In Her Shoes Read online

  “Sex!” Maggie had said, cackling. And it was true that, objectively speaking, their father was a handsome man. But Rose wasn’t sure. She thought that Sydelle had seen her father not just as handsome, or a good catch, but as her true love, her second chance. Rose always believed that Sydelle had really loved him—at least at the beginning. And she’d bet that her father hadn’t been looking for anything more than a traveling companion—and, of course, a surrogate mother for Maggie and Rose, given Sydelle’s success with My Marcia. Michael Feller had already found the love of his life, and buried her back in Connecticut. And every week that went by, Sydelle grew a little more aware of that truth, and became a little more disappointed—and a little meaner to Michael Feller’s daughters.

  It was sad, thought Rose, sitting down, pulling her hat over her ears, and wrapping her scarf tightly around her neck. Sad, and unlikely to change. Sydelle and her father were in it for the long haul.

  “Want some?”

  Startled, Rose jumped a little in her seat, and turned to face her sister, who’d flung her legs over the seat in front of her and was waggling her little flask of apricot brandy. “No thanks,” said Rose, and turned to her father. “How have you been?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know,” he said. “Work’s keeping me busy. My Vanguard 500 fund had a terrible quarter. I—RUN YOU BASTARD!”

  Rose leaned past her sister to talk to Sydelle. “And what’s new with you?” she asked, making her regular game-day effort to be nice to her stepmother.

  Sydelle fluffed her mink. “My Marcia’s redecorating.”

  “That’s exciting,” said Rose, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  Sydelle nodded. “We’re going to a spa,” she continued. “In February,” she said, and cast a meaningful glance toward Rose’s midriff. “You know that when she got married, My Marcia bought a size six Vera Wang, and ...”

  “. . . had it taken in,” Rose recited silently to herself, just as Maggie said the same words, only out loud.

  Sydelle narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know why you feel compelled to be so rude.”

  Maggie ignored her and held out her hand for her father’s binoculars as the cheerleaders took the field. “Fat, fat, old, fat,” she recited, making her way down the line. “Bad dye job; ooh! bad boob job, old, fat, old. . . .”

  Michael Feller waved at the beer vendor. Sydelle grabbed his hand, and put it back in his lap. “Ornish!” she hissed.

  “Pardon me?” said Rose.

  “Ornish,” said Sydelle. “We’re doing the Dean Ornish diet. Plant-based.” She gave another sideways glance, this time at Rose’s thighs. “You might want to try it.”

  I’m in hell, thought Rose bleakly. Hell is an Eagles game, where the bleachers are always freezing, and the team is always losing, and my family is insane.

  Her father patted her shoulder and flipped open his wallet. “Want to get us hot chocolate?” he asked.

  Maggie leaned over. “Can I have money, too?” she asked. Then she squinted at the wallet. “Who’s that?”

  “Oh,” their father said, looking embarrassed, “it’s just this article I cut out. I was meaning to give it to Rose ...”

  “Dad,” said Rose. “That’s Lou Dobbs.”

  “Right,” said her father.

  “You’re carrying a picture of Lou Dobbs around in your wallet?”

  “Not his picture,” Michael Feller said. “This article. About preparing for retirement. It’s very good.”

  “Do you have pictures of us in there?” Maggie demanded, grabbing for the wallet. “Or just Lou Whoever?” She flipped through the pictures. Rose looked, too. There were school pictures of her and Maggie that dated from sixth and fourth grade, respectively. A picture of Michael and Caroline, on their wedding day—a candid shot, with Caroline puffing out her lower lip to blow her veil off her forehead, and with Michael gazing at her. There was not, Rose noted, a shot of Michael and Sydelle. She wondered if Sydelle had noticed. Judging from her icy expression, the way her tiny eyes were fixed straight ahead, Rose guessed that the answer was yes.

  “Go Birds!” the guy in the row behind them blatted into Rose’s ear, and then belched as a finale. Rose got to her feet and headed into the echoing, windswept concourse, where she bought herself a cup of watery hot chocolate and a hot dog in a squishy white bun, which she devoured in four gigantic bites. Then she leaned against the railing, picking bits of relish off of her scarf, counting the minutes until eight o’clock when she was going to meet Jim for dinner. Hold on, she told herself. She bought three more cups of hot chocolate and carried them carefully back to the seats.

  TWELVE

  “Mrs. Lefkowitz?” Ella rapped hard on the aluminum door, balancing a lunch tray on her hip. “Hello?”

  “Go to hell!” came the slurred voice from inside. Ella sighed and kept knocking.

  “Lunchtime!” she called out, as cheerfully as she could.

  “Fuck off!” yelled Mrs. Lefkowitz. Mrs. Lefkowitz had suffered a stroke, and her recuperation had unfortunately coincided with the week that Golden Acres had been getting free HBO. The free HBO had included a Margaret Cho stand-up special. Mrs. Lefkowitz had been calling Ella “Ass Master” ever since, and laughing uproariously each time she said it.

  “I’ve got soup,” Ella called.

  There was a pause from the other side of the door. “Cream of mushroom?” Mrs. Lefkowitz asked hopefully.

  “Split pea,” Ella confessed.

  Another pause, and then the door was flung open, and there was Mrs. Lefkowitz, four feet eleven inches, white hair rumpled and wild. She wore a pink sweatshirt and matching sweatpants and knitted pink-and-white booties—the kind of outfit you’d give a newborn, Ella thought, and tried not to smile, as her final Meals on Wheels client for the day glared at her furiously.

  “Split pea sucks,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz. The left corner of her mouth drooped slightly, and she held her left arm bent at an odd angle tightly against her side. She looked at Ella hopefully. “Maybe you could make cream of mushroom?”

  “Do you have any?” asked Ella.

  “Sure, sure,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz, shuffling toward the kitchen, her tiny form swimming in all that pink yarn. Ella followed along, setting the tray down on the kitchen table. “Sorry I yelled at you. I thought you were someone else.”

  Who? Ella wanted to ask. As far as she could tell, she was the only one who ever saw Mrs. Lefkowitz, outside of her doctors and the home-care health aide who came three times a week.

  “My son,” Mrs. Lefkowitz supplied. She turned toward Ella with a can of Campbell’s in her right hand.

  “You tell your son to”—Ella couldn’t bring herself to repeat it—“eff off?”

  “Kids today,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz complacently.

  “Well, it’s nice that he’s visiting,” said Ella, dumping the congealed grayish mass into a saucepan.

  “I told him not to come,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz. “But he said, ‘Ma, you were on the verge of death.’ I said, ‘I’m eighty-seven years of age. What did you think I was on the verge of? Club Med?’”

  “Well, that’s lovely that he’s visiting.”

  “Bullshit,” said Mrs. Lefkowitz. “He just wants to get some sun. I’m convenient,” she said, her drooping lip quivering. “Guess where he is right now. On the beach. Probably staring at the girls in the bikinis, and drinking a beer. Hah. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

  “The beach sounds nice,” Ella said as she stirred.

  Mrs. Lefkowitz pulled a chair away from the table, carefully seated herself upon it, and waited until Ella pushed her chair close to the table’s edge. “I guess,” she said. Ella set the bowl in front of her. Mrs. Lefkowitz dipped her spoon and raised it toward her lips. Her wrist trembled, and half the soup wound up on the front of her sweatshirt. “Shit,” she said, and her voice was small and wavering and defeated.

  “Do you have plans for dinner?” asked Ella, handing Mrs. Lefkowitz a napkin and tipping the soup
into a coffee mug.

  “I told him I’d cook,” she said. “Turkey. He likes turkey.”

  “I could help you,” said Ella. “Maybe we could make a platter of different deli sandwiches. Easy to eat.” She stood up, looking for a pen and a pad of paper so she could make a list. “We can go buy some brisket, and turkey and corned beef . . . cole slaw and potato salad, if he likes that ...”

  Mrs. Lefkowitz smiled with half of her mouth. “I used to buy it with caraway seeds, and at the end of dinner I’d find a little pile of caraway seeds on the side of his plate. He’d never complain . . . he’d just pick them all out and leave them there.”

  “My daughter was like that with raisins. She’d pick them out of anything,” said Ella. Mrs. Lefkowitz looked at her sharply. Ella let her voice trail off.

  Mrs. Lefkowitz maneuvered a spoonful of soup to her mouth and appeared not to notice Ella’s silence. “So we’ll go shopping?” she said.

  “Sure,” said Ella, bending to put the dishes in the dishwasher, turning her back to Mrs. Lefkowitz. Lewis was coming to pick her up tonight. They were going to a movie. And how soon before his questions came? Do you have children? Do you have grandkids? Where are they? What happened? You don’t see them? Well, why not? “Sure.”

  THIRTEEN

  “You’re home!” said Maggie.

  Rose entered the apartment warily. It had been a terrible day. She’d been at work for thirteen hours, and Jim’s office door had been closed for all of them, and she was in no mood for Maggie’s nonsense.

  In the apartment’s small living room, all the lights were blazing, something smelled like it was burning in the kitchen, and Maggie, dressed in ruffled red pajama shorts and a red T-shirt that read “SEX KITTEN” in silver letters, was perched on the couch, channel surfing. A bowl of singed-looking microwaved popcorn sat in the center of the table next to a bowl of reheated frozen corn, two celery sticks, and a jar of peanut butter. This, in Maggie’s world, passed for a balanced meal.

  “How’s the job search going?” asked Rose, hanging up her coat and heading into the bedroom, where her bed was strewn with what appeared to be the entire contents of her closet. “What’s this? What happened?”

  Maggie plopped herself on top of the heap. “I decided to sort out your clothes.”

  Rose stared at the tangle of blouses and jackets and pants, now just as much a mess as Maggie’s baggage out in the living room. “Why are you doing this?” she said. “Don’t touch my things!”

  “Rose, I’m trying to help you,” said Maggie, sounding affronted. “I figure it’s the least I can do, since you’ve been so generous.” She stared at the floor. “Sorry I upset you,” she said. “I just wanted to help.”

  Rose opened her mouth, then closed it. This was part of her sister’s particular genius—just at the moment when you were ready to kill her, to throw her out on the street, to demand that she pay back your money and return your clothes and your shoes, she’d say something that would catch in your heart like a fishhook.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “Just put everything back when you’re done.”

  “You’re supposed to go through all of your stuff every six months,” said Maggie. “I read it in Vogue. And you, obviously, have fallen behind. I found acid-wash jeans,” she added with a shudder. “But not to worry. I threw them away.”

  “You should have taken them to Goodwill.”

  “Just because someone is poor,” declared Maggie, “does not mean they must be unfashionable.” She extended the bowl of corn toward her sister. “Niblet?”

  Rose grabbed a spoon and helped herself. “How do you know what I’m wearing and what I’m not?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Well, some of it’s obvious. Like those size twelve pants from Ann Taylor?”

  Rose knew the ones. She’d bought them on sale, and squeezed into them once four years ago after a week’s worth of nothing but black coffee and Slim-Fast. They’d been hanging in her closet ever since, a silent reproach, a reminder of what was possible if she’d buckle down and stop eating french fries and pizza and . . . well, pretty much everything else she liked. “They’re all yours,” she said.

  “They’re way too big. But maybe I could have them taken in,” Maggie said, and turned her attention to the television set.

  “When are you going to put everything back?” asked Rose, imagining trying to sleep atop the litter of her wardrobe.

  “Shh!” said Maggie, lifting one finger, and pointed toward the TV, where a small, wheeled hunk of red-painted metal was menacing a bluish object that had a rotating blade protruding from its center.

  “What is this?”

  “Television,” Maggie replied, stretching one leg out in front of her, and turning it this way and that, inspecting her calf. “It’s this box, with pictures, and the pictures tell a delightful story!”

  Rose thought about reaching for her wallet. This is a paycheck, she’d say, holding the object in question out for her sister’s inspection. It represents money, which you earn by holding a job. Maggie took a swallow from the open bottle of champagne by her side. Rose opened her mouth to ask where she’d gotten champagne, then realized it was the bottle someone had given her when she’d passed the bar that had been reposing in a back corner of her refrigerator ever since.

  “How’s that champagne?” Rose asked.

  Maggie took another gulp. “Delicious,” she said. “Now, pay attention. Watch and learn. On this show, BattleBots, there are these guys who build robots . . .”

  “That’s a nice hobby,” said Rose, who tried whenever she could to encourage Maggie in the pursuit of acceptable men.

  Maggie waved a dismissive hand. “They’re geeks. They build these robots, and the robots fight each other, and the winner gets . . . something. I’m not sure what. Look, look, there’s my favorite,” she said, pointing at what looked like a miniature trash truck with a spike welded to its middle. “That’s the Philiminator,” she said.

  “Huh?” asked Rose.

  “The guy who made it, his name is Phil, so it’s the Philiminator.” Sure enough, the camera had panned to a pale, lanky guy in a baseball cap reading “Philiminator.” “He’s undefeated in three rounds,” Maggie said, as a second robot rolled into view. This one was a shiny green and looked like a souped-up Dustbuster. “Grendel,” said the announcer.

  “Okay,” said Maggie. “You root for Grendel.”

  “Why?” asked Rose, but by then the match was starting. The two robots started off after each other, zipping around the concrete floor like small, crazed dogs.

  “Go, Philiminator!” Maggie hollered, waving the champagne bottle exuberantly. She looked at her sister.

  “Yay, Grendel,” said Rose. Maggie’s robot zipped in close. The spike from its center rose, and rose, and came crashing down like a guillotine, spearing Grendel through its center, as Maggie clapped and shouted her encouragement.

  “Whew! Close one,” said Maggie.

  The robots wheeled around to face each other again.

  “Come on, Philiminator. FUCK HIM UP!” Maggie bellowed.

  Rose burst out laughing, as a spiked wheel on the front of Grendel started whirring. “Ooh, look out . . . here I come!”

  Now Grendel advanced on his opponent. The Philiminator lifted its spike and speared its opponent through its center.

  “Yeah!” Maggie cheered.

  The two robots were locked together now, joined by the spike. Grendel twisted this way and that, unable to get free. “Come on . . . come on . . .” Rose muttered. Grendel’s wheel whirred, striking sparks off the floor. The Philiminator raised its spike for the death blow, and Grendel zipped away.

  “GO GRENDEL!” Rose hollered, and jumped to her feet. “Yes! YES!” Maggie sulked as Grendel charged at its opponent, wedged its nose underneath the much taller Philiminator, and flipped it on its back.

  “Noooo,” wailed Maggie as Rose’s robot ran over hers once, and then again, until the thing was no more than a collection of crush
ed parts and broken pieces.

  “Oh, yes. OH YES!” said Rose, pumping her fist in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about!” she shouted, just the way she’d heard guys in the row behind her at Eagles games holler after particularly crucial touchdowns. Then she turned toward her sister, sure that Maggie would be smirking at her, doing a poor job of showing how pathetic she found Rose’s excitement. Except Maggie wasn’t smirking. Maggie, her cheeks flushed, was beaming at her sister, holding out her hand for a high five, laughing as she offered her sister the bottle of champagne. Rose hesitated, then took a swallow.

  “Want to order a pizza?” Rose offered. She could envision the rest of the night—pizza and pajamas and fresh popcorn, the two of them on the couch beneath the blanket, watching TV.

  Maggie did smirk then . . . but only a little. And her voice was almost kind. “You’re really living now, aren’t you?” she asked. “You should get out more.”

  “I get out enough,” said Rose. “You should stay in more.”

  “I stay in plenty,” said Maggie, rising gracefully to her feet. She padded into the bedroom, returning minutes later dressed in skintight faded jeans, slung low around her hips, a red top that left one shoulder and arm completely bare, and Rose’s jalapeño leather cowboy boots. Rose’s hand-stitched red leather cowboy boots, bought on a weekend in New Mexico, where Rose had gone once for a seminar about insurance law. “You don’t mind, do you?” said Maggie, gathering her purse and her keys. “I found them in your closet. They looked lonely.”

  “Sure,” said Rose. She stared at her sister and wondered what it must be to move through life being so thin and so pretty; what it would be like to have men look at you with unconditional approval, unmitigated desire. “Have fun.”

  “I always do,” said Maggie, and breezed out the door, leaving Rose with the popcorn, the flat champagne, the ruin of clothes strewn across her bed. She flicked the television set into its customary silence, and started to clean up the mess.