Andrea Marcusa

While cleaning our basement, I found a pair of three-inch patent-leather heels resting under papers in a file cabinet. Elegant. Expensive. Forbidden. My hands shook. I could be arrested. No questions asked. 

Ten years ago, heels were banned. Men and women in blue-jean uniforms with Golden Age pins rounded up all heels and skirts and destroyed them. Now, we wear government-issued drab green pants, shapeless jackets, gray athletic shoes—double knotted. 

My fingers sweat holding the shoes. Should I leave them there or try to dispose of them without Government cameras recording me? Turning them in’s too risky. I could land in jail. I push them back under the files and shut the drawer.  

Before the ban, women wore athletic shoes on their trip to work, then switched into heels at their desks. So did I. My colleague said heels accented her calves, despite painful bunions. Back then, skirts were still allowed. I cut a fine figure in mine. 

My granddaughter doesn't know about “heels,” “skirts,” or “gowns.” All non-regulation clothing and footwear have been deleted from the digital universe. We are forbidden to speak of them. “Follow the rules,” I tell my daughter. “It will keep us safe.”

Later, while walking in the woods, slender trees rise, their slim trunks like graceful calves and thighs. Branches billow like skirts. I imagine those trees in spiky heels and sleek hose and remember how we danced at formal weddings in long fitted gowns, and satin and rhinestone high heels. In a clearing, I can almost hear us swaying in moonlight with joy and passion.

When I was a young girl, I owned a doll with a skimpy sequined dress and silver heels on her permanently arched feet. But those shoes never stayed on. 

One day, I noticed they were lost.

	

Andrea Marcusa's writings have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Moon City Review, Milk Candy Review, Citron Review, and others. She’s received recognition in a range of competitions, including Smokelong, Best Microfiction, and Cleaver, and is the author of the chapbook, What We Now Live With (Bottlecap Press) She's a member of the faculty at The Writer's Studio in New York City.