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By now, my parents had given up all hope that I'd ever marry a Catholic, fearing that I'd continue living in sin with a series of men who were going to hell and taking me with them. That aside, they were very fond of Lee. He liked them too, even though the holidays were usually fraught with animal emergencies. Given his fondness for Pumas, it's a shame he missed the Cat Period, which lasted a good decade. Pie, the acrobat, died from complications of an aerial accident but nevertheless lived to a ripe old age. (Nancy attributed it to all the cardio.) Pie's daughter, Pearl, was hit by a car. Pearl's kittens died at the vet's, after my parents dropped off the pregnant cat prior to going on vacation. She refused to nurse them, either because she was traumatized from the move or because she had no maternal instinct, or possibly both. Another cat climbed up a tree and never came down, and yet another jumped out a car window and sprinted down a highway.

Now that my parents were empty nesters, they decided to get a dog, a cairn terrier named McDuff. By the time my mother realized that dogs don't learn discipline through osmosis, McDuff had already begun his fifteen-year Reign of Terror. Bred to ferret out rats and other rodents from piles of rocks, or cairns, he was, in dog lingo, a “ratter.” He ruled through a combination of intimidation and chutzpah, setting himself up as the master of the house and laying down certain ground rules, such as “no leash.”

Whenever my mother tried to connect a leash to his collar, he'd reveal his vicious side, growling and snapping and threatening to bite her hand. He preferred to be chauffeured around town, sitting in the backseat directly behind my mother. If he was kept waiting in the car too long, she'd pay the price. Once, after a trip to a garden shop, my mother glanced into the rearview mirror to see him baring his teeth like Cujo. He snarled and snapped the whole way home and then wouldn't budge from the backseat. When my father tried to lure him inside, McDuff charged at him, so they let him spend the night in the car, tossing a few dog biscuits and his favorite squeaky toy through the window.

After one particular Thanksgiving, McDuff wound up at the vet's because my mother feared he'd dislocated his neck whipping it around when Lee made the innocent mistake of attempting to connect the leash. He offered to drive the car and in all the confusion he accidentally slammed the door on my mother's finger, so he was two for two.

“I hope McDuff doesn't get all crazy again,” he said as we drove to Andover for Easter.

“He will get crazy, because he
is
crazy.”

All went well, until my mother, in a brilliant sleight of hand, attached the leash to the dog's collar and took him up the street for a walk. Ten minutes later, she returned, frantic. The big dog in the house on the corner had grabbed McDuff by the throat, drawing blood. McDuff was a little shaken up, but quickly reverted to being his normal psychotic self, growling at the leash hanging on the doorknob. We'd just finished our main course when the doorbell rang. The dog's owner and his little boy wanted to give McDuff an Easter basket full of their dog's toys.

“Our dog won't be bothering you anymore,” the father said. “We put him down.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“We put him down,” he repeated.

“As in . . . dead?” I asked.

The father nodded.

Apart from finding a vet keen on euthanizing a golden retriever on Easter Sunday, I wondered what kind of father would do such a thing. And the poor kid! Afterward, nobody felt like finishing dinner. My mother was convinced McDuff had sprained his neck again, though you'd never know it by the way he'd dived into the dead dog's Easter basket. He emerged with a rubber toy shaped like a slipper and began chewing it as if it were my mother's finger.

“Maybe we should bring him to New York and let him loose in the Puma closet,” I said to Lee.

“My Pumas are precious to me.”

“I know.”

We moved again, this time to a larger apartment around the corner from Woody and his wife and their two young children. We had more closet space. We also had the Pumas. Since Lee was traveling so much for work, and I was constantly on deadline, we didn't pay much attention to the next logical step in our relationship: marriage. Whenever one of us brought it up, we usually agreed that we had nothing in common so maybe we should wait until we did.

“We could take up bird-watching when we're in our eighties,” I suggested.

“I like birds,” he said.

“Yeah, but cats eat them.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“That's because we have nothing in common.”

We could have probably gone on like this for years, except certain things pop up in life to remind us that we don't have as much time as we think we do. My mother developed breast cancer and had a mastectomy, and then I needed a breast biopsy. I had to stay overnight at Memorial Sloan Kettering, and in the morning before the surgery, a nun walked into the room and suggested we pray together. That is when I began to get really nervous. Luckily, the biopsy came back negative, but when my therapist asked why I was waiting so long to get married, I didn't have a good answer.

“Why aren't we married?” I asked Lee one night.

“Because you keep telling me we have nothing in common.”

“So what do you want to do?” I pictured him leaping into a pair of Pumas and taking off down Riverside Drive.

“Get married,” he said.

Lee wasn't raised in any particular faith—his mother is Italian Catholic, and his father was half-Jewish, half-Episcopalian—so he didn't care who married us. I was wary of choosing a Catholic priest because I couldn't imagine attending the obligatory Pre-Cana classes. Ultimately, a friend recommended a Presbyterian minister who took a more psychological approach to marital counseling.

The minister kicked off our first session with a series of questions beginning with “If you could choose any other profession, what would it be?” I said actress, which wasn't unreasonable, given my theater background. Lee said fashion photographer, which was totally unreasonable, given he'd never even glanced at a fashion magazine and wore a Tyrolean sweater on our first date.

“He thinks Pumas are going to become collectors' items,” I explained. “That's how much he knows about fashion.”

“What do you have against Pumas?” the minister asked.

“Nothing! I'm just sick of them hogging our closets.”

This led to a discussion about how marriage is about sharing and compromise, when I knew it was just about the Pumas. Our final exercise was to fill out a lengthy compatibility test that we flunked. The minister suggested we might want to “rethink” our plans, because it appeared we had nothing in common. By then, it was too late. I'd already gone to Barneys and splurged on a Chanel suit and my first pair of Manolo Blahnik heels. Shoes were now beginning to have names. Soon, you wouldn't be referring to them as “the black thing with the chunky heel” or “the brown flat” but the Manolo D'Orsay, or Manolo Carolyne, or Manolo Campari Mary Jane. I've forgotten the name of my wedding shoes, but they had Blahnik's signature look: a needle-thin heel and extremely pointy toes. To save on tax, the Barneys salesman suggested I ship both items to my parents' house. A few days later, I got a call from my mother, who was wearing the suit and the shoes. I'd forgotten to tell her that they were coming, and she thought I'd bought them for her.

“You shouldn't have,” she said.

“I didn't,” I replied.

“The shoes are awfully tight. I think I need a bigger size, and I'm not sure about the pointy toe.”

“My mother's been in my wedding shoes,” I told Lee. “That's bad luck.”

“Who told you that?” he asked.

I had no idea, but I was sure that in some fairy tale a mother wearing her daughter's wedding shoes signaled disaster. Lee bought a pair of Gucci loafers that he considered so expensive he'd forever refer to them as his “special occasion” shoes.

During the ceremony, we were both so nervous we got a bad case of the giggles. When the minister said “for richer or poorer,” I thought of our big investment—in Puma shoes—and laughed even harder. The minister looked at us as if we'd both gone crazy, which at least gave us something in common.

Eight years later, when we moved to another apartment with more light but less closet space, Lee finally agreed to get rid of the Puma sneakers. With the emergence of hip-hop, they did become collectors' items, but only the diamond-embossed ones, which he didn't own anyway. We've now been together for thirty-three years. Lee hasn't sprinted away—at least not yet—but whenever we reminisce about the Pumas, I picture a young couple, footloose and fancy-free, and sometimes, when my feet hurt, I miss them.

Girlfriend Shoes

I
recently donated a pair of gray ostrich flats to a local charity thrift shop. I'd once thought of them as my “lucky shoes,” but I hadn't worn them in nearly two decades and every time I saw them in my closet, I felt distinctly unlucky. I figured they deserved a second chance at bringing good fortune to someone else. The thrift shop is within walking distance of my apartment, so I occasionally drop by to see if some crazy rich lady has donated her vast collection of Hermès bags or unworn Louboutin shoes. This has never happened, although I did see a woman trying on my ostrich flats. She must have been in her early eighties and was wearing a fox stole, complete with head and tail. Her feet were much smaller than mine, but since she was wearing thick compression stockings, the shoes seemed to fit. Her friend, who was bedecked in giant cocktail rings and carried a worn Chanel bag, was trying to convince her to buy them.

“They're a bargain,” she said. “Authentic python.”

“Actually, they're ostrich,” I said. “They used to be mine.”

I must have looked distraught because the first woman said, “Dear, take them back. I'm sure the store will give you a good price.”

“No,” I said, “they're meant for you.”

The woman was delighted with them, and as she went up to the counter, pulling out her money from a little beaded change purse, the other woman stood behind her, holding her cane.

How sweet
, I thought.
Old friends
.

For many years, I didn't have a best girlfriend in New York. My bullying experience in high school had left me wary of women, which was why my two best friends were men. I longed for an old-fashioned “steel magnolia,” someone I could giggle and gossip with, who'd be there for me through good times and bad, a sister without the baggage, an old friend to grow old with. Although she wasn't Southern, didn't have big hair or a syrupy accent, Steffi was my steel magnolia. Born and raised in Forest Hills, Queens, she was an only child and envied me for having sisters. She loved hearing stories about them. By then, Nancy was in graduate school in Boston, and Emily, after a stint in L.A., was back in my old apartment, working for a jewelry company. Over the years, there was increasing tension between us. After I reclaimed my apartment, she accused me of throwing her out of it, and during her time in L.A., she wouldn't speak to me. Given our significant age difference, I worried about her like a mother and she often reacted to my concern like a put-upon adolescent. I couldn't say anything without irritating her. Though I tried to give her what I thought was good advice about her various boyfriends and career opportunities, she resented my efforts and didn't appreciate what she considered my know-it-all personality.

Steffi, on the other hand, loved that part of me. Though our birthdays were only a month apart, I was the “older” one, and Steffi expected me to have all the answers. We first met through Warren when we were all in L.A. She was there with her then-boyfriend, Ira, who was also a friend of Warren's. The whole gang had gone to NYU undergraduate school together. The Steffi-Ira love story took years to unfold. For Ira, it was love at first sight. For Steffi, who could debate the pros and cons of dishwasher detergent, it was more complicated; she liked him but did she “love” him? And what was love anyway? And would she be happy married? And on and on and on . . .

Eleven years later, she realized she did love him enough to marry him and it was clear Ira wasn't going away. He'd been right to hang in there. Of all the couples I knew, they were the best match, his strength and resolve offsetting her indecisiveness. He saw the world in black and white; she was more nuanced and emotional. Steffi cried when she was happy. She cried when she was sad. Since she resembled one of those saucer-eyed kids in a Margaret Keane painting, you couldn't miss her tears, which welled up in her eyes and appeared to float there like bathwater bubbles.

Steffi's access to her emotions made her a wonderful audience. She was also a great listener, and I should know because, in all modesty, I'm one of the best. You know the person nobody talks to at a party? That's not me. I'm the one listening to some stranger confess his extramarital dalliance with his law partner's associate. I'm the one trying to get a drink from the bartender, who tells me he's wanted to be an actor ever since he played Javert in his sixth-grade production of the children's abridged version of
Les Misérables.
For whatever reason, I emit “listening vibes.” People tell me all sorts of weird stuff, even those who should know better. Once, when I was doing a story on Bess Myerson, a former Miss America and New York City commissioner who was under investigation for bribery, she talked to me on the phone one day for nearly eight hours.

“
Really?
How can that be?” Steffi said when I told her the story. Though she'd once worked in fashion and later in TV production, she had a severe case of Crohn's disease, an inflammation of the bowel, and was afraid to get another job. In terms of having a career, she lived vicariously through me, and I never wanted to disappoint her. Steffi loved all my stories, whether they landed on magazine covers or involved Warren's ongoing quest for a girlfriend. We both loved Warren. We especially loved gossiping about him, and because Warren was a bit of a narcissist, he loved that he deserved our gossip. It was a win-win for all of us.

“He's in love with dead movie stars,” I'd tell her, and she'd say, “
Really?
How can that be?” When anyone came to interview him about his gallery, he posed next to the life-size poster of Louise Brooks in
Diary of a Lost Girl.
They made a great couple, except for one big problem. “I hope he doesn't actually talk to her,” I said, and we laughed, but not in a mean way, because Warren was like a brother to us.

One summer, we all rented a house on Fire Island, where the walls were so thin I could hear Ira snoring at night. As a result, Lee and I skipped a lot of weekends, but one stands out. Someone, probably Warren, began squirting people with a garden hose. Ira grabbed another hose and soon we were in the middle of a gigantic water fight. We all ended up totally drenched and laughed until we cried, especially Steffi. It may sound stupid, but it was an incredibly fun day, one of the best, and I can still picture Steffi, barefoot and in cutoffs, trying to put on her shoes. Suddenly, they felt too tight and she didn't know what had happened.

“How weird,” she said. “I wonder if my feet grew.”

We wouldn't know the answer until later.

We both had narrow feet. “
Really?
How can that be?” she said when I confided my suspicion that “narrow” was going the way of corsets and crinolines. Nobody else seemed to notice or care. I found it very weird. What if the brassiere industry determined that all breasts were a B cup? Or shirt manufacturers set 15 inches as the standard neck size? At a time when everything is “bespoke,” from extra-foam triple-shot soy lattes, to BMWs with 5,000 possible seat combinations, 60 percent of American women claim they can't find the right shoe size. When was
foot
taken out of
footwear
?

It happened around the same time I met Steffi, during the early years of the Reagan administration. Just as Reagan set out to show that we couldn't expect Big Government to meet everyone's needs, he taught us that we couldn't expect shoes to fit everyone's feet. He didn't cry, “Obliterate narrow and wide,” the way he implored Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!” But he might as well have. When members of the shoe industry pleaded with him for an import quota on footwear, Reagan, whose father had been a struggling shoe salesman, stood firm with free trade. Today, 99 percent of our shoes are imported. Foreign factories have traditionally kept width at “medium,” because shoes are built on expensive and labor-intensive wooden frames known as lasts. By limiting sizes, factories can provide shoe companies with a greater number of styles. It's a win for fashion, if not for feet.

In my search for the perfect narrow shoe, I discovered Hélène Arpels, a tiny gem of a store at 470 Park Avenue, where Jackie Onassis was a favored client. (Jackie gravitated toward flats, while Aristotle Onassis, clearly a secure man, pushed her to buy the highest heels.) The shop was decorated with priceless Chinese furniture and gilded Louis XVI chairs, and on display were the line's signature item—satin court pumps with rhinestones. Hélène Arpels designed all the shoes herself. A model before her marriage to Louis Arpels, of the exclusive jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, she was a member of the International Best-Dressed List and wore diamonds on the toes of her shoes. After I explained that satin court pumps didn't fit my lifestyle, she instructed a beautiful Chinese saleswoman to show me a pair of loafers in the softest napa leather. “I don't suppose they come in triple A,” I said. The saleswoman brought out A, AA, and AAA. I was so thrilled I bought two pairs.

Since Steffi had worked in the garment business, she didn't believe in buying retail, instead picking up her clothes and shoes at sample sales. This was pre-Internet, so I don't even know how she found them, but she'd routinely come back from some grimy warehouse to show me a pair of deeply discounted shoes that otherwise would have cost a fortune. One time, she convinced me to go with her, and I was horrified. A woman nearly wrestled me to the ground over a pair of crocodile loafers, and I swore, “Never again.” Afterward, we had lunch at Sarabeth's on Amsterdam Avenue, where in the middle of eating chocolate cake—she had a major sweet tooth—she started to cry. She confessed that she'd recently suffered a miscarriage. Though she hadn't known it at the time, she was pregnant on Fire Island. That's why she hadn't been able to get her swollen feet into her shoes.

“I'm afraid I'm never going to be able to have a baby,” she said. “You have a career. You have an exciting life. I just want a child.”

At the time, Lee and I weren't married, so even though I was in my mid-thirties, I felt no rush to get pregnant. Since my mother had given birth to Nancy later in life, I didn't share Steffi's sense of urgency. Still, my heart ached for her.

When I left Steffi that afternoon, I took the subway down to the Village, where not far from my old Bleecker Street apartment, I interviewed a thirty-nine-year-old man who was dying of AIDS. The son of a prominent neurologist, he had struggled long and hard over the shame he felt for being gay and how it had impacted his family. Eventually, he found some peace, embarking on a ten-year relationship with another man. Though the relationship ended, he had many friends, a nice apartment, and a job he loved as a tour guide on the Circle Line. Then he developed Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, then meningitis, encephalitis, the list went on. Suddenly, he felt old and wondered if he qualified to sit on the bus seats reserved for senior citizens.

He used a cane to steady his wobbly gait, and walking down the street with him was a slow, torturous process. We kept passing other young men leaning on canes and who looked gray and ashen and ghostly. I remembered walking the same streets with Scott. I also remembered how I practiced “walking away” from him. These men, who were approximately my age and who shared similar dreams, were just trying to muster the strength to walk. “
Really?
How can that be?” Steffi would say when I'd bring back my stories. She thought I was very brave, but I wasn't. The men were brave. I was just a good listener.

Over the next few years, I wrote several pieces on AIDS, sitting next to young men receiving chemotherapy, listening to them talk about their impending deaths. It was hard not to feel overwhelmed. “Is there any good news in the world?” I asked Steffi when I dropped by her apartment one day.

Her big eyes filled with tears. “I'm pregnant,” she said.