The Grand Finale: Welcome to Weston

To read Part One: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Two: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Three: Welcome to Weston click here.

Before a relationship ends, there's a moment when the reality that it needs to, in fact, end becomes clear, when you just say, "All right, I've had enough of this." My moment happened at Offerdahl's bagel shop, seated across from Esther, and Esther's other best friend, "Rosie."

Just as Esther isn't really Esther's name, Rosie isn't a real name either. I picked it because this woman kind of reminds me of Rosie O'Donnell. And I don't mean that necessarily in bad way; a lot of people love Rosie O'Donnell. I don't mind her; I like, though, that she lives inside of my TV set, and when I've had enough of her, I can just click her goodbye. This was not the case with the Weston, Rosie, unfortunately: she's the kind of person, who, if you were trying to quietly read a book in a doctor's waiting room and she was sitting across from you, gabbing on her cell phone, you suddenly couldn't concentrate on the words...even if she was just calling her husband to ask him if he needed anything from the grocery store.

Because she wouldn't just say, "Do we need milk?" She'd say, "We need to make room in the backyard for a COW, honey, with all the milk our kids drink. Or maybe I just need to have another baby so I can lactate and NURSE everyone instead."

In recent weeks, I'd spent a little time alone with Rosie--during which she had vented quite a bit about Esther. At first it was a relief to hear someone say some of the things I'd silently observed myself: that Esther could be a snob, and cold, and secretive. That her story always shifted its shape depending on who she was talking to. But having been schooled on how to be a good girlfriend in St. Louis, the friendship capital of my world at that point in my life, I never agreed with Rosie when she bashed Esther. I just smiled politely and changed the subject.

It was especially uncomfortable for me to hear her venting because Esther had plenty of unpleasant things to say about Rosie, too (all things that anyone would say about Rosie--it took true restraint not to observe that she ate with her mouth open and talked about her husband's salary too often and too loudly). But I also remained silent when Esther vented, though more out of loyalty to Esther than to Rosie. Because aside from me, Rosie was Esther's only friend. It seemed disloyal to her to speak destructively about Rosie, if that makes any sense at all.

So, anyway, we were an awkard trio. And there we were, that fateful afternoon while our kids were cutting paper Stars of David at school and our babies were sleeping in strollers parked alongside each other, lining our table at Offerdahl's.

Esther and Rosie were playing a game with me that was a little bit like non-sexual footsie, where they'd make veiled comments about each other to me and give me a look that was kind of like nudging me under the table. It was so subtle you had to be a woman very much in touch with middle school girl meanness to pick up on it; it bobbed just below the surface during the ebb and flow of the most banal stay-at-home-mom chitchat.

Esther said something about not liking the preschool our kids went to, and Rosie said, subtlely, "I know you worry your kids aren't challenged enough at the school, but..." and gave a knowing smile to me. See, I told you she was a snob, that smile read. A few minutes later, Rosie complained, innocently enough, about being tired, and Esther said, "You really shouldn't go out and party all night and get drunk. I worry about your diabetes." See, I told you she's a trainwreck, Esther's smug little look said to me.

I sighed, searching for something innocuous to say, regretting right then and there that I'd agreed to come to this lunch in the first place. And regretting, quite frankly, that I'd allowed myself to become so intimately involved in this strange, suffocating circle. Not wanting to step into a landmine, I simply mentioned that it was very cold in Offerdahl's today, and that they should lower the air-conditioning.

That was when I saw it: a look, between Esther and Rosie. "Are you cold?" Esther asked her trainwreck friend.

"Not at all. Are you?" Rosie said to the woman she'd described to me as a cold, weird snob.

Esther raised her eyebrow at Rosie and then pursed her lips at me. "Maybe you're so cold because you're not eating enough."

"Yeah," shot back Rosie, "you're always on a diet."

Now, to be fair, I was probably on my 30th diet of 2006 by then, as it was mid-October, and I'll never deny that I know by heart the caloric content of just about any food regularly consumed in the United States. Having my dieting neurosis pointed out to me wasn't what bothered me. It was that look, between the two of them. They're talking about me with each other as much as they talk about each other too me, I finally figured out. That I am a slave the scale and the elliptical and am no fun when they want to eat brownies. Got it.

That was my aha! moment. Did I really want to be friends with people who were going to scrutinize everything I said for evidence of my flaws? Not that I didn't have plenty of them...but, as I learned from the Missouri mamas, to a true friend flaws are something you don't gossip about. You try to help your girlfriend out, or, if it's not dangerous, you learn to overlook the flaw, or even find it endearing.

Yeah, I'd had enough. Being alone was definitely a better option than bagels with two women I actually didn't like at all. And who apparently didn't like me.

Fortunately, I didn't remain alone much longer on that. But to read about my first real friends in Weston, you'll have to wait for the Epilogue...(to be continued)

Part Three: Welcome to Weston

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere With Me.

To read Part One: Welcome to Weston click here.

To read Part Two: Welcome to Weston click here.


I’m no spring chicken when it comes to friendships. True, Esther had been the first one in since my middle school drama whom I'd had to break up with—delete her contact information from my Blackberry, not invite her kids to my kids’ birthday parties, forget her Starbucks “usual,” go out of my way not to be stuck in an elevator with her, etc.

But during those years BE (before Esther) there were plenty of friends who I drifted apart from. Usually it was just a matter of changing circumstances. We went to different colleges, changed our majors, went to different graduate schools. I moved, a lot, and so did they. Some of them were married and pregnant before I was even engaged; some of them were breaking off engagements when I was having kids. Every now and then the drift would be due to something more personal—I’d be seized by a moment of, “Who needs this kind of emotional complication? Life is too short to deal with HER crap!” But even that would just be a phase—it would just mean I’d call the emotionally complicated friend less often, until I missed her and realized the occasional histrionic phone conversation was a small price to pay to have someone special and genuine and passionate around.

So yes, I’d been around the block when it came to girlfriends. But Esther truly was the first one since my Clearisil-and-training-bra days who got the real heave-ho...the don’t-let-the-door-hit-your-Gap-drawstring-pants-covered-ass-on-the-way-out.

***
Back to the days when I did know Esther’s usual Starbucks order, and she knew mine: it had been so nice to find a kindred spirit so soon after moving to Weston, especially after meeting a bunch of Stepford wife types who seemed offended by the word “puke.” Not only did we have so many resume-type-things in common, but she also seemed to just get me. And that was what had sealed the deal.

(I was a married woman with two small children, not a lovestruck teenager passing poetry to the James Dean-like slacker in my English class. You wouldn’t think I needed to be “got.” Well, I guess I did need that.)

She understood, for example, that I as happy as I was to chat about the latest stroller gizmo or the joys of potty-training a toddler while moving him across country, I was also a nerdy bookworm type who enjoyed movies with English subtitles and subscribed to The New Yorker.

Wouldn’t you know it? Esther subscribed to The New Yorker, too. And she was proudly at least as nerdy as me, if not nerdier. Would the similarities between us never cease?

***

One night, after sneaking out of a Mom’s Club happy hour and fleeing to our favorite Starbucks, she reached across the table, warmly squeezed my hand, and said, “There’s no one else like us in Weston, you know?”

I laughed a little nervously. “No one? What do you mean by that?”

She pushed her thick glasses up her small nose. “Everyone in Weston is stupid.”

Ah yes, this was the snarkier side of Esther that seemed to be coming out more often now that we were spending nearly every non-diaper-changing moment (plus some of those) together.

“When we moved here,” I told her, “we looked up the demographics. Weston has a very educated population. Lots of college graduates, great schools, a lot of professionals live here.”

“Have you been to the book store yet?” Esther asked me.

“What book store?”

“Exactly.”

***

Then Esther locked her crafty little cage around me by informing me that not only were Westonites dumb, but the women who belonged to the synagogue we were in the process of joining—the synagogue that housed the preschool my then-three-year-old son, Jacob, was about to start attending—were especially dumb. Dumb as dirt. Plus rude. Snobby. Illiterate. Oh, and shallow.

“You see them in workout gear every morning,” Esther hissed, letting go of my hand and taking another long slurp of her coffee. “It’s like that’s their job. To look good. They all have had major work done.”

I frowned at this. I actually worked out almost every day myself—not because I thought it was my job to look good (ha ha ha)—but because I had just three more pounds to get to my pre-baby weight and because I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of working up a sweat.

Esther laughed that off. “Trust me, they don’t work up a sweat. They just dress like that to look cute in their little shorts and belly shirts. You will have nothing in common with them.”

Not in any shape to be wearing little shorts and belly shirts myself—“pre-baby weight” for me was, oh, a bit sturdier than 95 pounds—I had to explain to her that much sweating had to be involved for these synagogue moms to wear clothes that skimpy.

A comment that only served to irritate Esther. “You’re missing the point,” she snapped.

Then began her tirade: “You go in there every morning and you see them, just yapping away, kissing up to all the preschool teachers. I don’t even know why they put their kids in school when they stay there all day. You know who the smart moms are? The ones who drop their kids off. They actually have a life, and somewhere to go. Trust me, you don’t want to be one of the moms who walks her kid in every day. You read, you exercise, you go places.”

As much as I didn’t want Esther to be right—I wanted to make new friends, and I wanted them to be smart and down to earth and not the vapid trophy wives she was describing—I couldn’t help but follow her logic. (And, her assessment of me as having important things to do, considering I was a little uncomfortable with my stay-at-home status, was flattering.)

I nodded, slowly: Dumb moms went into the school and gossiped with the teachers all morning because they had nothing else to do. Smart moms blew a kiss from the carpool lane and didn’t come back till three. Don’t walk your kid into school—don’t meet the other mothers who care enough to chat with the teachers and find out how their kid is adjusting to life in preschool.

Yep, that made sense.

And that, incidentally, is how Esther brilliantly—and I do mean brilliantly—managed to make herself my only close friend in Weston for the next few months.

Poor Jacob. Luckily he’s always been a mellow, easygoing child, and I at least had the sense to call his teacher regularly and occasionally brave the workout-clothing-clad throng of mommies with their Gucci and Tory Burch tote bags—who, fitting in with Esther’s description of them, did seem quite chatty and chummy and not very much like The New Yorker readers—to drop in on his classroom.

But it wasn’t until I met some of these “trophy wives” and found quite a few doctors, lawyers, Ivy League graduates and just all-around nice, friendly people among the Spandex that I realized how tainted my first impression of them had been.

By then, though, I’d been drifting apart from Esther for other reasons. She was my first emotionally complicated friend who was not worth all of the crap she put me through.

Or all the lies.

More on that in a bit...

Part Two: Welcome to Weston

Desperate.

(To read Part 1 of this story, click here.)

I was nervous about moving from St. Louis--nervous about saying goodbye to a city where we'd found a lot of love and hello to a small town where we knew no one. True, we'd kind of gone through this before before when we moved from Maryland to Missouri for Barry's fellowship. But while it had been tough, at first, living so far away from either of our families (mine was in Philly; Barry's was in Florida) we made so many friends that when Rebecca, at age 5 weeks, developed a scary case of RSV, I had to turn down offers to babysit Jacob while we were in the hospital because there were just only so many playdates he could go to during our three-day ordeal at Cardinal-Glennon Children's Hospital.

The thing about me, when I'm feeling nervous, is I start to get desperate. I can't just sit around and ride it out and see what happens--I have to take action. And indeed I tried to solve the not-knowing-a-soul-in-Weston problem before we'd even arrived there.

Surfing the Web in the lobby of a Sleep Inn somewhere near the Kentucky-Tennessee border during our one-way ride across country, I Googled "playgroup organizations in South Florida," found the"The Mom's Club," located one of the Weston branches, and within minutes, applied to be a member. The club leader emailed me back a roster of eight other women who all lived within a few miles of our new, not-yet-arrived-at, home. Yay! I instantly had eight new mommy friends! I'd actually be getting some sleep in the Sleep Inn that night.

A few days later, I went to my first Mom's Club meeting, disoriented toddler and teething baby in tow, with the skin on my finger tips raw from stripping all that packing tape off the moving boxes.

It was, I remember, in a beautiful home in the Tequesta development, hosted by a sweet, blonde woman (dyed, for certain, but meticulously: not a single dark root) with twinkly blue eyes and an adorable baby boy a month or two younger than Rebecca. She was wearing an ironed Oxford-style button down shirt and wrinkle-free linen pants and the kind of birthstone jewelry they sell at Macy's which I think is pretty, but would never wear myself. She, and the four or five other moms in the room, were all as pleasant as can be, but chatting with them was kind of like chatting with someone sitting next to you on the airplane. We just didn't click. No chemistry.

This wasn't their fault. It probably was me. I have a kind of self-effacing sense of humor that they seemed to take literally (and why shouldn't they? They'd just met me). One of the mothers was concerned that her little girl was spitting up too much and I laughed and said, "My kids have such sensitive stomachs that they probably puke up half a gallon a day." I was not, perhaps, making the most ladylike first impression, but the moms' concern to this was to look alarmed--like, call the Child Protective Services alarmed--and ask me whether I'd taken her to see a specialist about that. When you have to explain to someone, "No, see, I was just exaggerating. You know, for rhetorical effect," you know you're not on the same wavelength.

That was around the time that Esther trudged through the door, a baby in full boutique gear balanced on one arm in an infant carrier, a tantruming two-year-old boy being dragged by the other. She had on glasses, non-blowed-out hair, and the exact same Gap tie-front cargo pants I was wearing. She gestured to them and said, "These are great while you're still losing the baby weight, aren't they?"

Which wouldn't seem to be the kind of comment that would make one's heart go pitter-pat, but please keep in mind (a) I had said the same exact thing about those pants to my husband, when he asked me why I wore them almost every day, and (b) did I mention how desperate I was to make new friends? I was certain that this woman was about to become my new BFF.

A few other things scoring in Esther's favor:

• Like me, she was married to a doctor who she'd dated all through medical school, so she'd been through the whole-moving-across-the country, pagers-waking-you-all-night-long type thing
  
• Like me, part of being married to a doctor in training had required her to spend a few years in St. Louis, which she claimed* she also had loved


• She'd gone to Penn for graduate school (when she mentioned this I was convinced that she was my long-lost twin)


• Like me, she dressed her daughters to the nines but herself in schlumpy post-maternity gear (so indeed we almost looked like long-lost twins. Almost.)

It wasn't long after that that we were playing hookey at Starbucks during Mom's Club meetings--or, if we did attend them, smirking to each other about the other moms, who we decided were just kind of, I don't know...blah. Or as Esther put it, had no pulse. I do remember when she said that--and a few other comments that were harsher than that--thinking to myself, "Hmm. Not sure if they deserve quite that level of snarkiness. I mean, they are nice women who've allowed us to change diapers, nurse our children and spill coffee and formula in their homes."

But the little voice inside me that said, "You know, this Esther chick seems to be kind of bitch. I know you like hanging out with her and all, but are you sure she's BFF material?" was swiftly silenced by the louder voice inside me that said, "A friend! I won't be lonely in Weston! I have a friend!" This voice continued to prevail when bitchiness turned out to be one of Esther's more redeeming qualities. Compared to compulsive lying, manipulation and overall mind-f#%$!)ing.

I mentioned that I was desperate, right?

To be continued...

*Esther's claims would later turn out to not always be true. Or should we say "never true." Actually, "never true" might be more accurate.

Part One: Welcome to Weston

It Also Rhymes with "Fester"

I’m not going to type her real name. I have the feeling she’s the kind of person who Googles herself regularly, and I wouldn’t want her to happen upon this blog. So I’m just going to call her “Esther.”

If you’re curious why I chose that name, it’s not because “Esther” rhymes with her real name, which I promised you, is not Hester. (Aside from Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, do you know of any Hesters??) It’s because my grandmother had a girlfriend who really was named Esther—an elderly lady with stooped shoulders and a closely clipped short white haircut—who reminds me so much of this ex-friend of mine that at times I wondered how, after all of those years of hiding in my grandmother’s bathroom whenever Esther dropped by to share a needlepoint pattern or chat about what idiots teenagers were, I ended up her captive, anyway.

The real Esther was sour about everything: exasperated by the irregular delivery of her newspaper and the slow service at the diner; by her failing vision and aching shoulders; by her husband, who she declared was an idiot, and her children, who she felt were failures.

Of course older people often have good reason to be sour, as much of the sweetness in their lives has been replaced by arthritis and other ailments. So maybe we can cut the real Esther a little slack. The fake Esther was 35 when I met her.

But premature grumpiness wasn’t actually the reason I “broke up” with Esther—something I hadn’t done with a girlfriend since I was in middle school and found out my supposed best friend at the time had the audacity to return the carefully selected bracelet I’d given her for her birthday (hmm, maybe I’m still a little bitter.)

I broke up with her when I discovered she was practicing some kind of game of psychological capture-the-flag on me, and who needs that, right?

***

This really is a story about the nomadic way I spent my late twenties and early thirties, as the wife of an allergist-in-training. Both Penn students, Barry and I had met in my hometown, Philadelphia, and like most women from Philly, I had the kind of East Coast edge you develop when people typically yell out during a traffic jam, “Hey jerkoff, get outa da left lane!” That's not to say I wasn't nice--I think I've always been nice. But if a stranger came up to me on the street and smiled, I wouldn't smile back. I'd think to myself, but not say aloud, "What are you smiling about?"

Later when I moved to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore for Barry’s residency, that edge came in handy (high populations of angry drivers and strangers you really shouldn't be smiling at in a narrow alley in both places). Certainly I had good friends in all three of the East Coast cities where I lived. But the friendships developed slowly and I was always a little bit wary about getting too close to anyone. (You never know when someone you really care about is going to return a friendship bracelet and exchange it for a pair of shorts, after all.)

So when we moved to St. Louis for the allergy fellowship, I was completely disarmed by how nice everyone was. St. Louisians weren’t just generous in traffic, they were generous with their friendships--with their willingness to welcome someone new into their homes and their kids’ birthday parties and their giggly girls’ nights outs while their husbands were home babysitting the kids.

Two weeks into our two-year stint in this pretty Midwestern city, and I was involved a playgroup with Jacob (then a one year-old), happily pushing my stroller alongside my new girlfriends’ Gracos as we went to the zoo and the park and the mall together. It was that kind of instant girl bonding that you might experience in overnight camp, only instead of sharing Sea Breeze and Benetton Colors, you were always lending out your wipes and your Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Sure, there were exceptions to the rule. But two years isn’t a long enough time, in a place where everyone is so pleasant, to discover those exceptions.

**

St. Louis made me soft; I’d happily surrendered my edge by the time we moved back East, this time to South Florida, where Barry had joined a practice, and fell into a kind of friendship withdrawal as soon as we traded shady oaks for palm trees. So in other words I was perfect prey for someone like Esther, who needed someone guileless and homesick—or St. Louis-sick, in my case—to fall for her creepy variety of companionship.

But more on that later…(to be continued; see Part Two)

Eh, I think I'll pass

It's always been a tradition of mine to hit the mall right around New Year's Eve and treat myself to something fabulous, frivolous and deeply discounted. (A tradition of mine, a tradition of yours, a tradition of almost every human being on the planet judging by the mall parking lots most years.)

The combination of gift cards to burn, a store credit or two from an exchange/return and those infamous after-Christmas sales has always been the perfect formula for a decadently guilt-free shopping spree. In years past I've gotten 100% cashmere sweaters at 60% off; a Coach tote for the price of a Nine West; "premium" brand denim for only a little more than I'd generally spend at the Gap.

This year, with a $100 Macy's credit and newspaper coupons for good measure, I couldn't wait to indulge in a new purse, an awesome little dress to wear for New Year's Eve, or maybe some shoes and a watch.

But after spending about an hour in a department store where in years past I've scored some fantastically low-priced loot, I just wanted to go home and take a nap.

And it wasn't for lack of loot. It was kind of like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet...right after you've just eaten a big meal. Nothing looked appealing, for some odd reason. I didn't long for a single object I saw; and whatever did catch my fancy (a cute Coach watch with a pink leather wriststrap) was overpriced.

I don't think I was alone in my anti-shopping sentiments. I eased into a prime parking spot within a stone's throw of the entrance, since the mall was shockingly uncrowded; it certainly wasn't the post-Christmas chaos of years past. It's the end of 2008 and we're all dealing with a chaos of a much deeper sort. The economy sucks; people are losing their jobs left and right. I almost felt un-American to be binging on baubles.

But, I reasoned, somebody's got to get money back into circulation--and I wouldn't be seeing discounts this deep again (Or would I?) So, even though I wasn't especially enthusiastic about it, I bought myself an INC dress...but then ultimately decided it was overpriced, and exchanged it for some DKNY tops, 60% off. And after hanging on to them for about ten minutes, I thought there really wasn't anything special about the DKNY tops, either, and exchanged them for a large Dooney & Burke patent leather gray tote, which was a steal at $139. Now that's what I'm talking about! I left the mall convinced that this purchase ranked right up there with that cashmere sweater from a few years ago that had cost very little cash.

That was before buyer's remorse, coupled with label-whore shame, set in. Once I had it home with me, I wasn't so thrilled with the Dooney & Burke, despite the low price-tag; hell, it could have been free and it wouldn't have been worth it, once I reconsidered it in the harsher light of my closet. It's too big and boxy for my frame, for one thing; for another, I just don't need it. I already have plenty of nice purses, and the gray color was too pale to accessorize with blacks or browns but too dull to go with pastels.

Thankfully I can return it; I'll probably exchange this year's sorry splurge for underwear or luggage. It won't be a happy return, though; going back to the mall isn't something I'm looking forward to. I guess I need to be surrounded by other shoppers eager to lighten their wallets to truly enjoy a sale.

Being practically alone in a deeply discounted store might sound like a shopaholic's fantasy, but until you're actually walking around in half-off Cole Haans, you don't know how you'll feel about it.

Who knew discounts could be such a downer?

The Best Movie I Didn't See

Four tickets to see "Bolt"on Christmas Day: $41 and change (those cheesy 3D glasses apparently give Muvico leverage to ratchet up the price.)

Spending the next hour and a half at first comforting my three year-old, who found the blasting noises and sudden darkness of the theater petrifying, and then playing with her in a deserted shopping mall plaza until Barry and Jacob emerged from the movie an hour and a half later: well, I'd say "priceless" if this were a Mastercard commercial. But I am pretty sure we paid by Visa.

I really did enjoy my evening not at the movies with Rebecca, though. Even the part when she clung to me, whimpering, "I'm scary, Mommy!" (Maybe even especially that part.)

While I shush-shushed in her ear and petted her silky, tangled curls, I realized just how rare it s, these days, that I get to comfort her like that. Sure, when she was a baby, shush-shushing, rocking, patting her back and telling her everything was okay was part of our daily repetoire. (Infancy can indeed me a scary experience; you never know when suddenly your diaper will become wet, or a painful bubble will form in your tiny tummy.)

She's a pretty tough toddler, though,; when she falls and hurts her knee, she will tell me, "Ow! Mommy, I hurt myself!" But when I offer to kiss it and make it better, she usually says, cheerfully, "No thanks!" and goes back to playing.

And Rebecca rarely is scared. This is mainly because Barry roars at and startles at our kids as part of his horsing around routine; they love it and beg him, "Scare me again, Daddy!" His impressions of enraged dinosaurs and lions hungry for a fleshy little arm or leg to nibble on have trained them to enjoy the little flutters of pretend-fear. They were the youngest and least frightened children on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disney last year. But, to be fair to Rebecca, this ride didn't show a cute white puppy-dog being zapped by lasers or a little girl's father being kidnapped by terrorist-inspired bad guys.

So this time along with Rebecca--first calming her fears, then cheerfully exploring the closed-for-Christmas Shops at Sheridan Plaza while waiting for "Bolt" to let out--was a pretty special experience.

We did a lot of window shopping; "Look! I see a Mommy!" Rebecca said, pointing at a poster of a bikini-clad woman in the window of a wax salon. "I don't think that's a Mommy, honey," I muttered under my breath. ("Unless she'd had extensive stretch mark removal surgery," I added even more quietly.) And I taught Rebecca how to spell the words "thank you" by letting her point to every letter on a trash can about nine thousand times. "Yes, that's a 'T.' Yes, that's an 'H.' Yes, that's an 'A.' This trash can is very polite."

When the boys finally finished the flick, Rebecca ran over to them and hugged them as if she hadn't seen them in weeks. Jacob was eager to tell us all about the super-powered dog and his funny animal friends. I asked Barry if the movie was any good--meaning, in parent-to-parent language, was it bearable to watch the way "Wall-E" was or was it more like "Horton Hears a Who"? He shrugged and said it wasn't too bad, adding, "Too bad you guys missed it. So what did you do, for all that time while we were in the movies?"

"Nothing," I said, "absolutely nothing. But it was a lot of fun. Sometimes it's fun to do nothing, just us girls."

Pointy-Heeled Beasts

Paging Dr. Scholls.

I’ve had a lot of luck in my life—an adorable husband, a daughter as cute as a cupcake and a sweetheart for a son—so it’s not uncommon for people to say to me, “A lot of people would love to be in your shoes.”

I know they mean this figuratively, and not literally, but because 99% of the time I am limping around with Band-Aids covering my toes and heels, I rarely can resist replying, “No they wouldn’t!”

The irony is that some of my livelihood in the past four years has come from writing “shoe porn,” by which I mean catalog copy describing shoes for sale, not sexual foot fetish fantasies or anything like that. Although, if you must know…partly why I got the coveted copywriting job at Marmi when I lived in St. Louis was the passionate way I handled the merchandise when I went in for the interview. “Nice. A 2 and ¾ inch heel, richly covered in opulent leather,” I murmured huskily, stroking the stiletto as the shoe designer watched me with his mouth dropped open. “Oooh, look at this plush foot bed! Slip these on and you’ll be sure to spoil your soles in luxury with every step you take!”

Fortunately all this shoe dirty talk distracted the interviewer from noticing my own shoes, which probably were either worn out flip-flops—or very cute heels with bloody Band-Aids peeking out from the sides.

Shoes and I have had a love/hate relationship spanning several decades, beginning in 1987 with my very first pair of pumps (bone-white leather Mary Janes intended to go with my Bat Mitzvah dress, but they gave me so much trouble I ended up dancing barefoot at my reception) and being punctuated most recently with me placing the following ad on the Internet: “FREE TO A GOOD HOME: Bag of Women’s Shoes, Size 8, Very Cute and Only Worn Once or Twice Because They Give Me Blisters.” (Somewhere in South Florida, a woman named Graciela is walking around in my favorite Matisse zebra-patterned Swarovski crystal studded buckle wedges without even so much as a wince. Bitch.)

The problem, according to one of the many podiatrists I’ve sought counsel from, is that I have flat arches and am too big for a size 8 shoe (they give me blisters on my toes) but too small for an 8.5 (chafing at the heel.) I’m only really comfortable in flip flops—even running shoes give me blisters when I wear them for more than, say, an hour-long step aerobics class. But flip flops are bad for your foot for other reasons, and are probably the reason why I have plantar fasciitis (one of my many foot ailments.)

Sore feet and blisters have accompanied every important event of my life. We’ve already talked about what the Mary Janes did to my toes at my Bat Mitzvah… I decided to go for much higher heels (Spanish silk covered stilettos) for my high school prom and ended up needing to ask my date for a piggyback ride from the dance floor to the banquet table. In college, with all that walking to and from class, I learned to carry a box of bandages in my backpack, and by the time I was working full-time, I was very Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl” by wearing flats on the street (I couldn’t quite bring myself to white tennis shoes and socks) and another, cuter pair of shoes once I was stationary at my desk.

Barry has no patience for my sad shoe stories. Knowing my long and sordid history with fashionable footwear, whenever we make plans to go anywhere that might inspire me to go for the pointy-heeled beasts in my closet, he makes me promise to opt for “sensible” shoes instead. Being a good wife—and someone who is adverse to pain—I usually do stick with low-heeled Aerosoles or Naturalizers…only to spend the entire night staring with envy at the other women frolicking about in their Ferragamos; painting the town red in their Tory Burches.

So if you see me at a party scowling at your feet, take it as a compliment. I might look mad, but what that sneer really means is that I think you have great taste in shoes. I am thinking bitterly to myself, “What does she have that I don’t have? How come she gets to look a few inches taller—and thinner—thanks to her stacked wedge espadrilles, while I have to wear Library Lady loafers instead?”

Now I know what you’re going to tell me. I shouldn’t go around envying other women, when I have a lot going for me—the adorable husband, cupcake daughter, sweetheart son, etc. etc.

“A lot of people,” I know you’re going to say, “would love to be in your shoes”

Well, if they really want to be in my shoes, they are welcome to them. Whatever Graciela’s left behind—it’s all theirs.