Red Shoes
Summary: Berkeley Kandy, rain, red shoes, a chance meeting
Disclaimer: I don't own the O.C. but I do have cute red shoes!
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Well I don't know where this appeared from. Well I do, the intro lecture was really pointless and boring and I have cute red shoes and they got splashed. Sadly there was no handsome stranger around at the time lol. Anyway, just a little treat for you all. I know I've left it kind of open ended but I'm not planning to continue! But you know me, never say never
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August 1983
The rain in Northern California was something Kirsten would just have to get used to. Of course they had rain in the O.C. but it wasn't the same. At home rainstorms were unusual although torrential but blew themselves out within a day or so at the most. Here in Berkeley rain would begin without a storm warning, unpredictable and varied. Sometimes a thorough downpour for an hour, other times grey drizzle blurring the days into one another. She knew now there were many different types of rain. There was the fine mist that made her hair frizz, the spitting that ruined a sunny day. The drizzle that would slowly soak you on the way to a lecture, the sudden downpour that always caught you when you didn't have your umbrella, the heavy, steady sluice that drummed on the rooftops, lashed the windowpanes, splashed back up from the pavements and made her actually miss home, or at least the weather there.
It would of course choose to rain the day she wore her new red shoes. Kirsten didn't think that was very fair. Shoes as pretty as hers shouldn't be rained on. They were red, obviously, with gently pointed toes, cute Mary Jane straps across and heels she felt she could get away with trailing between classes in. Not that that had ever stopped her before. But these were cute and sensible…enough. And they made Kirsten feel like tap dancing. There was something special about wearing red shoes. Maybe it was a Dorothy complex but red shoes seemed a little bit magic.
She'd had a pair of red t-bars as a child when everything was still a fairytale. Kirsten had worn them with everything and even the memory of her first real fight with her father when he tried to make her change them for some Newport party or other, didn't affect how special they'd been.
In her teens Kirsten had bought a pair of bright red boots. Garish, slutty, thigh-high boots with four inch metal stilettos. They weren't really her at all. She'd barely worn them, but she'd bought them all the same; an attempt at rebellion that her father never saw. The day Taryn told her they were 'fuck-me' boots and she wanted some, Kirsten put them in the back of the wardrobe.
Today the shoes were a dusty colour but still bright red. Red enough to make today special just by wearing them. The leather was soft, inlaid with cut-out patterns making the shoes incongruous; the colour, the straps, the style, almost childish, the heels and shape making them elegant, maybe even a little bit flirty. Or at least that's what she liked to think. They were certainly cute.
Kirsten loved the looks she got from people on the street, the way those shoes could transform her whole outfit and the way she felt. Confident.
She walked proudly in those shoes, happy, tapping down the street. She loved how she only had to look down at her feet to make her smile.
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Sandy wasn't sure when he'd first noticed the girl walking ahead of him he just suddenly realised he was watching her. She was petite and blonde with a cute ass but surprisingly enough that wasn't what he was watching in particular. It was the way she walked that got to him. Head up proudly; back straight, hips swaying slightly from side to side as she placed her feet one in front of the other like a model on the catwalk but it didn't appear to be phoney, more like she walked like a superstar naturally. If he couldn't hear the heels clicking on the sidewalk he would think she was floating. She had a presence, flair, right down her long, slender legs to her feet which were what his eyes were caught on. Red shoes. True he could only see the backs of them, but they were definitely red, bright leather with wooden heels that were twice as high as anyone else wore just for walking round campus. The shoes stood out in the street and against her outfit, which although it was obviously well cut and well put together was simply elegant, it didn't shout 'look at me'. The shoes were like a wink across a lecture hall, a random smile in the street, a tease, a surprise, a bright point in the day. Sandy wondered why on earth he was thinking so hard about the shoes and the girl wearing them. He just liked the idea, he realised, liked whoever it was who was trotting along the street in shoes that would look more suitable on stage in a production of the Wizard of Oz. He found himself wondering if she'd be walking the same way next week.
Wrapped up in his thoughts he almost fell over her when she stopped all of a sudden. One foot was splashed with muddy water which had spurted out from under a broken paving slab when she stepped on it.
'Fuck!' she exclaimed crossly, hopping sideways and muttering under her breath at the sidewalk.
Sandy smirked. He didn't know many good looking girls who swore so unblinkingly in the middle of the street.
'That slab is always a killer,' he said as he drew level.
She turned to look at him and her face was more beautiful than he had let himself hope for when faced only with her back. 'Well they should fix it! What the hell do I pay taxes for?'
He laughed and shrugged not knowing what to say now, words dwindling as his brain registered how hot she was, how totally out of his league.
'Just what I don't need,' she complained, more to herself than him as she dug through her bag for a tissue. 'Wet feet when I'm already late...' she growled, wiping off her shoe and glancing up, bottom lip caught between her teeth. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't rant at you…you don't know where the Dawson building is do you?'
Sandy smiled thinking how cute that face was, button nose and blue-green eyes framed by the golden curls tumbling haphazardly from her head.
'Freshman?'
She nodded, blushing. 'With no sense of direction.'
'Well you've done fine so far, you just missed the entrance,' he told her, motioning to a slip road a couple of feet behind them.
'Thank you!' she breathed, looking at him properly for the first time, taking in a shock of messy black hair, piercing blue eyes and a half-sheepish, half-cheeky smile. Their eyes locked for a moment before she remembered how late she was.
'I gotta go but thank you.'
'You're welcome,' he said as she ducked her head and turned away. 'Cute shoes by the way,' he added.
Kirsten glanced over her shoulder as she hurried back in the other direction; heels tapping double-time on the tarmac, and smiled a megawatt smile at the handsome stranger with such good taste. Sandy watched her for a moment before sauntering off himself, looking back himself to see if she would do it again.
She did. Result he thought, kicking himself for not having the foresight to ask her name.
'Red Shoes' would have to do.
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Kirsten always said the best things happen when you least expect. That wearing red shoes made any day a good day. That special things happened when you wore them. She didn't know just how special that particular day had been.
The next time she wore her red shoes was Halloween.
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