I called you today, we spoke a long time, you and I. You were in a good mood, a mellow one. You'd just seen your sister, your brother-in-law was having his eighty-first birthday. Your sister was married to him for 49 years this January. You asked me how my new house was, how my job was, did I have enough money Somewhere in the conversation you said, "After all, you're standing on your own two feet now.... You said it, you said I'm standing on my own two feet.... I remember when I was little, I'd want to stay home from school—I hated the yeshiva, I hated it for eight years, in the fourth grade I said, thank you God, thank you God, only four more years of this I used to want to stay home but you wouldn't let me. Daddy would let me stay home... but he would never want to tell you. He would tell me, "A lie of omission is not the same as a lie of commission. You used to come home from teaching school at three o'clock in the afternoon, but the yeshiva didn't let out until 4:30. You used to come in and go out again because you were very busy —you were a very busy woman — you had a lot to do. So—Daddy had a very simple solution. At five to three I would hide in the closet in my bedroom. He would hide me in the closet. I would hide there until almost four o'clock. I would hide in the closet so you wouldn't know I wasn't in school. The closet had a closet inside it —I know this is very peculiar now, but I didn't know it then. In the front part of the closet were a lot of clothes, and my father's graduation picture, his graduation from law school: St. Lawrence University, Brooklyn Law School, 1932. That meant he went to law school at night. I used to look at his picture in the closet — his diploma too — and wonder why it was there. In the front part of the closet with his picture were a lot of clothes. And in the back, past the first clothes rack, was a smaller closet, a creep-in closet. And in between the two, on a kind of sill, were a lot of shoes, old shoes. Your old shoes. You used to wear really serviceable, cheap shoes when you taught. Every day you wore sensible, cheap, serviceable and sturdy shoes but in the closet there were wonderful shoes —silver dancing shoes with high heels and buckles, silver dancing shoes from the 1920s or 30s, laced with thin silver laces. I used to wonder what they'd be like on your feet —you had such sturdy legs, sturdy, serviceable sensible legs.... I'd hide in the closet, and I'd look at your shoes, and I'd sit down among them and wait for you to walk out the door.

You always thought that dressing up was very important. I'm sure you believe that clothes make the man—and the woman—but I always felt that shoes made the woman. You'd always dress me up for photos, in costumes that other people gave you. I always wore everyone else's hand-me-downs, it was such a sensible thing to do. You'd dress me up for photos, I remember. I remember one I still have it, or you do I was wearing a scotch plaid dress, a little blonde jewish girl with a dutch haircut in a scotch plaid dress —you made me hold it out in a semicircle as though I were squaredancing - and on my head was a little scotch cap. I was smiling, Ihad a tooth missing. I was wearing plain brown shoes, laced oxfords. You were not very interested in the shoes I wore for these photos. You always insisted I had to get sensible ones, so my feet would grow right, and I always wore Stride Rite shoes. But once you took me, when I was five or six, to get a pair of mary-janes that had—a buckle. Two buckles —that's it, they had two straps and two buckles. And the two straps lay across my feet like two hard fingers grip- ping them, in such a way that the bone between them was pressed upward. They pressed on this bone in the most peculiar way and I'd say, "mommy, mommy, mommy —these're, these're pressing on my feet, they're pressing on my feet and my feet are getting to be shaped funny. You said, "No, these shoes are good. They're expensive shoes. These are good shoes. These shoes are good for you. And so I have, on each foot, a bone that protrudes on the top, because of these shoes that pressed my feet into a funny shape.

I remember once, the teacher called you from school and said, “Her boots don't fit. And you said, “But they're new boots." But those boots —those boots were someone else's boots, they were hand-me-down boots. I think they were hand-me-down boots, or maybe they were new boots. They were size 8. You always bought me things very large, so I would grow into them. Now you want me to dress my child in enormous clothing, so he'Il grow into it. These boots were size 8. I wore size 4. “Never mind," you said, "you'll grow into them." I wear size 6 today. But you were sure I'd grow into those size 8 red rain boots. The teacher called to say, "She can't walk in her boots, they keep doubling up under her feet every time she takes a step; maybe she's got the wrong boots. You'd better come get her, it's raining out and she needs her boots."

There were times that I recall being at your feet, on my hands and knees. From the time I was about 10, you and I used to be alone all week in the country house together, in your sister's country house, while Dad worked in the city. I'd always want to stay up at night and read. I read a lot, I loved to read. It was my one chance for privacy. All day I was away, swimming. I'd swim in the lake from early morning till lunch, hop out, climb up the bank, eat some lunch, and hop back in. Creeping, as it were, past you, doing the crawl. But I'd have to come out at dinner time and endure all through dinner. In the evening I just wanted to read. But you always wanted to go to bed early. There were four bedrooms in the house, but you always insisted that we sleep in the same one, so as not to get the others dirty. You always reminded me that it wasn't our house. So, at about 9:30 or 10 we'd have to get into bed, you into yours and I into mine, and turn out the light and go to sleep. But I'd never be tired. So I'd lie there, and count your breaths: Listen, and listen, and listen and... I'd sli-i-ide down the side of my bed, cre-e-ep on my hands and knees —holding the book, try ing to get out the door and into the bathroom, where I would read by the night light you always left burning. MOST of the time, though, you'd give a start and: "what's that, what's that?" You'd get up, see me, grab me, and knock me around. You used to threaten to get your shoe, but you always made do with your fist, some times you'd choke me a bit. When I got a little older I wasn't so interested in read ing; I'd set my hair every night with bobby pins and little rollers, the way my girlfriend Rosemarie taught me. On warm evenings we'd pretend to take a walk together but really we'd stand by the side of the road, in the driveway, with our chests puffed out and our bellies sucked in, in short shorts and little clingy jerseys, barefoot or in sandals. We'd strike bathing-beauty poses and stand stock-still, waiting for the boys in their low-slung souped-up cars to drive by and whistle and leer and make the sound of kisses.

I remember once seeing your shoe, as it came up to hit me in the ear. I was about 17, and I thought you were out of the house. I was on the telephone to my girl friend. She was somebody I liked a lot but I was kind of afraid of her because she went to the High School of Music and Art where I'd wanted to go but you wouldn't let me because it was too far away —and you were probably right — it was too far away — to travel from Brooklyn almost to the Bronx —or so it seemed, that it was too far —anyway, I was on the phone, and I thought you had stepped out, and I was lying on the floor in my room, talking on my phone. It was my phone because once my brother called up to speak to me and Daddy answered the phone and he didn't know who it was, and he said, "Who is this?" and Larry, realizing that he didn't know it was his own son, said, "Is Martha home?" And Dad said, "WHO IS THIS?? WHY DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO HER? WHADDOYOU, WHADDOYOU WANT WITH HER?" ...And so Larry got me a phone; he was upset by that kind of behavior. He thought it was an invasion of privacy. I thought it was normal. Anyway...so there I was, on my phone, on my floor, smoking a cigarette. See, that was the kicker —I was smoking a cigarette. I was forbidden to smoke. I can understand, I'm a mother too, that you were protecting my health. Anyway, you came in and you saw me lying on the floor and you kicked me in the head. I'm sure you were aiming at the cigarette, but you got me right in the ear. Luckily, I wasn't deafened. However. I never spoke to that friend again.

I used to really believe that shoes made the woman. I would buy a new pair of high-heeled shoes, you know the kind that people —that women — wore when I was growing up, do you remember those? Very high, very high pointy spike heels with pointy toes? And I'd buy 'em and I'd think, “Tonight's the night...a date... romance...dance... and I'd go out. And they'd be fine. They'd be fine for a while and then I'd realize they were pressing on a nerve; they always pressed on a nerve. They were fine in the shoe store, and I always thought, “These are better, these are different, these really feel fine, and I'd make it about, oh, a quarter of the way through the evening and I'd have to take my shoes off. Now, if there's one thing that a woman wasn't supposed to be, it was flat-footed on her own two feet; I mean, flats were for lower-class girls; nobody wore flats. And nobody walked around without their shoes, not if you wanted to keep your reputation. So there I was, spending the evening at a dance without my shoes and having to go home, through the streets of New York City, freezing cold in tattered stockings and I'd say..."I made that mistake again."

Cinderella was oppressed; she was treated badly. She was given only crusts and scraps to eat and old cast-offs to wear. Often she had to go without shoes. She had to perform endless household chores. The chill and the lack of food made her light-headed. She was very unhappy and could only escape through daydreams. Nobody thought of training her to be a lady.

Her stepsisters were given all the advantages; their every move was scrutinized and corrected, their diets were watched. They had the fanciest clothes, the most fashionable little slippers and boots. Their mother planned to make them ladies who would rise above her own station. When the prince's emissary brought around the mysterious lost slipper, Cinderella's stepmother made her older daughter cut off her heel and her younger daughter cut off her big toe to try to fit the test.

This piece was originally presented as a performance.