by Sheree Shatsky

MY NEW YORK grandmother told me I’d look like the actress Sandra Dee when I grew older, vivacious and blonde with a crooner for a beau like Bobby Darin. Black would be my color, not blue to match my eyes, not brown like Sandra’s, who by the way looked fantastic in black with her platinum hair and Bobby on her arm before their love went up in smoke. But for now, your color is red, red, red! The blush of youth!

Together, we toured her three points of Mecca: Loehmann’s and Marshalls and Macy’s, piling the cart with all shades of red. The strawberry baby doll swimsuit I’d wear all summer. The raspberry peek-a-boo blouse my mother made her return along with the two pairs of chili pepper fishnet stockings. The cherry red shoes, she let me keep. Delicious shiny patent leather pumps with stacked two-inch wood heels I practice-wore grocery shopping with my mom. I’d catwalk a chunky clip-clop-clip-clop along the linoleum floors strutting my cut off jeans and cheerleader legs, Boo Berry and Tony the Tiger and Lucky the Leprechaun snapping a beat to Bobby Darin singing “Mack the Knife” from the Winn Dixie sound system. I shrined the delicious red shoes center of my closet, candy apples for the first day of junior year. ‘Splish splash’ the boys crooned, my clip-clop past the whisper of their desert boots and Chuck Taylor high tops red hot.

oOo

Sheree Shatsky writes wild words. Her work has appeared in a variety of journals including Cowboy Jamboree, Appalachia Bare, Microfiction Monday Magazine, The Drabble, Splonk, Wraparound South, Fictive Dream, BLACKCACKLE at Entropy and Saw Palm with found poetry at Harpy Hybrid Review and Heron Tree. Sheree calls Florida home and is a true blue Tom Petty fan. Find her at shereeshatsky.com or on Twitter.