Shoe Strings

hair.    Lita, I’ll see you
later at work.”
    “No, Sophie, please stay.   I’m going to grab a shower and I’d love
it if you kept Jesse company.”
    Damn, he was hoping to share that shower.   Lita walked to him and placed a hand on
his cheek.   “Do you mind?”
    “Nope.”
    She kissed him soundly before disappearing behind the
bedroom door.   Sophie looked over at
him appraisingly.   “So,” she
said.   “What’s the story with you
and Lita?”
    ***
    Jesse looked like a deer in the headlights.   Not that Sophie had ever seen a deer in
the headlights, but she imagined the startled eyes and frozen body would be the
same.
    “You tell me.   That woman’s harder to figure out than a Rubik’s Cube.”
    Sophie smiled.   “You think?”
    “Hummph.”   He
walked into the kitchen to refill his cup of coffee.  
    “Well…”   She
followed him in and leaned against the counter.   “She likes you.   She wouldn’t have let you get as close
as you are if she didn’t.”
    “You think I’m close?”
    “You’re a hell of a lot closer than she lets most guys
get.   And believe me, they try.”
    He looked skeptical instead of amused.   “I’ll bet they do.   Why does she keep everyone away?”
    “Oh, you’re asking for the story of Lita.”
    He raised his brows.   “I’d like to hear it from her, but I don’t see her spilling her guts
anytime this century.”
    Sophie glanced at the closed door Lita had sauntered into,
heard the water running through the old pipes.   “I don’t think she’d like me talking
about her.”
    “You said yourself she likes me.”   He flashed a smile and she knew right
away why Lita couldn’t resist him.   “What would be the harm?”
    She sighed, but didn’t answer.
    “How about we start simple,” he suggested.   “How did you two meet?”
    Sophie laughed.   “There’s nothing simple about how Lita and I met.”   She looked at him, noticed the way he
held her gaze, the patient way he gave her time to think, all the while picking
at a spot on the counter like a man anxious, vulnerable.   Sophie was a sucker for a vulnerable
man.
    “Did she tell you about our company?”
    “Reluctantly.   I
did a little research and discovered your little shoe company is on the brink
of becoming an international phenomenon.”
    “Our little company,” Sophie said wistfully.   “When I met Lita, it actually was her
little company.   What’d she tell
you—about how she made a few adjustments to her flip-flops and the rest
just fell in her lap?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “Figures.”
    She went back to the couch when her stomach started its
daily roller coaster ride.   “The
only way it fell into her lap was that a woman at a park told her they were
ingenious.   Little Miss Lita made
ten prototypes and walked her eight months’ pregnant body to every shoe store
in Atlanta.”
    “Pregnant?”
    Oh shit.   “Lita
didn’t tell you about the baby?”
    Jesse set his coffee mug on the table so hard it slopped
over the edge.   He didn’t even
notice.   “She has a child?”
    Sophie closed her eyes.   Damn her big mouth.   What
seemed like help now seemed like a betrayal.   “I…shouldn’t have said anything.”
    He grabbed her arm, then loosened his grip when she eyed him
warily.   “Sophie, please.   You have to tell me.”
    “I can’t…it’s not my place.”
    “You’re halfway there.   If you stop now, I’ll just ask Angelita and you know she’ll be pissed.”
    Damn, he did have her figured out.   “Jesse, if she wanted you to know, she’d
have told you herself.”
    “She would have—eventually.   Tell me,” he begged.   “I care about her.   Please.”
    It was the way he said it, his hand on her sleeve, his heart
on his.   “Shit, she’s going to kill
me.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I was working in an upscale shoe boutique at the mall.   She hobbled in with her shoe, we started
talking.   She’d already put in eight
hours waitressing and was working her way around the mall with her mommy
flops.”   She smiled at the
memory.   “They were awesome.   My manager wasn’t there, so I told her
to come back later in the week when she’d be around, told her I’d talk to her
about the flops.”
    She eyed the door, heard the water still running.   “She left a shoe and her card, but she
never came back.   I talked to my
manager, showed her the prototype, and she was ready to order.   When Lita didn’t show