Trisha first approached Tim about being her partner, an obvious choice since he was her boyfriend. But he said he was not a very good dancer and did not have the time (nor the desire, really) to learn. Although a little disappointed, Trisha decided to look for another partner. She first thought of her friend Jay with whom she had become close friends over the course of the school year. He did not know how to Swing dance at all, but when asked by the girl he had a huge crush on, he was certainly willing to learn.
Trisha was lamenting about the upcoming contest with her roommate, Jeannie, who had a great idea. "Trisha, I'm a Performing Arts major. I could teach Jay how to swing dance."
"Would you really? I know you just went with him to the Valentine's Day Banquet a week ago and things did not go all that well. I also know you are busy getting ready to be Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls."
"First of all, you're my friend and friends help other friends in need. Secondly, I like Jay fine. Just because nothing happened romantically, doesn't mean I hate him or anything. He's a great guy and I'm just not the right girl for him and he's not the right man for me. I just hope he wouldn't think I was trying to use this as a way to get him to go out with me though. And thirdly, If we do it one night a week after our chapter meeting that would be okay during this busy time. I’m the understudy and I only get to perform twice out of 6 performances, so practice is not as hard for me as it is for the lead."
"Jeannie, you're so sweet! Don't you worry about Jay. I'll take care of it. (Pause) I'll go out to the mall and get some Glenn Miller and Count Basie CDs for us to use."
Trisha called up Jay and told him the news. "Jay, I got you a tutor for the dance contest."
"Who?"
"Jeannie - you know she's a Performing Arts major and a fantastic dancer."
"Hmmmm, how interesting?"
"Now Jay, she's doing this since she's my friend, not to try to get you to ask her out."
"Are you sure?"
"Well Jay, yes. Besides, she can't make you ask her out can she? We practice with her one night a week after our chapter meeting - that's all."
"Okay, I'm game." Jay loved every opportunity to spend time with Trisha. In reality, he spent just about as much time with her as did her supposed boyfriend, Tim.
Trisha and Jay got off the phone and he was very happy to get in this contest with Trisha. He liked the idea of spending time learning to dance the Swing and being in the contest with the girl of his dreams.
That upcoming Monday night around 8:30PM, Jay stopped by the AOPi house for his first lesson. He called up to Trisha and Jeannie's room to let them know he was there. Trisha slipped her bare feet into a pair of black clogs and followed "Tutor Jeannie" downstairs.
Jay saw the girls coming downstairs from the lobby and he enthusiastically greeted them, "Hey Trisha! Hey Jeannie! How are you?"
Trisha greeted him with a hug and Jeannie was a bit more tepid but she did say hello in a friendly way and suggested they go in the basement, which had a large room without any furniture on one large end. (The other end was set up for the just completed chapter meeting.) Trisha carried the portable CD player and some of the CDs she had bought for the lessons. They quickly set these up on a table and Jeannie gave Jay a crash course and Trisha a refresher on the major moves and techniques used in Swing dancing.
Jeannie began to show Jay a basic move called a 'Tuck Turn' and soon both had forgotten about their ill-conceived date to the Valentines Banquet. They actually looked pretty comfortable with each other. Soon, Jay was doing pretty well at one of the basic moves.
Jeannie asked, "Trisha do you think you can do that move with Jay - give it a try."
"Sure, I remember that one very well." They then executed a perfect ‘Push Break’ and ‘Right Side Pass.’
Jeannie was impressed, "Trisha, you're pretty good. And Jay, you're catching on quick.
The lesson continued until around 10PM. Jay enjoyed getting to spend so much time in an embrace with Trisha. She was a lot of fun as a dancer - very light on her feet, which seemed to always be in the right place and they looked good doing it. He was careful not to misstep and stomp on her feet and he was pretty good to avoid that during their lesson. Jeannie found herself struggling a bit to avoid enjoying her times with Jay. She thought he was nice and handsome young man, but there had been no sparks on their date and she was trying to be content being friends in a similar manner to how Jay handled Trisha having a boyfriend.
At the end of the lesson, the three started to go upstairs; then Trisha remembered to go back and retrieve her clogs that had been haphazardly kicked across the basement of the chapter room. Jay observed the cute way she shoved each foot into its clog and then scurried back to the stairs to go up to the lobby to say bye to Jay for the night.
--
The night before the upcoming AOPi St. Patrick's Day dance was the annual Beta House Murder Mystery and Dinner. Jay called Trisha a few days after their first dance lesson to ask her to be his partner/date and Shawn in turn asked his friend Donna. The brothers had drawn cards from a hat to determine who each couple would be and give them clues as to how to dress. All characters were from movies released 40 years before - in 1961.
Jay's card said "Think George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's - he's a young well-to-do attorney and she's an aspiring socialite in a red dress." Shawn's card said, "Think Jeff Chandler and Natalie Wood in West Side Story - he's a nice clean-cut kid from the suburbs and she's a sweet young peasant from the city. Others in the fraternity had similar descriptions from movies such as Flower Drum Song, Return to Peyton Place and The Absent-Minded Professor.
After the drawing, the Pledge Class Chairman, James Nelson, who was in charge of the game, secretly met with Jay and told him, "You drew the Breakfast at Tiffany's card, right?"
"Yes, James, that's right."
"I need you to know that your date is the murderer. She does not need to know that, though."
"Gee thanks, now that ruins the surprise for me."
"Well, I'm sorry, but I said that before you even drew for names, remember? (Pause) Anyway, you get to help set her up as the murder. That ought to be fun in itself, right?
"I suppose so."
Here's the murder's M.O - that's Modus Operandi, or Method of Operation for the layman: She stabs the victim in the head with her high heel shoe. Notice that her character description is such that it lends itself to wearing high heels. Do you think you can get her to wear heels?"
"Trisha Kendrick will be my date and she wears heels quite a bit - very pretty ones at that. I should have no trouble."
James added, "One more thing. If you can't do this, we can pretend, but here's a pack of fake blood that came with the game. If you can somehow place a little of this near the tip of her heel during the party, it will add a touch of reality to the game as I reveal the "blood" on her shoe as evidence.
Jay thanked James for taking the time to tell him about what needed to happen with Trisha and the game. He was now more excited than ever.
--
The following Monday, Jay came by the AOPi house for his lesson and once again, Trisha was sporting a pair of pretty clogs - this time a pair of red ones. She again kicked them off and they did their practice with her barefoot again in the basement of the AOPi house. Jeannie taught them the 'Basket Whip' and the 'Closed Whip' and a few other intermediate moves.
Around 10PM, after swing dance practice, Jay came up to Trisha's room and they talked about their outfits for the upcoming party. Jay noted, "Mine's fairly easy. I can wear my black suit - it's got sort of a retro look with the double breast buttoning. I can slick back my hair a bit and borrow a hat from my grandfather. I'm going to see him this weekend in Gainesville."
Trisha opened her closet to look at which red dress of the three she owned would work best. Jay pointed to one of them and suggested, "How about this one? It looks very stylish with the winged collar and the tapered waist." He looked in the bottom of the closet and saw a shoe organizer with half of the slots vacant and about 62 shoes of various styles, shapes and colors lining the floor of the closet. He was impressed, "Wow, you're like Imelda Marcos! You have any red shoes to match your dress?"
"Yeah, I have a few. These are the ones I wore to the Valentines Dinner," Trisha said picking up one of her Caparro's. Jay wanted to see more, so he replied, "Well, maybe, what else do you have?"
Trisha began to rummage through the pile at the bottom of the closet and while doing so, Jay looked in the far left corner and pulled out a red slide with a 4-inch heel and a small curved upper that covered only an inch or so of the foot above the toes. He also noted that they had a narrow long heel shaft that would be an ideal murder weapon! "How about these?"
Trisha stopped her rummaging and looked at his choice. "Those are a bit on the sexy side, don't you think?"
"But your character description fits that, right?"
"Maybe so. Let me hold them up to my dress...yes they are the same color of red." Trisha slipped out of her red clogs and to Jay's surprise and delight, she slipped on the red slides and walked a few steps around her room and showed them off. "I remember buying these. Amber and I were in the mall back about a year and a half ago and she and Doug had just had a fight. I was not having any success with men either and we decided to buy the sexiest pairs of shoes in the store. I got these and Amber got a pair of strappy sandals with straps part of the way up the ankle. I guess we chose two extremes, huh?"
Jay, who barely heard a word she said, was practically salivating at the thought of Trisha wearing those pretty shoes to his frat party. "So you want to wear these?" Jay asked knowing these would be perfect not only for the game but they were so pretty and femininely backless for his taste.
"Sure, why not. I've only worn them once before so they could use some more activity."
Jay wanted to ask where she'd worn them before, but he shyed away from asking any more probing questions. Actually she had only worn them to an AOPi chapter meeting right after buying them so they had no exciting history.
Just when Jay thought they'd walk back downstairs for him to leave, Trisha reached into the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out a shoebox. Jay wondered if it was another pair of shoes to consider, but Trisha pondered, "I wonder if I have any polish to match these shoes." At that comment, Trisha sat the box down on her desk and removed the lid, revealing about 50 small bottles of nail polish of various colors. She pulled out a new-looking green bottle and announced, "This is what I bought for the St. Patrick's Day dance. I thought I'd stay in theme." She pulled out a few bottles and held up the color patch on the lid of each to her shoes and on the tenth try she found a good match. "How about this Jay?"
Jay, in disbelief of what he'd seen so far replied in the affirmative and Trisha sat the bottle aside next to her red slides as she replaced them in her closet, ready for the upcoming party, which Jay now was highly anticipating. He left shortly after that and returned to his frat house a happy man.
--
Six days later, March 10th was Trisha's 21st birthday and Tim had promised to take her out to lunch after church and then to see Jeannie perform in the matinee of Guys and Dolls for the UGA Performing Arts Department. He was cautiously certain he was going to break up with her, but he just couldn't let her birthday go by uncelebrated.
Tim did like the way Trisha wore pretty shoes when they went out, especially the backless styles which she almost always wore since they revealed her pretty feet and ankles. She looked so cute when she played with them and dangled them. One would fall off sometimes. He continued to evaluate how much of his interest in her was based on all this and how much was based on her personality and character, which were both good and attractive.
He was only a couple of weeks away from seeing Mary again. She had talked about transferring to a college in Dallas to be near him as he attended seminary, but she had not totally made up her mind. He planned to get her final answer over Spring Break. If she said "no" then he planned to find out if Trisha wanted to continue their relationship long distance - a prospect he did not really want. But if Mary said "yes" then he knew he needed to end things with Trisha very soon. Even if the door was still open to date Trisha, did he really want to date her based on his fear that his interest was too heavily weighted toward her choice of shoes and her shoeplay?
Sunday morning, Trisha was in a good birthday mood. On this special day, Trisha dressed exceedingly nice. She wore a pretty gray dress and a pair of black dress mules with a 3 1/2 inch heel and opaque gray hose. Tim was excited to see her pretty outfit and he loved this particular pair of shoes - the way her feet glided along and how the shoes flapped against her soles with each step. Throughout Sunday school and Church, she constantly played with one shoe or both as Tim attentively watched. She had amazing control of her shoes, however, considering that she was wearing mules and slippery nylons. Tim was hoping for some shoe drops but none would occur.
In the car on the way to lunch, Tim looked down at her feet and had a flashback. Just a few weeks ago, Trisha wore a pair of slingbacks on their date that had the same rose flower adornment on the upper, but those shoes were slingbacks. He remembered that she kept having to adjust the straps of her slingbacks and even commented on how they were stretched. Tim decided to ask, "Trisha, don't you have a pair of slingback pumps that look like those?"
Trisha paused and seemed a little embarrassed that he asked that question. She replied with, "Remember how much trouble I had the last time I wore them with you?
Tim immediately remembered but he pretended like he had to think about it a little. "Oh yeah, I remember taking you to dinner and you stopped several times to pull up one of your straps. By the end of the night, you had given up and both straps were flopping uselessly behind your heels doing nothing to help hold the shoes on your feet."
Trisha continued, "Well, I decided that instead of giving them away to become someone else's problem, I decided to make them wearable again."
About that time, Tim pulled into the parking lot of the O'Charley's restaurant where they were having lunch. He played dumb again and answered back with, "So how'd you make them wearable again? Can you show me?"
With the car now parked in front of O'Charley's, Trisha replied, "Sure," and reached down and pulled off her left shoe and held it up in front of Tim. "If you look closely, here on either side of the heel is where the straps once were. I used a razor blade and it seemed to work just fine."
Tim reached out his hand and was about to ask for a closer look but Trisha knew what he wanted and handed him the shoe. He gave the shoe a close look while Trisha continued to speak.
"I tried to stop after just doing that, but there was also a strap that connected over on the instep from the outside edge over to the middle of the upper. Without the heel strap it seemed to cut into my foot. I removed it also."
Tim shifted his focus and again saw where she had adeptly used a razor blade to cut off the second strap and create a pair of mules with a low-cut upper. He daringly asked, "So are they hard to keep on without the straps?"
"Normally, yes and especially when I'm wearing hose, but I've been careful today and it hasn't happened, yet."
Tim handed her shoe back and they got out of the car and went in to eat lunch. Now more than ever, he was interested in seeing how well Trisha did keeping her shoes on against the odds. He noted that with the pointed toe box she had little more than her toes occupying the upper of each shoe. With each step, the sole of the shoe stayed flat on the ground until her foot reached a sharp angle, at which point the sole came crashing upward to slap her foot making a distinct sound he had grown to like.
Trisha talked a lot about stuff going on in the sorority and about her preparations for the upcoming Swing Dance Contest. Tim talked about the preparations for their Spring Break work project back home in Ocala, Florida, where Trisha and a few others from AOPi were coming to work on a house for a few days. Throughout lunch, he kept trying to sneak a peek under the table to see if she was having any problems with her shoes. Although she played with them and dangled them furiously, not once during lunch did she have a loss.
They finally made it to the UGA Theatre for the production of Guys and Dolls and Tim was sure she'd have some problems there on the steps. He walked behind her as they walked up the steps. He could hear the sound of her nyloned feet slipping in the mules with each step and her foot seemed to almost come off with each step, but it never did as they took their seats on the end of the row with Tim getting the aisle seat. The musical started and Trisha returned to her shoeplay and dangling as usual. Intermission came and went and Trisha had not had a single shoe drop - even with her lethal combination of low-cut mules and slippery hose.
About midway into the second act, Trisha was dangling one of her mules in front of Tim. It was barely hanging on the end of her toes and the tip of the 3-1/2 inch heel was only about an inch away from his shin. In a daring move that even surprised himself, he slowly lifted his left leg just enough to knock Trisha's dangling mule off her big toe perch. Her shoe illustrated a bit of angular momentum as it fell off and crossed in front of him and landed on the steps of the aisle. Tim apologized for the apparent 'accident' and Trisha did not seem too concerned or upset. In fact she laughed a little under her breath for what she considered to be her own clumsiness.
Tim groped in the dark theatre to try to locate her black shoe but was unsuccessful. He whispered to Trisha, "It's too dark, I'll have to find it when the lights come up." So, for 30 minutes, Trisha sat with one foot missing its shoe crossed and hanging in the same position as before. Tim enjoyed the sight of her cute nyloned foot and even in the dark, he could just make out her red toenail polish underneath her nylons. Trisha's most awkward time was trying to stand unbalanced on one shoe during the standing ovation at the end. She had to flex her left foot and stand on her tiptoes to keep balanced. The show was over and the lights came on and Tim looked down and saw her shoe 3 steps below them. Just as they started to leave, so did everyone else so the aisle was soon very crowded.
As they reached the step where Tim had seen Trisha's shoe, they could not find it.
"I saw it right here a minute ago," Tim proclaimed as Trisha became a little impatient.
"Help me find it quick, I want to get out to greet Jeannie before it gets too crowded."
Tim ushered Trisha back into the row of seats next to where her shoe was last seen and they waited a minute or two to allow the crowd to clear the aisle. A clear aisle revealed that her shoe had been knocked down 4 more steps. Tim hurriedly retrieved it and replaced it on Trisha's outstretched wiggling nyloned foot, Cinderella-style, much to her delight.
After congratulating Jeannie for a great performance, Tim took Trisha back to the AOPi house and kissed her goodbye for the afternoon. He went back to his apartment and thought about his date with Trisha. He realized that too much of his interest for her was for her shoes and shoeplay and it was not fair to be in a relationship with someone for that reason. He knew what he had to do, but he did not cherish the thought of possibly breaking Trisha's heart.
--
Jay came over after AOPi chapter meeting for their third lesson with Trisha and Jeannie. It being the day after Trisha's birthday, he came bearing a nice gift and a nice birthday card, for which Trisha hugged him and gave him an innocent peck on the cheek. By now, Trisha and Jay were spending most of the time practicing while Jeannie watched and gave pointers. They put together their 3-minute routine and began to perfect it. Trisha again did the practice barefoot, to Jay's delight again. This time it was a pair of white clogs she had worn downstairs and summarily kicked them aside for practice.
The day of the Murder Mystery Dinner, four days later, Jay and Shawn drove down to the AOPi house to pick up Trisha for the party. They also swung by Donna's dorm and picked her up as well. Shawn and Donna's outfit was not as glamorous as Jay or Trisha’s but all four looked nice and well in theme for the evening.
Jay thought Trisha looked absolutely stunning in her red slides. As she walked, they slapped against the bottom of her feet with a definitive sound. Her toenails were freshly polished with the color she had selected over a week ago in her room with him watching. She seemed to be enjoying her character. A trip to a costume store had yielded one of those long filtered cigarette holders and her mom had helped her find a matching red hat to match her dress - a type of hat popularized by Audrey herself in the late 50's and early 60's.
Everyone arrived and couples were seated at tables of eight in the rec room in the basement. Pledges helped serve the food and James, chairman of the freshman pledge class, was indeed the game manager as was already known to Jay and the other brothers. He began to explain the rules of the game and announced, "There's been a murder this evening and one of you is the murderer. Mr. Ted Dead was found lying in the bathroom near the kitchen lying in a pool of blood. A small round wound the size of a bullet was found on his head just above his right eye. No one in the mansion heard a gunshot, however." (James continued with a few more details and the game was officially begun.)
Trisha found herself making mannerisms like a sophisticated woman flinging her cigarette holder around in circles as she talked. She crossed one leg over the other and soon one of her slides was hanging barely on the end of her pretty toes. A few moments later, everyone at his or her table herd a plop as her shoe landed and bounced on the painted concrete floor of the Beta house basement.
Jay glanced under the table and saw that her shoe had landed in front of him and out of Trisha's reach. He decided to have a little fun with her and take advantage of the situation to plant the evidence as James suggested. He reached out with his foot and snagged Trisha's shoe and pulled it toward him but said nothing to his shoeless date. Trisha began to probe under the table, without looking for her shoe, trying to retrieve it sight unseen to no avail.
Jay dropped his napkin at an opportune time and quickly spread a little fake blood on her heel before retrieving the napkin and sitting back up. He slid the shoe in Trisha's direction and whispered to her, "I found your shoe under there."
Trisha glanced down and seeing the shoe she replaced her foot in it and thanked Jay for helping her. Soon she had that foot flat on the floor and began to dangle the other one in the opposite direction. Two or three more times, she dangled a shoe to the point of dropping but each time afterwards, she replaced the shoe back on her foot before she could lose track of its location.
Everyone began to get more into their characters. Each person had a card with a list of who they were supposed to talk to and the gist of what they were supposed to say. It was sort of like a script, but each person was supposed to ad lib and personalize their part to make it more real and more fun.
Trisha as "Holly" was supposed to meet Donna as "Maria" on the back porch, which in the case of the Beta house was the deck which was constructed in typical fashion with 2x4 pieces of lumber nailed to a framework of joists and with each board laid with a small gap between to allow for expansion and contraction due to moisture and temperature.
The two girls who were on the verge of becoming better friends, despite Donna's jealousy of Trisha and her friendship with Jay, talked through their parts and without thinking, Trisha began to dip in and out of one of her slides. She decided it was time to put her shoe back on and thrust her toes under the small strap and in doing so, the narrow thin heel of the shoe slipped in between two of the boards.
"Oh no!" Trisha gasped. Donna had no idea why Trisha was distressed.
"What's wrong?" Trisha began to fidget her left foot and tried to pull her shoe out with no success.
"I'm stuck. My heel is stuck!"
"Really, let me try to help." Donna said and she reached down but she did not have the strength to pull it out.
Trisha asked, "Get Jay or Shawn and see if they can help."
Donna obliged and went inside and looked for one of the guys. Trisha stepped out of her trapped shoe and got down on her hands and knees and started pulling on the shoe trying to remove it. While Donna was gone, Bert, one of the other guys in the frat house came out for a smoke and saw this damsel in distress. He was in character as the Absent Minded Professor - he was a dead ringer for Fred McMurray in costume, which even included an old-fashioned pipe.
"You seem to have a problem."
"Yes, my heel is stuck."
"Yeah, happens almost every time we have a formal get together here." Bert knelt down to try to remove her shoe but was not having any success. "Someone did not think to consider that a frat house would have girls walking on the deck in heels from time to time. Maybe we should post a sign on the back door asking ladies to remove their heels before going outside. We could even have a little rack made for you."
About that time Donna came out with Jay and Shawn. "Hey Bert, have you tried the heelpopper?" Jay asked.
"Oh, I forgot about that."
Jay reached on the wall behind the gas grill and on a rusty nail hung a warped metal coat hanger. "The way to get a heel out of one of these cracks is to get underneath it." Jay guided the hanger under Trisha's shoe heel and brought it up on the other side. He grabbed each end of the hanger and pulled up and the heel popped out quickly and Trisha put it back on her foot. "Happens so often that we started keeping this hanger out on the deck just for this purpose."
Everyone went back in afterwards for more of the game. There was a lot of standing around and talking to different characters for another hour. Trisha was getting uncomfortable in her heels. As she walked around the Beta house talking to everyone while in character, every chance she got, she wiggled off one slide and stretched her toes and foot on the floor. She was unknowingly creating a lot of attention from the guys in her vicinity who loved watching her play with those sexy heels and show off her beautiful feet.
Around 9PM. James, the gamesmaster, gathered everyone in the large living room and each player was asked to write the name of the guilty, the motive and the murder weapon. A few minutes later, he gathered the evidence and went into recess to tabulate the results. Trisha and Jay and the others sat around waiting. Trisha crossed her right leg over left and dangled her red slide vigorously while playing with her long cigarette filter.
James got everyone's attention again and made the following announcement: "Hello everyone. I have read all of the submissions and some of you got one or two of he criteria correct, but only Bert got all three correct. I'd like him to come up here and let you know his answer."
Bert walked to the front of the group and began to speak. "Fellow Brothers and friends. After hearing the evidence, chatting with many of you and doing my own investigation, I have determined that there is clear evidence to support my claim. First of all, there is a head wound but no one heard a gunshot. I spoke with people who were within 20 feet of the murder and even the best silencers are not mute from that distance. I also began to find out who had a motive to kill Ted. I learned that he was having an affair with the murderer. The murderer was also planning to embezzle money from her boyfriend and Ted was ready to turn her in for a nice reward. Something inside the murderer snapped and she killed him. The murderer did not have a gun. I propose that the murderer used a very pointed high heel shoe. I was almost convinced of my conclusion but I was totally proven correct when I helped the murderer get her heel out of the deck..."
Trisha stopped dangling her shoe and it fell off her foot and onto the floor - almost as if it were on cue.
Bert walked over and picked up the fallen shoe and held it high in the air. "I saw that there was blood on the heel shaft." Bert passed her shoe around to everyone in the room who looked closely at the dried fake blood that Jay had slyly placed on the heel. Trisha sat with her bare foot still crossed as she heard her guilt proven in front of the group.
James proclaimed the game over and he dismissed everyone to the kitchen for dessert. Trisha sat waiting on her shoe to be returned but it was not. She hobbled into the kitchen one-shod and looked around for several minutes before she found the person still holding her shoe. Trisha got it back, cleaned off the blood, replaced the shoe on her foot and enjoyed the rest of the night being the 'murderer.' Soon everyone was dancing and having a fun night. She even, at one point, kicked off her red slides and showed the group her and Jay's Swing Dance Contest routine for the group.
--
The Friday night before St Patrick's Day was the AOPi Swing Dance Contest. Trisha and Jay arrived ready to go. They did not expect to win, but they wanted to have a good time and not make fools out of themselves.
The party was a good excuse to decorate the basement of the AOPi house in green, serve green punch and eat green cookies. There was also a lot of non-green snack food that everyone seemed to enjoy.
Trisha, although actually Scottish in ancestry, looked like a pretty young Irish lass this March evening. She wore a green skirt and a white blouse covered by a sleeveless matching green sweater vest. Her fingernails and unseen toenails were painted green and her hair was adorned with a green bow and tied into a ponytail with a green ribbon. She also had a pair of cute shamrock earrings. To complete the ensemble, she wore a pair of solid green clogs with wooden soles. Many of the other girls were dressed in green and many of their dates, including Trisha's Jay, had either a green shirt or a green tie.
Jeannie declared herself ineligible for the contest and was summarily asked to be the emcee for the contest. They had invited a few girls from the Phi Mu sorority and a few guys from 3 different frats to be the judges.
The basement indeed did look nice. There were green streamers, shamrocks hanging from the ceiling, and photos of Ireland on the walls. Someone had even found an Irish flag to hang on the wall. They had borrowed an elevated stage from the Pan Hellenic Organization to use for the dance floor. It was raised about 12 inches from the floor and made for a more comfortable dance floor. There was also a green skirt that encircled the stage, touching the floor, to hide the hollow space underneath and make the stage look very nice.
About 20 of the sisters had entered the contest making it last a bit over an hour - longer considering that there was a scheduled intermission in the middle of the contest. Shelley and her quarterback boyfriend, Beau, were in the contest and were subtly confident of victory. Tiffany, Candace, Stacy and Amanda were among the other sisters in the contest.
Beforehand, Jeannie chatted with Trisha and Jay and wished them well. She looked down at Trisha's feet and asked, "You're not planning to swing dance with clogs are you?"
Trisha replied, "Did I ever practice wearing them?"
"I guess not, but I assumed you'd wear shoes for the actual contest," Jeannie pondered.
Trisha slipped off one clog and showed Jeannie and Jay, "Does this answer your question?" She showed them her green toenails and implied that she'd dance barefoot and show off her green polished toes.
Jay was really happy to be Trisha's date for a second night in a row. The Murder Mystery Dinner was a lot of fun and this promised to be the same.
Before the contest started, everyone mixed around the room and ate snacks. Trisha made a lot of noise and drew a lot of male attention, especially Jay's, playing with her wooden clogs on the concrete basement floor. No one who saw her exposed green toenails during her shoeplay suspected that she'd do their contest routine without shoes.
Trisha and Jay were the third couple to compete after Intermission. Jay joked before they walked on stage, "I hope we have the luck of the Irish, since we're the thirteenth couple to compete."
Trisha thought his comment was funny and replied, "Let's show 'em!" On that note, they got into starting position and as the music started. Trisha summarily kicked off her clogs to the side of the stage. One landed on the edge and the other fell to the concrete floor, only to be accidentally kicked halfway under the stage and out of view and reach by Stacy's date, Ron.
To the sound of Glenn Miller, Trisha and Jay finished their performance and did quite well. They had no glaring mistakes, but it was not as difficult a performance as some of the others had tried and in some cases succeeded. Trisha slipped on the clog that had landed on the side of the stage, then she stepped off and started looking around in the nearby crowd for where her other clog landed.
Trisha asked Stacy, "Have you seen my other clog?"
"I saw you kick it off, but I didn't see where it landed. Let me help you look around."
Jay and Ron joined in the search, and they even reached under the skirt of the stage and reached in a couple of feet, but with a steady flow of couples competing, they could only look so much. Jay suggested, "It still could be under the stage, beyond our reach and in darkness, out of sight."
Everyone agreed that it was possible but Trisha conceded, "Maybe so, but we can't really look for it until the last couple dances. Jay, let's get something to drink."
Jay and Trisha made their way through the crowd to the food table with Trisha visibly and audibly missing a shoe. Every other step was silent and the alternate steps ended with a loud wooden 'clop' sound in her wooden clog. Trisha was somewhat used to being without one of her shoes so she didn't let that stop her from leading Jay to the food table.
Shelley and Beau were to be the 17th couple to dance so they were already at the table getting pre-dance refreshments.
“Hey Trisha, hey Jay. You did a great job!"
Trisha spoke for her and Jay, "Thanks, Shelley. Hope you and Beau have a good routine."
"Thanks. (Pause then looking down) What happened to your other green clog?"
Trisha was very conspicuous standing next to the food table with one green clog and one foot with bright green toenail polish. "It fell off the stage when I kicked them off and I believe it must have been kicked under the stage by the crowd. I don't want to interrupt the contest so I'll just wait until the 20th couple dances to find it."
Shelley changed the subject to her boyfriend, "At football practice today, Beau just got named the starting quarterback for this coming fall."
Jay responded with a handshake and a reply, "That's great Beau. Congratulations. What kind of year are the Bulldogs going to have, you think?" The male-oriented conversation continued a few minutes before Shelley led Beau away to get ready for their turn in the contest.
So to Jay's delight, he and Trisha watched the rest of the dance contest with her in just one shoe and one cute foot with green polished toes. He kept looking down at the cute sight.
Shelley and Beau took their turn and at first their routine was flawless. Then about three-fourths of the way though, tragedy struck. On a difficult move, Beau twisted his right ankle.
Shelley and Ron helped him off the stage and the contest was halted for a couple of minutes while they led him into the kitchen to ice down his ankle. [Beau had to miss the last two weeks of Spring Football practice and his coach was very unhappy with him.] Not knowing the seriousness of Beau's injury, Shelley was selfishly more upset that the injury ruined their chance to win the contest.
The last couple finished their routine and Jeannie dismissed the judges to a side room to concur on their decision. Trisha got a flashlight from the kitchen and she and Jay knelt down at the stage and shined the light under the skirt and looked under the elevated stage. On the fourth pass, Jay saw a green glimmer about 10 feet from the edge of the stage. “I see it! But it’s probably at least ten feet away!““I can’t believe it got kicked so far. I might be better off just leaving it and getting it back when they tear down the stage in the morning.”
Soon, Jeannie called the group back together and said that the judges had come to a decision. Trisha and Jay stood next to the stage and waited to hear who had won. She kicked off the remaining clog and placed it between her two feet almost like a shield. Her one knee was getting tired of being in a constant state of flex.
Jeannie announced the winners Miss America style with the First Place award being last. Much to their surprise and shock, Jeannie announced, “Third Place and winners of a $20 gift certificate to Applebee’s are Trisha Kendrick and Jay Williams from Beta Theta Pi.”
Trisha and Jay were dumb-founded that they actually placed in the contest but they did eventually step on the stage to claim their trophy and gift certificate.
Jeannie went on to announce that Tiffany and her partner had won second place and a $50 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble and that the grand prize winner was Stacy and her partner. They earned a $100 gift certificate to the Georgia Square Mall.
Shelley was in the back of the room tending to her fallen hero, Beau, privately fretting that she and Beau should have at least been able to nudge Trisha and Jay out of third place if not maybe even better had he not sprained his ankle. ‘And she didn’t even wear shoes for the dance!’ she silently pouted. Shelley saw another opportunity to top Trisha in something go by the wayside.
The music came on again and Jeannie asked the three winners put their prizes on the nearby table and dance for the group as an invitation for everyone in the room to dance - and they soon were. Trisha and Jay left the stage and joined the rest of the group for the party. She slid her other clog out of sight underneath the stage and spent the rest of the party showing off her pretty green toenails.
Indeed, the next morning, before breakfast, Trisha wandered downstairs and found the maintenance crew breaking down the stage. She made her way through the mess and located both her green clogs. One of the maintenance guys asked, “Must have been a wild party, huh?” If they only knew…
