Brittney, the Tapgirl Princess

Back at Forest Glen, English teacher Susan Wilms began to be more brazen in the shoes she wore to school, not only arriving in 4-inch steel-tipped stiletto heels once or twice a week, but also even wearing some brand new tall leather boots with 2 1/2-inch chunky heels she'd had horseshoe taps put on to impress John Baker with. She'd also taken to wearing black fishnet stockings with her high-heeled shoes and boots, and her skirts were getting shorter by the week--now significantly above her knees.

But rather than annoy the other teachers, Ms Wilms was creating a fashion statement that many of the other female teachers started to follow themselves. Over the next several weeks, a dozen other women at the school had started wearing shorter skirts, and each one of them accompanied their new Spring wardrobe with several new pairs of footwear, almost all accessorized with clicky-sounding metal heel and toe plates--perhaps to draw attention to their more visible legs! These fashion-setters were mostly classroom teachers, like Brittney's computer teacher, Miss Allen, and the always properly-dressed chair of the business education department, Mrs. Rogers. Also, Mrs. Jackson, the head counselor (who the students guessed had been wearing taps away from school anyway) had metal taps placed on several of the mid-heel pumps she wore to school. In addition, Alison Dexter, the principal's sexy young secretary, who didn't seem much older than the students, could now be seen and heard wearing large, noisy taps on her loafers (#8s), flats (#6s), and MaryJane t-straps (full-heel dance taps on those). In terms of high heels, only two other teachers besides Ms Wilms ever wore such shoes to work--wearing them was hard because teachers had to stand for much of the day--but both ladies followed Susan Wilms' lead and had steel heel tips put on them.

Besides their tapped-up shoes and shorter skirts, the women at Forest Glen that Spring seemed to have made a generally increased effort to looking attractive. Computer teacher Jen Allen and Allison, the principal's secretary, even followed Susan Wilms' example and had their dark blonde hair bleached to a platinum shade of light blonde. Susan had told Jen that her students paid more attention to her in class after she became a blonde, and Jen said she needed something to get kids to stop oogling at her legs so much as her shoe taps clicked and scraped along the computer room's tile floor. "Maybe lighter hair would do the trick for me too!" The next day she was a platinum blonde.

Apart from Ms Wilms, though, the woman at Forest Glen who changed the most that Spring turned out to be Sandra Abrams, the 40ish school librarian. Ms Abrams was quite shy, she'd never married (nor had anyone ever seen her with a man), and she dressed kind of like an older lady, with her dark brown hair in a bun, thick-rimmed glasses over her eyes, and long skirts and "sensible shoes"--black, brown, or tan oxfords all with broad, low heels. She was not a prime candidate to be putting taps on her shoes, at least as the students looked back on it. Besides, libraries are supposed to be quiet places for reading and studying, and Forest Glen's library was carpeted to assist that goal--a good thing given how many of the students--and teachers--were now walking around with noisy steel plates on their shoes and boots.

But one Monday morning, Sandra Abrams surprised everyone at school. Into the building she walked--a completely different woman. Her wrapped-up brown tresses now fell gracefully along her neck down to just below her shoulders--and her hair now had a bright layer of blonde over her natural color! No more glasses either—her frames had been replaced by contact lenses. And there was a noticeable click to her walk--Ms Abrams was wearing taps! The taps she had on that first day were quite ordinary, just #3s on the heels of her tan oxfords. But she herself must have decided that wasn't enough of a makeover, so the next day, she came to school in her brown oxfords and on these she'd had size #6 taps applied to the heels and #3 taps on the front of the soles. Then, by Friday, after she'd had time to purchase some new clothes to go along with her new hair color, she came in dressed to the nines--a flashy black blouse that set off her blonde hair, a short white skirt at least 2 inches above her knees, and some below-the-knee black chunky-heeled fashion boots with a slight platform sole that were outfitted with small horseshoe taps on the heels as well as two clearly visible taps (perhaps even #5s) on the sole of each boot, one on either side.

Everyone was abuzz trying to figure out what had come over Ms Abrams. Whenever one of her teacher colleagues or one of the students came up and asked her, they came away rather uninformed. Ms Abrams wasn't saying very much.

"Sandy, you look really nice this week. I like your hair! Where did you have it done?… And are those contact lenses?"

She'd reply only that she'd gotten the hairstyle idea from a magazine and that yes, her opthomologist had recommended her either getting contacts or the new laser surgery and she'd opted for the less drastic approach.

The students were typically a little more out there in their comments. "Hey, people, look! We have a new librarian! Did you take over for old Ms Abrams? Hey, you are a hotty! You better watch out with those steel taps on your shoes. I think that's against the rules for librarians."

Ms Abrams just smiled and went about her business.

Only Susan Wilms knew what was going on. But for awhile no one else knew she knew.

Although more than a decade separated Susan and Sandra, and although their personalities were miles apart, it turns out they had a lot more in common than anyone realized. In fact, they were half-sisters! When Sandra was seven, her father ran off with his secretary and she and her mom moved to the next county. Then her mom met and married another man, and a few years later Susan was born. Of course by the time Susan reached her teenage years, Sandra was out of the house, and they'd never really been close until this year when Susan joined her at Forest Glen. Sandra always thought Susan was childish and totally out-of-control—it's true, she had started smoking at 12, drinking not much later, had an abortion at 14, and got married for a brief time to some jerk named Wilms at 17, and none of that helped her image in Sandra's eyes. For her part, Susan regarded Sandra as a prude and a wet blanket. When Susan came to Forest Glen this year, neither sister wanted to even acknowledge the other. Neither one even mentioned their relationship to any of their colleagues. But gradually the two half-sisters started spending more time together and breaking down the walls that had separated them. Sandra had even moved into another apartment in Susan's building.

Then, during an after-school faculty meeting in early May Susan noticed Sandra staring at the new boys' physical education teacher, a rather handsome 35-year old ex-minor league baseball player named Jack Youngblood. Susan knew a little about Mr. Youngblood herself. A month or so before, as soon as she'd done her blonde-hair-and- taps makeover for John Baker, Jack had suddenly showed a strong interest in her.

"I like your new hair color," he said confidently as they were walking to their cars after school one day after baseball practice. "I'm partial to blondes, anyway."

"Not a surprise," thought Susan.

"But also," he continued, "I just love it that you have metal taps on your shoes. And big ones too! They are so good for you. They communicate something that's hard to describe, but, you know, the clicky sounds you make when you walk just make you sooo attractive!"

"Would you like to go out for a drink?" he asked.

But Susan wasn't interested in his type, and over the next week she'd given him the brushoff enough times that he no longer tried to hit on her. On the way home after the faculty meeting, Susan broached the subject.

"Hey Sandy, what do you think of the new baseball coach, Jack Youngblood?"

"What do you mean?" asked Sandra.

"You know, he's pretty good looking, isn't he?" replied Susan.

"Well, yes, I guess you'd say he is good-looking," said Sandra, trying very hard not to sound interested in the subject.

"I know something about him," Susan began. Sandra didn't say anything. Susan continued. "I know that he is really fond of blondes, and he told me he loves it that I have noisy metal taps on my shoes!"

"Well, why don't you go out with him?" Sandra asked, half expecting her sister to say that she'd already gone to bed with him.

"Definitely not my type," replied Susan as firmly as she could. "But I'll bet he could get interested in you! I also know he has a soft spot for librarians!" That, of course, was a lie, but she decided it wouldn't hurt to put the thought into her sister's head.

Sandra came over to Susan's for dinner that night, and by the end of the evening Susan was sure she had planted some ideas in her sister's head. She'd left out on the coffee table an article from a woman's magazine on hair styling—"Becoming the Blonde You Always Wanted to Be"—and a card from her beauty salon. When they were talking about the beautiful view out of her window, she also mentioned how her contact lenses enabled her to appreciate the wide vista visible from her porch. And during the evening she managed to fit into the conversation something about Sam DiMaggio, the shoe repairman, and about how nice he was and how her shoes never needed re-heeling any more.

Over the next week, Sandra paid special attention to Jack Youngblood, whenever she could notice him. She saw that, in fact, her sister was probably right. Every single time he went past a blonde teacher, or even a blonde female student, he always made a friendly comment. Plus she noticed that he responded immediately to the sound of metal taps on shoes, particularly on women's shoes. Sandra thought a lot about what her sister had said. She had to admit--she'd not had a crush on a man like this in quite some time. And she could see her time slipping away. She decided that she would go see her eye doctor as soon as possible and see if she could be fitted for contacts. That other stuff could wait.

Sandra was not the kind of person to make big changes suddenly. But sometimes events force changes to be made that had only been contemplated. One morning arriving at school, Sandra tripped on a step going into the building, and the heel from one of her oxfords became detached from the rest of her shoe. Rather than hobbling around for the rest of the day, she immediately went out to her car and drove into town to see if Sam DiMaggio could fix them while she waited. (None of the classes were scheduled into the library until the afternoon, and she knew her student assistant could handle the individual students who came by first period.)

As soon as Sandra walked into Sam's shoe shop, Sam could see what the problem was. Since there wasn't any other customer waiting, he suggested that Sandra sit down and he would repair the heel in no time flat. But over the next several minutes, no less than four women, all about her own age, mid-30s to mid-40s, came into the shop, one at a time. Each one of them, Sandra noticed, had bright blonde hair, although on two of them she could see dark brown roots showing at the temples, and on the other two, the blonde tint had clearly been applied to a layer of bleached hair that lay atop brunette hair underneath. That's just like the style I saw in Susan's magazine article, Sandra thought. Each of the women came in to retrieve some newly repaired shoes. But when they got their shoes back, not one of the women said anything about the heel repairs; instead, all they wanted to talk about was their new metal taps!

As the first customer held up her brown lace-up oxfords that Sam had handed back to her, she said, "Sam, I've wanted to have metal taps on my shoes for a long time, and I'm so glad it's fashionable to do so now. The taps look really nice on these shoes. I know I'm going to love walking around hearing the clickety-click sounds they make. Thank you!"

Sam gave the second woman a pair of black dressy 2-inch heeled loafers, and she responded, "I'm so glad you put large taps on the heels. On my other pair, I can hardly hear the taps when I walk. These will be much better! And the toe taps will be good too! Thanks!"

The third woman had come in for two pairs of her shoes--some mid-heel navy pumps and some white strappy sandals that looked just right for Spring. As she took them from Sam, she exclaimed, "These look good! But I want to hear what the taps sound like." She took one shoe from each pair and tapped it several times on the counter. "Wow! People will really hear me coming, won't they! I know my husband will love hearing me walk around the house in these sandals. And I can imagine what a great sound the taps on my pumps will make on the terrazzo floor at the garden club board meeting. I'm going to bring all my shoes in to have taps put on them!"

As for the last of the four blondes, she was so excited that she could hardly contain herself: "Sam, my boyfriend has wanted me to put taps on these loafers for the last two months! He will love them, especially the black ones with the horseshoe taps. And the navy blue ones look great too. The taps on the heels say "7" on them and the ones on the toes have a "5." Is that the sizes they are? Well, that is very nice. Thank you, Sam!"

As Sandra watched and listened to all of this, she began to feel like maybe her dark brown hair and quiet shoes were now actually quite unusual. She didn’t like to stand out in a crowd, so now, with everyone else putting taps on their shoes, maybe her quiet shoes actually made her stand out more, not less. Combined with what her sister had said about Jack Youngblood liking women who wore metal taps on their shoes and had blonde hair, maybe it was time for her to bite the bullet. But something inside her held her back.

When the women came in to get their shoes, Sandra saw what a kind and gentle person Sam was. And when he called out to her that her shoe was ready, she decided to ask him about taps. "Mr. DiMaggio," she began. "Is every woman in town putting metal taps on their shoes?"

He gave a friendly chuckle. "It does seem like that, doesn't it? Well, I've had a lot of requests for metal taps lately. At first, it was the girls and boys at the high school. But in the last couple of weeks, ever since Kelly Clark ran that story about taps on the evening news, I've had dozens of women coming in asking to have taps put on their shoes. I'd say that at this rate pretty much every woman in town will have taps on her shoes in another month or two."

"O.K., then I guess I'd like to try them on this pair of shoes. Can you put some on the heels or are they too worn down?"

"No, the heels are fine for taps. What size would you like?" and he brought out his sample board with one tap of each different size.

"I guess these will be o.k.," she said, as she pointed to the #3 Eagle on the board. "They don't seem to be as large as the ones the women in here got today, but they will be fine for me for now."

"Shall I put some on the toes of the soles that I just fixed up," asked Sam.

"No, that's o.k.," replied Sandra. "The heel taps will be enough."

After Sam had applied the taps to Sandra's shoes and she'd paid for the repair and started to walk out of the store into the fresh air, it seemed like a fog around her suddenly started to lift. With every step she took, she became more and more comfortable with the clicky sound of her walking. Her gait seemed stronger and her bearing more self-assured. In fact, rather than going immediately back to her car and driving back to school, Sandra decided to walk around downtown for awhile. Normally, she'd feel guilty being away from her job in the middle of the school day. But today seemed different. She was in a strange mood, feeling even a little evil, and she didn't feel guilty at all.

After a couple of blocks, Sandra found herself directly in front of the beauty salon that her sister had recommended to her. She thought, o.k., I've gone part way. I have taps on my shoes. Tomorrow I'm going to get my contact lenses. But am I ready to become a blonde?

At that moment, who should cross her path but the very man whose attention she most desired—Coach Youngblood. She instantly recognized him and waved a hearty hello to him. Immediately, Mr. Youngblood broke out into a broad grin, and he started to wave back as he approached. But something strange happened. Jack walked right past Sandra, and instead ran into the embrace of another woman—apparently the person he'd been smiling and waving at in the first place. He hadn't even noticed Sandra standing there.

Sandra looked at Jack and his woman friend, as they walked off together, in animated conversation. The woman Jack had been so excited to meet was about her own age, maybe a bit younger. She was tall, though perhaps not as tall as herself, and had long, wavy bright blonde hair—consistent with what she'd come to understand about Jack's preferences. And there was no mistaking the silver steel stiletto heels she was wearing. Shiny spikes that glistened in the sunlight as she walked into the distance, but making loud clicks and scrapes with every step along the cement. Oh, how she longed to be the woman he was walking with.

But that chance meeting was the final straw. Looking straight ahead of her at the beauty salon, thinking about all the blonde women she'd seen that morning, Sandra decided it was time to get this done. She walked into the salon and asked the receptionist if there was a hairdresser available for a coloring job, and, luckily, there was. After calling the school to tell them she'd suddenly felt ill and had left and wouldn't be returning that day, she walked up to the hairdresser who'd started to welcome her and said, very seriously and matter-of-factly, "I'd like a coloring please—bleaching and permanent blonde tinting layered over my natural brown underneath— pretty much like that picture over there."

And with that, the prim-and-proper librarian, Sandra Abrams, in pursuit of her dream of a man, joined the legions of bleached-blonde, tap-wearing femmes fatales who had begun turning the town of Forest Glen upside down.