It was worst in the winter. On the grey gusty days like today, record-breakingly cold. The frigid air stabbing his lungs with each painful breath, a tickling at the back of his throat, a warning.

Don’tcoughdon’tcoughdon’tcough…

When he was in a rush, as he always was – blame NYC, blame Latino time, blame the shitty apartment heater that took forever to produce a lukewarm shower, blame the extra rum last night, blame whatever – the feeling got worse. Because then he was running for the train through the punishing air, gasping needles of ice, and inevitably…coughing.

And, with every cough, he felt his left foot constrict. As it always did. As it had since he was 25. Shrinking cough by cough, millimeter by millimeter until he was limping. Right foot still running for the train but its partner trailing behind, a little boy trying on his old man’s work shoe for size. He hated this. HATED it.

When the symptoms started, nearly a decade ago now, he’d accidentally found the secret to reversal in a moment of desperation. Some kind of crazy cosmic joke. Because the only way to grow the foot back again was…to laugh. And Marco Reyes? Well, he didn’t really do laughs. Not since he was a little boy in the schoolyard, ignoring the taunts and jeers from the other side of the four-square court.

But here he was, running, limping, coughing, the next train not coming for 52 minutes after this one, and he had a choice. If he laughed, he might be able to keep the shoe – but who guffaws out of nowhere in a stream of pissed-off frozen commuters? Not a man in a business suit with a leather briefcase and an important meeting in an hour.

He left the shoe behind. Found a seat. Layered the foot with extra socks and wedged it into a spare shoe he’d stashed in the leather briefcase.

No one could ever say Marco Reyes traveled unprepared.

•••

Over the years he’d learned the names, hours, and locations of pretty much every cobbler in the greater Queens area. They were all disillusioned, grumpy old immigrant men. Like meeting dozens of versions of his dad, if his dad had stuck around a decade or two longer. There was an Egyptian on 36^th, a Greek off of Hoyt and an Ecuadorian out by Junction. Past Flushing Meadows, a sea of Chinese guys, but he’d given up trying to communicate with them a few years back.

He’d learned that cobblers are nosy, no matter where they’re from. They’d stare at the shoes he brought them uncomprehendingly. They bore signs of wear that were unusual, to say the least. When he overcorrected, he burst seams and ripped leather. When he undercorrected, the soles wore off in the front, the only part of the shoe his newly-tiny foot could stay lodged in, and the rest got covered in scuffs. Sometimes he asked them to make removable inserts of various sizes, just for the left shoe. Then they stared at his feet to puzzle out the defect, eyes challenging him to bring it out into the open. He never did. Instead he rotated, cobbler to cobbler, salvaging shoe after shoe while maintaining his dignity.

He’d learned too that many shoe stores lost display shoes, or had to abandon them after they got dirty or scuffed on the shop floor. As fate would have it, they usually displayed his size, and the remainder of the pair was his for a song. At first he told the employees it was for his dad who lost a leg in Vietnam, but the stupid lazy kids working in those places didn’t care about his lie. They didn’t care about any part of their job. So he stopped saying anything at all.

•••

Next station was his and he wiggled his left foot experimentally. Still loose. He took out his phone, looked at it, shook his head, chuckled at the blank screen. Wiggled his foot again. Chuckled again, residually, at the joke that didn’t exist. There. A perfect fit. He sighed without thinking. A man a few seats down met his eyes and smiled. Marco froze. Not his type. A little too thin. A little too old. A lot too blonde. He glared in response. The man kept smiling. Some people just couldn’t take a damn hint. He flipped the bird, and the man colored and turned away. Marco stood as the train slowed and the doors opened, feeling newly powerful. He had a meeting to attend.

He’d worked at this place almost seven years now and knew he should have more to show for it. Sure, he missed the trains on a semi-regular basis, especially in the colder months. Sure, he used his share of sick days (after one awful cold, it took him 13 hours of Netflix comedy specials to get his foot back to size). But he worked his ass off. He knew the markets backwards and forwards. Knew all the comparables. Was awake until the wee hours researching. Had purged any trace of his childhood accent and spent any spare cash on quality suits (and cobbler bills). He’d climbed. And he knew he could climb higher. He’d been prepping this meeting for months, and knew his boss would be proud.

The empty conference room smelled vaguely of carpet cleaner and ink toner. He set up the laptop, queued up the presentation, made sure it was displaying properly on the projector. Then laid out the reports, precisely collated and stapled, in full color on thick paper. One at every seat, pens laid across them at 45 degrees. Pens! He’d heard their president despised ballpoints so he’d splurged on split-nibs, calligraphy style but easily refillable. Left bowls of mints in the middle of the long pseudo-ebony table. At precisely 10:00, his colleagues began filing in, and some others as well. He smiled, shook hands. Their president was running late, and in the meantime small talk reigned. He hated small talk, so popped a mint whenever he thought he’d be drawn into another vapid exchange.

Then the door opened, and in walked the man from the train.

In that endless moment, Marco realized two things: one, the man absolutely recognized him, and two, he’d completely forgotten he had a mint in his mouth. It slid towards his throat.

Don’tcoughdon’tcoughdon’tcough…

He coughed. Twice. Then extended his hand to their president. Another cough was building, tears gathering in his eyes with the effort of stopping it.

The man looked down at his hand and nodded. Marco realized he’d just used it to cover his wet cough. The rest of the table looked slightly disgusted. He withdrew his hand, and…

Don’tcoughdon’tcoughdon’tcough…

…made it to his chair before a few more discreet coughs escaped. Then a few more. His foot felt about an inch smaller all round. Why hadn’t he put water bottles out instead of the damn mints?

“Reyes, everything all right over there?” His boss was frowning. He nodded, gave a thumbs up. The meeting was called to order.

And after all of his planning and preparation, Marco found himself not listening to anything that was said. Unconsciously tuning out all of the words he’d written, now confidently repeated by his superior. He was out of the conference room and back on the train, locking eyes with that man, that man (sitting across the room now!), receiving an appreciative smile, reliving his response over and over. The harsh glare and the unnecessary gesture. The man’s embarrassed retreat and his own surge of victory. Triumph over someone weaker. A rare feeling. One he treasured.

“Reyes? …Reyes?”

He looked up at his boss. Intently. Assuredly. As if he’d been paying close attention. “Yes?”

“Can you come up here and talk a little more about the comparables you outlined in Section 2?”

Another cough. Another. He could barely feel toes to wiggle them.

“I can talk from right here, it’s no problem.”

“I’d like you to reference the visuals. Come on up.”

But Marco Reyes couldn’t come on up. He knew his foot wouldn’t allow it.

And now he was thinking of all of the late hours that went into this particular moment, this particular sell. And that morning, the run for the train and the icy air and another lost shoe sitting on the pavement. Thinking of that sad little shoe, all alone in the bitter cold, suddenly struck him as funny. Very funny.

To his absolute horror, he began to laugh.

His colleagues stared.

“Did I…miss something?”

“No,” Marco replied, giggling. Giggling! His foot was growing, straining uncomfortably now against the extra socks. “I’ll come up!”

As he stood and walked, trying to push down the bubbles of hysterical laughter pressing their way out of his chest, he glimpsed their president. What the hell must he be thinking of him? He’d flipped the BIRD! Like a middle schooler!

He couldn’t suppress it anymore. He pointed to the visuals and burst out laughing, barely making out words as he caught his breath.

“Here…here we see…projections for best case scenarios…”

His foot was growing more and more painful as it pressed against the shoe. He couldn’t stop.

“And the…HAHA!…I’m so sorry. The comparables…”

RRRRRRRRIP! The shoe gave way with a violent tear, separating sole from upper and heel from front. Those nearest him looked down, aghast. Everyone else was staring in mute fascination at Marco Reyes, who never laughed, crying with laughter.

“…THE COMPARABLES! They…hahaha!…haha!…they show that…”

By this point his left foot had ballooned to a point he’d never experienced. The socks gave way, elastic threads snapping, and his knee was forced up. Now everyone was standing, gasping, pointing to his freakishly growing foot, at least five times its normal size. He was crying now. His stomach was cramping from all of the laughter, and his foot – he could actually feel its bones and muscles stretching and struggling to grow, the skin barely accommodating in time. It was excruciating, and suddenly he was swaying, falling, caught.

They helped him out of there, his boss and their president. One on each side, as if they were helping a star player off the field. No one said anything, until Marco saw the EMTs approaching. He turned to the man from the train and smiled a genuine smile, a last desperate peace offering.

“I hope you liked the pens,” he said.

“Oh,” he said. “The pens? I always bring my own.”