This isn’t your everyday discovery. I first notice the aberration while trimming down my dragon lady toenails. Counting each one off in my head, I chirp out, “Five! Done!” But then I realize I’m not. Transfixed, I stare at my pinky toe — or should I say my second pinky toe?
I phone my mother. “Did you know that I have six toes on my right foot?” I scream into the receiver.
“Calm down, Marie,” she says, because she’s known all along.
I cannot fathom how I missed this. I’m twenty-one, damn it. It’s not like I’ve not had enough time to realize I’ve one digit too many.
Suzanne’s eyes bulge when I march into her dorm room, flip off my sneaker and point to it. “WHAT THE HELL?” she shrieks, as if I grew the thing overnight. We’ve known each other since second grade, took swimming lessons together, ran barefoot countless times through the grass in her back yard. Her reaction only proves she’s as clueless as I am.
On the subway ride home, I wonder who else knows. When I get a pedicure, the woman working on my feet must notice. Have all my pedicurists seen this anomaly and said nothing? Sure they have. I mean, what would one say? “Six toes! Cool!” Not likely.
I’m lucky I missed the Middle Ages. People were burned at the stake for lesser offenses. But maybe I can have it removed. Who would do it, though? A plastic surgeon? A podiatrist? How much does toe removal cost, anyway? I doubt it’s on their regular menu of services.
A handsome older man with a thin-lipped smile starts looking me over from his seat halfway down the car. He’s digging me because he can’t see my extra toe. The superfluous pinky is like a sore inside my cheek or that birthmark on my inner thigh, something he might notice only if we’re intimate. So, I turn away, assuring we never will be.
But wait, I think — the guys I’ve dated never noticed. Or did they? Maybe that explains why I’m currently alone. At the very least it explains why I had better balance than other grade-school ballerinas.
At home I place my naked foot on the ottoman across from my sofa and stare at it with genuine betrayal. I suppose everyone has a little secret something about them. My something has been right there in my sock all along. I guess being nearsighted didn’t help.
Now that I’ve discovered this, I feel unpredictable — like I may wake up tomorrow morning and find wings tucked into folds on my back that no one bothered to point out, wings that I missed because I don’t work too hard at soaping up that part of me either. If that happens, I swear I’ll go out to my fire escape and take off, flying right up Seventh Avenue against the flow of traffic. Don’t even think that I won’t.
Kathleen Powers-Vermaelen writes out of Bayport, NY.
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28 Responses to “NEW ADDITION • by Kathleen Powers-Vermaelen”
Comments
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March 20th, 2009 at 12:38 am
I love this story. Whimsical at first, but with an unexpectedly glorious ending. Five from me.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:49 am
Quirky. I liked it.
March 20th, 2009 at 1:36 am
Loved it!
March 20th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Weird and wonderful.
Very reminiscent of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’.
A high five from me. Or should it be a high six?
March 20th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Really well written and entertaining.
March 20th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I’m unable to pinpoint quite why but I enjoyed that, particularly that last paragraph.
This is the sort of story that makes me wonder how the author came up with the idea. Bonkers.
March 20th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Goofy and quirky, and it works.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:21 am
Great story! I loved the last paragraph.
March 20th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Fresh and quirky. Just the right length. The last paragraph was the clincher for me, also.
March 20th, 2009 at 5:48 am
I love this nutty story and its warm funny heroine. More, please.
March 20th, 2009 at 6:14 am
I like the pithy way the author developed the character of the mother, portrayed her deep insight and the calmness which aged wisdom brings, and her pithy, succinct, and wise answer to her nervous girl, so nervous she didn’t look at her other foot. This is deeper than whimsy, and brings deep sympathy for all such people suffering the realities of six-toedness (sometimes known as eleven-toedness) everywhere. As we all know, twelve-toedness usually escapes rebuke because the balance restores justice in the stance.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:34 am
First off let me say that this story was well written. It has a sort of positive buyoncy that makes it fun to read. Thats a good indicator of the Author’s talent. However, I’m sorry to say that the logic itself didn’t work for me at all. I began by think it was a drug trip, but then her mother already knew about it so that explanation was out the window. Then her friend who she’d played with growing up didn’t know about it and so was as clueless as she was. At that point I was looking for some allegorical meaning to the piece (It’s well written . . . there must be some point to it. . . right?) Well, I never found any hidden meaning. It became a tuft of whimsey which did no more than irritate me. (Just how clueless IS the MC anyway? I was waiting for her to scratch her second head or tug on her tail in the end while wondering how she just never noticed that extra toe.)
Obviously–by the glowing comments–I’m in a minority. This shows that the writer, editors, and many readers have vastly different tastes from mine. Which is fine. But I figured that I’d better toss out a more critical commentary lest the author think that everyone liked this type of work. I look forward to reading something from this Author without such a gaping hole in its logic.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:47 am
This was great for a first thing in the morning read. Gave me a smile to begin the day with. It was very clever and funny and a tiny bit sad, but the end really does it. Well done.
March 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am
I did enjoy this piece – it made me smile, I liked the quirky voice, and loved the idea of having wings.
However, I agree somewhat with Rob – how could she be 21 and not know she had a sixth toe?! That bothered me as I read the rest of the story and it took away some of the fun.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I liked this.
I read an article back in February about a kid born with six perfectly functioning fingers and toes. It’s called “polydactyly” (Here’s the link if anyone is interested: http://www.ktvu.com/news/18608582/detail.html). Extremely rare and possibly beneficial condition in this case.
At any rate, I really enjoyed this story. Someone used the word quirky to describe it and I agree, but only in a positive way. I was a little thrown by the same thing Rob brought up, but then I had a natural blond streak in my hair I never noticed until somebody pointed it out to me in my teens, so I could relate.
Thank you for the story.
March 20th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Whimsical, magical and very very strong.
Axxx
March 20th, 2009 at 10:47 am
I, too, was expecting something more fanciful from the clues given and felt let down at the end. Blind people know how many toes they have. Come on–was Marie in a coma for 21 years? Didn’t work for me.
March 20th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Rob, et. al. You folks are being too logical about this story. If you check out the tag at the bottom, you will see that the author intended this to be a surreal piece. Surreal literature and art is, by definition, “characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions and marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.”
March 20th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
KC has it. It’s suppose to be rather silly.
This has a great voice and flow and I enjoyed it for what it was.
–dj
March 20th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I don’t know…..i really liked the story, but I, too, scratched my head as I read. How could you be that old and not notice you had six toes? Yet the ending made all the head scratching worth it….for some reason, I just really liked this short.
March 21st, 2009 at 6:36 am
Rob-
It may be that her friend was not ignorant, but like a false friend merely mum. The story is almost, but not quite open-ended because, only half understanding, she says to herself, Re: Paragraph 9: “At the very least it explains why I had better balance than the other grade-school ballerinas.” cf:comment 11. We can guess that she might have twelve toes. Beyond the end of the story a more life-satisfying conclusion is possible, although not nearly as satisfying as a ten-toed one.
Madeline Mora-Summonte -
It might be that as a sop to her, a person her “friends” wanted to avoid, they threw her podiatry instead of having her concentrate on the usually necessary do-it-yourself chore of nail cutting.
March 21st, 2009 at 8:08 am
Roberta,
without the guidence of reality, the story could go in many directions-
It could be false frineds or better balance . . .
Orrrr- she took the sugar cube 20-to-25 minutes ago and the toe’s grown on since then. Her ‘friend’ is really the brightly dressed dolly in the window and her mother is tired of her daughters drug-induced road-trips and just says she ‘already knows’ to cut her off because she has enough problems with the real-life troubles of the rest of her children and she doesn’t want to get into another discussion about the crown prince of the potato people with her substance abusing daughter.
Imagination can go many ways without the author’s guidence . .
March 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am
There’s are no drugs or substance abuse mentioned in the story. The story as told should have some part in the analysis. Yes, I also recommend reading what the author has written.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:44 am
Another really great fun, funny story. I think maybe the main character did grow the sizth toe overnight but the mother eithier just couldn’t be bothered or maybe it was a family trait? Not that it really matters, this story was just great fun!
March 21st, 2009 at 11:48 am
Oh, five out of five also!
March 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Sharon -
How do you know that blind people know how many toes they have? Please don’t believe I’m finding fault with your statement. I am interested in the various ways people gain esoteric insight.
Just because one doesn’t like a story doesn’t mean one must insult it. For example, I didn’t like this story on the whole either, but I did like the conciseness of the mother’s wise advice.
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Well written,fresh and funny. Sad to say, not always available in contemporary fiction
March 25th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Really liked this one (maybe because I am re-reading my Douglas Adams collection). I felt the beginning was a little hitch and go (i.e. the typo notice[d]; use ‘aberration’ & ‘dragon lady’ seem distracting and unnecessary given the tone of the rest), so I only gave it a four, but I really loved the humor and tone. I would gladly read more about this character and her “surprises”.