The Red Shoes
by, Lynne Duddy
Maybe you’ve had that experience of single-parenting. Maybe it was only for a brief time while your partner was
away, or maybe he was sick, or you were a surrogate parent for a while for your brother or niece or cousin. Maybe
it was for a long time because you finally left that no-good son of a bitch that beat you, or your loved one got tired of living
and killed himself and there you were beset with self-pity and rage and a baby! Or maybe your partner just got tired of you
and the baby crying, crying, crying, and his co-worker lover someone-besides-you looked better, younger, more fun.
Nonetheless, there you are, responsible for this other little life that is depending on YOU - depending on you completely to
be the grown-up and do the right thing. Only you don’t have enough time, or money, or energy, or patience to be this
wonderful, loving caregiver. Of course you love the child as best you can. But you feel some guilt for being less and you
have a good margin of resentment for not having the freedom to be more. Deep in your heart, you know that this little life
came into being because of YOU -- your lust, your need for love, your desire to never be lonely again.
You’re late for work and the little darling has just urped up on you and himself and, well, everything. You have to start
over and you don’t really have time. You cry. The baby cries. Life sucks.
As a single-parent, Laura tried to live on her own, make her own way but realized that wasn’t working. On her salary, after
paying for daycare, the best she could afford was a cramped apartment in a walk-up. Every day it was up, up, up those
stairs carrying the baby, the stroller, the diaper bag – everything but the kitchen sink – the groceries, or the laundry, or
something. One day Laura was walking down, down the stairs with her baby, the bike, the laundry in a backpack on her
back. There was this stair, near the bottom. It was broken. She knew about it and had always watched out for it but that
day she forgot. Maybe she was distracted. Maybe it was those shoes she was wearing: something with heels so she could
look sexy – you know – with her baby and the laundry riding her bike. She mis-stepped and started to fall but she couldn’t
drop the baby. Oh the laundry went flying and the bike took a trip on it’s own but she didn’t drop the baby. She broke her
fall with her ankle, shredding the ligaments. She was in a non-walking cast up to her hip for weeks. It was the last straw.
She decided that she had to move, couldn’t do the stairs anymore. She responded to an ad for a housemate. It seemed like a
good option even though she had never really considered herself a person who would live in a hippie communal household.
So there they were the new commune roomies, the baby and Laura. They found themselves living way out in the country.
It was very quiet out there; too quiet. Laura had never lived in the country before. In fact, she had never lived any where
except the east side of town, entrenched in the urban rhythm of city sights and sounds. It took some time getting use to
that quiet. She had a private room with her baby; her own entrance and her own bath. She shared the house with a couple
of slobs who never washed their dishes and there were parts of the house that smelled bad. But it was a fine house, a
modern 4,000 square foot home with a veranda all around, back from the road, in solitude next to a babbling brook. The
one true redeeming feature about the whole situation was the other roommate, Jessica, a fine woman who immediately
became Laura’s best friend.
The living situation kept deteriorating; it wasn’t just the smelly parts of the house or the dirty dishes. One day, that one
fateful day, one of the slobs left his drugs lying on the coffee table and Laura’s baby, who was at that age where he put
everything in his mouth, swallowed these pills. She spent the night talking with poison control, keeping her baby awake
after Jessica and she made him vomit until there was nothing left. That was the final straw and the three of them – Jessica,
the baby, and Laura – moved out…into another communal household, McDaniel Farm.
Only this time, there’s only one other roommate. He also turned out to be a slob and never washed his dishes. Although
they are unlikely companions, they built a life together there on the farm. Laura fixed up a closet that had a window and put
her baby’s crib in there. It was real nice, so nice in fact that the slob, who unfortunately held the lease, decided to charge
her more rent because now she had two ‘rooms’ instead of just one.
Laura was furious but he was an idiot and she loved Jessica. So she stayed. She built a life at McDaniel Farm and built a
relationship of sorts with the slob and with her best friend, Jessica. There were lots of parties and music and dancing. It
was fun! They experimented with sex and saunas and the seven deadly sins. There was freedom and community even
though the dishes were not being washed the way she would have liked.
It was almost Christmas. The three of them were sitting around talking about presents that they would never receive;
things that none of them would dare ask for because they were not worthy or it was too expensive or too personal and
there was no one in their life that could provide such a gift. When it was Laura’s turn she told her housemates, late of an
evening while her baby slept upstairs in his windowed closet, that she would love to have some red shoes.
You know something reminiscent of Dorothy’s red shoes only naughtier, with high heels, something suede, soft, supple.
She gazed off into the distance day-dreaming about OZ and Dorothy. How her house fell on that witched witch and made
the witch’s legs shrivel up. But then, magically those red shoes were on Dorothy’s feet. They gave Dorothy special power
to find her way, maybe even made her somehow invincible. She saw Dorothy in her mind’s eye. Of course it was really
Judy Garland that she saw. Laura didn’t want to be Dorothy or Judy Garland but she definitely wanted those red shoes.
Doesn’t every little girl (and maybe some of the little boys) who saw that movie?
Ahhhh red shoes, the magic, the power. Laura remembered that story by Hans Christen Anderson; the one about that
ungrateful adopted girl. She’s just like Laura; they’re both ungrateful adopted girls. When Laura was little she could really
relate to that girl; she still could. The only difference between that little girl in the story and Laura was that the little girl had
some wonderful red shoes. The girl couldn’t stop thinking about them, wanting them. It was naughty and selfish and Laura
admired her plunk, her spunk, not following the conventions and doing what she was ‘supposed’ to do. Yeah, that girl didn’
t pretend to pay attention in church and love Jesus. No! She didn’t even try to take care for her sick mother. Laura had
tried and failed. No, all this girl wanted to do was wear the red shoes and dance and dance. She had power wearing those
shoes.
Laura had also seen that old movie once about red shoes. It was a story about a young woman who joined this famous
ballet company and became the lead dancer. She became the star of the show. And like the little girl in the Hans Christen
Anderson’s fairy tale, all she could think about was wearing her red shoes and dancing. Only in this movie, the young
woman’s compulsion to dance conflicted with her need for love and a normal life, and in the end she killed herself.
Laura thought about dancing herself to death in her red shoes. The idea had some appeal, however fleeting. Then she
remembered her baby sleeping upstairs and coming back to her senses; she went and checked on him.
Christmas came with a sweet anticipation, the kind Laura always held secretly in her heart for Christmas. For her,
Christmas time had a sweetness about it unmatched by other holidays. During the rest of the year everyone is so busy being
clever and cynical, her included, because she didn’t want to appear to be stupid, but somehow during the Christmas
holiday, in that swirl of peace and love and giving; Laura was always hoping for a miracle in the world, in her life, in
general. Like a little child she secretly hoped that Santa would bring just that thing she was wishing for; somehow he would
know.
So when she opened her present from her housemate, the slob, she was speechless. It was … a pair of red shoes, custom-
made for her. They were absolutely stunning, very much like Dorothy’s only softer, sexier, with higher heels. But what did
this mean? What were his intentions? She had no illusion that he and she were nothing more than … Ok, so he was her
roommate and they shared space, food, their beds from time to time. But did he want more? Laura didn’t. But this, this
seemed like more. He was watching her with keen interest, like a wolf intently watching his prey before he attacks. She
looked at him, almost as if for the first time, this specimen of humanity, this man, so needy for her intimate response to this
gesture, this gift spawned from a secret wish that had been shared.
Shoes… she hated to be so stereotypical but she did have a special relationship with shoes. Maybe the obsession all started
in childhood with that Cinderella story and progressed from there. Laura was sure that as a little girl she got the idea that if
she just had the right pair of shoes, then she could find love, true love with her own prince charming.
But in that moment, looking at those delicious, sexy shoes that were oh so red with the high, high heels; deep in her heart
she was afraid, afraid that these red shoes personified the glass slippers in some way. Maybe somewhere in the slob’s heart
of hearts he was secretly hoping that she would allow him to be her prince charming.
Realizing that this might be the case, she was appalled. Laura completely and utterly rejected that idea. Oh she thanked him,
and accepted the gift, fawning over the wonder of those shoes. But from that moment forward their relationship changed.
No longer were Laura and the slob the friends they had thought they were; no things were absolutely different. There was a
barrier.
It didn’t matter. Laura loved the shoes and she wore them dancing. It was the days of disco… think John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever. She loved the discotheques with the laser light shows in the floor throbbing to the beat of the music,
the black lights, the hypnotic rhythms. Laura would leave her baby safe in his windowed closet, sound asleep. Jessica
would be there for him. Laura would go out, alone, to the disco – maybe to Earthquake Ethel’s or The Copper Penny (right
where South Park is now). It was fun and she felt invincible wearing her red shoes. She’d dance and dance and dance. At
the end of the night, when everyone was pairing up, she didn’t feel a need to find someone to save her, or want her, or
even love her. She wasn’t looking for her prince charming, or sex, or love. She had simply come to dance.
So when it was over she would click her heels 3 times and go home, by herself, wearing those red shoes.
© Lynne Duddy 2009. All rights reserved.
by, Lynne Duddy
Maybe you’ve had that experience of single-parenting. Maybe it was only for a brief time while your partner was
away, or maybe he was sick, or you were a surrogate parent for a while for your brother or niece or cousin. Maybe
it was for a long time because you finally left that no-good son of a bitch that beat you, or your loved one got tired of living
and killed himself and there you were beset with self-pity and rage and a baby! Or maybe your partner just got tired of you
and the baby crying, crying, crying, and his co-worker lover someone-besides-you looked better, younger, more fun.
Nonetheless, there you are, responsible for this other little life that is depending on YOU - depending on you completely to
be the grown-up and do the right thing. Only you don’t have enough time, or money, or energy, or patience to be this
wonderful, loving caregiver. Of course you love the child as best you can. But you feel some guilt for being less and you
have a good margin of resentment for not having the freedom to be more. Deep in your heart, you know that this little life
came into being because of YOU -- your lust, your need for love, your desire to never be lonely again.
You’re late for work and the little darling has just urped up on you and himself and, well, everything. You have to start
over and you don’t really have time. You cry. The baby cries. Life sucks.
As a single-parent, Laura tried to live on her own, make her own way but realized that wasn’t working. On her salary, after
paying for daycare, the best she could afford was a cramped apartment in a walk-up. Every day it was up, up, up those
stairs carrying the baby, the stroller, the diaper bag – everything but the kitchen sink – the groceries, or the laundry, or
something. One day Laura was walking down, down the stairs with her baby, the bike, the laundry in a backpack on her
back. There was this stair, near the bottom. It was broken. She knew about it and had always watched out for it but that
day she forgot. Maybe she was distracted. Maybe it was those shoes she was wearing: something with heels so she could
look sexy – you know – with her baby and the laundry riding her bike. She mis-stepped and started to fall but she couldn’t
drop the baby. Oh the laundry went flying and the bike took a trip on it’s own but she didn’t drop the baby. She broke her
fall with her ankle, shredding the ligaments. She was in a non-walking cast up to her hip for weeks. It was the last straw.
She decided that she had to move, couldn’t do the stairs anymore. She responded to an ad for a housemate. It seemed like a
good option even though she had never really considered herself a person who would live in a hippie communal household.
So there they were the new commune roomies, the baby and Laura. They found themselves living way out in the country.
It was very quiet out there; too quiet. Laura had never lived in the country before. In fact, she had never lived any where
except the east side of town, entrenched in the urban rhythm of city sights and sounds. It took some time getting use to
that quiet. She had a private room with her baby; her own entrance and her own bath. She shared the house with a couple
of slobs who never washed their dishes and there were parts of the house that smelled bad. But it was a fine house, a
modern 4,000 square foot home with a veranda all around, back from the road, in solitude next to a babbling brook. The
one true redeeming feature about the whole situation was the other roommate, Jessica, a fine woman who immediately
became Laura’s best friend.
The living situation kept deteriorating; it wasn’t just the smelly parts of the house or the dirty dishes. One day, that one
fateful day, one of the slobs left his drugs lying on the coffee table and Laura’s baby, who was at that age where he put
everything in his mouth, swallowed these pills. She spent the night talking with poison control, keeping her baby awake
after Jessica and she made him vomit until there was nothing left. That was the final straw and the three of them – Jessica,
the baby, and Laura – moved out…into another communal household, McDaniel Farm.
Only this time, there’s only one other roommate. He also turned out to be a slob and never washed his dishes. Although
they are unlikely companions, they built a life together there on the farm. Laura fixed up a closet that had a window and put
her baby’s crib in there. It was real nice, so nice in fact that the slob, who unfortunately held the lease, decided to charge
her more rent because now she had two ‘rooms’ instead of just one.
Laura was furious but he was an idiot and she loved Jessica. So she stayed. She built a life at McDaniel Farm and built a
relationship of sorts with the slob and with her best friend, Jessica. There were lots of parties and music and dancing. It
was fun! They experimented with sex and saunas and the seven deadly sins. There was freedom and community even
though the dishes were not being washed the way she would have liked.
It was almost Christmas. The three of them were sitting around talking about presents that they would never receive;
things that none of them would dare ask for because they were not worthy or it was too expensive or too personal and
there was no one in their life that could provide such a gift. When it was Laura’s turn she told her housemates, late of an
evening while her baby slept upstairs in his windowed closet, that she would love to have some red shoes.
You know something reminiscent of Dorothy’s red shoes only naughtier, with high heels, something suede, soft, supple.
She gazed off into the distance day-dreaming about OZ and Dorothy. How her house fell on that witched witch and made
the witch’s legs shrivel up. But then, magically those red shoes were on Dorothy’s feet. They gave Dorothy special power
to find her way, maybe even made her somehow invincible. She saw Dorothy in her mind’s eye. Of course it was really
Judy Garland that she saw. Laura didn’t want to be Dorothy or Judy Garland but she definitely wanted those red shoes.
Doesn’t every little girl (and maybe some of the little boys) who saw that movie?
Ahhhh red shoes, the magic, the power. Laura remembered that story by Hans Christen Anderson; the one about that
ungrateful adopted girl. She’s just like Laura; they’re both ungrateful adopted girls. When Laura was little she could really
relate to that girl; she still could. The only difference between that little girl in the story and Laura was that the little girl had
some wonderful red shoes. The girl couldn’t stop thinking about them, wanting them. It was naughty and selfish and Laura
admired her plunk, her spunk, not following the conventions and doing what she was ‘supposed’ to do. Yeah, that girl didn’
t pretend to pay attention in church and love Jesus. No! She didn’t even try to take care for her sick mother. Laura had
tried and failed. No, all this girl wanted to do was wear the red shoes and dance and dance. She had power wearing those
shoes.
Laura had also seen that old movie once about red shoes. It was a story about a young woman who joined this famous
ballet company and became the lead dancer. She became the star of the show. And like the little girl in the Hans Christen
Anderson’s fairy tale, all she could think about was wearing her red shoes and dancing. Only in this movie, the young
woman’s compulsion to dance conflicted with her need for love and a normal life, and in the end she killed herself.
Laura thought about dancing herself to death in her red shoes. The idea had some appeal, however fleeting. Then she
remembered her baby sleeping upstairs and coming back to her senses; she went and checked on him.
Christmas came with a sweet anticipation, the kind Laura always held secretly in her heart for Christmas. For her,
Christmas time had a sweetness about it unmatched by other holidays. During the rest of the year everyone is so busy being
clever and cynical, her included, because she didn’t want to appear to be stupid, but somehow during the Christmas
holiday, in that swirl of peace and love and giving; Laura was always hoping for a miracle in the world, in her life, in
general. Like a little child she secretly hoped that Santa would bring just that thing she was wishing for; somehow he would
know.
So when she opened her present from her housemate, the slob, she was speechless. It was … a pair of red shoes, custom-
made for her. They were absolutely stunning, very much like Dorothy’s only softer, sexier, with higher heels. But what did
this mean? What were his intentions? She had no illusion that he and she were nothing more than … Ok, so he was her
roommate and they shared space, food, their beds from time to time. But did he want more? Laura didn’t. But this, this
seemed like more. He was watching her with keen interest, like a wolf intently watching his prey before he attacks. She
looked at him, almost as if for the first time, this specimen of humanity, this man, so needy for her intimate response to this
gesture, this gift spawned from a secret wish that had been shared.
Shoes… she hated to be so stereotypical but she did have a special relationship with shoes. Maybe the obsession all started
in childhood with that Cinderella story and progressed from there. Laura was sure that as a little girl she got the idea that if
she just had the right pair of shoes, then she could find love, true love with her own prince charming.
But in that moment, looking at those delicious, sexy shoes that were oh so red with the high, high heels; deep in her heart
she was afraid, afraid that these red shoes personified the glass slippers in some way. Maybe somewhere in the slob’s heart
of hearts he was secretly hoping that she would allow him to be her prince charming.
Realizing that this might be the case, she was appalled. Laura completely and utterly rejected that idea. Oh she thanked him,
and accepted the gift, fawning over the wonder of those shoes. But from that moment forward their relationship changed.
No longer were Laura and the slob the friends they had thought they were; no things were absolutely different. There was a
barrier.
It didn’t matter. Laura loved the shoes and she wore them dancing. It was the days of disco… think John Travolta in
Saturday Night Fever. She loved the discotheques with the laser light shows in the floor throbbing to the beat of the music,
the black lights, the hypnotic rhythms. Laura would leave her baby safe in his windowed closet, sound asleep. Jessica
would be there for him. Laura would go out, alone, to the disco – maybe to Earthquake Ethel’s or The Copper Penny (right
where South Park is now). It was fun and she felt invincible wearing her red shoes. She’d dance and dance and dance. At
the end of the night, when everyone was pairing up, she didn’t feel a need to find someone to save her, or want her, or
even love her. She wasn’t looking for her prince charming, or sex, or love. She had simply come to dance.
So when it was over she would click her heels 3 times and go home, by herself, wearing those red shoes.
© Lynne Duddy 2009. All rights reserved.
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