Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 13

4 days ago

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For Leighann, the idea of booby-trapping the floating rectangle with a sheet-turned-sack was becoming more and more attractive as she examined the riches. The pumpkin-haired man unexpectedly became a kind of leprechaun whom it would’ve been better to barter with than run away from, and Desiree’s mother had the energy of a child planning to cast a net at the bottom of the chimney to catch Santa.

“This ring is absolutely stunning.”

A red, blue, and green gem-encrusted ring of spiral gold, spun in the direction of a river of lightning, coiling up the finger like a snake. Leighann placed it on her right index finger and modeled her hand. By the number of gems and the number of laps the ring made around her finger, it looked to her as if she actually wore three rings in one.

“My fortieth school reunion is coming up. I think I’ll wear this. And that dress I wore to your cousin’s wedding. The red and yellow. And I might have to borrow your red heels. Not the glossy ones. I want the suede. Do you still have those?”

The red suede heels were a moneymaker; Desiree had made a bundle through quite the suggestive video in which she wore them while painting her toenails a similar scarlet shade of lipstick.

“I have them,” said Desiree.

“You don’t mind if I wear this, right?”

She extended her arm, flattened her hand, squinted at the dazzling ring.

“Mom, I think these people are coming through and leaving with the neighbors’ dogs.”

“Whose dogs?”

“All our neighbors’ dogs.”

With difficulty, Desiree nudged Leighann’s admiring gaze from the ring to the pile of dog collars, which Desiree had thrown near the back door.

“Leaving with them, as in—abducting them?” asked Leighann.

“I think so.”

“Have you shown these to anyone?”

“Of course not.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not.”

“They’ll think you had something to do with it.”

“That’s the thing; they saw who took them and they—sang them a song.”

“Who took what and sang to who?”

“Our neighbors saw the people who took their dogs, and then sang the dognappers a song.”

“So they gave their pets up willingly for adoption?”

“No, it’s like they were hypnotized!”

“I’m confused; why do you think the dogs were stolen?”

“Margaret told me they were missing. Noreen lost Daisy; she’s about to bury a tacky statue in her place.”

“And then they sang to them.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with us.”

“What if these gifts are—bribes?”

“For what? We’re bystanders! What are we supposed to do? None of these collars even have a nametag. None of them carry an address. Two are black, and two are blue. Could their owners even pick which was theirs out of a lineup?”

Over the years, her work as a paralegal had made Leighann an overconfident asker of questions.

“I doubt it,” she continued. “Maybe they’re on a doggy-trip. Free of their restraints.”

Leighann motioned to the collars.

“And masters,” she added, making the point with her index finger, which wore the ring.

Desiree rubbed her temples in the familiar circle of daughter-mother aggravation.

“I think they’re stealing them.”

Her mother admired the pen. Under a cloudy silver casing, the chamber inside gave the vague impression of mercury. Leighann sloshed the metal ink back and forth, seesaw-style.

“You didn’t invite these people here,” she said. “They’re basically breaking in. We aren’t liable for this.”

“But we should still try and stop it,” said Desiree.

“But keep the gifts.”

“But end the dognapping.”

“Oh, what a lovely shoebox! Was this a gift too? Or have you been spending again?”

“I’m boarding it up. Those old planks that were here when we bought the house, beside the crawl space, the ones we keep saying we’ll throw out but then mow around—I’m boarding it up.”

“Cover all the holes, please,” said Leighann, bending over to pick up the soft lemonade shoebox. “You really broke the wall.”

Her mother opened the shoebox and gasped. The feather-like delicacy, the immeasurable depth of the sole, the chain-link heel—she could only look at the pair and ask her daughter if she’d tried them on.

“No, I haven’t worn them yet.”

“How can you not have tried them on?” Leighann spoke in the manner of scolding. “Take off your shoes.”

Desiree didn’t realize how much that phrase gave her—especially after these past few days and at the solicitation of her mother—the shiver of a revolting request spoken up-close like a sweet-nothing from a gross tongue, emitting rotten breath that condensed into sludge-like moisture on her eardrum.

“I don’t feel like trying on shoes right now.”

“Come on. Just try them out. For me. They look like they would fit you perfectly.”

Desiree slipped off her shoes. She tugged off her socks. She stretched a breath of air between her toes.

“Oh, Desiree, you really do have such beautiful feet.”

Leighann said this as her daughter slipped one foot after another in the otherworldly heels, clasping the black and white chain around her ankles, bending her feet at an incline toward the light, and catching the bone of her ankle in a crescent shadow. Indeed, it seemed a mold made for Desiree.

Leighann looked down at these feet and touched her lips.

“I always put you in sandals when you were a little girl,” she said. “Because I wanted your feet to be free. I wanted those toes to be able to wiggle just like that, just like how you’re doing now.”

Desiree bashfully showed off her open-toed shoes.

“Your feet really haven’t changed a whole lot since you were a little girl,” said Leighann. She bent down to examine either the shoes or her daughter’s toes more closely. “Littler than a little girl even. They’re almost just like I remember them. So soft, and so perfect everyone wanted to touch them; more people saw you and grabbed your feet, your tiny toes, than they did your hands and your little fingers. And you had some cute fingers. Very cute. But your toes.” Leighann was still bending toward the sweaty, glittering slope of Desiree’s foot. “I took them in my hands. I held your tiniest feet in my palms. The smallest they ever were. And they are as beautiful now as they were then.”

She was bending over to get a closer look until it was better to kneel in order to keep from falling over. She was on both knees, hands braced on the ground on both sides, as if examining a small stain in the rug, but instead getting closer to the skin of Desiree’s open-toed feet.

“They were so beautiful when you were a baby. They still have that baby smell.”

And Leighann leaned closer and kissed the bridge of her daughter’s foot.

Desiree pulled away. She unclasped the shoes.

“Mom! What are you doing?”

Leighann fell from her knees onto her butt, laughing.

“And you like to say I don’t have any motherly instinct.”

Desiree put the heels in the shoebox and closed the lid.

Still on the ground, Leighann shook her woozy head.

“I need to get to bed. Barb and I had some margaritas. They hit me harder than I thought.”

And she wandered down the hall to her room, walking not quite straight, as Desiree kicked the shoebox deep under an end table.

Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree attempts to document the strange phenomena. Will she find someone who believes her? Or perhaps someone suffering from the same events? Find out November 2.