Shoe Addicts Anonymous

by Beth Harbison in stores June 12, 2007

Genres:

Fiction, Romance

Themes:

chick-lit , fashion , friendships

Book Excerpt

• send excerpt in an email
• add social bookmark

Chapter One

Sex in a box. That's what it was. Spine-tingling, heart-stopping, decadent sex in a box.

Lorna Rafferty pushed the tissue aside and the heady smell of leather filled her nostrils, sending a familiar thrill straight through her core. The feeling -- this thrill - never got old, no matter how many times she went through the ritual.

She touched the tightly stitched leather and smiled. She couldn't help it. This was wicked pleasure at its most sensuous, tactile, hedonistic best. It made her skin prickle from head to toe.

She ran her fingertips along the smooth surface, skidding over the graceful arch, like a cat stretching under the mid-day sun; she smiled at the sharp but satisfying prick of the spike. Yes. Yesss.

This was hot.

She knew it was wrong, of course. Twelve years in Catholic school hadn't been for nothing: she'd pay the price for this indulgence later.

Well, hell, she'd been planning on that for years.

That debt was going to have to get in line with a lot of others.

In the meantime, Lorna had these peep toe ankle strap Delman platform sandals to comfort her. She could walk right into the fires of hell, if she had to, in shoes to die for.

One of the only things she could remember about her mother was her shoes. Black and white spectators. Little pink sandals with kitten heels. And Lorna's favorites: long, narrow satin shoes, with heels like narrow Art Deco commas, and tiny bows at the toe that were frayed slightly at the end from the years since her wedding.

If she closed her eyes, Lorna could still picture her own small feet shoved into the toes of those shoes, the heels clapping treacherously behind her as she traipsed across a faded Oriental carpet in her parents' bedroom toward the fading blur of golden hair, big smile, and waft of Caron's Fleur de Rocaille perfume that was her memory of her mother.

Of all the things she knew or remembered about her mother, and all the things she didn't remember, Lorna knew one thing for sure: clearly the love of shoes was hereditary.

She took the Delmans out of the box slowly, mentally shoving away the memory of handing over her credit card and waiting - like a gambler who'd bet it all on red - for the 'yes' or 'no' from that faraway Credit Card Roulette Approval Commission

This time it was yes.

She'd signed the slip, promising (to herself) yes, of course I'll pay for these shoes! No problem! My next paycheck will go to these shoes! while assuming an expression of one who pays their entire balance with every statement and whose entire life couldn't be repossessed by Visa at a moment's notice.

Pfffft.

She'd ignored the other voice: I shouldn't be doing this, and I will make a promise, here and now, to God or anyone else that if this charge goes through, I will never ever spend money I don't have again.

Best not to think about the repercussions.

If pushing uncomfortable thoughts about money away burned calories, Lorna would have been a size two.

She admired the shoes in her hands for a few minutes, then put them on.

Ahhh.

Magic.

Pleasure that, treated properly, would last a lifetime. Pleasure she'd always be ready and in the mood for.

So what if she'd had to charge them? By her next paycheck she'd be able to throw some money at her debt. Within, what, a couple of years. Maybe three. Possibly four, at the most -- and that was assuming she wasn't all that strict with her spending -- the debt would be gone completely.

And these Delmans would be as awesome then as they were right now. And probably worth twice as much. Maybe even more. They were classic. Timeless.

A good investment.

No sooner had Lorna had that thought, sitting in the living room/dining room of her small Bethesda, Maryland apartment, than the lights went off.

Her first thought was that the electric company had turned off her power. But no...she'd paid the bill recently enough. Had she missed a thunderstorm somehow? Summers in the D.C. area were notoriously hot and muggy, and this early August day was no exception. Citizens like her paid monthly for electricity that occasionally - in the worst of summer - went off for hours, sometimes even more than a day.

She got up from the sofa and tottered in her Delmans over to the hall table where her cell phone was charging. She called the power company, fully expecting to be told everyone had overtaxed the power grid by cranking their a/c, and that the power would be back on soon. Maybe she'd go to the mall and kill an hour or two in the cool air there before work, she thought idly, dialing the number on the old pink princess phone she'd whispered secrets into since she was twelve years old.

Ten minutes and perhaps fourteen automated system touch tones later, a power company representative - who had identified herself as "Mrs. Sinclair", no first name - gave Lorna the response she had, deep down, been dreading.

"Ma'am, your power was shut off due to nonpayment."

Okay, first of all, that ma'am was totally condescending. And second - nonpayment? That wasn't possible. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that she'd had a couple of really good tip nights working as a waitress at Jico and had come home and paid a bunch of bills? When was that? Like mid-July? Early July? It was definitely after the fourth.

Or, wait, maybe it was just after Memorial Day. One of those cook-out holidays. She'd worn those adorable pink Gucci sandals.

She looked dubiously at the pile of mail on the table by the door - it added up so quickly - and asked, archly, "What do you show as the last payment received?"

"April twenty-eighth."

Her mind ticked back like the calendar at the opening of a bad 1930's movie. Okay, she'd gotten that July windfall but maybe she hadn't paid the electric bill that time. Maybe she'd paid it the time before, which was, what, maybe June? Could it possibly have been back as far as May?

Surely not April! Had she worn those sandals at Easter? They were the right color for it...

But no. No way. She was sure there was a mistake. "That's impossible! I -"

"We sent another notice on May fifteenth, and on June fifth," Mrs. Sinclair's voice rang with disapproval, "and on July ninth, we sent a cut-off notice, warning you that if we did not receive your payment by today, your power would be shut off."

Okay, she did vaguely remember at one point she was all ready to pay her bills when Nordstrom had sent a notice about their half-yearly sale.

That had been a great day. Those two pairs of Bruno Maglis were a steal. So comfortable she could have run a mile in them.

But she'd definitely paid the bill the next month.

Definitely.

Hadn't she?

"Now, wait a minute, let me check my files," Lorna scrambled to her computer and pushed the button to turn it on, waiting a full five seconds or so before realizing that the computer, which held her payment records, ran on the very electricity the snarky woman on the other end of the line was withholding from her. "I'm sure I'd remember if you'd sent a cut off notice."

"Mm-hm."

It was easy to picture Mrs. Sinclair as a nasty little troll sitting under a bridge, with a pinched face and sarcastically curly hair. You want electricity? You're gonna have to get past me first. So riddle me this; when was the last time you paid your utility bills?

Lorna gave an exasperated sigh and reached for her wallet. She'd been here before. "Okay, forget it, just tell me what it will take to turn it back on. Can I pay over the phone?"

"Yes. It's eight hundred and seventeen dollars and twenty-six cents. You can use Visa, MasterCard, or Discover."
It took Lorna a moment to digest that. Mistake. Mistake. It had to be a mistake. "Eight hundred dollars?" she echoed stupidly.

"Eight seventeen twenty-six."

"I wasn't even here for a week in June." Ocean City. A week of Espadrilles and Grecian tie-ups that made her feel like she was vacationing on the Meditteranean. "How could I have used eight hundred dollars' worth of electricity? That can't be right." Something had to be wrong here. They had someone else's bill confused with her own. They had to.

Maybe that was the collective bill for her entire floor of the building.

"That includes a one hundred and fifty dollar reconnect fee, and a two hundred and fifty dollar deposit, on top of your three hundred and ninety-eight dollar and forty-three cent bill and finance charges of eighteen dollars and -"

"What's a reconnect fee?" They'd never asked for that before.

"The fee for reconnecting your power after it's been turned off."

This was unbelievable. "Why?"

"Ms. Rafferty, we had to turn off your power and now turn it back on."

"And that's, what, like a switch or something you have to flip?" She could picture pinched-faced Mrs. Sinclair sitting next to a great big cartoon on/off switch. "You want me to pay a hundred and fifty dollars for that?"

"Ma'am," there it was again, that ugly condescending tone, "you can do whatever you choose. If you want your power back on, it's going to cost you eight hundred and eighteen dollars and three cents."

"Whoa, wait a minute," Lorna interrupted. "A second ago, you said it was eight seventeen something."

"Our computers just refreshed and today's interest was just added to your account."

The apartment was getting hot. It was hard to say if it was because the air conditioning had been turned off or because Lorna was getting so frustrated with Mrs. Sinclair -- whom she'd now decided was probably not married and had taken this opportunity to tag Mrs. onto her identity despite the fact that she hadn't had sex in years, if ever.

In fact, her name probably wasn't even Sinclair. She probably just used that as a pseudonym so that people wouldn't hunt her down and kill her at home after talking to her on the phone.

"Can I speak with a supervisor?" Lorna asked.

Things were not looking good.

send this excerpt to a friend (or yourself)