Nov. 22 Gold Shoes

 The Flash Fiction prompt for Nov. 22 was to include Gold Shoes in the story. A group of us is doing one a day for each day in November.

Gina pulled the masking tape over the last packing carton as the guard watched. “Happy that I haven’t taken anything?”

“I’m sorry, Gina” His face reddened.

“The photos are mine.”bShe removed them one by one from the wall. They were her best store windows. She hadn’t been an ordinary window dresser.

She especially liked the one of the mother and kids at the beach. They were kneeling in their swimwear in front of a sandcastle not standing as most swimsuit wearing mannequins did in other stores. Her assistant had set up a video of the beach with gentle waves rolling in. It covered the whole window behind the mannequins. One could almost imagine the smell of salt air and hear the cry of gulls.

The photo of the dinner window combined furniture, table settings, wallpaper and six well-dressed guests. Realistic food was on the plates and it looked like champagne in the glasses. The menu was flashed on a screen with the message, “Recipes available in our cookware department. Sign up for our cooking classes, too.”

The last window she designed had a woman in an evening dress running out the door of a ballroom. She was wearing one gold slipper. A man in a tux followed holding the other. Four other mannequins, two men, two women in evening clothes were dancing. Her assistant had managed to make them turn as waltz music was beamed onto the street.

For fourteen years two months and ten days, Gina had produced these windows for Connor Department Store. They’d been written up not just in local papers but in New York ones as well. Even CNN had picked up a segment about her from a local broadcast.

Connor Department Store has been in the same family for three generations, but young Tim Connor sold it last year to a conglomerate. The manager sent in immediately started cutting costs.

Commissions for sales staff were eliminated and when they quit only half were replaced with people who had no feel for customers. Nor could they answer customer questions.

Gina missed the old staff meetings where as a group they decided which merchandise should be featured in the windows. She had a free hand to the design.

The new manager was frustrated by falling sales.

“Surprise, surprise, surprise,” Gina and the remaining old staff said. “Of course, people will go with better service.”

Her windows had continued to catch customer attention, but it also caught the attention of the new manager who thought the cost of the special affects were much too high. “Any of our clerks can set up a mannequin,” he said when he regretfully, told Gina two hours before that this was her last morning. “The cost of the last window was ridiculous. And a gold slipper? It should have been glass.”

The guard, a friend, was waiting outside. He apologized all the way to her office and workroom.

When she finished packing, he helped carry the boxes to her car.

Outside Gina turned and looked back. The mannequin in the tux still held the gold slipper but the dancers were no longer turning.

Above the entrance of the store the name Connor Department Store was being replaced with the name of the conglomerate.

Fourteen years plus of her life were gone, but not erased. She had her reputation and she was sure she would find another job.