The Wide Fit
Jianna Jackson What was happening to me? “Miss Nelson are you okay?” I stopped in mid-stride, the words I was stringing together froze on my tongue, my fingers twitched, first at once. Then violently. “I—” Needed to take off my heels. They were 130mm torture devices, I couldn’t see, think, when my feet were being suffocated by their width. My mother told me to purchase the wide-fit pair when we’d gone shopping, she
always does. She would say “Donna, your feet aren’t dainty like those white women who they made the shoes for. Size up or buy the bigger ones.”
She’d say that about every article of clothing, that’s true. I’d never listen. But the shoes; they needed to go. I whipped them off my feet and stood bare on the porcelain tiles.
The deed was done. The stupefied eyes of my colleagues, who took a
slice of my days insisting to engage in business promenade with me, were trained on me and then on my shoes. What had we been talking about? “Where was I, Rodney?” Was it performance appraisal or strategic investment?
“Gentlemen, my eyes are up here.” I quipped after a completely
107