Brittney, the Tapgirl Princess

Once Brittney had brought the goth girls into the tap-wearing group, there were only two groups of girls who were left out—the nerds, girls who were so into doing their school work that they never paid attention to social life, and the shy ones, girls who might have wanted to have taps on their shoes but who were too afraid to go against their parents' wishes. Brittney, never one to give others slack for their weaknesses, often called the shy girls "goody-goodies."

Cherie was one of the goodie-goodies—a really cute 10th grade girl, medium-height, thin, with a long naturally blonde ponytail. She was always smiling, but her world was pretty closely defined by what her parents told her she could, or could not, do. For example, not only couldn't she date boys, her parents wouldn't even let her go out on Friday nights with her girlfriends to the local skating rink or the movies. They made sure she went to church every Sunday, and she even went twice-weekly to choir practice and participated every Saturday in the church service project, collecting used clothes and distributing them to poor families.

None of that meant that Cherie wasn't aware of the girls around her and the various fads and fashions around which other girls led their lives. And she wasn't immune to desiring to participate in this world herself. For example, as Cherie noticed more and more girls wearing taps on their shoes, scraping their heels along the sidewalks and hallway floors, she started to think that she'd like to have them on her shoes too. But when she asked her mom if she could put some taps on her skimmer flats and her loafers, her mom said, "Why Cherie! I'm surprised at you! No, you may not do that! Girls who put taps on their shoes are bad girls who are just advertising their availability for having sex."

Cherie was taken aback by her mom's response. Putting taps on shoes was just a cool thing—you got to make some noise and get people to notice you. What was wrong with that? she thought. When she happened to mention to Kelly, one of her best friends, what her mom had said, Kelly suggested that the two of them should talk with the tapgirl princess, Brittney Davis, to see what Brittney would recommend. So the next day at lunch, Kelly—who only last week had put taps on her own shoes for the first time—and Cherie together walked over to where Brittney was standing in line for soda, hoping to get her attention. The girls couldn't help but notice the huge #8 taps covering nearly all of one of Brittney's chunky-heeled Bass Weejun loafers, with her right shoe propped up and crossed against the back of her left leg. Kelly was the first to talk.

"Hey Brit," said Kelly. "How's it going? ….Did you see? I finally got some taps put on my new slingback sandals" and she lifted up her right leg behind her so Brittney could see the little #3 taps on the slingback's heel.

"Nice," replied Brittney unenthusiastically, clearly showing the girls she wasn't very impressed by inch-and-a-half-long taps on the heels of shoes.

Undeterred, Kelly continued. "Anyways, you know Cherie, right?" Brittney nodded and smiled, recognizing this slightly older and very pretty girl from having passed her in the hall all year.
"Well, Cherie wants to put taps on her shoes too, but her parents won't let her. What do you think she should do?"

Brittney gave Cherie a long look, taking in her shiny brown Bass penny loafers, knee-length skirt, floral blouse, and perky pony-tailed appearance, and then she blurted out, in a fairly loud voice, "Just do it, Cherie! Don't ask your parents. Just do it! Go over to Sam's and just tell him you want big metal taps on your shoes—heels and toes both. Your parents won't do anything to you. Sure, they'll yell at you. But look, I'm yelling at you too! They won't stop you. They certainly won't make you go back to Sam's to take the taps off. Look, you're their pride-and-joy, their darling baby girl, they don't want to lose your love. They know that if they stop you from doing some little thing that you want to do, you'll just start avoiding them. They don't want that. They want to see you, to talk to you, to hold you in their arms. Sure, they'll try to convince you that you shouldn't put taps on your shoes—or whatever it is you want to do. But they'll learn to live with it. They want you too much to stop you. Go Girl! Just do it!" And with that, Britney pulled her Diet Coke out of the machine and stomped away in her heavy steel-plated Weejuns.

The two girls were taken aback by Brittney's outburst. But as they talked to each other about what Brittney had said, it seemed to make more and more sense to them. Cherie's mom wouldn't really stop her, and in the end Cherie would have what she wanted—clicky, sonorous, metal taps announcing her presence to other kids with every step—and her mom would still love her anyway. So that day after school, when Cherie and Kelly met up with each other, they decided they would walk right over to Sam's. Walking fast, almost running, the two girls were out of breath by the time they got to the door of the Shoe Repair shop. Once inside, they caught their breath, and Sam came out from the back of the shop. The girls looked at each other, giggled , and this time Cherie spoke first.

"Could I have…," she paused, and then when she resumed the rest of her words came out all at once: "…some-metal-taps-on-these-loafers?" Then she looked down, took off her shoes, and gave them to Sam.

Sam, speaking slowly and calmly, replied with his own question: "Do you want them on the heels or the toes?"

Remembering what she'd seen on other girls' shoes, Cherie looked at Kelly for confirmation and then replied, "I'd like them in both places, if that’s all right."

"Sure it's all right," said Sam as he brought out the board that had taps in all the different sizes he carried, each one labeled with its size number. "Which size taps do you want?"

Cherie thought about how Brittney had reacted with disdain to Kelly's #3 taps. She looked again at the tap board and said in a straightforward way, "I'd like these" pointing to the taps marked size 5. "Kelly, those would those be a good size, wouldn't they?" she asked her friend. Kelly also was thinking about Brittney's earlier reaction to the smallish taps on her sandals, so she nodded, and then said, "Well, yeah, those or the number 6's. Actually, I think the ones I put on my sandals are way too small, so yeah, I'd go with the 6's…. and maybe #4's on the toes."

Sam watched this conversation with some amusement. After Kelly finished making her recommendation, he asked Cherie, "So will you go with your friend's advice, then?" Cherie nodded her agreement. Sam added, now looking at Kelly, "and you, young lady, would you like me to replace the taps on your sandals with larger ones, like the ones I'm putting on your friend's loafers?"

Kelly smiled. "Sure," she said. "I didn't know you could do that. I thought I'd have to wait until they wore down."

"No," said Sam. "I can change them right now. I'll make them the same—both pairs of shoes: #6 on the heels and #4 on the toes. How is that?"

The two girls smiled. "Sure," they said in unison.

After the usual shoemaker sounds of nails pounding on metal taps, the handing off of newly tapped shoes, each girl excitedly gazing at the large metal crescents that occupied most of the bottoms of their shoes' heels, the now-familiar question and response ("How much?" "No charge for you girls "), each girl stomped down hard on the floor to test out their new taps. A minute later, Sam watched as the two chatty adolescent girls bounced out of his store. All over the small town's three-block downtown one could hear the melodic sounds of two pairs of teen girls' school shoes going click-clickety-click click as they sauntered confidently down the street.

The first challenge Cherie faced was, of course, how her mom and dad would react. For that, she felt lucky that Kelly would be able to be with her when she walked into her house that afternoon.

As it happened, two girls arrived at Cherie's home just about the same time Cherie's mom and dad drove up, the parents having carpooled home from their jobs, as they always did. John and Marsha Schmidt waved "hi" to the girls and as they held the kitchen door open, waiting for the girls to catch up to them, both parents noticed the sounds of taps coming from one of the girls' shoes. Marsha thought it odd that their daughter's friend Kelly would put taps on her shoes, but she didn't say anything at that point.

Once inside, on the hard tile kitchen floor, it was pretty clear that the metal tap sounds were coming, not just from Kelly's sandals but from Cherie's loafers as well. Too well-mannered to say anything at that point, Marsha invited Kelly to stay for dinner, an invitation which she eagerly accepted. The girls hung around the kitchen and helped Marsha prepare the meal and set the table. Meanwhile both parents were eagerly eyeing the girls' shoes, looking for physical evidence that metal taps, in fact, were on the bottoms. As Cherie got down on her knees to pick up a dropped piece of lettuce, Marsha got the evidence she was looking for—huge steel plates, clearly more than 2 inches long, covering most of the loafer's heel and ones almost as large under the toe of the shoe. When the girls momentarily left the kitchen, she whispered what she saw to John.

"Did you see? Cherie has those awful metal taps on her shoes! Big ones, too! Plus taps under the toes, too! Why do you think she did that?"

"I don't know," John replied. "I heard the taps outside. But at first I thought they were on Kelly's sandals."

"Should we say anything?"

"No," we'll have to wait until Kelly leaves.

So the four of them sat down to an uneasily quiet dinner. Eventually, though, the dinner wine relaxed the parents, and as nothing was being said about their taps, the two girls were giddy in delight of their accomplishment—wearing the despised taps right under the nose of Cherie's parents! By the end of the meal, the conversation was so enjoyable that all four of them forgot about the issue that had been on their minds at the beginning. After a great dessert and then some more idle talk about school and neighborhood, Kelly said she had to get home to work on her homework. She very politely thanked Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt for dinner, and with a last secret glance between the girls, Kelly bid her goodbyes and went out the door, clicking noticeably on the sidewalk outside.

After Kelly was out of view, Mrs. Schmidt was the first to speak.

"Kelly is a very nice girl," she said. "She's so polite and she dresses so well; she must be a real treasure to her parents." Cherie was pleased at her mom's comments. But then Mrs. Schmidt continued. "But I wonder why she has those awful metal taps on her shoes. Someone could mistake her for a girl looking for trouble, and that could lead to some pretty bad things happening to her."

Oh, oh, thought Cherie. Here it comes. She was going to have to own up.

"Maaaaaaaa-um," Cherie cried out. "That is so unfair! Look! See! I have taps on my shoes too. Big ones! Just like Kelly's. Am I looking for trouble? Am I a bad girl? You just can't say that just cuz I put taps on my shoes."

Just then her father interrupted. He'd been silent during this exchange, in part because he thought Kelly looked very pretty and the clicky-clicky sound of her walk as she left the house actually got him a little aroused. He thought maybe they were being too hard on the girls. "Marsha," he said. "I think Cherie's right, actually. We shouldn't read too much into one pair of taps on one pair of shoes. Cherie's the same girl as she was yesterday. It's just a fad for the girls at school now. It's not leading to promiscuity or anything. Let's not jump to conclusions. Let's at least give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Well," replied Mrs. Schmidt. "I still say it's not a good thing. But I won't say any more. Cherie, just be sure you watch who your friends are. I don't want you hanging with the wrong kids."

"OK, scooter," said her dad. "Better get started on your homework."

"Thanks, dad," said Cherie. "And thanks, mom, too." And she ran up and hugged them both. "You'll see. I'll be just the same girl I was before. It's just that you'll hear me coming and going now." And they all had a good laugh.

Now you would think that was the end of this little episode, and that the fad of wearing taps on their shoes had very little effects on the girls of Forest Glen High, particularly girls like Cherie and Kelly who came from good homes and whose parents strove to give them the highest of values. But as we shall see, it was Marsha Schmidt who was right in the end. Putting taps on her penny loafers was the key that started a volcano of change in girls like Cherie and Kelly. Within a year, both girls, just like Brittney the tapgirl princess and goth girls like Caroline, were smoking, using alcohol and drugs, and involved in petty crime, sexual promiscuity, and pornography. And it was all because of the Brittney connection—and the steel plated shoes that marked her signature.