Strappy sandals

She wants me to go with her to the ladies room. We don't hold hands and she walks ahead of me, but she is not quite ready to go to a strange bathroom by herself.  She still wants her mama.

We enter the stalls side by side. Now eleven, she is too grown up to share one with me. I can see her shoes under the dividing wall. White, strappy sandals with just the right amount of bling. Silver paint that looks like rhinestones.

I look at her feet, they are getting so big. She needed new sneakers the other day and we found out exactly how big: she's a size 4.

Only one and half sizes away.

Not from me, I'm a seven and a half, but one and half sizes from being able to shop in the big girl shoe department. My department. I know exactly how she feels because when I was her age, maybe even before I was her age, I felt the same way. Lusting after the big girl shoes.

The big girl shoe department is the Emerald City of department stores. Everything there is beautiful. High heels. Strappy sandals. Boots. Leather that smells deliciously grown up. Nothing that can be tied with laces, or more currently, nothing with velcro (the kids don't tie much anymore).

I look at her feet under the stall. Her pedicure, the one her grandmother gave her, has grown out, and her toenails are a little too long and slightly ragged. Shod in her strappy white sandals her feet look a little ambiguous. The shoes and the size are at a stage where it's not obvious: is she a child trying to be a grown up or is she a woman with dicey taste in shoes?

I know the truth of course, but she would love the idea that others might not know. That they might mistake her for a woman. She wants to pass. Not because boys or men would notice her (she hates boys and men make her uncomfortable) but because she wants to be big. She thinks she's ready for more even if she's not clear about more of what. Truthfully, she's not even sure why it's important to be big. It just is.

I understand this and I try not to do anything to dissuade her feelings. We walk casually by Emerald City together and I let her dream, just like I still dream, but not for too long. I'm not ready yet, it is too soon. I want to hold her hand. I want to take her hand and go upstairs to the little girl shoe department. I revel in the (increasingly rare) moments when she curls up into my lap like a child and holds on to my waist with both hands. For now we walk casually and we point out the shoes we dream of and won't buy today. 

These are the in-between days. They won't last nearly as long as I want them to.

I have one and a half sizes left.