Taming of the Shoe Read online

  At the time, we were learning about American history in school. “I’m pretty sure trial by ordeal counts as ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution,” I told Dad.

  “We don’t live in America. We live in Robicheaux,” Dad said. Then he suggested that I go to law school, since I like to argue so much.

  “Speaking of the aunties, I’ve got news,” Mom tells me now, putting down her brand-new I NY mug.

  “What’s that?” I ask, getting myself a package of fruit snacks from the pantry.

  “Dad and I have to fly to Europe on Sunday for important meetings about the global expansion of House of Robicheaux. It’s a last-minute thing—Tori Fournier is already there, and she set the whole thing up,” Mom says. “Unfortunately, Granny Robicheaux is too busy arranging another charity ball to come stay with you while we’re gone.”

  Dad’s mother loves arranging balls. What normal person would come up with the idea of throwing a ball to which you invite every single young woman in your entire kingdom with the sole purpose of finding your son a wife? Granny Robicheaux, that’s who. The show The Bachelor totally ripped off Granny R’s concept, but it wasn’t nearly as lavish. Her ball was like The Bachelor on steroids.

  “Since Granny can’t come to stay, I’ve asked the aunties to look after you while we’re gone,” Mom continues.

  I choke on a strawberry fruit snack.

  “You whaaaaa?” I wheeze when speaking is halfway possible. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because they’re the only ones I trust to be with you when Dad and I have to go to a different continent,” Mom says.

  It’s a good thing I didn’t put another fruit snack in my mouth before she said that, because I would be dying of asphyxiation right now.

  “Are you serious? You can’t find anyone else to whom you trust your beloved only child besides the ladies who threw lentils and peas into the ashes, made you pick them out, and then teased you because you were dirty?” I say.

  “Araminta, that all happened once upon a time in a land far, far away,” Mom says. “People grow. They can change.”

  That far, faraway land, Robicheaux, happens to be where I lived quite happily until my parents ripped me away from it in their fervent pursuit of World Cleaning Product Domination. I was one of the “popular people” there, like Eva “I spent five hundred dollars on a single skirt” Murgatroyd is here. But if I dare to point that out, I’ll get another lecture about “opportunities for global expansion” and how “we’re doing this all for you, Minty; money for college doesn’t grow on trees.”

  I decide to take a different approach.

  “Mom, Aunt Margaux cut off her own toes to try and fit into the glass shoe so she could marry Dad. Then Aunt Lottie tried to one-up her by cutting off her heel,” I remind her. “That’s not exactly the behavior of people who have all of their marbles intact.”

  “And because of their foot injuries, they were inspired to create the Comfortably Ever After line,” Mom points out. “Now they are multimillionaires. They learned from their bad decisions. They turned lemons into lemonade.”

  “Their self-inflicted foot injuries,” I mutter.

  Mom looks at me from over the rims of her tortoiseshell reading glasses. “You could learn a lot from your aunties, Araminta, if you were more open to the idea.”

  The person who is supposed to be the most concerned with my well-being is leaving me with the women who tormented her, and now she’s advising me to be “more open to the idea.”

  Someone is getting a BAD MOM T-shirt for Mother’s Day.

  “How long are you going for?” I ask.

  “Just a week,” she says.

  “Just a week” with the aunties, right when I’m starting a new school. Ugh! I haven’t even seen them in real life for, like, four years? It’s bad enough having to see them on TV and know that we’re step-related. Most of what I remember about the aunties is how loud they were, and how Dad and Grandpa and Granny Robicheaux looked at them like they were something dragged in from the stables on the bottom of a highly polished boot.

  Just when I thought life couldn’t get any worse . . .

  “Why do you have to go now?” I ask. “You drag me away from my home and friends to a new city, and then you leave me here by myself. Actually, it’s worse than by myself. You’re leaving me with the aunties.”

  “I’m sorry about the timing, darling,” Mom apologizes. “But when you’re working to achieve a global product rollout, things crop up unexpectedly.” She pats my hand comfortingly. “Besides, by the time we go, it’ll be your second week of school.”

  “Like that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I say, picking up my backpack and stomping down the hallway to my room. I kick off my shoes and leave them in the middle of the floor as a gesture of protest, and then put on my favorite band, Retro of Sync. Their lead singer, Theo Downey, is the best-looking person in the entire universe, although I will secretly admit that that guy Dakota in my social studies class is a pretty close second.

  I take out my sketchbook and start working on a new shoe design. Yeah, I know, how predictable is it that I’m obsessed with shoes given my parents’ life story? But I refuse to let accusations of predictableness interfere with my passion for fine footwear.

  As I sing along to “A Million Miles to the Nearest Star,” the new single from the latest Retro of Sync album, Theo’s voice takes me to a place where life doesn’t completely suck and my parents actually care about me instead of leaving me in the care of two weird ladies I haven’t seen in years.

  Still, when Mom calls me for dinner, I pick up my shoes and put them in the closet. They don’t deserve to be mistreated just because I’m mad at Mom.

  Clearly, I stink at rebellion.

  • • •

  Dad brings home pizza for dinner. So far it’s his favorite thing about New York. He groans with pleasure as he bites into a large slice, gooey with melted cheese. “They don’t make pizza like this in back in the kingdom,” he says. “Not even close.”

  “They say it’s because of the New York water,” Mom says. “Or because New York pizza parlors use older ovens that absorb the tastes and flavors. It’s similar to using a well-seasoned skillet.”

  “Whatever the reason, it’s yummy,” I say, chewing on a crust. “By the way, Dad, you’ve got a big glob of cheese stuck in the dimple on your chin. You don’t look all that princely when you’re drooling mozzarella.”

  “You always look princely to me, Robbie,” Mom says, gazing at him lovingly.

  Barf. It’s enough to turn a New York pizza lover off her dinner.

  • • •

  After our sumptuously cheesy repast, we’re all sitting in the living room watching our new favorite reality show, The Struggling Millionaires of Manhattan, when a commercial comes on for Comfortably Ever After™ shoes. Aunt Lottie is wearing a leopard-print outfit and black lipstick, Aunt Margaux is wearing a purple pantsuit with huge white sunglasses, and they’re . . . attempting to rap. Kill me now.

  If you think life sucks

  ’Cause you didn’t get the prince

  And your feet have got the blues,

  Don’t you cry, ’cause you’ll feel so fly

  In Comfortably Ever After shoes!

  Dad spits out a mouthful of his SleepyByes™ tea.

  “Dad!” I exclaim. “Gross!”

  “Ella, I think that’s the most outrageous one yet!” he says, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

  Mom’s pretending to read, but she’s turning red in the attempt to suppress her giggles.

  It provides the perfect opening to question the combined parental wisdom of having the aunties look after me while Mom and Dad are away.

  “So Dad—are you seriously on board with this plan to leave your precious, and I might add only, daughter with two rapping, tackily dressed lady bullies while you gallivant off to Europe with Mom?”

  Dad pauses The Struggling Millionaires of Manhattan.

  “ ‘Gallivant off to Europe’?” he says, glancing over at Mom. “Ella, my love, you told me we were going on a work trip, so we can keep that precious only daughter of ours in the style to which she is accustomed.”

  “That’s right, dear. It’s going to be all work, work, work! Just like when I was a teenager in my father’s house,” Mom says with a chuckle.

  One thing you should know about my mother: she plays the “When I was a teen, my life was so bad” card with me every chance she gets. It’s super annoying, like I’m not allowed to think anything in my life sucks, ever, despite the fact that my parents just ruined it by taking me away from the only home I’ve ever known.

  “Must we work, Ella?” Dad says. “Gallivanting sounds like much more fun!”

  It’s times like this I think my parents would have been better off without children. But like I said, my Robicheaux grandparents were so desperate to have a grandchild that they literally invited every single girl in the kingdom to a ball so Dad could pick a bride. According to the tale, Mom wowed Dad so much with her beauty that he “ate not a morsel” of the sumptuous feast my grandparents laid on, because “so intently was he busied in gazing on her.” He also “never ceased his compliments.”

  “So basically he was a rich, princely creeper. Is that what you’re telling me?” I asked Mom when I first heard Charles Perrault’s version of how my parents met.

  “It was better than listening to your aunts boss me around and call me Cinderwench all the time,” Mom said. Then she laughed. “Besides, it’s the only time I’ve ever seen your father willingly give up a chance to overindulge on fine food.”

  As if on cue, Dad called out from the kitchen complaining that he had heartburn, and asking Mom where she’d hid
den the antacids.

  So it looks like I’m going to be stuck with the aunties for a week. I hope I survive. If not, “They lived happily ever after, but their daughter not so much” will make an interesting epilogue to my parents’ tale.

  • • •

  The aunties arrive on Sunday morning, about an hour before Mom and Dad have to leave for the airport. My childhood recollection of them did not lie.

  “Minty, darling!” Aunt Lottie shrieks loud enough to burst my eardrums as she hugs me to her bosom. “We’re going to have so much fun together while your parents are gone!”

  “ ‘While the cats are away, the mice will play,’ ” Aunt Margaux says, winking.

  I smile uneasily. Knowing the history, I’m worried it’s more like the aunties are the cats who have plans to torment the mouse—in other words, me.

  “Okay, I’ve left you our itinerary, the number of Minty’s school, and the location of the nearest emergency room,” Mom says. “You know, just in case.”

  The emergency room? If my parents are expecting me to come to ER-worthy bodily harm under my aunties’ care, then why are they leaving me with them in the first place? I used to think they loved me. . . .

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Ella,” Aunt Margaux says. “We’ve got it all under control.”

  “We founded and run a multimillion dollar business,” Aunt Lottie says. “How much trouble can one teenage girl be?”

  Mom and Dad burst out laughing.

  “More than you can ever imagine,” Dad says between guffaws.

  I am not amused.

  “I’m not that much trouble!” I protest.

  “Even if she is, we can handle it,” Aunt Margaux says to reassure my parents.

  “If worse comes to worst, we can make her pick lentils out of the hearth ashes as punishment,” Aunt Lottie adds.

  Everyone finds this incredibly hilarious—except for me. I resolve to put 911 on speed dial for the duration of my parents’ trip. Fortunately, we don’t have a working fireplace in this apartment, but knowing what I do of the aunties, I’m sure they can come up with creative new ways to make my life miserable.

  Lottie and Margaux go to set themselves up in the spare room, leaving me alone to say good-bye to Mom and Dad.

  “Are you one hundred percent sure you want to leave me alone with them for an entire week?” I ask them.

  “You’ll be fine, Minty,” Mom assures me, hugging me and kissing my forehead. “How many times do I have to tell you? Margaux and Lottie have changed.”

  As I watch the elevator door closing, taking my parents downstairs to get the car to the airport, I wonder just how much.

  Chapter Three

  “ARAMINTA! ARE YOU READY? WE’RE going to walk you to school,” Aunt Margaux says from the doorway of my bedroom the following morning. Aunt Lottie is standing right behind her, grinning like a colorfully dressed Cheshire cat.

  I’ve just finished trying on the third outfit in ten minutes, in what seems like a futile attempt to capture a New York fashion vibe. After seeing how fashion-forward Aria Thibault and Eva Murgatroyd are, I’m trying to up my game. I might have to give Couture Club a try after all.

  At least my footwear is on point: my treasured Trudy Neal ballet flats, which are silver with purple soles and fit me perfectly. I saved up to buy them as soon as I saw them in the vintage clothing store, because it’s hard to find cool shoes when you have really small feet like I do.

  Right now I’ve got a more immediate problem to deal with. “What do you mean, walk me to school?” I ask Aunt Margaux. “I’m thirteen years old. I walk myself to school.”

  “Not on our watch,” Margaux says. “We’re responsible for keeping you alive and in one piece until Ella and Robbie get back. We’re not taking any chances.”

  “But Mom and Dad have been letting me walk to school alone!” I protest. “This is New York City!”

  “Exactly my point,” Margaux says. She smiles. “Besides, we have a surprise for you.”

  “Margaux!” Aunt Lottie snaps. “You weren’t supposed to say anything!”

  Usually I’m okay with surprises, but the thought of one involving the aunties makes me very nervous.

  “What kind of surprise?” I ask, grabbing my backpack.

  “If we tell you, it won’t be a surprise, silly!” Aunt Lottie says. She checks the time on her Flitbit. “Come on, we need to leave now or we’ll be late.”

  Despite my multiple wardrobe changes, there’s still plenty of time to get to school. She must mean late for the surprise.

  I hope it’s food-related. Maybe they’re going to take me to Patisserie Bon Gateaux and buy me some delicious cupcakes.

  But alas, we walk straight past the patisserie.

  When we’re a block away from Manhattan World Themes, I notice that there are barricades in front of the building, and a bunch of trucks. One of them has SOUP TO NUTS CRAFT SERVICES in big letters on the side.

  “I wonder what all those trucks are there for.”

  “That’s the surprise!” Aunt Lottie shouts in my ear, beaming with excitement. “We’re filming a commercial for our new line of shoes, Comfortably Ever After for Youth, right here at your school!”

  “And all your friends can be in it!” Aunt Margaux adds, waving a beringed finger at the scene across the street.

  I am officially dead.

  “This is literally my fourth day at this school. I haven’t got that many friends,” I say. “And after this, I’m never going to!”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen, Araminta,” Aunt Margaux says. “Everyone wants to be on TV. I guarantee you’re going to be embraced by the most popular kids at this school by the end of the morning.”

  “Trust us on this,” Aunt Lottie says, patting my arm in an attempt to comfort me.

  Trust them? Let me think. . . . No!

  But then I notice how many students are crowding around the police barriers. The whole corner is buzzing with excitement.

  We cross the street, and the aunties go straight over to the barriers.

  “We’re filming a commercial for our new youth line of comfort sneakers,” Aunt Lottie announces. “Would anyone like to be in the ad?”

  The shouts of “Yes!” and “Me!” and “Woo-hoo!” and “Yes, please!” are so loud they drown out the street traffic.

  “Great!” Aunt Margaux says. “Just line up and check in with our lovely production assistant Marco. As long as your parents sign the photo release, you can be in the commercial. No photo release, no go. It’s the law.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I say, relieved. “I can’t be in it because Mom and Dad are out of the country, and they didn’t sign a release.”

  “Nonsense!” Aunt Lottie says. “Margaux and I are acting in loco parentis while Ella and Robbie are away.”

  I assume that means “like a crazy parent” until I look it up on my phone and find it’s a Latin legal term for “in the place of parents.”

  “But it’ll make us all late for school!” I say. “How popular will I be if everyone in school ends up with a detention because of this?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Aunt Lottie assures me. “We cleared everything with your school principal, Mr. Hamilton. He sent out the photo-release forms and asked parents to keep the whole thing a secret until this morning.”

  Aunt Margaux cackles loudly. “It’s amazing what a six-figure donation to the school can accomplish—right, Lottie?”

  I’ve learned two things this morning before I’ve even walked through the school door: (1) My principal, Mr. Hamilton, is easily bought, and (2) there’s no escape from the aunties. I’m going to have to be in this commercial no matter what.

  The strange thing is, all the kids around me are super excited about it. Is Aunt Margaux right that everyone wants to be on TV?

  Two guys wearing MWTMS SOCCER hoodies come over.

  “Right on!” Quinn says. He’s the guy from my social studies class who called Mom “the hot lady.” In other words, he’s gross and I’ve been trying to avoid talking to him if at all possible.