Joshua Elias Clarkson the Fourth had met J.J. Andres not at a frat party, or even on a walk on a campus quad, but in a small, artsy coffee shop near his father’s law firm. He was doing his law school internship at the family firm, meaning he earned an office without doing much at all. Josh met J.J. on a rainy Saturday morning. She had waltzed in during a sudden downpour, more concerned about her students’ research papers being soaked than her rain-splattered boots and coat. He bought her a cup of coffee as she aired out the papers. While not nearly love at first sight, he had been drawn to her bubbly personality almost instantly. He had gotten her phone number, and with the help of his classic Roadster and old money charm, had quickly become her Prince Charming. There was one thing he kept from her though.
He loved her shoes. To be specific, the red pair, with the shorter heels and the small red bow just on the edge. She only wore them on very special occasions, and only with a few select outfits. The shoes were like a Christmas present, highly anticipated and coveted. He wished that she would wear them more frequently, but in the same thought that she would keep them special.
She was wearing them tonight, with a dress he had seen on her just a single time before. The dress, black with small red polka dots and some sort of underskirt that made the dress poufy around the bottom was made for the shoes. The dress complemented the outfit entirely too well. But, at the end of the evening, it was still the shoes that had his attention. He was glad that she never wore them in poor weather, or on grass, so that they stayed clean and perfect for their dates.
The shoes had come before him, and he admired their history with her. He had seen photos, the first outfit that the shoes were put with, their adventure on a small yacht a summer before, and of course, the wedding photos. His sister Jacklyn had been married a few months before, and as they set off for the weekend wedding extravaganza he had been glad when he picked her up that the shoes had been carefully tucked in the side pocket of her bag, the tips peeking out just so gently. The shoes had encountered thousands of turns around the dance floor that weekend and remained flawless despite a near catastrophe on a rickety dock.
Over the year and a half they had been together, she had purchased things to go with the shoes: a bottle of perfectly matched nail polish, a lipstick she kept in the cup on the bathroom counter, and the gooey lip gloss in the drawer next to the bathroom sink. He hated that lip gloss, it made her lips far too sticky when she wore it, but it did match tone by tone to the shoes.
After this evening though, he didn’t want to leave the shoes behind. He wanted to take them home, to sit and imagine them on her feet, gliding across a dance floor, held carefully by finger tips as she waded in the river, or ocean, or lake. He wanted to draw them, to immortalize them onto canvas or parchment, make them last forever in their perfection.
As he got up the following morning, careful to not disturb her from her sleep, he found the shoes, carelessly dropped the evening before, in their wine-induced haste and haze. He didn’t want to call attention to himself too much, so he carefully tucked just the left shoe into his coat pocket, thankful her feet were so small.
A few weeks later, on another date, with a new skirt to match the shoes, she looked all over her loft for the missing shoe, cursing herself as he sat on the couch waiting for her. As she held the right shoe in her hand, looking for the left under the tables, in the closet, even under the kitchen sink, he watched quietly, knowing the sacred place in his own closet that the shoe had earned.
Exasperated, she put the shoe near the pile already in the closet and finished dressing, pairing an ordinary black pair of stilettos with her outfit. He didn’t like this pair as much, the black contrasting with her skin far too harshly. Their evening out went well, laughing at the romantic comedy they saw, and enjoying dessert at a local wine bar. On their return, he snuggled with her until dawn, when he needed to leave for work. The second shoe made its way into his coat pocket just as the first had.
The pair was enshrined in his closet for nearly a week, as he contemplated what to do with them. He sat one evening, carefully examining each as if it was a rare fossil. He looked at the curves of the soles, the loops of each bow, admiring their fluidity. That was when he decided it was time to immortalize the shoes. He stopped by the arts store one evening, picking up crayons, pastels, drawing and colored pencils, charcoals, cattle markers, anything that could render the perfection of the shoes.
He sat, paper spread all over the table as he sketched, drew and colored, changing the angle of the curves of his subjects to catch the proper light, to flirt with his mind. He drew them individually, together, stacked, angled against a wine glass, heels draped over the edge of a chair, tossed on the floor in what to the untrained eye might have looked carelessness. He sat for hours. Each arc and curve carefully blended into the next, the graceful bend of the heel flowing into the shaded background of one sketch, standing out harshly against the wineglass back drop of the next. He looked at the shoes, carefully held in a hand, their weight so slight. The bows were straightened and re-shaped, reaching an A-list status, worthy of any red carpet walk. His final favorite sketches captured what he felt to be the soul of each shoe. He had drawn them separately, the right shoe the adventurous one, heel hooked carefully in a tipped wine glass, imaginary wine pooled below it, the left, the safe one, sitting stately on his tiled floor, supreme in its existence.
He had a date the evening after he finished his artistic endeavors. He carefully wrapped each shoe inside a scarf, and placed them in the trunk of his car. He would sneak them into the house, and back in her closet after she was asleep. He wished to keep them safe forever, but some of their magic was lost when they weren’t on her feet. Their spark was different, less saucy and more subdued. Her outfit this evening matched a new pair, calm brown closed toed shoes reminiscent of Katherine or Audrey Hepburn. They were nice, but didn’t have the raw appeal the red pair had.
He wished that he could tell her of his appreciation and admiration of her shoes, but felt that she just wouldn’t understand. Her love affair with the shoes was far different from his, more of a love of an accessory, much like the love of a purse or scarf. His was deeper, more passionate.
When she was in deep sleep that evening, following their dinner out and a bottle of red wine consumed in front of her fireplace, he slipped out to his car, unwrapping the shoes carefully. He tucked one gently under her couch, careful to not scratch the top of the shoe. The other he placed back into her closet, under a few pairs of shoes, to be partially hidden. As he crawled back into bed with her he wondered if he should give her one of the drawings, in case anything ever happened to the shoes.