At least a foot of fresh snow had fallen over night. The day was perfect, clear and sunny, just below freezing, but with no wind. My new girlfriend Cheryl had asked for a toboggan for Christmas, and I had gotten her one. Cheryl and I were making the trek to the top of the hill for the first run of the season, my friend Jamie pulling the sled a few hundred yards ahead, and his girlfriend Jill lagging behind us. Jamie had been dating Jill for over a year by the time I started going out with Cheryl, and their romance had gotten casual to the point that Jamie paid little attention to Jill. He had nearly reached the top of the hill, and was looking down the steep face, oblivious to her whereabouts.
"Come on Jill, what are you doing?" Cheryl called down to her "big" sister. They certainly didn't look like sisters, in fact, they didn't look anything alike. Cheryl was outgoing, tall and athletic, with short brown hair, brown eyes, and long powerful legs. Her feet were beautiful, with a narrow heel and high arch, broad across the toes. She wasn't much on nylons or high heels, but was always taking her shoes off in public. Her sister Jill was quiet and petite, slim with long blond hair and blue eyes. She was 21, and at 5'3", she was a half a foot shorter than her "little" sister, which was a significant disadvantage walking in the deep snow. She had fallen behind by a hundred feet or so, and was stopped again, leaning against a tree.
"Come on Jill!" Cheryl repeated, and threw a snowball in the general direction of Jill.
"I can hardly walk in these boots, Big Foot!!" Jill yelled back, sounding exasperated. When we had decided to go sledding, Jill was wearing sneakers so Cheryl had loaned her a pair of moon boots, but they were way too big on her. Jill threw her hat on the snow and leaned against the tree again, pulling her mitten off with her teeth. She pulled a cigarette from somewhere in her coat and lit it.
Cheryl stopped momentarily, and then began to walk back down the hill toward Jill. As I followed, I saw Jill remove her other glove and roll her pant leg up to her knee. My heart almost stopped when I saw begin to pull her leg out of the top of her boot. Without taking her foot all the way out of the boot, she bent over and pulled up her burgundy colored knee sock using both hands. As she pulled the sock tight, she held her leg out in front of her, flexing her ankle, the boot flopping around from side to side. Mesmerized, I just stared at her foot, absolutely certain that the boot would fall off land in the snow at any second. But it didn't. So close, I thought to myself. In the time I had known Jill, I had never seen her feet even once.
"These boots are too damn big," Jill said, flicking her cigarette into the snow bank. "Every step I take these big ole boats just pull my socks down a little more. My other sock is almost completely off," she said, bending to pull her pant leg up. I unzipped my coat a little, suddenly feeling too warm. She steadied herself against the tree with one hand, as she toed the heel of her other boot. "These boots are terrible," she said, looking directly at Cheryl. My pulse raced as several more inches of her pale bare leg emerged from the top of the boot, still no sign of the sock. Her entire bare ankle was in sight now, and I envisioned her balancing with her bare toes hovering as she searched the bottom of the boot for the maroon sock. Finally, her bare heel was exposed over the edge of the boot, and unfortunately, and I could see the sock bunched up over her arch. She pulled her foot back until her toes were still just barely inside the boot, but it was obvious that I wasn't going to get to see much, Jill looked up at her sister again. "What do you wear, about a ten and a half?"
That was the last straw. Cheryl kicked the empty boot hard and it flew about thirty feet away, the crimson sock trailing behind like a party streamer. I was stunned, and didn't know what to say or do. Without another word, Cheryl walked over to the empty boot, picked it up, and marched off in the direction of the top of the hill. Jill just stood there, one hand on the tree, one foot in her boot, and one bare foot hanging several inches above the snow. "CHERYL!" she cried, but Cheryl just kept walking, carrying the boot at her side as she walked, like a trash bag on the way to the garbage bin. Jill stood there seething, staring at her sister and her footwear, both now fifty yards away. "Bitch."
I just stared at her toes whole time. Her foot was tiny, probably a size five or six, but perfectly proportioned. Because she was holding her leg up to avoid putting her toes in the snow, her knee was bent, and her foot was pointed downward, with her toes flexing up. She had a high arch and her toes were thin and graceful, nails polished dark red, which made them stand out against the white snow like rubies. For the longest time, I just watched her, waiting for something to happen. When it did happen, it was not at all what I expected.
She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out another cigarette. She lit it, and pulled a heavy drag from it, then took half a hop to reposition her remaining boot closer to the base of the tree, and leaned her back against the wide tree trunk. "Bitch'" she muttered again, and let her leg down, straightening her knee and crossing her ankles so that her bare heel sat on top of her boot, her perfect toes mere inches from the snowy slope. "If she thinks I'm gonna run after her..." A picture of her running up the slope in one boot ran through my head. "Can you get my mittens, please?" she said calmly. My gaze broke from her toes to see that they lay in the snow ten feet past her. I retrieved the heavy mittens, and when I turned around, her leg was extended toward me and her toes were just below waist level. I was a millisecond from dropping to my knees, putting her tiny toes to my lips, when I realized that I might be misinterpreting the situation. After a moment's realization, I blew several hot breaths into the mitten, paused for one more delightful look, and pushed it on to her foot, so that only her heel was exposed. With her leg still extended, she flexed her foot up and down, so that the mitten looked like it was waving at me. She smiled brightly, and started to laugh, and I had to laugh with her. We were still laughing when Cheryl approached from behind me.
"If you say one more word about the size of these boots, I swear, I'll rip them both off your feet and leave you here to freeze," Cheryl said. She pulled the sock from inside the boot and held it out for Jill to slip her toes into.
"You should have seen the look on your face," Cheryl said. The first run on the toboggan had been completed, and the four of us were trudging back to the top of the hill for another ride. "You just stood there barefoot, smoking a cigarette trying to look cool."
"I am cool," Jill shot back playfully. "I bet if it was you, you would be cryin' and talking about how you're gonna tell mom."
Cheryl laughed and a minor snowball fight erupted briefly. When we got back to the top of the hill, Jamie went back to the car to get a flask. Jill sat on the toboggan and took off one boot again, pulling her sock up for the twentieth time. When she took off the other boot, she pulled the other sock tight, and I could see her toes aligned through the stocking in the bright sunlight. Beautiful, I thought to myself, and almost on cue, Cheryl pushed the sled with her boot, sending it about forty feet down the shallow incline. Jill giggled, rolled off the toboggan and crawled across the snow on her knees, keeping her sock well out of the white powder. We all had another good laugh. When Jamie didn't return for a while, Jill suggested we make another run, and then we could just meet him back at the top of the hill.
This time, Jill sat in front, with me in the middle and Cheryl in back. My legs were next to Jill's, and Cheryl's boots were just outside my knees. As we pushed along the shallow incline toward the steep part of the hill, Jill leaned back against me, reached back and grabbed both heels of Cheryl's boots. She knew exactly what Jill was up to, and began to kick and thrash, nearly tipping us over. Jill was pulling hard on the right boot, and it was more than halfway off already. Cheryl kicked and squirmed, leaning to one side, and causing the toboggan to swerve across the face of the hill, but still not traveling too fast. I could see that her boot and her sock were pulled down to her ankle at least, but she had pulled free of Jill's grip, and held her leg out beyond Jill's reach. Undeterred, Jill gave the left boot a good yank, and it came off easily, disappearing behind us as we picked up speed. Cheryl's had on a black sock, not very thin, but soft. I grabbed her foot at the arch, and was surprised that it was very hot from her boot. Cheryl must have thought I was in league with her sister, because she quickly pulled her foot from my grasp, nearly kicking me in the face in the process.
We were on the steep part of the hill now, and rapidly picking up speed. Cheryl pulled hard on the hood of my jacket as I watched her stockinged foot flail around on my left. I got hold of it again, but she managed to wriggle free as the sled tossed and turned. Her grip on my hood appeared to loosen a bit, and as the hill began to flatten out, she let go altogether, falling backward, and in the process, planting her right shin under my arm, The sled was slowing considerably now, and I could feel that Cheryl was falling off the back of the toboggan.
I held her boot firmly under my arm, and felt her foot recede inside of it, inch by inch, until her empty boot rode the last hundred yards with her sister and me. When the sled stopped, I wasn't sure I could get up without embarrassment. I just sat there, looking at the size nine boot lying empty between Jill and I. As a bonus, the sock was still in it, surprisingly, not a match to the black one I had seen and touched on the way down, but a blue and tan argyle.
Jill stood up and immediately picked up the boot, waving it triumphantly over her head. I got up and turned to see Cheryl, several hundred feet away and covered with snow, with one black sock and one bare foot. I quickly retrieved the boot from Jill and headed toward Cheryl, but before I made it even a few steps, She was running at me full speed, her soft feet kicking snow into the air behind her. She looked furious, as if she were possessed by a demon. I held the boot and sock out in front of me, but she made no move to slow down. I braced myself for the worst, but she ran right past, narrowly missing me.
Before I could even turn around, she was on her sister. They rolled to the ground together, and Cheryl was quickly on top. She gathered a great scoop of snow with her hands and dropped it on her sister's face. Instantaneously, she planted her unshod feet in the snow again, grabbed Jill's legs and pulled her through the snow, pulling her jacket up to her ribs, and exposing a good portion of her bright white underpants in the process.
Finally, she pulled off both of Jill's boots and one of her socks, before sitting down and putting on all three. Without another word, she picked up the extra boot and head back up the hill.
Jill got up, brushed the snow off, and walked over to the toboggan, sitting down, and putting her bare foot and her burgundy sock on the padded seat to stay out of the snow. For the second time in an hour, I stared at her delightful toes, and retrieved her mittens, warming them before placing them on her pretty feet.
With no other option, she laid back on the sled while I struggled to pull her back up to the top of the hill. About halfway up, Jamie came down and helped me pulled her the rest of the way to the top.
Cheryl was standing there when we finally made it, not smiling, but not as angry as before.
"Can I please have my boots back?" Jill asked in a whiney voice.
"They're my boots, and the answer is no. Your shoes are in the car if I remember right."
Jill gave her sister a venomous look as she stood up and started off in the direction of the car, which was probably a half a mile away. On the third or fourth step, the mitten fell off of her socked foot, and she struggled to slide back into it. Heading off again, she made it no more than ten steps when both mittens disappeared into the snow. Furious now, she charged directly at her sister. She chased her around in a large circle, arms flailing in a dance that all siblings are familiar with, but rarely perform as adults. Finally, Cheryl was consumed by laughter and could not run anymore. She collapsed and Jill fell on top of her.
"Give me those boots or I'm telling mom, I mean it." Jill started to smile as soon she said it, and they both rolled around in the snow and laughed while Jamie fetched the boots from where Cheryl had dropped them.
We all decided that was enough sledding for the day, and we decided to go back to Jamie's place and order a pizza. Cheryl kept her damp mismatched stockinged feet in my lap for the car ride, and for most of the rest of the evening as we watched TV. Jill decided her socks were too wet and discarded them, displaying her adorable bare feet for the rest of the night.
I went out with Cheryl for quite a while after that, and although I never saw anything like that episode again, she was never shy about losing a shoe now and then.
Many times after that, Cheryl and I pulled her sister's shoes off in a variety of situations. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they still do it to this day.
Snowman
