The Strappy Red Sandals I Bought for You

So I got those cute strappy red sandals I wrote you about, got red toenails to match them, too, bought both at this pricey salon just down the hill from where I tracked your villa the second night I got to Capri.

I am not a stalker.

I just need an answer.

I do have to say, though, I think you would fall in love with me if only you’d come here and meet me.

I cannot follow you one more time around this island.

I cannot chase you any longer, and—

--I THINK YOU KNOW WHY!

Look, I am not one to judge Italian men. I do not buy into those stereotypes, but when you walked into that bustling club and everyone stopped their dancing or their shouting over drinks and wicked loud music to turn and watch you, I knew you were more than some second-tier imitation of a Roman god—I knew you were the Authentic Thing. I called home, quit my job, to find you. All signs pointed to Capri, so here I am!

Now. Where are YOU?

Did I tell you about these new sandals I bought, just to impress you? Three tiny, delicate charms—perfect little silver fishies—jingle at my feet, hanging from the several flower-stamped red leather straps. I have very pretty feet, you know. Which is why, when I first bought these strappy red sandals, I wore them all the time while I hopped from one shop to another, asking where all your favorite haunts were whenever you come to Capri. Well, the answers sent me all over this island, but in case I might run into you, I did not have the heart to change into my Stella McCartney sneakers, even though they have lovely lemon-yellow tongues. I have Bombas to match.

Instead, I wore these Italian hand-made red huaraches so that my pretty, red-painted toenails would show because I just know if you saw them, you would be—

    UNDER

                    MY

                            SPELL!

I did not mean that last to sound scary.

Don’t be scared.

I spent that first day exploring the island, drifting in and out of shops, asking about you, and people were delighted by my red Italian sandals, the delicate silvery fish charms whisper-clinking at my ankles.

A young Swedish tourist asked, “Ooh ooh! Where did you find those?”

Well, she was so young—no more than nineteen—and so pretty I wanted to show her, to take her there, but I couldn’t find that shop and began rushing faster and faster, dragging her behind me, a ridiculous panic rising in my throat until she said—

“Never mind. It is not that important,” wrenching her hand free from mine and rubbing it, watching me closely. Her smile was hesitant, stiff and polite (maybe a little scared?) as she stepped away and turned to hurry and find her friends.

What had happened?

What had I done?

Searching for that shop, like searching for you, had become an itch too deep to scratch, a rise of panic, like trying to find my grandmother in the railway station in St. Louis. She yanked me all the way to our taxi then sent me to bed with a roar. Then she came into my room in the night to sit and hold my foot to say she was sorry, crying and smelling of whiskey (the grandmother, not the foot).

Long after she was asleep, I lay holding my foot still to keep that feeling, and the hard work of that, of clinging to that feeling, gave me a cramp and left me staring at the ceiling, a deep pit of aloneness like silvery moonlight on a twinkling fish pond now bereft of life. And it seemed by morning as if my foot had gone colder than the rest of me.

Well.

My first night! Did I tell you?

My first night I stayed in the famous Hotel Caesar Augustus, ate lobster, and went to the spa where I donned the thickest, softest robe, and a girl named Isabella did, really, the most exotic things to my tired, sore feet, that I was positively rejuvenated. I showed Isabella a picture of you, and she assured me that yes, you have a villa in Capri, and she even told me it overlooked the famous restaurant, Ziqu, which I can now tell you is out of this world. (Of course you must know that.)

She stared at my beautiful sandals on the tiles and smiled. “He’s here now!”

“Here?” I sat up fast.

“On the island.” She pushed me back down, glancing again at my beautiful shoes.

Isabella massaged my feet with sweet almond oil and praised how perfectly my toes matched my red strappy sandals, and she touched the nails up for free out of sheer admiration for my American designing acuity when it comes to matching toes to shoes. She sent me back up to my room in hotel slippers and thick hotel socks to keep the almond oil in. I slept in those luscious socks, and in the morning, it was once again a pleasure to slide my feet into the cool, dry leather huaraches. I swung my rejuvenated feet just to hear the soft jingle of those happy little fishes.

After breakfast, the man at the front desk looked at your picture and nodded, assuring me that not only do you frequent Capri, but that you were here now—right now!—in your beautiful villa overlooking the sea on one side and the busy, festive, café-strewn streets on the other. I asked for your address, and he gave me a devilish smile and said wouldn’t you, sexy beast you, be delighted to have me, but no. No, he could not do such a thing. He leaned over the desk to hand me a brochure, but when he saw the delicate, silvery fishes accenting my slender ankles—he whispered your house number to me!

I stand on this sunny corner where two winding stone streets converge on a cheery piazza ringed with cafes. Your windows above are shuttered in pale sea greens. You do not answer your door, though I knock, leave notes, and peer through your keyhole.

Something moves in there. Don’t tell me it’s just your maid.

But no, of course.

I understand.

Of course, you must be out enjoying the sea air and all the sun—my god! All the beautiful sun and turquoise skies, and a hike to treacherous Salto di Tiberio, where Tiberius threw lovers who displeased him to break on the rocks below. I stood with others as the tour guide described the brutal falls, so high that Tiberius and his servants could never hear the bodies hit the rocks and waves below, which always left him so dissatisfied he would throw a nearby servant just to try again.

The second day, I went all out, scouring the island in my pretty sundress and those perfect little red sandals, but I could not find you, and my feet were getting tired, and I began to suspect you were not here at all! I felt deceived. And why? I decided to go back and complain to Isabella, maybe give her a nasty little Yelp review, but no one had even heard of her there, and the man behind the counter was a stranger, and he did not know how to smile.

On the third day, I left that hotel. I saw that your villa windows were still sea-green shuttered, so I searched again, just one more time, I told myself, wearing these sandals one last time, sacrificing comfort for beauty yet again—for you. Well. I got gritty and sweaty from climbing the winding, steep, ancient foot paths of Capri yet again, trying to find you.

At the end of that third day, I was weepy and tired. I found a room to rent in this wizened little old lady’s house. She could see I was exhausted and hot, so when I held out a fist full of euros and said, with a choke in my voice, “I don’t know. I don’t know what this is. Is this enough?” she took it all, then dragged me through her dark little stone house to a lumpy cot behind the piano in her teensy ancient kitchen. So strange how these people live! She did pull a long curtain around me and the piano (really, a series of threadbare, mismatched sheets stitched together) so that, okay, I had some privacy. She turned, then reconsidered, and handed me back a few bills.

When she left, I stared at the crumpled bills and got tears in my eyes. This unexpected small kindness when my feet were so sore and tired and why was everyone here such a liar. I could feel that the pretty red sandals had given me blisters, and no wonder with all those hot, sunny twisting paths, forever leading up steps and down. My feet burned in the sandals, plus if I was staying, I’d need a job soon. I sobbed, just once, very quiet, for I could hear that the old woman sat behind the curtain, sipping espresso at her kitchen table.

I collapsed on the edge of the cot with its sag in the middle and its green chenille bedspread from the 1950s. I crossed one ankle over my knee to tug at the sandals. The charming red leather straps with little flowers stamped into them dug into my ankles where my foot had swollen. I started to slide my finger beneath when something brushed against my arm as a small hill of towels beside me began to slide. I caught it.

Atop the stack was a tiny painted lemon-shaped bowl with half a dozen olives and almonds.

That little lemon bowl.

It was literally like I’d just moved in with my grandma.

I felt a little better. I bit an olive and nearly chipped a tooth. My left incisor hummed with pain. I dropped the olive back into the bowl. I started to whimper—I was hot and tired, and now my tooth and my feet were screaming, and I was no closer to finding you. I leaned to pull off one red strappy sandal to soothe and cool my foot with the tattered blue towel, but the straps dug in deeper, slicing into and bulging the skin.

I tugged harder.

The sandals made a squeaky hissing sound as they slid back and forth against my sweaty soles every time I pulled and twisted.

Squeak and hiss.

Squeak and hiss.

Like little itchy voices of tiny, ancient naughty Italian fairies.

Were they in there? Inside the leather like teensy spiders, those naughty Italian fairies?

What was I doing here!

I cursed and jerked and twisted and leaned in close, performing yogic contortions heretofore unknown to me and my body.

Well, I couldn’t get them off.

I decided not to let myself panic. Not again.

No repeat of the Swedish tourist fiasco.

No doubt my feet were simply swollen from so much walking. I would strip naked and shower—yes, in the sandals—dry and cool and powder my feet, and by morning, the swelling would go down, and I’d take off the sandals. I’d go back to my Stella McCartneys. Those soft lemon-yellow tongues and their memory foam interiors, like walking on clouds. I set my softest Bomba socks on the nightstand before shutting out the Gina Lollabrigida bed lamp to await a better morning.

During the night, I tossed on the saggy cot. The moon coming in through the window and hitting my eyes all night brought up all my sins, and I woke up shuddering, moon in my face, and I wondered—

Should I be doing this?

Should I be—you know—stalking you?

I would leave in the morning.

Lying there, I pushed at one sandal with the toe of the other, and the tight flowered straps bit into me hard, and hissed, “stayyyyyyy! Restaaaaa, restaaaa!”, a cruel smile in their many zithered voices.

* * *

I wait tables now.

I work at the skinny café across the road, beneath your windows, carrying limoncellos to patrons while I glance up as I set them down, pretending to flirt with my customers, but seething, thinking they are all in this together.

Are they in it with you?

Did you do this to me?

Stay away then.

I just want to get these sandals off and leave this place in my Stella McCartneys, tossing beheaded sandals first, though, from the Salto di Tiberio to break soundlessly on the rocks below.

Did you do this to me?

But no.

No.

How could you possibly know I would purchase these particular…

…MONSTER STANDALS??

The red sandals squeak and little voices in the leather giggle-hiss, little mischievous Italian fairies, I swear!!!

(I am losing my mind.)

When—

—in desperation I try to cut them off with the old lady’s scissors but cannot without severing a newly prominent blue vein in my foot—

When—

—I dig through her rotting kitchen drawers in moonlight, the wood squeaking against swollen wood that won’t shut all the way—

When—

—I find an axe in her shed for sliding free of snappy, murdered, shredded little red leather straps, the silver charms hanging from the fringes opening and closing their fish mouths to die in a thin sea of red across the old woman’s stone floor—

When—

— I decide Okay, footless but free’s okay, right?...

…that’s when they stop biting.

I drop the axe.

Still gripping my feet, they coo and soothe in burnished leather whispers—

cool as Isabella’s fingers—

and then they tell me:

How beautiful is a Roman god-turned-man.

Eh?

Isn’t that worth staying for?

When—

—together, we kick the axe away, they squeeze me a little too hard once again.

I am not a strong woman who chops off her own foot.

I am just a spoiled, useless American girl sitting on the edge of a lumpy cot, far from home and staring at her beautiful Stella McCartneys and her lux pair of Bombas as if they were strangers.

They are like a grandmother holding her grandchild’s foot.

I don’t want you anymore.

* * *

All is well!

It’s been but two weeks now, yet I am transformed into what they have wanted from me all along. Made more of beautiful, burnished red leather than of human skin now, I match the café umbrellas like a piece of walking art. The owner is delighted. People come from all over to gaze at my visage.

The tips are fantastic!

My grateful Italian grandmother has bought a new mattress and spruced up my bedspread (a new, puffy royal blue!). She has posted a sign I cannot read outside her stony cottage door with a painting of me as a Red Madonna. I let her collect their twenty euros and show them through each night with a candle as I sleep on top of my puffy new spread—the deep royal blue to show off my scarlet new skin.

Where else am I going? I am already home.

When she locks up for the night, she sneaks in and covers me with a soft purple blanket she has crocheted herself. It is warm between its lacy holes. It the mornings I wake now to espresso and a fresh cornetto she gets from the shop next door, placed warm beside my bed.

And now that she houses Capri’s Red Madonna, she replaces my nightly olives with flourless chocolate cakes and plates of Ravioli Alla Caprese, hand-delivered by a junior chef at Ziqu, who stops by late at night while I sleep to hold the edge of one sandal, where it blends with my red leather skin, his prayerful touch so light I rarely wake up, as he prays for a miracle I cannot understand.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to hear any of their prayers, so I let them drape my new nonna in euros and silk scarves and bring us flourless chocolate cakes while I don’t learn Italian.

I no longer have need for escaping footwear as the leather of my foot and leg have melded into the leather sandal so that—

the little flowers embossed in the straps?

the sneaky little silver fishes?

Tattoos, all.

It is complete, I say to New Nonna.

It is complete, she smiles back at me and pats my foot under the blanket.

Come to Capri if you like, I don’t care. I am here beneath your window, serving limoncellos to everyone but you.

Positively transformed,

You-Know-Who

P.S. About all the glass on your kitchen floor:

I thought you were here and just not answering, when all a girl needs is a simple “no”, so I only broke in to say so. But I see now, you never were.

You have never even seen my letters, but I don’t need you to see them. I’m happy now: Nonna’s perfect Red Leather Madonna. I’ve traded in my Sephora Face Mist for Kiwi Shoe Polish.

Did I tell you? I have sisters now! We are a tribe of red-leather skinned women, forever young, forever melded to our identical strappy sandals, our skins embossed with stamped little flowers, our ankles tattooed with silver fish. We wink as we pass each other in the streets, waiting for just the right little pretty tourist to ask, “Where did you get those remarkable sandals?”

And then we take their pretty, slender little fingers and lead them to your shop where they will soon become little sisters for us to love and cherish.

And the flourless chocolate cake is outstanding.