Shoes

Wednesday 9 May

"I have got the wrong shoes on!"

Now, let us get the scene right. It is 9:45AM and Lara is in a hospital bed at Saint Luke's, located in a small examination room in the hematology day clinic. I am sitting next to her in an uncomfortable chair that is going to be my dwelling place for the next nine hours! Before leaving the house, Lara has done her eye lashes and her beauty mark, clipped on a pair of pearl earrings (did we buy them in Hawaii?) and put on her pink turban. We have just braved the morning traffic together riding in an ambulance with full acoustics. She is hooked up to 4 liters of oxygen fed to her from a nozzle in the wall and we are waiting for a nurse, a paramedic or a doctor. She is wearing a new black dress (made of bamboo fiber), which we bought together at "Les Ateliers de la Maille" at the bottom of Louise, and a turquoise twin top, which somehow matches her headgear. Her central line infuses a mixture of morphine and tranquilizer.

Then she looks down at her feet and to her horror discovers she is wearing the wrong Ferragamo's! Now, a few days before she had asked me to dish out her Ferragamo's from her shoe closet. What you have to appreciate, dear readers, is that I was quite proud to grasp that 'Ferragamo' referred to shoes and not to the movie industry or an expensive restaurant in New York's meat district. As instructed,  I zoomed in on flats with a gold clasp and found them immediately, feeling quite good about myself. I didn't remember - as she would we remind me later after having been found out - that she owns two pairs of F.'s, one in black patent leather, the other in navy blue. So, this morning, to her utter dismay, she found out she was clad - imagine - in a black dress and, yes, navy blue shoes! Horreur!

So I quickly offered to take them off and put them out of sight. She readily agreed, before anyone else came into the room, worrying that the ambulanciers hadn't noticed, one of them being a beautiful woman.