The Lost Shoes
Recently, a blonde, a brunette and a redhead spent an afternoon on their knees at Adrienne Barbeau’s tiny feet. They were getting the shoes right.
Ms. Barbeau took the ferry up from New Jersey that day. That boat comes chummily up the East River, rounds the East Village and docks at 34th Street, under the F.D.R. Her husband prefers to drive in, but she loves the ferry, because then she can walk about town. A sign proclaimed that the dock is at a “MARSEC Level 2” alert.
Ms. Barbeau was ninth off the boat. She had a script and a Martin Cruz Smith mystery tucked into her bag. She was in jeans, an argyle sweater, a cute tan coat that looked like shearling and a lovely old knit hat.
“Are you who I think you are?” asked a man who’d gotten off the ferry behind her. “I’m your water man!” The Jersey water man had a wife in a fur coat.
Ms. Barbeau set off down 34th, toward the Empire State Building. “When I was living here doing Fiddler,” Ms. Barbeau said, “I used to ride my bike up Eighth Avenue. I don’t think they really had gyms in those days.” Her eyes teared up from the cold.
Ms. Barbeau, who is 60, is still possessed of the body that made her a pin-up girl and a scandal on the television show Maude. She hasn’t appeared onstage in New York since Grease in 1972. This week, though, previews began for a play called The Property Known as Garland. It was written by her husband, Billy Van Zandt, and is set backstage at Judy Garland’s final concert appearance: Copenhagen, 1969, just a few days after Ms. Garland’s marriage to Mickey Deans and fewer than three months before she would turn 47 and then die.
Ms. Barbeau crossed the red carpet outside the Hammerstein. Actually, she had already found the perfect shoes for her Judy Garland, she said. They had been in Macy’s, and she’d shipped them via U.P.S. from California for the costume designer, but hadn’t insured them. They had since disappeared. So today she would try to find shoes just as good.
She stopped for an old-fashioned doughnut and decaf at the Cupcake Café on Ninth Avenue.
Her memoir, There Are Worse Things I Could Do, to be published next month, is startlingly detailed. Ms. Barbeau kept diaries beginning in 1955, and therefore can recall the names of the mob restaurants at which she go-go danced in 1966; the amount of her emergency abortion fund from those days ($425); and the $34 Yves St. Laurent shoes she bought when she was nominated for a Tony in 1972.
Her interest in diary-keeping was more in documenting her emotional and romantic life; she had little interest in writing about her career. Her accounts of auditions and rehearsals are minimal, but her telling of a devastating affair with a tortured, pill-popping, philandering Burt Reynolds is terribly complete.
And because of that, the book is actually an extraordinary feminist document: Ms. Barbeau buying condoms in Ireland, using IUD’s in America, appearing upside down and nude onstage, divorcing, marrying, starving herself for TV, working between seasons of Maude at a women’s health-care clinic, having children at age 51 with the help of an egg donor.
Her son with director John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, is now old enough to drink, but she also has the twins with Mr. Van Zandt; they were born in 1997. At home, Mr. Van Zandt’s writing office is secluded, but her writing office is off the kitchen. She won’t let the twins download anything off iTunes without her approval.
After her runs on The Drew Carey Show and Carnivale ended, a friend suggested that she “should write a book for her horror fan base,” so now she’s writing a vampire novel with him; he lives in Ireland, and they e-mail chapters back and forth. There’s an offer on the book already, she said. She has also invested well in the stock market—Starbucks, for one.
Finally she arrived at LaDuca, at Ninth and 40th. “You’re like my idol,” said the shoe store’s operations manager, Betsy Craig, the redhead, in red glasses, a pink spangly sweater and chunky green necklace. Ms. Barbeau had a shoe in her purse, and a bracelet with a malformed clasp, which she gave to the blonde—Cynthia Nordstrom, in black. Ms. Nordstrom is the costume designer for the Judy Garland play. Ms. Barbeau put on her glasses and took off her boots.
“Did Cynthia tell you about the original pair?” asked Ms. Barbeau. “I didn’t have the wherewithal to insure it.”
“There are no accidents, baby,” said Ms. Craig. “There’s a method to the madness. Thirty-five and a half, honey,” she said to her brunette assistant. “You hear that?”
A beige shoe went on Ms. Barbeau. “Try 35 and a half in a tiny, missy.” A shoe with purple straps went on. “Yeah, I’m walking out of it,” Ms. Barbeau said, standing. “We have heel grips on these,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
A new shoe was pretty and mesh. “Is that a 35 and a half?” asked Ms. Craig.
Ms. Barbeau walked the length of the tiny store.
“Talk to me about the shoe,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
“You know, I’m not wearing nylons,” said Ms. Barbeau, meaning in the show, “because I’m in pants and I change onstage.”
“Oh, that makes all the difference,” said Ms. Craig. “That is a sexy shoe on you. I always let my masculine side come out.”
“Dancers love these shoes,” said Ms. Nordstrom. “You have the most narrow heel!”
“She does, doesn’t she!” said Ms. Craig. “I’m sure she was Asian in a past life and had her feet bound.”
The brunette assistant climbed a ladder for more and more shoes.
“That’s so big!” said Ms. Barbeau. “And this is …. ”
“A 34 and a half!” said the brunette.
“Girl!” said Ms. Craig.
“What I’m thinking is: I want a less formal shoe,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
They hunkered down on the floor and looked at period drawings of shoes.
“Talk to me,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
Ms. Barbeau offered: “I look better in …. ”
“More scoop-out?” Ms. Nordstrom said. “In something more shallow?”
They had a conversation about toe cleavage. Billy Joel played on the radio, then Stevie Nicks.
“That shoe’s wrong, this Kermit-green moment,” said Ms. Nordstrom. Then a book of photos of Judy Garland was pulled out.
“There was no toe cleavage then,” said Ms. Craig.
“But that’s not the period,” said Ms. Barbeau.
“Noooo,” agreed Ms. Nordstrom. She pointed to the low toe scoop of a black shoe on the floor. “This is what makes it 50’s or 80’s.”
Almost all the shoes at LaDuca have lady names: the Alexis, the Candice, the Eartha. A black Tanya went on. Ms. Barbeau stood and stroked along her shoe’s instep. “What’s this called?”
“The shank,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
They talked about negative space for a while.
“Judy’s a plain-shoe girl,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
“O.K., we’re gonna trace your little foot,” said Ms. Craig. “Where’s my tape measure? Oh, they put it away, like a good girl. Such good girls.”
Ms. Barbeau stood lost in thought, her fingers on her chin.
“It’s crazy,” Ms. Craig and Ms. Nordstrom agreed about her tiny heels.
“I lived all my life and I never knew,” said Ms. Barbeau, back now.
They talked about a regional production of Fiddler on the Roof in 1971. Ms. Craig is an actress as well. She met Ms. Barbeau back then, at the Theater of the Stars in Atlanta, when they both played in a regional production of Fiddler. It was Ms. Craig’s first Equity show.
“Who else do you remember from it?” asked Ms. Barbeau.
“Carol Rogers?” said Ms. Craig. “She played your sister.”
“Who played Mordcha?” asked Ms. Barbeau.
“Oh, honey, I don’t remember,” said Ms. Craig.
“It was a huge theater! Four thousand seats,” said Ms. Barbeau.
“Five thousand! I did two seasons there. I was 18. We were babies,” said Ms. Craig.
They switched feet.
“Molly Ringwald did Cabaret?” asked Ms. Barbeau. She had noticed a poster in the store.
“I hear she was pretty good,” said Ms. Craig.
“And I hear the woman from Judging Amy went in,” said Ms. Nordstrom.
“You’re done!” said Ms. Craig.
“I still have the shoes I wore in Fiddler!” said Ms. Barbeau.
“Capezios?” asked Ms. Craig.
“No, they made them for us,” said Ms. Barbeau.
“Well, that was your role, baby!” said Ms. Craig. “In the new one, they all looked the same.” She qualified: “They’re terrific performers.”
“Well!” said Ms. Barbeau.
“Great!” said Ms. Craig, all done. “What a great start to my day. All the best.”
The play’s publicist, Brett Oberman, had also popped in and looked at the mess of shoes. “I thought they’d be ruby,” he said.
And a package was delivered by a mailwoman. “You know what I think that is?” said the brunette assistant.
“The shoes,” Ms. Craig said. “The shoes from Canada.”
They were not the shoes from California. Who was wearing those perfect shoes now?
“Everyone have a great weekend!” said the mail carrier.
—Choire Sicha