In Her Shoes Page 12

  FOURTEEN

  “Can I help you?” asked Ella. It was Ella’s afternoon at the thrift shop, where she passed a few pleasant, mostly uninterrupted hours sorting bags of clothing and putting price tags on furniture and dishes. A young woman in bright orange leggings and a stained T-shirt edged down the aisle that was decorated with fake pine swags and gold and silver tinsel, in preparation for the holidays.

  “Sheets,” the woman said, biting her lip nervously. Ella could see the faint remnant of a bruise high on her cheek. “I’m looking for sheets.”

  “Well, it’s your lucky day,” said Ella. “It just so happens we got a shipment in from Bullock’s. Irregulars, of course, but I don’t see a thing wrong with them, except the colors are a little . . . well, you’ll see.”

  She started off down the aisle, walking briskly in her black pants and white blouse with her name tag clipped to the front. “Right here,” said Ella, pointing to where the sheets were—a few dozen packets in all, some for queen-sized beds, some for twins. They were turquoise and hot pink, but they were new. “Now, they’re five dollars each. How many will you need?”

  “Um, two twins.” The woman picked up the plastic-wrapped packages, turning them over in her hands. “Are the pillow-cases extra?”

  “Oh! Actually, no,” said Ella. “It’s five dollars for the set.”

  The woman looked relieved as she picked up a pair of pillow-cases and walked to the cash register. She pulled a five-dollar bill out of her pocket, and three crumpled singles. When she started rooting around for change, lining pennies up carefully on the counter, Ella slipped her sheets into a bag.

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  The woman looked up at her. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s fine,” Ella repeated. “Take care of yourself, and come back ... we’re getting new stuff in all the time.”

  The woman smiled—politely, Ella thought—and walked out, her flip-flops slapping on the sidewalk. Ella stared at her back, wishing she’d found a way to slip some towels into the woman’s bag along with the sheets. She sighed, and felt frustrated. It had been like that with Caroline—Ella always wanting to do more, to fix things for her daughter, to chase after her, with calls, with cards, with letters, with money, dangling the promise of vacations and trips, saying the same thing a dozen different ways: Let me help you. But Caroline hadn’t wanted to be helped, because accepting help meant admitting that she couldn’t do it herself. And look how that had turned out.

  The door swung open again and Lewis walked into the thrift store with a bundle of newspapers under his arm.

  “Hot off the presses!” he said. Ella tried for a smile and looked at her poem. “I AM NOT INVISIBLE,” she read. Not invisible, she thought sadly. Just doomed.

  Lewis was looking at her closely. “Still want lunch?” he asked, and when she nodded and closed the cash register, he offered her his arm. She walked out into the steamy sunshine, still wishing she’d done things differently. She wished she’d been able to start a conversation, to maybe ask if the woman needed help, and then figured out how to help her. And, she thought, she wished that Lewis would never find out what kind of a person she really was. She hadn’t brought up children and, so far, he hadn’t asked . . . but someday soon he would, and what then? What would she say? What could she say, really, except that she used to be a mother, that she wasn’t a mother anymore, and that it was her fault? And he’d stare at her, unable to make sense of it, and she wouldn’t be able to explain it properly, even though she knew that it was true, and it was the stone she couldn’t swallow, the river she couldn’t cross. Her fault. And no matter how she tried to make up for it, what small acts of goodness she attempted, she would carry that around with her until the day she died.

  FIFTEEN

  “There’s someone to see you,” said Rose’s secretary. Rose looked up from her computer and saw her sister, resplendent in black boot-cut leather pants, a cropped denim jacket, and the red cowboy boots, waltz into her office.

  “Good news!” Maggie said, beaming.

  Please let it be a job, Rose prayed. “What is it?”

  “I had a job interview! At this great new bar!”

  “Terrific!” said Rose, trying to match her enthusiasm to Maggie’s. “That’s great! When do you think they’ll let you know?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Maggie, who was lifting and replacing books and folders from Rose’s bookcase. “Maybe after the holidays.”

  “But wouldn’t the holidays be their busy time?”

  “Jesus, Rose, I don’t know!” Maggie picked up the small plastic replica of Xena, Warrior Princess—one of Amy’s birthday gifts—and stood it on its head. “Do you think you could maybe try to be happy for me?”

  “Sure,” said Rose. “And have you made any progress on putting my clothes back?” For the past several nights, the pile of clothing had shifted from her bed to the floor, but had not yet made it to the closet.

  “I started,” said Maggie, flopping into the seat across from Rose’s desk. “I’ll take care of it! It’s not such a big deal.”

  “Sure, for you it isn’t,” said Rose.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Rose got to her feet. “I mean, you’re living with me rent-free, you haven’t found a job . . .”

  “I told you, I had an interview!”

  “I don’t think you’re trying very hard.”

  “I am!” Maggie shouted. “What do you know about it?”

  “Shh!”

  Maggie slammed the door and glared at her sister.

  “I know that it can’t be that hard to find a job! “Rose said. “I see help-wanted signs all over the place! Every store, every restaurant ...”

  “I don’t want to work in another store. I don’t want to waitress.”

  “So what do you want to do?” Rose demanded. “Sit around like a princess, waiting for MTV to call?”

  Maggie’s face reddened as if she’d been slapped. “Why are you so mean?”

  Rose bit her lip. They’d done this dance before, or, rather, Maggie had . . . with her father, with well-meaning boyfriends, the occasional concerned teacher or boss. Different partners, same steps. She could gauge the precise instant when Rose was going to apologize. And a heartbeat before Rose opened her mouth, the instant she began to inhale the air that would form the words I’m sorry, Maggie started talking again.

  “I’m trying,” she said, swiping at her eyes. “I’m trying very hard. It’s not easy for me, Rose, you know? It’s not easy for everyone the way it’s easy for you.”

  “I know,” Rose said gently. “I know you’re trying.”

  “I try. Every day,” said Maggie. “I’m not a freeloader. I don’t sit around and feel sorry for myself. I go out and I look for a job . . . every . . . day. And I know I’m never going to be a lawyer like you ...”

  Rose made a protesting noise. Maggie cried a little louder. “. . . but that doesn’t mean I just sit around and do nothing. I’m trying, Rose, I’m trying so h-h-h-hard ...”

  Rose crossed the room to hug her. Maggie shrugged away.

  “Okay,” said Rose. “Okay, don’t worry about it. You’ll find a job ...”

  “I always do,” said Maggie, segueing seamlessly from her weepy Renee Zellweger into strength-through-adversity Sally Field. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, straightened her back, and looked at her sister.

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I’m really, really sorry.” Wondering, even as she said the words, precisely what she was apologizing for. It had been over a month now. Maggie showed no signs of leaving. Her clothes and toiletries, compact disc cases and cigarette lighters, were still tossed all over Rose’s apartment, which was feeling smaller by the day, and the night before Rose had burned her finger after dipping it in a saucepan that she thought held hot caramel sauce, which turned out to be Maggie’s eyebrow wax. “Look,” she said helplessly, “have you had dinner yet? We can go out, maybe see a movie ...”

/>   Maggie wiped her eyes again and squinted at her sister. “You know what we should do? We should go out. Like, really out. To a club or something.”

  “I don’t know,” said Rose. “You always have to wait to get into those places. And they’re so smoky and loud ...”

  “Come on. Just once. I’ll help you pick out an outfit ...”

  “Oh, fine,” said Rose reluctantly. “I think there’s some law firm thing going on at one of those places on Delaware Avenue.”

  “What kind of thing?” asked Maggie.

  Rose rifled through her mail until she found the invitation. “‘A holiday cocktail party,’ “she read. “‘Finger food, free games.’ Maybe we can go there.”

  “To start with,” said Maggie. She opened the door and bounced out of the office. “Let’s go!”

  Back at Rose’s apartment, Maggie pulled a blue sweater and a black skirt from the pile beside the bed. “Go take a shower,” she said, “and be sure to moisturize!”

  When Rose got out of the shower, Maggie’s multitiered makeup case was open, and she had a row of products lined up on the counter. Two kinds of foundation, three different concealers, a half-dozen discs of eye shadow and blush, brushes for eyes, for cheeks, for lips. ... Rose sat on the toilet and stared, feeling dizzy.

  “Where did all of this stuff come from?” she asked.

  “Here and there,” said Maggie, sharpening a gray eye pencil.

  Rose studied the case again. “And how much do you think it all cost?”

  “Dunno,” said Maggie, smoothing lotion onto her sister’s cheeks with quick, sure strokes. “But whatever it was, it was worth it. Just wait!”

  Rose sat there, still as a mannequin, for the fifteen ticklish minutes Maggie spent on her eyelids alone. She got fidgety as Maggie blended foundation on the back of her hand, and brushed it on, then stood back, considering, then came forward again to brush on powder and blush, and she was downright bored by the time Maggie brought out the eyelash curler and the lip pencil, but she had to admit that the cumulative effect was . . . well, stunning.

  “Is that me?” she asked, staring at herself in the mirror, at the new hollows underneath her cheekbones, and the way her eyes looked smoky and mysterious beneath the gold and cream eye-shadow Maggie had applied.

  “Isn’t it great? I’d do your makeup for you every day,” Maggie said. “You’d have to start a serious skin-care regimen first, though. You need to exfoliate,” she said, in the same tone another woman would have said, “You need to leave that burning building.” She held up a black skirt and the blue top in one hand, a pair of thin-strapped high-heeled blue sandals in the other. “Here, try this.”

  Rose wriggled into the skirt and the low-cut top. Both of them were tighter than the things she normally wore, and together . . .

  “I don’t know,” she said, forcing herself to stare at her body and not be distracted by her face. “Don’t you think I look kind of . . .” The word cheap teetered on her lips. Her legs looked long and sleek in the blue shoes, and she had a veritable Grand Canyon of cleavage going on. Maggie approved.

  “You look great!” she said, and spritzed her sister from her treasured bottle of Coco. Twenty minutes later, Rose’s hair was up, her earrings were in place, and they were out the door.

  “This party sucks,” said Maggie, slurping her dirty martini.

  Rose tugged at her top, squinting at the crowd. She couldn’t see without her glasses, but of course Maggie wouldn’t let her wear them. “Guys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses!” she’d singsonged, then spent five minutes pestering her sister about why she didn’t just get the laser treatments already, like the newscasters and supermodels did.

  They were at Dave and Buster’s, a glorified arcade for grownups perched on the less-than-scenic bank of the Delaware River, where the law firm was, indeed, having its semi-annual Young Associates Social. Rose’s name tag, perched next to her brand-new astonishing cleavage, read, “I AM Rose Feller,” and then she’d added, in parentheses, “Litigation.” Maggie’s original name tag had read, “I AM drinking,” until Rose made her take it off. Now it read, “I AM Monique,” at which Rose had rolled her eyes but decided wasn’t worth a fight.

  The place was lousy with young lawyers, networking and sipping microbrewed beer, watching Don Dommel and his dread-locked protégé show off their tricks on the Virtual Vert Ramp. There was a buffet laid out against one wall—Rose could make out what looked like a tray of vegetables and dips, and a stainless-steel pan of small fried chunks of something—but Maggie had pulled her away. “Mingle!” she’d said.

  Now Maggie nudged her sister and pointed at a man-shaped blob standing by the foosball table. “Who’s that?” she demanded.

  Rose squinted. All she could make out was blond hair and broad shoulders. “Not sure,” she said.

  Maggie tossed her hair. Maggie, of course, looked unbelievable. Maggie was wearing pink sandals and black leather pants that Rose knew for a fact cost two hundred dollars because she’d found the receipt on the kitchen counter, paired with a small, sparkly, silvery halter top that tied around her neck and left her entire back bare. She’d blown her hair out straight—a process that took the better part of an hour—and adorned her slender arms with rows of silver bangles. Maggie had done her lips in pale pink, loaded on the mascara, and rimmed her eyes in silvery pencil. She looked like a visitor from the future, or possibly from a television show.

  “Well, I’m going to talk to him,” she announced. She ran her fingers through her hair, which hung in a perfectly straight sheet of shimmering auburn, grimaced at Rose, asked whether she had lipstick on her teeth, and stalked into the crowd. Rose gave her top a final yank. Her feet hurt, but Maggie hadn’t budged on the question of Rose’s shoes.

  “One must suffer to be beautiful,” she had intoned, taking two steps back and surveying her sister carefully before wondering aloud whether Rose didn’t have a pair of control-top panty hose that would offer a bit more control.

  Rose peered across the room to see her sister assailing the unsuspecting barrister with the double whammy of her hair toss and bangle shake. Then she sidled toward the buffet table, glanced once, guiltily, over her shoulder, and loaded a small plate with dip, crackers, baby carrots, chunks of cheese, and a scoop of fried whatever-it-was. She found a table in the corner, kicked off her shoes, and started eating.

  Another man-shaped blob—this one was short and pale, with tightly curled gingery hair—approached her. “Rose Feller?” he inquired.

  Rose swallowed and nodded, peering at his name tag.

  “Simon Stein,” said the guy. “We were sitting next to each other at the pep rally.”

  “Ah,” said Rose, and tried to nod in a manner that would give the impression that she recognized him.

  “I gave you coffee,” he said.

  “Oh, right!” said Rose, remembering. “You saved my life! Thank you!”

  Simon gave a modest nod. “So we’re going to be travel buddies,” he said.

  Rose stared at him. The only travel she had planned was a recruiting trip to the University of Chicago Law School on Monday. Just her, and Jim.

  “I’m subbing for Jim Danvers,” Simon said. Rose felt her heart sink.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “He got busy, so they asked me if I wanted to go.”

  “Oh,” Rose said again.

  “So, listen, do you live in Center City? I’ll give you a ride to the airport.”

  “Oh,” said Rose for the third time, and added another word just to change things up. “Sure.”

  Simon leaned closer to her. “Listen,” he said, “you don’t by any chance play softball, do you?”

  Rose shook her head. Her one experience with the game had come during gym class her junior year of high school, when she’d failed to connect even once during the six-week session and dozens of at-bats, and she’d gotten hit in the chest with a foul ball. And there’d been nothing soft about it.

&nb
sp; “We’ve got a team, you know. Motion Denied,” said Simon, as if he hadn’t noticed her head shake. “Co-ed. Only we don’t have enough women on the roster. We’ll have to forfeit if we can’t find some more.”

  “Alas,” said Rose.

  “It’s an easy game,” said Simon. Rose figured he was probably a litigator. The men among them tended toward a terrierlike persistence. “Good exercise, fresh air ...”

  “Do I look like I need exercise and fresh air?” she asked, then looked down at herself ruefully. “Don’t answer that.”

  Simon Stein continued his pitch. “It’s fun. You’ll meet lots of people.”

  She shook her head. “Really, you don’t want me. I’m hopeless.”

  A woman came over and hooked one of her arms through Simon’s. “Honey, come play pool with me!” she cooed. Rose winced. This was the girl she privately called Ninety-five, 1995 being the year she graduated from Harvard, a fact that she’d managed to drop into every single conversation Rose had ever had with her.

  “Rose, this is Felice Russo,” said Simon.

  “We’ve actually met,” Rose said. Felice reached up to smooth Simon’s hair, which was not, in Rose’s opinion, going to be improved by any amount of smoothing. Just then Maggie returned, with her cheeks flushed and a lit cigarette in her hand.

  “This party still sucks,” she announced, and looked around. “Introduce me.”

  “Maggie, this is Simon and Felice,” said Rose. “We work together.”

  “Oh,” said Maggie, taking a deep drag. “Great.”

  “What a beautiful bracelet,” said Felice, pointing at one of Maggie’s bangles. “It is indigenous?”

  Maggie stared at her. “Huh? I got it on South Street.”

  “Oh,” said Felice. “It’s just that there was this little boutique in Boston that sold stuff like that, and I bought a few pieces there in college.”

  Here it comes, thought Rose.

  “I went to Boston once,” said Maggie. “I had a friend at Northeastern.”

  Three . . . two . . . one . . .