I got my inspiration back. Hope you enjoy-R&R if you do.
SP and characters © Matt and Trey
She staggers into the room, flings open the closet door, revealing numerous garments, all in mint condition. That is not what she's looking for. She moves the sliding doors aside, to reveal her stash. Bebe has a lot of shoes. At the last count there were 40 pairs, but since then, the number has increased and the pyramid of shoeboxes that occupies her wardrobe has grown bigger. The shoes make Bebe feel better about life in general. Other people call their therapists, or make lists of their problems, or drink, or take drugs. Bebe buys shoes. Not to drown her sorrows, or to block unpleasant memories, but to remember things. Every pair of shoes has its story. She kneels on the floor, picks out a box at random.
Electric blue sandals, sequinned, peep-toed, with ankle straps; the epitome of beauty. But at a price. Given to her in fourth grade by Clyde Donovan, the shoes cost her a great friendship, the integrity of the list-making committee, and, although not apparent for quite a while, her own self-respect. In a strange way (stupid, it seems to her), Bebe is afraid of these shoes. They are amazing, they are fabulous. But everything about the shoes smacks of dishonesty, from the circumstances under which they were obtained to the reason she even keeps them. If asked, Bebe would say that she kept them because they were such fucking awesome shoes, duh. The real reason, in fact, is to keep her focused. She will never become the girl who wore those shoes again.
Another box is pulled out and opened, revealing white, cherry-print canvas pumps, worn the first day of middle school with a white vest under a red off-the shoulder sweater that hugged every curve and jeans. Worn, if she remembers correctly, to impress Clyde Donovan, for some reason (Bebe has since discovered that oral sex is a much more effective way of getting the boy's attention ). Only worn once, and marred by the slight but stubborn bloodstain on the left shoe, courtesy of Eric Cartman stabbing Kenny McCormick in the shin with a chisel. Blood had spurted everywhere, making Eric laugh, Clyde cry, the majority of the girls scream, Kenny bleed to death, and Bebe's shoes unwearable. The poor piece of crap.
A couple of boxes are yanked out in a frenzy, the contents examined and then discarded. Hello Kitty flats, purple leather boots, ebony-black stilettos, a demure pair of pearl-coloured court shoes, all glanced over, picked up and tossed out of the way. That was what life had been like for her through middle school: Butters Stotch, Craig Tucker, Token Black, Gary Harrison, all flirted with, strung along and then discarded for someone better, or so she had thought. She had never really had to fight for any of her men: to the disgust and envy of most of the other girls, her victims had always been willing. But then...something seemed to be lacking in life. Nothing material, per se, she'd always been given pretty much anything she'd wanted. No, this was something different. Men began to grow weary of her, the girls became distant, rumours spread like wildfire. The day she went to her locker to find "slut" scrawled on it in cerise day-glo paint, in what looked remarkably like Heidi Turner's handwriting was the final straw. She was going to find The One.
Dating Tweek had brought to Bebe's closet the bronze-coloured ankle boots. He'd stood with her while she spent the best part of two hours, picking up, trying on, considering. In retrospect it was really very sweet of him. Shoe shops incorporated a stunningly large amount of his phobias: UV lights (increased cancer risk), high heels ("Jesus! You could break your ankle or-or impale someone's toes! Oh Jesus!"), paper bags (paper cuts) and many others. The boots were not particularly flashy, or even really noticeable, but they did have a certain charm to them. Bebe liked that. It reminded her of Tweek.
Red patent high heels saw the end of Tweek Tweak, and the start of a new relationship: this time Kyle Broflovski. Bebe knew this time she had made a good choice: Kyle was heterosexual, rich without being ostentatious, a car-owner, had a good job waiting for him when he decided to leave school and possessed one hell of a nice ass. What's more, he made a conscious effort to include her in his friendship circle. The day he'd bought her those shoes, they'd been out in a small group, just two or three of them, and Kyle had felt so happy that day he'd even bought her a second pair when she could not decide between the two. The two pairs of shoes, by some coincidence, seemed to always come together, like Kyle and Stan. Bebe thought back and smiled slightly at the irony of dating best friends simultaneously.
Bebe never liked the word "cheating." To her, cheating was just a way of staying one step ahead of everyone else, and getting more for your money. Like the shoes, she thought. So when Kyle became bogged down with school work, it seemed natural to have the person closest to him to remind her of what she was missing. It was fun really. She began to differentiate between the two by her choice of footwear. One the days she saw Kyle, she wore the red heels. On what she liked to call her "Stan Days," she switched to the blue wedges. It was an effective little system. Until she got bored.
Excitement was always something Bebe looked out for. Something new, something different, something to make herself stand out from everyone else. Excitement was found; it seemed, in Sally Darson, who lured her in with a pair of unusual nubuck and alligator-imitation leather ankle boots, with kitty broaches on the sides as a sort of acceptance of her new choice of life. Weary at first of the cats reminding her of Butters, Bebe quickly grew reassured that being with Sally would be different from the tedious monotony of her other relationships. This was a new start, a new chapter in her life.
It's a shame these stories all seem to end the same way, isn't it? After six months and a fairly fun time of it, Sally and Bebe split. Bebe donned plain, white, canvas sneakers, dressed modestly, and did not attempt to trap anyone in her web. Fate it seemed just did not seem to want her to have a significant other, in any shape or form. All her ex's, rebounds, casual fuck-buddies and one-night-stands became unavailable in one way or other. It seemed to her that she was forever doomed to be this way: always laughing, always the life of the party, but still never meant to be one of a pair like the shoes she loved so much.
And then...one day: fate. The same design and label of shoes walking towards her, not the pristine white of her own, but faded to a greyish-cream, scrawled all over with curse words, blood stains and elaborate doodlings of their owner's mind. Bebe knew of Kenny's unfortunate little...dying problem, but had never felt the emotional repercussions, and how much love could actually hurt. When Bebe had known Kenny in middle and high school, he often died, only to come back that self same day. But now, it could be days, weeks on end.
And then, the final time. When he had not returned.
Bebe scoops up the tattered, scruffy, drawn-on shoe and cradles it to her chest like she can never bear to let it go. She scrabbles around on the floor, throws every box out of the closet. Her hand touches nothing but the back of the wardrobe. She brings her knees up to her chest, sneaker still in hand and says nothing. She sits for seconds, minutes, hours, she does not know. A hand on her shoulder. She looks up,
"Do I get my other shoe back now, Babes?"