Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang: Volume 1, Chapter 5
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Desiree needed a normal, busy, aggravating shift at the hospital to distract her from the strangeness of the past day and a half. The snowfall. The design. The footprints to the eight-fingered painter in the living room. Followed by the intrusion that morning of the sour-faced cosmopolitan in the fur coat who kept asking to see her feet.
Becoming a private foot model had been an accident that began when Desiree bought a house with her mother. Compared to Desiree’s previous apartment, the seventy-year-old home was a downgrade of certain luxuries like countertops, view, and hot water. The idea behind the purchase was to stop the pair from throwing money away, to build equity instead of accruing more debt. The mortgage was cheaper than rent and better for Desiree’s financial future. At thirty-two, she had no children and had never been married. She lived her late teens and twenties on an unanticipated path, with short-sighted direction, and slightly outside of her means. After several financial mishaps prompted a scare of lifelong instability, a serious need for a career caused her to consider nursing, which seemed less crazy and more attractive the more she thought about it. A nursing degree allowed for so many career paths. There was variety and the opportunity to travel. Specialties to work toward if she found a particular interest. It seemed stable and exciting and Desiree enrolled at the age of twenty-eight. Meanwhile, her mother, Leighann, had been divorced three times (none of which from Desiree’s father), being on the losing end of two of them and suffering for all three.
It was under these auspicious circumstances of eliminating debt and building credit to their names that Leighann convinced Desiree—against Desiree’s better judgement—to not only renovate the kitchen, but to open up a wall and doll out the living room. Which required another loan on top of the student loans, and medical debt, which didn’t include Desiree’s old cat’s veterinary debt; and of course, these outstanding bills preceded the payment plan needed for the removal of the tree in the front yard snapped by a windstorm, not to mention the new furnace and air conditioning.
All of which put Desiree in a position to sell some clothes.
She posted sweaters, dresses, and jeans to the social marketplace. Her goal had been to pay off a recent speeding ticket. She placed for sale a pair of ankle-strapped heels, colored beige, but apparently nude by their power of suggestion. A transfer doctor, who was handsome, awkward, and single, messaged her that night. He really liked the heels and wanted to see them on her elegant feet. In a pose of Desiree lifting the legs of her blue scrubs to expose her dainty ankles. She applied foundation to her heel to touch up a blister. The photo yielded ten times the value of the shoes’ resale. The doctor’s awkwardness meant he never even gave Desiree as much as a wink or a nod or a sly look in person.
There followed a kind of fishing pattern of posting a different shoe for sale on the marketplace and seeing who offered what for what. A standard price which was a disguise for a secret auction. There might come an offer of forty dollars for the shoes. Or there may be an offer of three hundred to photograph them on Desiree’s feet stepping into a tractor.
Why compromise in selling the shoes when there was still value to be had?
Especially after the hospital cut her overtime. Then reduced the nursing staff’s pay by eight-percent. Then laid off a percentage of it.
So Desiree stopped fishing, went anonymous, and became the alias: ThisLilPigEScreamed
A couple years later and the awkward transfer doctor who’d started it all was gone. No one she knew personally was aware of the ongoing fabulous catalog of her feet.
As the day went on at the hospital, her thoughts did indeed become distracted by the need for ingenuity since the hospital, in further cost-cutting measures, had become stingy with supplies and materials like a restaurant counting napkins. Prior to lunch, in the sterile breakroom where co-workers discussed new movies, television shows, podcasts, and the occasional natural phenomenon, Desiree could’ve contributed something uniquely odd to the conversation about the snowfall and the wet man and the cosmopolitan, but the talks were instead focused on a credible rumor regarding another round of pay cuts. Seven-percent was the word going around. Desiree lost any interest in the snow and spent the shift asking more experienced residents what they knew about tele-nursing as a viable second job. So went an exasperating day, and when she was driving home in the evening sun, her thoughts turned to insulting an administrator who looked like a rhino’s twat and who’d reprimanded her for using too many pairs of gloves. Her thoughts settled as the drive went on, and soon she was thinking only about the prospect of an empty house. No charts. No calls. No easels. No fur coats. No mother even, if she could help it, who was hopefully either running errands, or grabbing an afterwork margarita with her friend, Barbara, or if she had to be home: taking a nap.
Their orange brick house was a stout two-stories, with three four-square windows and boxwood landscaping. Her mother’s car was in the driveway, but the house was silent when Desiree opened the door. There were no wet footprints on the fake wood floor. The living room was empty. And as Desiree put her bag on the counter, she noticed the ring from the woman in the fur coat was where she’d left it on the gold plate.
Before she could sit, there came a knock at the door.
A bun of silver hair bobbed in the sidelight. Her next-door neighbor Noreen. Desiree remained still as a statue and wondered if Noreen had seen her outside. Usually when she did, she trapped Desiree in a long, idle, outdoor conversation. Noreen, however, rarely came all the way to the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Desiree, please, you have to help me. My dog, Daisy—she’s missing!”
Next week on Dangling Feet at the Big un-Bang, Desiree searches for the missing Daisy. But what if the lost dog didn’t run away? If Daisy was taken, is Desiree still the one to find her? Find out September 7th.
Author: Zachary Ryan
Zachary Ryan is just a guy who is excited to entertain you for a few short minutes.
