The Object of Her Desire

By Karen Ackland

Shirley Mairs fell in love with her first husband because she liked the way his feet fit in his shoes. At least that’s what she told her daughter, Rose, one afternoon when they were drinking almond cappuccinos at Lulu’s.

“Mama, that can’t be true,” Rose exclaimed. Mother and daughter had similar blue-green eyes and toothy smiles.

“Of course, it’s true. When I noticed your father’s feet, I knew immediately he was the man I would marry.”

“So it was love at first sight,” Rose said. She didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but her mother wasn’t always sensible.

“No, I didn’t notice his feet at first. I was sitting at one of those big library tables and he came over and asked if he could look at a reference book I was using. We whispered a bit about the price of cotton before the Civil War, and he invited me out for a hot fudge sundae.”

“And then you noticed his shoes?”

“No, not then. The next week we went on a double date. Do you remember the Heywoods?”

Rose glanced at her watch. She didn’t have time for the Heywoods. “Of course. What about the shoes?”

“He polished them. I liked that. But it was the way your father’s feet fit in his shoes that made me fall in love. The ankle rested right on the edge of the shoe and his legs rose straight up from there.”

“Mama, I don’t want to hear everything.”

“I’m not going to tell you everything, dear. We were talking about your father’s feet.”

“So that’s why you married him?”

“I thought I could count on a man whose feet rested so firmly on the ground. I was attending college on a scholarship.”

Rose pushed the foam in her cup to one side so she could finish drinking the almond-flavored coffee.

Her mother continued, “It turned out he needed arch supports.”

Rose didn’t remember her father’s shoes. She did remember how he would pull up the driveway of their house honking the horn of a new car and take them all out for ice cream. His favorite flavor was Rocky Road. One year he brought home a black Ford, a silver Oldsmobile, and a red Thunderbird. With the third car, her mother wouldn’t even go for a drive. Instead she walked downtown and got a job in an insurance office.

Rose was determined to avoid her mother’s mistakes. “When I marry,” she announced, “I’ll choose a man for better reasons.”

“I hope so, dear,” her mother said and smiled.

The next week Rose met a man with a single black curl at the nape of his neck. She imagined the curl tightening around her, like a baby clutching a finger. Her father had left when she was a girl, driving away in a Mustang convertible, and she wanted a man who would hold on.

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