“I’m not letting you use that as an excuse for not marrying me,” he said teasingly, and an hour later, they walked into Filer-Machol on Madison Avenue. “I haven’t gotten you a wedding present yet. Pick any pair in the store and they’re yours.”
Dalya smiled and nodded, seeing his wish for her happiness light up his face. It was the way he’d looked on the day he’d proposed, too, always with the same earnest admiration he had a lifetime ago in Germany. He had waited patiently for two years, easing her gently into courtship as she sifted through her uncertainties. Two years where war marked every building with blackout curtains, where it extinguished the glittering lights of Times Square and sprouted victory gardens in every scant patch of dirt available in the five boroughs, where it enticed droves of bright-eyed uniformed young men into the Stage Door Canteen and then sent them sailing across the ocean to die. But Aaron had been right. The war threatened the fringes of Manhattan with U-boats and submarines, but it never swooped in to bloody the streets. Maybe partly because of that, Dalya’s courage slowly returned. Instead of annoyance, when Aaron proposed, Dalya felt profound gratitude. Gratitude that there was one person left in the world who had known the Dalya of Before, who was helping her remember that Dalya, helping day by day to get some of her back. That there was a person who understood her nightmares, her heartbreaks, and her sins and, in spite of them, because of them, or regardless of them, wanted her love and wanted to love her.
“Yes,” she’d answered. Even though she felt a sharp sadness at the word, she knew, too, that it was right. That she owed it to her family to move through life with someone who could remember them as she did, who could mourn them, celebrate them, and bear witness to the fact that they’d lived, and that they’d been more than the stories she’d told.
Now, as Aaron led her into the shoe department at Filer-Machol, she looked at him shyly, feeling a fragile eagerness for their future to start. It was elegant, with fashionable settees arranged around the room for fittings, and beautiful shoes shining under satin lights. The shoes were machine-made, though, and the air was perfumed and sterile, without any of the warm pungency of her father’s old workshop.
Still, she needed shoes, and she wouldn’t—she couldn’t— make them herself. So this was where she needed to be. Then she noticed the large wooden cabinet on the floor.
A customer was slipping her foot into a slot at the bottom of the cabinet as a saleswoman prattled, “The fluoroscope takes away the guesswork. If you look through the scope right here, you’ll see from the X-ray of your foot that the shoes fit perfectly!”
“Wonderful!” the customer exclaimed. “I’ll take them.”
Dalya didn’t recognize the sound coming from her. The last time she’d made it was years ago. The two women, along with Aaron, turned to stare, and the sound became louder. It was laughter, she realized. Buckling, gulping, breathless laughter that made her eyes water and her stomach shake.
She hurried through the doors, clutching her sides as another wave of laughter broke over her. Only when she was out on the sidewalk, with the traffic zipping past and Aaron looking on, bewildered, was she able to catch her breath.
“A shoe-fitting machine,” she gasped. “I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous in my life!”
“Dalya?” Aaron bent over her, his gaze shifting into concern. “What’s this about?”
Dalya shook her head, wiping her eyes. “I can’t buy a pair of shoes from that store,” she said. “Machine-made shoes, and gimmicks to tell you they fit.”
“All right.” Aaron smiled hesitantly. “I’ll marry you barefoot.”
Dalya laughed again, and then surprised them both by throwing her arms around him and kissing his cheek.
“No,” she said. “I’ll be wearing shoes. But I’m going to make them.”
—
It was Aaron who went back to the Ashburys’ for her father’s shoemaking bag. He offered to, and she didn’t argue. Even with the time that had passed, she couldn’t face Henry, not when she was so afraid of what she’d done to him by leaving.
When Aaron came back to the Blumbergs’ with her bag of tools, she hugged it to her chest, breathing in its musky, lovely scent. The guilt she’d felt before when she looked at the bag had vanished, and now a sudden keenness pumped through her veins.
“He wasn’t there,” Aaron said quietly, and she loved him all the more for sensing that she needed to know.
“Thank you,” she said.
Aaron’s expression turned thoughtful. “There’s something I have to ask you,” he said finally. “Will I be competing with him forever? Because I’m not sure I’m willing to settle for that….”
She squeezed his hand. “No,” she promised. She hoped, for both their sakes, that it was true. Then she smiled and pointed to the door.
“Now you have to go,” she said. She nodded at her father’s bag as impatience built in her fingertips. “I have work to do.”
“Be sure you make those shoes to last for a long time.” He kissed her forehead, then turned toward the door. “I want you to wear them again on our fiftieth wedding anniversary.”
Even before the door clicked shut, Dalya was on her knees in the living room, the bag in her lap. She opened it with trembling fingers and reached inside to find the tools, where her father had left them, waiting.
—
So, for the second time in her life, she made her own wedding shoes. But she made this pair differently. Because of the war, the white kid leather she’d hoped to use for the upper couldn’t be found. With leather and rubber strictly rationed, materials were hard to come by. Finally, she settled on a wedge heel design that she could make from wood, and she covered the upper with the creamy satin lining from one of Mrs. Blumberg’s older skirts. Ruth offered a pair of her rhinestone earrings, and Dalya used them to make a decorative buckle across the top of each shoe. It took a few days for her hands to remember how to grip the tools, how to mold the fabric to the last. Soon, though, they moved on their own, and after hours of work, she looked up in astonishment at what she’d done, not able to recall the process, but delighted with the result. The new shoes were simpler but somehow less girlish, more womanly.
She was happy with them. Still, on the morning of her wedding, when it came time to step into the new shoes, she couldn’t do it. A sharp sadness stabbed her again, for the pale pink shoes she’d left in Berlin that night so long ago, and for everything—everyone—she’d lost. It was for a loss so all-encompassing that crying for the shoes alone seemed the only way to contain it.
She sank onto the floor at the back of the synagogue in her stockings, ignoring Ruth’s pleas, until Ruth and the Blumbergs went to find Aaron.
It was Aaron who sat down beside her in the puddle of her wedding dress, Aaron who stroked her hair and held her as she sobbed. It was Aaron who knelt before her, slipping her new shoes gently onto her feet, whispering, “It’s enough now. It’s time.”
She desperately wanted him to be right, and so she let him help her up from the floor. Her old shoes had been mourned. She would tuck them away with her other memories, bury them deep, and be done with it. It was enough. It had to be enough.
As she stood under the chuppah in her new shoes with her new husband, she felt a shift inside her, as if her fractured world were melding together again, piece by painstaking piece.
RAY
Ray’s neck was aching and her legs were pinched and asleep. If her disgruntled sighs were any indication, Pinny wasn’t faring much better. They’d been on the road for at least three or four hours. From the shifting slants of light in the cab, she guessed it was probably sometime in the afternoon. She stretched the tiniest bit, and an elbow instantly jabbed her in the ribs.
“Don’t do that!” Pinny whispered in a voice loud enough to carry. “You kicked me!”
“I can’t help it,” Ray hissed. “And would you shut up before she catches us!” The truck’s engine was loud…but loud enough to drown them out? Ray w
asn’t sure.
“I have to pee,” Pinny whined.
Ray groaned, dropping her head onto her arms. This wasn’t a problem she’d thought about before climbing into the truck. Fabulous. Of course, now she had to go, too.
“Try not to think about it,” Ray said. As she did, the high-pitched whine of the truck shifted down an octave, and she slid forward on the floor. Was the truck stopping? Her pulse quickened. The engine died, and Ray held her breath, listening for the cab door.
Suddenly, the cab curtain flung open, and brown eyes, caked with mascara crumbs and ghastly purple eye shadow, stared sternly down at them.
“Come on, then,” the woman said. “You girls get on outta there before one of you loses feeling to a vital body part permanently.”
Ray cursed inwardly. They were trapped. Reluctantly, she untangled herself from their hiding place, with Pinny following.
Pinny blew out a breath and straightened her crooked glasses. “Even my fingernails had charley horses.” She smiled at the woman, openly staring. “Wow. Your eye shadow’s the color of glitter glue. Luscious Lavender.”
“You don’t say,” the woman said. “What a coincidence.”
Her voice wasn’t unkind, even if it crackled like gravel. Ray pressed herself against the wall of the cab, her fingers twitching at her sides, her foot cocked in the ready-to-run position. She had no idea what the woman was going to do with them, but she wanted to be prepped for anything.
“How did you know we were back here?” Pinny asked.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Trucks are like husbands, sugar. You always keep one eye on ’em, just in case. I saw you two climb in back in Nashville. But you didn’t look too dangerous, so I let you ride a spell.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you dangerous?”
“My shoes are,” Pinny said proudly, holding up her foot for inspection. “They poked a man’s eyeball out this morning. A mean, awful man.”
“Chopine!” Ray elbowed Pinny. Great. She could practically hear alarms blaring beneath the woman’s shrewd stare. They were screwed.
“Really,” the woman said. “So…you’re fugitives from the law?”
“No,” Pinny answered. “Sheriff Wane and Ray go back a long ways. He says she’s the reason he stays in business.”
“Is that so?” She arched an eyebrow at Ray, then peered at the pale pink shoes on Pinny’s feet, whistling long and low. “Those must be some shoes. But you’ve got a dangler there. Can I take a look?” Pinny nodded, handing her the shoe with the broken heel. The woman fiddled with it for a moment, then pulled a wad of gum from her mouth and used it like glue to reattach the heel. “There. It won’t hold forever, but it’ll do in a pinch.” She handed Pinny the shoe, then patted her shoulder. “You best hang tight to them. My boots have a secret weapon, too.”
Pinny leaned forward as the woman slid her hand into the top of her boot and pulled out a small handgun.
“I keep this handy when I’m on the road in case Armageddon strikes.” She laughed as Pinny’s eyes saucered, then whispered, “It’s really only a lighter aspiring to greatness. I’m banking on the power of suggestion.” She dropped the lighter back into her boot and straightened. “I’m headin’ into the Waffle House. They’ve got an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet that’ll grease your guts till kingdom come. You girls comin’?”
Pinny started to nod, then hesitated. “I…I don’t know. Ray?”
Ray blinked in surprise. Pinny letting her make the decision? This was a first. Maybe her close call with JT had put her guard up…finally. The thought gave Ray a measure of relief, but also a pang of sadness. Somehow, suspicion didn’t mesh with Pinny.
Ray weighed their options. If they went inside, they’d be walking into a million questions. Ray didn’t know if she could construct enough lies to satisfy this woman. She looked like the type who wouldn’t buy into them too easy. No, they should move on before—
The woman made a sound somewhere between growling and spitting. “Here’s the short and long of it,” she said. “You’ve been ridin’ in my cab without permission. Trespassin’ on my property. Now, you can come with me and tell me what you’re up to, or I can call the cops. I don’t stomach liars or cheats, so you’ll have to prove you’re neither.”
Before the choice got made for them. “We’ll come in,” Ray said grudgingly.
“Good.” The woman extended her hand. “My name’s Orpa, and as long as you’re honest with me, I’ll be glad to know you.”
—
Two hours and six plates later, the girls were stuffed and grateful. But despite Ray nudging Pinny’s shins under the table, Pinny had done exactly what she’d hoped she wouldn’t. She’d told Orpa everything about her mama and the magic shoes and their quest to get to New York City to find them. Orpa had listened while Ray quailed with visions of her dragging them straight to the nearest police station.
Orpa’s smile, though, as Pinny talked, was genuine enough. It wasn’t the soppy sort Ray’d seen so many people give Pinny back in Jaynis, the sort that said they were humoring Pinny out of some PC obligation instead of interest. Pinny reveled in it, her face lighting up with satisfaction, and a thought struck Ray. What if that was why Pinny was railing against Horizons Assist? Maybe she knew it meant spending her life surrounded by staff paid to keep her company. God, it would be a shrunken world of forced connections, where some might have meaning, but most wouldn’t. Picturing Pinny trapped in it made Ray’s throat close. Then she checked herself. Not my problem, not my problem…the chant began in her head as Pinny went on. Almost as if she could hear it, Orpa lasered her eyes on Ray more than a few times throughout the meal. Ray tried to ignore them, focusing on her food and any escape route from the diner that seemed possible, if it came to that.
After Orpa paid the bill, she folded her arms in a no-nonsense sort of way.
“What a story,” she said, with an appreciation that made Pinny beam. “I do hope you find your mama’s shoes, too. The right pair of shoes can get you through most anything.” She gave her turquoise boots an affectionate tap. “These boots have seen me through two twisters, a night in jail, and a gator bite that could’ve taken off half my foot, if it hadn’t been for these here steel toes.” She nodded. “It’s all in the shoes.” She leaned forward and whispered to Pinny, “And I’ll tell you something else. I had a quest of my own once, too, but it wasn’t to find something as much as it was to become something.”
“You mean like a fairy-tale kind of quest?” Pinny asked.
“Oh, no. This was real life. It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if I’d been in some storybook.” Orpa snorted. “Then somebody else could’ve written me brave, or pretty, or smart, no questions asked. But us non-fairy-tale folks? We have to cut our own destinies.”
“What was your destiny?” Pinny said, her eyes wide and wondering.
Orpa shrugged. “Well, I spent years helpin’ other people with theirs before I knew my own.” She took a bite of her apple pie. “Got married when I was seventeen and had four kids by twenty-two. I loved my family and still do, but I lived the first fifty years of my life being everything for everybody else. I never even set foot outside Arkansas. My husband, Hank, told me we’d drive across country soon as we saved enough. Never spent a day apart in thirty-three years.” She shook her head. “Well, he took sick, but before he died, he gave me two things. These boots and my rig out there.” She gestured toward her truck. “It was his way of tellin’ me to take that trip after all. I wouldn’t have, except for the boots. They were loud, bright…brave. Everything I wanted to be, even without my Hank. I put them on, and they taught me how to become it. Simple as that.” She grinned. “Like I said…it’s all in the shoes.”
“No.” Pinny shook her head, snapping a photo of Orpa’s shoes. “It’s all in the people who wear them.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” Orpa winked, then stood up, turning toward the door. Ray braced herself. This was Orpa’s chance to drop them. But inste
ad, Orpa glanced over her shoulder and said, “Well, are you coming to New York or not?”
She didn’t have to say it twice. Ray nudged Pinny, who was gulping her last bite of buttermilk pie, and they were out of their seats a second later.
Ray settled into the front seat while Pinny stretched out in the back to thumb through her stack of shoe photos. Orpa focused on the road, and Ray, relieved to be out from under the microscope of scrutiny, breathed easy for the first time all day. The bumping of the tires on the road, the towns and trees streaking by the window…they stirred rhythms in her head, and soon she had her notebook open in her lap, scribbling musical notes to match the beat. Songs pulled her further into herself, obliterating the world around her, and it was only after a neck cramp forced her to raise her eyes that she realized she’d lost hours to her music. Night had swallowed the highway, and stars hissed by the window like silver-tailed comets. Pinny had nodded off in the bunk in the back, and Orpa’s eyes steadied on Ray’s face for a long moment. Back into the petri dish, Ray thought.
“So,” Orpa said, “you’re bringin’ Pinny to New York.” She flashed her high beams at a car that was driving without its headlights on. “Then what?”
Ray shifted in her seat. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re planning to dump her,” Orpa said with finality.
Ray opened her mouth, but discovered that she couldn’t deny it. Pinny didn’t factor into any of Ray’s plans after they reached the city.
“She can go back to Texas,” Ray said. “People have made arrangements for her there.”
“Sounds cozy,” Orpa said drily. “And what do you think of these ‘arrangements’?”
Ray shrugged. Not my problem. “They’re fine,” she muttered.
“Fine as a pile of pig manure, I imagine.” Orpa shook her head. “So what about her quest? Are you going to help her with it? Or spit her out on the streets of Manhattan to find her mama’s shoes alone?”
Ray pressed herself deeper into her seat. “They’re not her mama’s shoes,” she scoffed. “It’s some crazy fantasy she has.”
Serendipity's Footsteps Page 20
