maya's favorite shoes lose some of their sparkle

Maya wiggled her toes in us, her watermelon sandals, flashing her pink glitter pedicure in the warm midsummer sun. Her light blonde hair had been separated into two braids that morning and coiled on top of her head like bear ears, but now it had fallen down while she played in the sprinkler and now was a wet mass of tangled waves. Her mother took her inside the house and used a rattail comb to separate it and braided her hair so tightly that her eyebrows were pulled into an expression of perpetual surprise.

"Mom, it's too tight!" she shrieked. Her mother removed the elastic bands and fixed Maya's hair again, this time a little looser, telling Maya not to touch her hair again. Maya found her favorite doll, Cinderella, and took her outside into the sprinkler to play. Cinderella's hair was as ratted and finespun as cotton candy; Maya's mother would just get her a new one for Christmas anyway. While Maya was telling Cinderella that she was a good girl with good friends, Shayla's mom drove up to their house in her green SUV and parked it nearly diagonally in the driveway, simply because Shayla's mom couldn't park. She took Shayla out of her pink toile car seat and brought Shayla around to the backyard where Jane was watching Maya.

"Hey Jane, how are y'all?" Shayla's mom Ashley asked as she chewed mint gum in her mouth and held the toddler on her skinny hipbone.

"Fine, and y'all?" Jane asked. Ashley put Shayla down on the ground, at which point Shayla ran to play with Maya in the sprinkler. The two women chatted until they heard Maya screaming.

"Those are my shoes, Shayla!" Maya yelled. Shayla said nothing because she couldn't talk very well. She was six months younger than Maya, and not nearly as vocal. While Shayla could say simple sentences explaining what she wanted, this statement bothered her as her brows furrowed in deep thought. Shayla gave up on finding the words, shook her head in confusion, and reached out and grabbed Maya by the ankles, pulling her down on the ground, screaming the words 'no' and 'mine' as tears ran down Maya's face.

"Baby Shayla doesn't want those! She doesn't want them," Maya said as Jane and Ashley came to separate them. Maya had forgotten about the black sparkle shoes as they were replaced in the summer by sandals with flowers on them as her favorite shoes, but like an old faithful friend, Maya had remembered them as soon as she saw them on Shayla. The shoes whispered quietly, trying to explain to Maya that they were too small for her now, but Maya couldn't hear them, and after that day, shoes lost their magical powers in her mind, and would never speak again. Instead she focused her vivid imagination on her cat, Dave.

for the love of shoes

We were Christmas shoes, and in her mother's mind, only for holidays, church, and special days. She was only two years old when she went into her closet, took us out of the box, and said, "I want to wear my sparkle shoes."

She was a smart little girl, speaking from the age of one, in nearly full sentences, without any of the baby Einstein shows and toys that her wealthier cousin had enjoyed. She watched "Wonder Pets" on television only once a day, and had enjoyed the human interactions that few children enjoy. Her parents spoke to her and played with her, and made her the center of their lives, and she was doing incredibly well. But that all changed once her father died in an accident 6 months before her second birthday. Her mother made it a point to continue raising her as her husband had wished, so she did not work and rarely spent time away from the little girl, and the little girl had blossomed and became more intelligent, expanding her vocabulary, so it was no surprise when she was able to choose her own clothes and begin dressing herself.

She always picked us. On her second birthday, she had paired us with a silver sparkly tutu and baby blue long-sleeved shirt with snowflakes on it and a pair of white lace tights. Then, the last time she wore us, she paired us with a velvet jumper with ladybugs and ladybug socks.

"I want those shoes?" she asked, unsure that she was saying it correctly.

"Okay, baby, I'll get them down for you. Now hurry, we have to go to the new house and we have to feed Dave before we leave," her mommy said.

"Dave's a good buddy?" she asked about the big fat fluffy orange cat that her dad had adored.

"Yes, Dave is a good buddy. Baby, you're almost too big for these shoes now. We're going to have to give them to your friend baby Shayla, so she can wear them," her mother told her. It was true, the littler girl's feet were getting too big for the little black shoes, and she wouldn't be able to wear them next winter.

The little girl stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, her cheeks turned red, and tears began to form at her eyes. She began screaming, "No, no, no, no, no! Baby Shayla is too little for them! I don't want baby Shayla to have them! They're mine! Mine!"

She cried and cried, and threw herself down on her bed and cried some more. It was good to feel loved. She didn't want to leave us, but her mom thought: "The obsession starts so early."