Serendipity's Footsteps Read online

  “Don’t you ever quit?” Ray grabbed her guitar, clambering off the stage. “I’m not scared. I don’t need some lame pep talk about it, either.”

  Pinny snorted. “And I’m supposed to be the stupid one.” She followed Ray up the aisle and out of the auditorium. “If you’re not scared, then you’re a…a grouch for real!”

  “Bingo!” Ray snapped her fingers. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Pinny stopped, letting Ray stomp ahead of her. She didn’t want to be around her. She didn’t like her like this. Not even a smidge.

  Ray’s lighter turned the corner, disappearing, leaving Pinny with the growling storm in the dark.

  —

  She pushed the button on the hand dryer, then sat back down underneath it. The hot wind blew so hard, her cheeks flattened into her face. Maybe this was what a tornado felt like. She’d hit the button on the dryer five times so far. Another three would do it.

  The tornado died, and she was about to start it again when the bathroom door creaked open.

  “Pinny?” The lighter made Ray’s face a jack-o’-lantern. “Pinny…I’m…” She sighed. “What are you doing in here?”

  “Drying off.” Pinny turned her back. She was still sore at her, and Ray might as well know it.

  Ray came to stand beside her. “Good idea,” she said. Her voice was soft, not snappy like before.

  “Are you done?” Pinny asked her. “With the tantrum?”

  Ray tried to frown but a laugh busted it open. “For now.”

  “Then I’ll let you use the dryer.” Pinny moved over, and Ray worked on her own clothes for a while.

  Then she elbowed Pinny and headed for the bathroom door. “Come on. I found something you need to see.”

  Pinny followed her down a hallway lined with posters and glass display cases.

  “Check it out.” Ray raised the lighter over one of the cases. “The people who run this place must’ve known you were coming. They put out some shoes for you.”

  Pinny peered through the glass and sucked in her breath. There was a pair of black Mary Janes with MINNIE and PEARL spelled out in brass buttons across the sides. Her heart practically danced right out of her. “Minnie Pearl’s Mary Janes,” she whispered. “They’re legend. Famous like Dorothy’s ruby slippers.”

  “Bizarre,” Ray said. Her voice was teasing, and Pinny wasn’t sure she liked it. “How did you know that? You’re like a fount of shoe trivia.”

  “You know music,” she said. “I know shoes.” She leaned closer to the shoes, longing to touch them. She settled for snapping a photo. “She went all over the world wearing these shoes. Just to make people laugh.” She straightened up and looked at Ray. “So the people you say you hate…they were her More.”

  Ray coughed and shifted on her feet. People squirmed like that when some bad thought was bugging them deep inside. Well, Pinny thought, Ray could do with some squirming.

  “It’s late,” Ray finally said. “We should sleep. We’ve only got a few hours before daylight, and we’ll have to be out of here by then.”

  “ ’Kay.” A yawn pulled at Pinny’s mouth, and her body felt slow as a slug.

  She followed Ray back to the room called the artists’ lounge. Ray pulled cushions off the armchairs and laid them on the floor like beds, then spread her sleeping bag on top.

  “Climb in,” Ray said.

  But Pinny couldn’t yet. She sat down and opened her backpack, careful not to let Ray see the pale pink shoes inside. If Ray knew Pinny had them, she might turn grouchy again. It was better to keep them a secret. She pulled out Daddy’s watch. Then she slid her red Mary Janes from around her neck. She fixed the shoes and watch together on the floor so they hugged up against each other. She nudged them even closer, till they looked cozy. Then she flipped through her stack of shoe photos, making sure each one was there.

  “What are you doing?” Ray asked, watching.

  “Getting ready for bed,” Pinny said.

  Ray sighed beside her. “Do you have to mess with that stuff now?”

  “Every night.” She squinched her eyes to double-check her photos. “So I can sleep.” She pointed to her Mary Janes and Daddy’s watch. “They keep each other company. Like you and me.” She put the photos away and lay down. “You want to know what I’m scared of?” she whispered.

  There was a long quiet, then, “What?”

  Pinny swallowed. She’d never said it out loud before. “That I’ll find Mama’s shoes, but not Mama.” Her hands went sweaty. “Maybe the magic won’t work.”

  “I don’t know squat about magic.” Ray rolled over to face her. “There’s no point worrying about it yet anyway. Let’s just get to New York first.”

  “I guess,” Pinny said. But she wasn’t so sure.

  Ray stayed still for so long Pinny thought she’d fallen asleep. Then her voice came trembly. “You were right,” she whispered. “I’m scared, too. Of…myself. Not ever being who I want to be.”

  “Well, I’ll never want to be somebody different.” She shook her head. “How would Mama know me when she saw me, then?”

  Ray laughed at that. “You got me there.”

  Pinny nodded. “Don’t not be you. Maybe just get rid of something you don’t want. Like all that mad. You for sure don’t want that. It’ll use you up.” She sighed. “I’ve got lots to be mad over, too. And people to be even madder at.”

  “For what?” Ray whispered.

  She shrugged. “Things they do they think I won’t get. Like Careena calling Room 305 the nursery, like me and all the other kids in there are babies. Bet you didn’t think I knew that.”

  Ray’s face was dough-white. “I…I wasn’t sure….”

  Pinny snorted. “I know. Other people figure I’m too dumb to see mean. It took me a long time with Careena. To see her mean. But I did. Anyway, my mad can’t fix mean. So I don’t bother with it.”

  Ray opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something else. But then she shut it, and Pinny figured she was all talked out. She settled onto her side. Her clothes were still a little wet, and she wished she had a blanket. But that was like finding sugar ants in the honey. They didn’t matter when you had a whole pot of sweetness in front of you. “Thanks for bringing me along,” she whispered to Ray’s back. “I’ve never had a sleepover before.”

  The room was quiet for a few minutes, and then Ray’s voice came, muffled and stale-bread tough. “You’re welcome.”

  “I knew you were the right person to help get Mama’s shoes back,” she said. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  Ray heaved a sigh. “Good night, Pinny.”

  “Good night,” Pinny whispered around her smile. She closed her eyes and heard Ray’s song again. In her dreams, she saw Mama, dancing in the sunlight in her silver shoes, in perfect time to the beat.

  DALYA

  She never planned to talk about it. Not with anyone. Then came the afternoon when Dalya left school to find Mrs. Ashbury waiting for her. Henry, Dalya knew, had gone for an admissions interview at Columbia University, and she’d been planning to walk home alone. But here was Mrs. Ashbury, waving her to the car. Ever since the World’s Fair, Mrs. Ashbury had cooled. She’d never mentioned it to Dalya again, but Dalya sensed her subtle disapproval. Today, her polished-silver smile made Dalya’s palms damp, although she couldn’t say exactly why.

  “I’m meeting a few ladies at the Plaza for tea this afternoon,” Mrs. Ashbury said as Dalya slid into the car. “I thought you might like to join us.”

  Questions brimmed in her mind, but she nodded without asking any of them. “I’d like that, thank you,” she replied in carefully pronounced English, and was gratified when Mrs. Ashbury’s smile broadened.

  “I’ve just attended a meeting at the school,” Mrs. Ashbury said as the car wove through the streets. “Your teachers all agree that your English has improved in the past few months. They tell me that some of your schoolwork now seems too easy for you.” She patted Dalya’s hand. �
�They think you may be able to move up to the eleventh grade, with students your own age, sometime next spring.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Dalya made her voice swing up enthusiastically, but she felt nothing. What did it matter what grade she was in, when her presence at school was shadowy at best? Yes, she did her work well and tried to answer clearly when called on in class. Understanding English was easier now, though speaking it was still a challenge. In spite of that, to other students she only amounted to mere whispers in the hallway, and even those had died down as her novelty wore off.

  “I hope you’re feeling more at home here,” Mrs. Ashbury said as the car stopped before a grand white high-rise with a green steepled roof. “You and I haven’t spent much time together yet. Now that we’re starting to understand each other a bit better, I hope that will change.”

  “Me too,” said Dalya. But she felt as if one of them was lying, though she wasn’t sure who.

  Mrs. Ashbury touched a gloved hand to Dalya’s elbow, leading her through the Plaza and into the Palm Court. Bright light showered down from an enormous domed glass ceiling so beautiful that Dalya had a hard time looking away, even when Mrs. Ashbury motioned her to a table. Three other ladies as finely dressed as Mrs. Ashbury smiled as she sat down with them.

  “Dalya,” one said, squeezing her hand sympathetically. “It’s a true honor to meet you.”

  As Mrs. Ashbury made introductions, the other women, too, gazed at Dalya much the same way, until she longed to stare at the ceiling to avoid their placating eyes. Thankfully, a waiter came with tea and a menu she could lose her face behind.

  “Order anything you’d like,” Mrs. Ashbury said.

  Dalya couldn’t muster an appetite through her nerves, but out of politeness, she decided on a pastry cake. Once it was ordered, though, her menu was gone, and all eyes again turned to her.

  “Dalya,” Mrs. Ashbury began, “we wanted you to join us today because we have something important to ask you.” She took a sip of tea. “We’ve been searching for ways to help more wartime refugees. Certain laws make it difficult for refugees to come to America. We’re fighting to change those laws, but we’re hoping to help in other ways, too, through private charities and aid societies.”

  One of the ladies leaned toward Dalya, speaking conspicuously slowly and loudly, as if to help her make sense of the English words. “There are stories about camps in Germany…places where horrible things are done. Some people believe they’re just rumors.”

  Camps. Rumors. The words made her mind sluggish and her lungs burn, like she was listening underwater.

  “We thought if you told your story,” Mrs. Ashbury said, “if you shared what happened to you and your family with some key people, it might make a difference.” The other ladies smiled with satisfaction, and Dalya realized this was the appeal they’d been waiting for. “It might help the cause.”

  “The cause,” Dalya repeated, her voice garbled. Somewhere deep in her mind, she vaguely wondered why Mrs. Ashbury had said “cause” instead of “people.” But her thoughts couldn’t go any further than that, because she couldn’t get out from under the weight of it all, and the pressure was unbearable.

  A waiter slid Dalya’s food in front of her, and she blinked, baffled that things remained in motion around her while she sat frozen. Mrs. Ashbury’s smile tarnished as silence settled uncomfortably over the table.

  When she spoke again, her voice held a sliver of a crack. “I’m sure it’s difficult to talk about these things,” she said. “And you’re still working on your English, but Henry could translate for you, if you’d like. You would be doing such a service. When you came to us, this is what we hoped for.”

  There was compassion in Mrs. Ashbury’s eyes. But something else, too…expectation. As if Dalya wasn’t being asked, but commanded. She suddenly wished Henry were here beside her, because even if she didn’t need him to interpret words for her anymore, there was so much about Mrs. Ashbury that she didn’t understand.

  In the last months, she’d come to rely on him for more than his friendship. When he wasn’t fixated on his anger, his kindness and humor shone through. Since the World’s Fair, she’d felt a shift in the air between them. When they talked, she caught him staring at her with an expression of more than camaraderie. With tender affection. It thrilled her. It terrified her. It brought her comfort, and the closest connection she’d had to anyone since Berlin. He was her distraction and her protector. But Henry wasn’t here to shelter her from this, and Mrs. Ashbury was waiting for her answer while her friends watched.

  Dalya drudged her voice up from the depths. When it surfaced, it was barely a sigh. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  —

  “You don’t have to,” Henry said that night as they listened to the radio in the parlor. “She should never have asked. Or dragged me into it. I don’t want anything to do with her agenda. It’s wrong.”

  “She wants me to,” Dalya said. “Maybe it will help, like she says.”

  “Maybe,” he said grudgingly. “Or maybe she only wants you to be her latest philanthropic showpiece.”

  Dalya studied the pattern on the rug. “She said that this was what she’d hoped for when I came. What did she mean?”

  “It means you are the perfect diversion. With you here, she can be a social crusader instead of the wife of a crook. Rich people don’t like mud on their faces, especially when it comes from dirty money. If you can’t make her look clean, at least you can make her look generous.”

  “A crook?” Dalya repeated. “Your father?” She didn’t see Mr. Ashbury very often, but the severe, driven man didn’t match her idea of a swindler.

  Henry smirked. “My father’s not always an honest investor, and everyone knows it. I’m sure he’s already bought my admission into Columbia, even though he’ll never admit it. It’s our name that matters anyway, not my merit.”

  “You want to go to Columbia, don’t you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Columbia’s convenient. Mother’s planning for a companion to help me get around campus. They’ve arranged it perfectly. I’ll get my degree and then step right into my father’s shoes.” He laughed, rolling his eyes at his braces. “Or at least sit at his desk.”

  “But…that’s what you want.”

  “When your life’s mapped out by someone else, what you want doesn’t matter.” He sighed. “What I want is for this”—he motioned to his legs—“never to have happened. I couldn’t stop that, could I?” He grimaced and unstrapped his braces, his forehead beading with perspiration.

  She watched as he rubbed his legs. “Do they hurt tonight?”

  “They hurt every second of every day,” he snapped. Then his face softened, and he smiled. “Don’t you know by now that you’re the only one who has any real chance of helping me?”

  Dalya’s cheeks warmed. “How?”

  “You could teach me to ignore the pain, like you do. I know it will never really go away, but I could shut it up at least, put it under lock and key. Keep it from wailing all the time, right?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. But, oh, she did, and the relief she felt at his words frightened her. He knew her secret, that this was how she survived each passing minute, and she loved that he knew and didn’t judge her for it. Even if she didn’t recognize her own self anymore, he saw something in her worth admiring.

  “I suppose that helps, too? All that pretending. But no one can pretend they don’t see these.” He frowned down at his legs, then reached for the bottle of wintergreen oil on the table beside him. His hands shook so badly with pain, though, that the bottle slipped, spilling onto the table.

  “Dammit!” he breathed, but Dalya was already setting the bottle straight, saying, “It’s all right. It’s all right.”

  He slumped against the back of the chair, pale and tired. Before Dalya could think, a wave of affection surged through her, and she was kneeling before him. She reached for the cuffs of his pants, but h
e grabbed her hands.

  “Don’t.”

  She smiled up at him and whispered, “Let me. Please.” He tensed, but didn’t fight her as she rolled up his pants to his knees and slipped off his shoes. She poured some oil into her hands. He gave a soft sigh as she laid her palms against his skin, kneading the oil into his calves, ankles, and feet. His muscles were soft and small, his legs and feet thin. He closed his eyes as she cradled his feet in her hands, and a peaceful silence settled between them.

  She studied the structure of his feet, memorizing their brittle angles and unnatural curvature, and her mind drifted to a place it hadn’t in years. The Dalya of Before could’ve helped him. With the right type of arch support and more comfortable braces, his pain might be less. A vision of tall leather boots formed in her mind, but the instant it did, she dismissed it. Making shoes again, touching her father’s tools…Her own pain clawed the surface, threatening to break free, to break her.

  She yanked her hands back, gasping. No, the Dalya of After didn’t make shoes. She couldn’t…wouldn’t.

  Henry sat up, staring at her, the peace on his face replaced with humiliation. “It’s disgusting. I know.”

  “No!” she protested. “It’s not that….”

  He jerked his pants down over his legs, and even as his features twisted angrily, she kept her hands clenched in her lap, letting the impulse to touch him again pass.

  “It’s not you. Don’t ever think that, not for a second. I couldn’t stand it if I hurt you. You have to believe me. Please.”

  She said it so adamantly, with such urgency, that she startled the anger out of him. He nodded, believing her, and his face softened. “What is it, then? Tell me.”

  “It’s me. It’s being…close to you. To anyone. I…can’t,” she said weakly, standing to go upstairs. “I’m sorry that I’m…like this.” She looked down tenderly at his legs. “I’m sorry it’s so painful. That I can’t do more.”