Part 1 – The forensics of love
“Nice sandals!”
I didn’t say it out loud, of course—not right away—and can’t determine to this day if the thought was true. I mean sincere in all its dimensions, down to the place where sole smacks concrete reality. But it was the best I could come up with on the spot, and even though I didn’t voice the sentiment, she heard me. That’s the trick I believe: Think things before speaking. Sometimes keep them as thoughts forever because you’re bashful, perhaps. Or maybe because the person you’re interested in is perfect and you could only detract from that by wheedle-wording your way into her affections.
I had instinctively done an up and down of the sandals’ occupant—that checkout scan we males of the species do when attracted by something potentially sexual in our peripheral vision. But it was her footwear—and I must confess, her feet—my roving eye locked onto. Her toes were painted pink!
Not gaudily, in that slapdash way you sometimes see and feel embarrassed about—usually for bubblegum teens. The polish had been applied with artistry. Details like that say something, don’t they? She had a conception of self that was bold and subtle, I figured.
So maybe I was indulging just a little. But it’s okay to try and fathom why someone’s special, isn’t it? And at first, we have to draw assumptions from observations as seemingly insignificant as pedicure, don’t we? You’re a liar if you say no. The forensics of love are based upon minute chips of evidence, hinting at theories made up as we go.
To me, the convex surfaces of her nails were intriguing as conch shells turned inside out. Can you imagine such a thing? My eyes stuck on the tops of her toes for a breath or two, then—without my thinking, without conscious intent—zoomed in on her sandals, recording every facet of those elegant slippers.
Even as my eyes went about their rogue’s work, though, part of me realized there was nothing so very remarkable about Gloria’s sandals… aside from the fact that she was in them. I can think of a thousand movie stars and a thousand more princesses who would have turned up their noses if asked to wriggle their dainty nether digits into such a pair of Walmart flip-flops. But on Gloria’s feet! Oh my!
Part 2 – The ‘Oh My’ of it
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“Oh my!” as grandmother would cry when occasion warranted. Of course, her delight was usually over events as homey as cherry pie coming out of the oven or particularly brilliant works of crayon art, not over anything so exotic as the footgear of a complete stranger. For grandmother, agape wasn’t so much about miracles as discovering the miraculous in everyday things—about seeing through the veil of ordinary and triggering suspirations as emphatic as a last gasp.
By the way, mentioning Gloria’s name right now makes everything from here on in non-sequitur. I didn’t know her name at this point in our story. True, I was cultivating an intimate relationship with the bone structure and musculature of her feet, the same way Toto might have got to know Dorothy before they ventured into Oz. But that’s not the same as knowing a body’s name, is it? Love works backwards. We fall into it, then double back, tracking down the meanings and consequences of ’til death do us part.
I’ve broken sequence because I can’t bear talking about Gloria as ‘her’ or ‘she’ without giving name to those theoretical references. I have christened her even though a name at that point would have been as naively symbolic as graffiti sprayed anonymously on whitewashed stucco, or rote declarations carved into the trunks of trees or the planks of park benches. At that point in our relationship, her name would have been a catch-all of fantasies. A concatenation of dark eyes, long black hair… an aura you could best see through eyes half-closed.
In truth, if Gloria had dematerialized before I got a chance to talk to her—whisked out of her sandals by powers unknown into some sci-fi Nirvana beyond the frequencies of daytime TV—nothing would have seemed remarkable about her footwear left on the corner of Quadra and Hillside. Other than the fact that the sandals were there, placed carefully on the cracked concrete as if the intersection were a portico into some alternative dimension and she had been called away suddenly. Barefoot.
Next week: Part 3 – She is a goddess
