She thought she was being so smart, so stylish, packing us for this trip to New York City. It’s a biggie. A change of life, a change of pace, a new normal. A turning point.
Big moments and turning points call for voluminous taffeta, silk shirts, layers of statement jewelry and a few sets of shoulder pads for good measure. She is a performer at heart and perhaps having the right costume on will convince her that she’s ready to stomp through the unknown.
Can the right costume support this moment of productive discomfort? She seems to think so. And she is dressed to be seen, as they say.
But back to us.
Our soles are designed for stomping. They look treacherous, but are actually precision-designed German engineering for the sole. Block platforms set perfectly on-center at the toes and the heel, but not aligned like a typical shoe. Our shoe beds teeter atop the two blocks like a Jenga tower gone wrong, and we give her tiny frame nearly five inches without arching the heel like a stiletto.
We are made for city clomping by women who mean business.
But we are not made for strutting cobblestone streets like the one in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
White bellowing silk cape tank elegantly blowing in the breeze of her wake, coffee in hand, she goes traipsing down the street to get to her office. She strikes her foot just slightly off center, hits a cobblestone on its curve, and flies, catching herself on the pavement with her palms – a miracle, really, for someone who can’t feel half of her left hand.
The coffee droplets fly into the air, somehow – again, a true miracle – in an upward trajectory away from the silk shirt.
The woman security guard encased in the plexiglass box in front of the NYSE glares from the safety of her window. Unflinching, unkind, unaccommodating, her face says it all – “Serves this dumb girl right to wear that outfit and those shoes on this street.”
The street is packed with commuters. Not one stops to see if she is ok or if she needs a napkin.
The tote on her back had been meticulously planned, like everything else for that week, with tissues to combat the occasional ugly cry. Or coffee disaster, she thinks with just a tad of residual smugness.
She reaches back into the bag, carefully keeping the coffee drips on her arm away from the white silk top. Digging, she finds just one, lonely, cheap thin brown napkin. Why? Why? F*****g tissues are never there when I need them, she thinks, carefully bending to shake the coffee off her arm.
At this point unscathed, it is Coffee vs White Shirt and the woman is solidly on Team White Shirt. The single ply napkin gets it done. Blots off the coffee and the woman sneaks into a small vestibule to inspect her shirt with her phone.
Pure white. A New York miracle.
Sloppy, now inelegant, coffee cup tossed in trash. Hair fixed. Lips glossed. Costume intact. Just a bit of eau de coffee aroma as evidence of the near disaster.
She marches on.
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