position may not be as respectable as his, having finally made account manager a few years ago, but at least they do something. They go to work and when they go home, things have been made. He, on the other hand, is a paper pusher. The same thing lands on his desk again and again, waiting for his signature or a sudden insight.

 

Suddenly, Maureen’s beside him. She’s wearing a simple blue dress, but to perfection.

 

‘Typical,’ she says.

‘What is?’

 

‘You, hiding away from all the business. You did the same thing at our own wedding.’

 

‘I did?’

 

She smiles. ‘The way I heard it, they finally found you at Maintenance, chatting away your time with a shoe cleaner.’

 

‘Really? I don’t remember.’

 

She takes his hand, caressing it. In the kitchen, someone’s yelling and immediately, people snap to attention. ‘She asks for you.’

 

On his way up he runs into Mike, chatting up one of the bridesmaids. ‘Well, that’s the beauty of it, Lilah,’ his son says, leaning a little too close. His face is flushed. ‘It doesn’t really matter. We go where the wind takes us.’  Something about this bothers him. Sure, in her low-cut dress voluptuous Lilah is the catch of the day. But Mike can do better. He should catch a lifetime.  Under his scrutinizing look, Lilah shrivels. ‘I better get ready.’ She dives under Mikes arm and makes for the stairs.

 

‘Mike, a word?’ He says it suddenly, as Mike starts to leave as well.

 

‘What, dad?’ Obviously, he’d rather trailed the bridesmaid.

‘Look, about your trip.’

 

‘You wanna talk about that now? There’s a wedding…’

‘I know, I know. I… Just promise me you’ll think about going back to college.’

 

‘Dad!’

 

‘Don’t Dad me. Think about it. It’s your education, Mike. That’s something. You could be something. Not like me. Different. Your own man. You know?’

 

From somewhere a girl coos up for Mike to come down. ‘Dad, I am my own man,’ Mike grins. ‘Don’t worry!’ Watching his son stride off, confident, charming, he knows exactly what it is that bothers him.

 

This is his gift, the room. No way they can afford a bridal suite on just Larry’s salary. He’s a bus driver. That’s another thing. But even though he’s the one paying for all of this, down to the champagne breakfast they’ll be getting next morning, he feels out of place. The courtesy mints on the pillows, the offhand roses everywhere, it’s just too familiar.

 

He crosses the room to open a window. Maybe it’s just a lack of fresh air. He fumbles with the lever,  the whole thing seems stuck and that’s when she’s there. His daughter, the bride. She’s facing up to a standing mirror, turning this way and that, lost somehow.

 

‘Are you alright, baby?’  He walks up and wraps his arm around her, just like he used to.

 

Together, they stare. She at whatever it is that is looming up at her from the glass; he at her shoulder length curls, with that deepest of black he just can’t account for.

 

‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ He reaches into his pocket, producing a small satchel. ‘It’s your mother’s. She wore it when we… It’s something old and borrowed.’ His fingers turn sweaty, incompetent, as he tries to fasten the necklace on Julianna. Finally, the two halves clasp. ‘Here Now you’re perfect.’

 

‘Dad?’ she says. She reaches for his hand, fidgeting with his ring.  Just like she used to do when she was only a little girl and he wants to tell her it’s OK. That no one needs to repeat another’s mistakes. That that’s the point of making them, so someone else won’t have to. That the money, the people, the looks, it all doesn’t matter in the end. Not very much anyway. But he can’t. Because he knows in the end someone will pay.

 

There was this uncle. Clive. His mother told him a few weeks before his own wedding. He remembers, he had just bought the shoes and walked on them whenever, wherever. Clive ran out of his wedding. Turned gay, he did. Ended up in California owning a bar. Brought shame and ruin to the family. Well, to his mother’s side of it anyway. That’s why to this day Aunt Courtney, or rather would-be Aunt Courtney, still gets invited to family birthdays and they stare at each other for a couple of uncomfortably long hours. Someone will pay.

 

‘Dad?’ Julianna says again. She’s got that look on her face. ‘It’s time.’

 

This is his moment. This is what he came to do. To walk down the aisle, in a respectful silence, so that all he hears, all anyone can hear, is the soothing sound of his shoes. Tap. He looks ahead.  At Larry. Helpless, hopeless Larry. Krrr. Expectant Larry, hollow eyes aglow. Next to him, Mike, for want of a better best man. Tap. He’s always smiling, Mike, like he’s into a joke and you’re not. To the side, parents, friends, family, the whole world, looking up at him. Krrr. He walks slowly, deliberately, reveling in every step, each with its own spell. And, just like before, on his own wedding, he wishes he could go on walking forever, to let it be awkward.

 

 

Milla van der Have (1975) wrote her first poem at 16, during a physics class. She has been writing poetry and fiction ever since. Since 2008 she writes in English, because she feels English enables her to create the fiction and poetry she has in mind. Milla lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands.