Pink Suede Shoes

It was her pink suede shoes I remember the most during the mandatory family barbecue. It stood out in the sea of painted toenails and awkward feet marked barefooted on the hot concrete ground. Each time it stayed in one position. In the corner of Auntie Mary and Uncle Stuart. It kind of lingered between them, listening to their conversations but the ends pointed right through their middle. During the fireworks, the shoes would twitch as if its spirit was flying with the sparks in the sky. Then at 8:15 sharp, it would stand and walk right into the woods. The same woods that Cousin Eddie said the headless bride wandered. Her stained wedding dress leaves a trail of punctured mud, stabbed right through with pointy louboutins. Then as people would file out, staggered by the cheap booze, the pink shoes were nowhere to be found. This exact pattern for ten years, at least ten times I was completely sure of.  The odd thing about the whole thing was that the shoes remained the same throughout the years. The vibrant color remained true and free, the sole was only mildly soiled with traces of dirt and leaves.

There was an annual Christmas gathering in Auntie Lu’s place. She wasn’t my biological aunt but she married my Uncle Joey. Her house was a place just up the hill, in the silence you could hear the whooshing sound of the waves crashing into the sand. She had a tremendous view in her bedroom but she hardly lets anyone in there. I managed to sneak during dinner, I asked to be excused to get my present but actually just needed a smoke. As I stared out into the moonlit folds of the teasing waters, I saw a shadow engraved to a body. A person staring away at the distance, the waves grew closer and closer but the person stood like an anchor. From where I was standing, they were like a black dot in the midst of agonizing blue. Right before I turned away at the slurring of my name from behind the door, I caught a glimpse of the pink suede shoes hidden in the sand and drenched by the cries of the ocean. 

It was a silhouette of a woman, floating through the various destinations of fate. In and out with impending purpose. The long black coat seemed to hug the body in certain areas and the hair had an odd shine that only belonged to the most careless of men. As the person brushed the fray hair off her neck, seemingly assisting the wind, a certain air was assumed by the way the hand lingered in the nape of the neck. It was nurturing, shyly reminding itself what was oh so often hidden behind the envelope of the unlikely mane. Then it became a man. The moonlight bounced off parts of the scalp, stray flairs of thin hair stood out unbothered by the wind. A handful of them formed a faded brown color that stopped in a zigzag pattern on the tip of the forehead. The person was winded as they stepped out of the mysterious woods. The pink shoes were gone and I could see clearly the toes of the puzzling stranger. The odd blue that swiped the nails carelessly, it was a dot absentmindedly applied to allow a splash of color in an otherwise depressing figure. Even though, it was only when the figure bit their bottom lip that I was sure it was a woman.

As if fed up with the smokey air, vulgar lisps and mundane arguments, I left the crowd of unhappy patriots and walked towards the woman. As I got closer, I saw a fog behind her figure, like an aura. Upon seeing my arrival, she sighed deeply and walked right back to where she came. Drugged by the enticing fog, I followed. The sound of drunken cat calls, the popping of the fireworks and the occasional swiping of branches filled the air. She didn’t turn around once to see if I was following behind. The crunch of her barefoot on the branches below made me think of the pink shoes at once. She began to slow down and eventually stopped at a clearing, there was a pile of wood at the center and it burned slowly so the air smelt of burning wood. The woman took a stick that laid on the ground and started to pick at the firewood, the flames danced at the violent intrusion. The fire sparked, the sparks floating up to the sky and then disappearing into thin air. I liked to think they floated up to the sky and reformed into a sparkling star, staring down at where it once was. 

The woman cleared her throat for several minutes before speaking. “Aren’t you going to sit?” It was clearly said, the words drenched in an obvious superiority. It sounded classy. Suddenly I was intimidated.

“On the ground?” The woman had been crouching, her body hovering over the ground, taunting the pile of dirt and the struggling ant that made its necessary journey to the other side. After a period of silence, I sat in the dirt opposite the woman, the fire in between us. The fire made a reflection in the shiny green of her eyes and I stared as the sparks floated above and disappeared in the white.

“You’ve come almost every year.” She said, the elegant tone emphasized on every word. It rang clear in my ears.

“Almost.” I opened my mouth and closed it again. From the image in her eyes I looked like a gaping fish.

“I’ve seen you watching me.” 

“I-I.” I felt like a toddler caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I glanced at the burning flames.

“Everyone watches me. Like I’m their own personal entertainment.” She spit into the fire in disgust.

“You cut your hair.” The words were on a mission to prove how loyal I was to her life. I wanted her to know how different I was than the others.

“Life is short.” Her tongue swiped at the sentence. She then stood up, as if fed up with the never ending flames, her foot glided through the dirt like a wooden necessity. 

“You were at the beach.” I blurted before she could leave. Instead, she arched out her knee with a certain flair and leaned her head towards me.

“It was a family gathering.” She replied. “And I am.”

“It’s just- I don’t know you.” Slowly, she pranced into the woods, disappearing in the dark bushes. I stared until the leaves stopped shaking, watching the blackness for a figure, pleading with my eyes to see what I knew was gone. I placed the palm of my hands on the sandy ground beneath me and propped myself up with bent elbows. I didn’t hear the quiet dance of her footsteps walking to my side.

When I looked up, her eyes had turned from a lively green to a tired grey, mimicking the ashes that now taunted the air. And in her arms lay a cardboard box, closed ajar. She placed the disfigured box in my arms and then she was gone. There was a cold breeze as she crossed my side. The pop pop of the fireworks started again. It flew up to the sky and exploded like rain, a play of beautiful chaos painted in the sky. I caressed the lid before I opened it. Tucked neatly inside was a pair of pink suede shoes. Perfectly my size. I hovered over the clean soles and inhaled the rich smell of leather. They were new. On the inside of the box, beside the shoes, were three words written in black ink. I felt the words with my fingers before I read it slowly. With the celebration above as light, spelled out in capitalized letters were the words: TO MY DAUGHTER.