“So like one of those babies that emerges from the womb as a total bitch?”
“Exactly,” Juice says.
“Lila slid out, and the doctors were like, Congratulations, Mom and Dad, it’s … a bitch!”
“Yes!” Juice laughs. Once she gets the joke, she can’t stop. “Surprise! It’s a giant bitch!”
“Would you like to swaddle your giant bitch?” Phoebe asks, and this sends Juice over the edge.
They get out of the car. They walk down Bellevue Avenue and Juice stops in front of an art gallery.
“Ugh,” she says. “I wish my dad never walked into this gallery.”
The Winthrop Gallery of International Art. The door is locked, the lights are off, but through the window, Phoebe can see big canvasses and shiny frames in the dark. She tries to imagine Gary walking in there, Lila at the desk.
“Wait, is that a Hudson River School painting?” Phoebe asks.
Juice shrugs. “What’s a Hudson River School?”
They enter the boutique next door because Phoebe spots shoes against the back wall.
“I seriously don’t get it,” Juice says. “I already have shoes!”
Phoebe looks at Juice’s combat boots. “Not open-toed ones.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Boots don’t reveal your toes.”
“Yeah, because my toes are actually kind of private.”
“Not for much longer, I’m afraid,” Phoebe says. “At this wedding, there are public toes only.”
“Has anyone ever asked themselves … why? Why do we want to see other people’s toes so much?”
“Juice,” Phoebe says. “Let me make your life a lot simpler. You always need the shoes that the bride wants you to have.”
“But why? I’m tired of doing everything she wants.”
“It’s just one of those rules.”
“One of what rules?”
“Like, nobody can make fun of your father but you. Don’t eat a giant cake before running. And always buy the shoes that the bride wants you to buy.”
Juice looks impressed. “What other rules do you know?”
“Too many,” Phoebe says.
PHOEBE HELPS JUICE pick out gold shoes that she doesn’t completely hate more than life itself, and Phoebe gets a black pair for herself. She tries them on and they look so good, she feels proud of her feet.
“What do you think?” Phoebe asks, stretching out her leg.
“It looks like a foot,” Juice says. “With a shoe on it.”
“But do you like it?”
“You sound like Lila,” Juice says. “Lila’s obsessed with her feet.”
“What do you mean, she’s obsessed with her feet?”
“During the pandemic she spent hours watching TV and soaking her feet in this pedicure machine she bought. And it was my pedicure machine. I mean, she gave it to me for my birthday. And she was like, Yeah, but you never use it. And I was like, Well yeah, why would I use that? I mean, who cares what someone’s feet look like? It’s like she has no idea that we’re all just going to die someday.”
Juice leans over to unbuckle her shoe.
“Is that what you said?” Phoebe asks.
“Once,” Juice says.
“Harsh.”
“Well, it’s not normal. She’s obsessed with the way she looks. It literally takes her hours to figure out what to wear … to the bathroom. It’s such a waste of time.”
It’s a similar kind of thing Phoebe used to tell herself in graduate school when everybody showed up to class looking like they had spent all morning turning themselves into a postmodern painting. It made her feel better about just wearing jeans. But Phoebe no longer believes this is the whole truth.
“A woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself,” Phoebe says. “It’s a line from an Edith Wharton novel.”
A line that struck Phoebe as very true, even though her students always thought it sounded shallow. So does Juice.
