Kathy Fish

No Heft

This guy I knew was always saying he wasn't born yesterday and it was clear he hadn't been.

            It's something people say when they want you to know they're not gullible. When they want you to know they're no fools. Maybe you are, but they sure aren't.

            This guy though. He was kind of a fool. He was always remarking about my feet. You have beautiful arches, he'd say, winningly.

            Wear the strappy sandals, he'd say, and I seriously had never heard a guy use that term.

            I mean, I don't want to make this all about feet, but it kind of is.

            When things started to get serious with us, the guy bought me a toe ring, a cheap one, from the county fair. I knew it was cheap because in my hand it had no heft. The thing was gold, but it was no heavier than the pull tab on a can of beer. I could have bent it with my mind.

            But I wore it for him. It just made him so damn happy to see it there on my, I guess, ring toe.

            I’d been seeing someone else at the time because of course I was. It’s good to keep one’s options open. Toe ring guy caught us one night at the 929. He marched right up to our table and said, well, well, well.

            And I said, this is my cousin, Daniel, and I offered him some of our 929 Loaded Chili Cheese Tots.

            I don't know why I said it. The other guy's name wasn't Daniel and he wasn’t my cousin.                                    

He said, I wasn't born yesterday, and he asked for his toe ring back. And I told him it broke, which it had. I wasn't wearing the strappy sandals. I was wearing the chunky black Chelsea boots he hated.

            The other guy was more my age. And he was just so confused. I didn't “end up” with either of them and it’s fine. Eventually, they wised up. And anyway, my feet are disgusting now, like hooves.