Looking Ahead (San Vicente Avenue, Brentwood) 08.24.10

August 24, 2010 All Posts 0 Comment

They float on pink feather clouds, not newborns or purebred puppies but spangled pumps in twilight’s last gleaming, while huge pink letters shout that four-letter word…  Forget the honking freeway world behind you, princess. Reality is here, in your kingdom of holy hand-tooled Manolos, Louboutins flashing their red soles like the winking tumescent behinds of carefree bonobos; they’re all at your feet.

But something’s wrong:  There’s one lucite stand with no shoe. It creates a gaping hole in the grandeur, like Oedipus’s gouged-out eye.

Now part me of me keeps wishing the missing shoe were there, and wonders what it looks like. What woman bought those shoes? And how much did they cost? What did she look like? And why wasn’t she, me?

***

I spotted the SALE sign from across the street, walking home after my weekly appointment with Dr. A. My first impulse was to go and snap a photo, followed by a second impulse that held me back. (“It will look too obvious for you to cross the street just to take a photograph…it’s LA, people get suspicious if you have a camera…”)

I slowed and made a show of squinting into the distance, as if I had spotted someone I knew, then jaywalked through the rush hour traffic on San Vicente Avenue. When I reached the store I veered away and feigned deep interest in the menu of the diner next door.  I began hastily taking shots of the store window, expecting a suspicious salesgirl to emerge at any moment. “They will think I’m stealing their merchandising idea for another store,” I thought, “They’ll think I’m going to copy the shoe designs at a counterfeiting factory in China…”

Nothing happened. Still, I didn’t leave but waited at the curb, glaring at the oncoming traffic and then at my watch. With a frustrated shake of my head, I gave up waiting for my imaginary ride and began walking again.

Probably no one was even there, observing me. How I wish I could have phoned K as I walked home, so we could laugh about it together. Growing up, we had collaborated on many ridiculous pseudo-dramas, just like this. She would have completely understood.


You May Also Like:

TOPICS