Rich Dad Poor Dad

Neel brought the shoe box in through the back door and put it beneath the dining table before taking off his trainers. The new pair were black, plain, and heavier than they had looked under the shop lights. He had paid before he could decide whether the leather would soften or merely look expensive from a distance.

His father was in the kitchen, tightening the loose screw on the cupboard hinge with Neel's smallest screwdriver.

“You bought something?” his father asked, without looking up.

“Shoes.”

“For the new job?”

Neel filled the kettle. “They said dark ones. Proper ones.”

His father set the screwdriver down. “Your brown pair are proper.”

“The soles let water in.”

His father nodded, as if that were a point worth considering. Neel opened the box. One shoe still had a paper loop threaded through the laces.

His father lifted it by the heel, pressed the toe, and put it back more carefully than Neel expected.

“How much?”

Neel gave the number. His father looked at him, then reached for the kettle before it boiled over.

“You could have waited for the sale,” he said.

“I start Monday.”

“Monday comes whether shoes are on sale or not.”

Neel took the shoes upstairs. He put them on with the dark trousers he had bought for the front-desk job and walked once from the window to the door. The left shoe creaked softly on the floorboards.

Downstairs, his father had made tea. He brought one cup up and set it on the desk without knocking.

“They fit?” he asked.

“I think so.”

His father stood in the doorway a moment. “If they hurt, take them back. Don’t keep them because you paid.”

Neel looked down at the black shoes. “I’m wearing them on Monday.”

“All right,” his father said.

After he left, Neel sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced one shoe. The brown pair were still downstairs by the door. He could hear his father moving plates in the kitchen, then the television coming on in the next room.