These Boots Were Made For Stomping Read online

  Not that Lydia relayed any of this to Darla. Instead, she said, “Yeah. You’re right. Whatever,” then dipped her head back down, her cheeks burning merely from the effort of that tiny bit of defiance.

  Get a backbone, Carmichael.

  Lydia scowled, ignoring the voice in her head that sounded remarkably like her best friend Amy’s familiar drone. Amy repeatedly told Lydia she needed to stand up for herself. For that matter, Amy also repeatedly told Lydia she needed to get up her nerve to talk to a man. Any man. What Amy failed to ever do was give Lydia a clue how she was supposed to manage either of those things.

  “Have a nice evening,” Darla said, the sneer in her voice matching the one on her face. Then she turned sharply and sashayed down the corridor, balancing on her designer shoes, swinging her designer bag, and looking for all the world like a woman who always got exactly what she wanted. In other words, the antithesis of Lydia.

  It’s not so bad, Lydia thought. Who’d want to be like Darla, anyway?

  But a tiny voice inside her head answered up: Me.

  Okay, so the truth was, she didn’t want to be Darla (because, you know, what a bee-yatch), but there were certain Darla-esque qualities it would be nice to acquire. Like, oh, the ability to talk to someone without turning all shades of purple.

  She went back to her comic books, even burning through the stash of fanfic Silver Streak novellas she’d found on eBay, while she waited for Mr. Stout. Nothing.

  What she needed to do was get up, march down the hall and firmly and resolutely tell Mr. Stout that she was waiting. What she did was pull up her Internet browser, pop over to eBay, and start searching for good deals on vintage comics.

  Typical.

  Her whole life—or at least since she’d been five—she’s turned to comic books when she couldn’t quite get up the nerve to face real life. Comics soothed her. More than that, they spoke to her. Comics were a window to another world. A world that was happening all around, if only people would wake up and pay attention.

  Or maybe the superheroes needed to just stop hiding.

  She frowned, remembering that summer right before she’d turned six. Her parents hadn’t believed her when she’d told them what she’d seen, and when the newspapers printed a perfectly reasonable explanation for how the baby had survived being tossed out of a moving limousine, that had been the end of it. Everyone had assumed that Lydia had a vivid imagination rather than really good eyesight. But even now Lydia could remember the spectacle that had played out before her. How the warm, thick air had felt across her face as she’d stood on the sidewalk in Times Square, stared goggle-eyed at—

  Thud, thump!

  She sat bold upright, her memories vanishing in a poof. Footsteps. Finally, there were footsteps, and she sat up straighter, anticipating Mr. Stout’s bellow, calling her back into his office.

  It didn’t come.

  She scowled at the side of her cubicle, checking out the pink kitty clock with the ticktock tail. Already past seven o’clock. Damn.

  She frowned, then slumped down in her seat and started throwing Velcro darts at the side of her cubicle. Then she stopped, realizing that maybe—just maybe—Mr. Stout had shot off an e-mail asking her to pop down to his office and—finally—go over those reports she’d spent the last two days hammering out.

  She pulled up her e-mail and skimmed through the incoming messages. Nothing. She clicked over to the junk mail folder in case the computer thought Mr. Stout was spam. Nothing.

  She considered walking down to his office and telling him that she was supposed to meet Amy for dinner, and even if she left right this very minute she’d still be late. And that, frankly, would suck. Because after two years of trying for a baby, Amy and Cash had finally managed to get pregnant, and exactly five months and twenty-seven days ago, Lydia’s goddaughter Chenda had been born.

  Lydia wanted to tell Mr. Stout what a big deal this dinner was, because Amy so rarely went anywhere without Chenda these days. Lydia was craving girl night with her best friend, and Mr. Stout’s tardiness was completely messing it up. She needed to get off her butt, march down to his office, and tell him exactly that.

  Except, she didn’t. No surprise there. Just the idea of telling Mr. Stout—or any boss—to get a move on was enough to give her heart palpitations. Actually doing it? Um, no thank you very much.

  No, no, no. She had to start getting a little backbone. How painful could it be? It wasn’t like he was going to fire her on the spot. All she had to do was push back the chair, stand up, walk out of the cubicle, march down the hall, knock on Mr. Stout’s office, and then—

  What?

  She frowned, considering. Asking him what the holdup was wouldn’t work. No way. Even if she could manage to grow some backbone in the next five minutes, that was really too ballsy to hope for.

  But, maybe, possibly, perhaps she could poke her head in the door and say she heard something and had he called her? That would be good, right? And even if he said no, surely it would remind him that she’d been sitting out there waiting for him for one hour and fifty-seven minutes. She could do that. Right? Right.

  Lydia took a deep breath, pushed back her chair, stepped out of her cubicle, and ran smack into Martin Stout.

  “Oh!”

  “Carmichael,” he said, his caterpillar eyebrows wiggling as his brow furrowed. He glanced down at his watch. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

  “I . . . um. . . I . . .”

  “Gotta get more efficient there, Carmichael. You see anybody else here now?”

  “No, sir,” she squeaked.

  “They got their work done and went home. That’s the point, young lady. Gotta learn to balance work and life.” He gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “But . . .” She froze, the words trapped in her throat.

  “Well, speak up,” he said. “I’m late for drinks.”

  She drew in a breath. “The cost-benefit analysis sir. I thought—”

  “That’s exactly my point,” he said. “That should be on my desk. Get it to me in the morning, and we’ll overlook that it’s late this once.”

  “But—”

  He lifted a finger, then cocked it. “You finish and lock up,” he said. “Get that report in, and this conversation stays in the past. Capiche?”

  She swallowed, her mouth working, but nothing coming out.

  Say something, she shouted in her head. The report’s done. It’s been done and on your desk for half the day. I’ve been waiting in this stupid cubicle for hours to talk to you about it because you told me to.

  The words didn’t come. And as she stood there, her mouth hanging open and her tongue tied in a knot, Martin Stout walked down the hall, pushed the button for the elevator, and disappeared.

  Damn.

  “Tell me you’re kidding,” Amy said, tapping a perfectly manicured nail on the tabletop. “You have got to be kidding.”

  Lydia took a long draw on her piña colada, managing to finish off half the glass in one suck. Other than that, though, she ignored the question.

  “Honestly, Lyd, do I have to tie you down and shove a steel bar up your butt?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Dude! To give you some backbone.”

  “That is positively gross,” Lydia protested. “A steel bar?”

  Amy waved the words away. “Got your attention, didn’t it? That’s what you need, my friend. A great big wake-up call. You need something to happen where you have to stand up for yourself.”

  “I think that happened two hours ago,” Lydia said, thinking of the debacle with Mr. Stout. “And in case you weren’t paying attention, I blew it.”

  “See?” Amy said, inexplicably. “That’s what I’m talking about?”

  “What?”

  “Just now. That tone that you took with me right this very second. You were standing up for yourself.”

  “Well, sure. You said—”

  “My point,” Amy said with a haughty wave of
her hand, “is that you’re perfectly capable of standing up for yourself. You simply don’t do it when it counts.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So, why not? Why stand up to me and not Mr. Stout?”

  “Um, because I know you? And because Mr. Stout is my boss and could fire me, or tell me I’m an idiot and suck at my job. Or demote me to the mail room or something.”

  “But do you really think he would? I mean, do you suck at your job?”

  “No,” Lydia said automatically. Because she didn’t. She simply never had the guts to tell Mr. Stout as much.

  “Exactly,” Amy said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest in a case-closed sort of manner.

  Lydia shook her head, clueless. “And your point is?”

  “Confidence,” Amy said. “We need to find something that’s going to make you as self-confident around Mr. Stout as you are around me. Or, hell, even twenty-five percent as confident. I mean, honey, you don’t have anywhere to go but up.”

  True enough. “But how?”

  “A talisman. A token. Something that you can have on you to remind you that you’re a competent, successful woman who has the right to stand up for herself and—surprise, surprise—actually knows how to do it, even if you forget half the time.”

  “A talisman will do all that?” Lydia quipped. “What are you thinking of? A voodoo doll? I poke pins in my confidence centers and figure that will be good enough?”

  “We could try that,” Amy said, her lips pursing in concentration. “But maybe something less complicated at first. Take me. I’ve got my Scooby-Doo underwear.”

  “Well, yeah,” Lydia said, remembering how her best friend had—ever since high school—worn Scooby-Doo pan ties whenever she had a big test, presentation, date—anything important. “But I don’t like Scooby-Doo.”

  “Heretic,” Amy said. “And I’m not thinking that for you, anyway. No, I think you need something a teensy bit more than underwear.” She tapped her index finger against pursed lips as her eyes skimmed over Lydia. “Yeah,” she said, in the kind of voice that always made Lydia very, very nervous. “Definitely a little bit more.”

  “I don’t look like me,” Lydia protested, looking in the mirror at the face staring back at her. It was a pretty face—no, a stunning face—but certainly not a familiar one.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Amy said. “It is you. So of course it looks like you. It’s just you with eyeliner, shadow, blush, powder, and some lip gloss. If you’d ever once bothered to step into Sephora . . .” She trailed off, clearly deeply offended by Lydia’s failure to bend to the power of the cosmetics gurus.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it,” Lydia said. “But I don’t think it’s really doing the trick.” She pursed her lips at her reflection, waiting for that little oomph of confidence. Nada.

  “Not even with the hair?” Amy asked, sounding so disappointed that Lydia had to rush to reassure her.

  “No, no,” she said. “The hair is great. Love the hair. But, well, do you really think highlights are my thing?” She tilted her head, admiring the way the golden streaks seemed to shimmer against the tawny brown that a few hours earlier had seemed so plain. Okay, yes. So maybe it really did look good. But still—

  “It’s not like hair is going to do it for me,” Lydia insisted. “That’s just not who I am. Besides, is a make over really a talisman? I thought you said I needed a talisman.”

  “Patience, grasshopper,” Amy said. “That’s the last step. And lucky you, we’ve already reached the penultimate step in my plan to completely rehabilitate you. Clothes.”

  Lydia looked around dubiously. “We’re in my apartment.”

  “Yup,” Amy said. “Because, as luck would have it, your clothes don’t suck.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “Honestly. Come here,” Amy said, and Lydia dutifully followed her to the closet, where Amy began pulling out the jeans, shirts and jackets that Lydia collected during her thrift, floor sample, and bargain-shopping excursions. Yes, she might still be on the low rung of the salary ladder (with no way to climb it, if Mr. Stout kept ignoring her) but at least she looked cute down there at the bottom.

  “This,” Amy said, holding up a pair of black hip-hugger jeans, a low-cut pink shirt with a baby blue lace camisole underneath, and a silver chain-link belt. “Absolutely darling.”

  “Can’t do it,” Lydia said, asserting herself just for practice. “No shoes. I haven’t got anything in my closet that I like with jeans. Especially not with black jeans.”

  “I said penultimate, didn’t I?” Amy reminded her. “You’ve hit on the final step. Footwear. The perfect shoe. And not only the perfect shoe,” she added, leading Lydia into her living room and parking her in front of her computer. “But shoes that can make your dreams come true.”

  “Been nipping into my Kahlua stash?” Lydia asked.

  “I’m serious,” Amy said. She leaned over and put her fingers on the keyboard, then typed, www.hiheelia.com. Immediately a colorful, funky Web page came up, filled with images of shoes, a lot of nice-sounding language and the ultimate promise that a purchase from the site would “get a girl exactly what she needs and wants.”

  “Um, okaaaaaaay,” Lydia said. “And you want me to what?”

  “I want you to order shoes,” Amy said. “That’s all. Just shoes.”

  “But what about all this stuff about a magical journey?” she asked, waving her hand vaguely at the Web page. “And your heart’s desire?”

  “That is your heart’s desire, isn’t it?” Amy asked. “To be bolder? More confident?”

  “Well, yeah. But I thought maybe I’d take a night class or something. Purchasing footwear from some supposed goddess named Shoestra wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. How did you find the site, anyway?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s true,” Amy said, defensively. “Or at least that’s where the woman found me.”

  “What woman?”

  “I was at lunch with some of the girls from work, and we were talking about babies and stuff, and I was going into one of my pity-fests since I couldn’t get pregnant. And there was this fabulous-looking woman at the next table over, and I had the feeling she’d been listening to our whole conversation. It was freaky.”

  “And so, what? She threatened to kill you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Amy. Tell. Now.”

  Amy lifted an imperious eyebrow, making it clear that she was telling the story her way or not at all. “I went to the restroom, and I was sitting there and someone knocked on the stall wall, and then this hand came under. I thought they needed toilet paper, you know? But I looked down, and they were handing me toilet paper.”

  “Um, why?”

  “That’s what I wondered, and good thing I didn’t just use it, right? Because there was a note scribbled on it. And it had the web address and some flowery language about achieving your heart’s desire.”

  “And you believed it?”

  “No,” Amy said. “Actually, I flushed it. But, well, the note ended with an instruction to pass the site address on to someone else who might need it. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought it sounded sincere, and so—”

  “And so you thought you’d sucker me into the potty site. Great.”

  Amy frowned, looking thoroughly dejected. “I thought you would have trusted me a little bit more. You’re the one always wanting to believe in the supernatural.”

  “It’s superheroes, not the supernatural. And of course I trust you,” Lydia said. “But . . . oh. Did you imply—”

  Amy shrugged. “After I left the restaurant I decided I was curious. So I logged on.” Another shrug. “Shoestra might have had a little something to do with Chendra’s arrival.”

  Lydia’s eyes opened wide. She’d never once expected practical, no-nonsense Amy would have put her faith in something as dicey as the Web site of some so-called
goddess. A shoe goddess of all things!

  Still, there was no denying little Chendra. The tiny tot made her presence known every time Lydia came to visit. And wasn’t there something to be said for pop psychology? If you believed something, then couldn’t you subconsciously make it come true?

  Could she believe?

  Mentally, she rolled her eyes. No way, no how. But she could order a pair of shoes to make her friend happy.

  Maybe she could find a pair of shoes on the site that completed her cute new outfit. That was about all she could hope for, really, because she knew damn good and well that no shoe would give her the backbone to stand up to Mr. Stout. That, frankly, would require a whole lot more than magic. That would require a whole new Lydia.

  And things like that . . . Well, things like that simply didn’t happen to ordinary girls from Brooklyn.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Let me guess,” Nikko said. “You’re sending me back to Colorado. Kicking me off the Council. Making me Outcast.”

  Zephron, the Protectors’ white-haired High Elder, smiled indulgently. “Perhaps we can keep that eventuality at bay for a bit longer, eh?”

  Nikko slumped in his chair. “It was too much to hope for,” he said, drawing a chuckle from the older man.

  “Do you truly wish to remain on probation? You do not want to prove yourself and earn back your full Protector rank?”

  “Considering I took a flying leap from the Empire State Building in full view of half of Manhattan, I’m thinking that’s not a realistic possibility.”

  “That was an unfortunate circumstance. Certainly we have all appeared to mortals in moments of dire need.”

  “Have we?”

  Zephron shrugged off the question. “Fortunately, the MLO team assigned to the incident has concocted a wonderful cover story. Something involving a circus and an IMAX film, I believe.”

  “Still a moot point,” Nikko said. “Only way I’m getting off probation is to bring down Rex, and I’m beginning to think that’s not possible. The man’s slippery. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was an Outcast, not a mortal.”