Best Foot Forward (9 page)

“How can you tell?”

“He asked me when I got off work
in French.
”

I put the doughnut coupons in my pocket and sighed.

I can't tell you how much I wanted a raspberry cream.

The puffy foot costume arrived at Gladstone Shoes. I took it out of the box; it was tan colored with prominent toes. It had a head hole and came with tan tights. On the front of it was written, PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD.

It's amazing how an advertising agency can destroy a good idea.

“I'm not wearing it.” I said this firmly, embracing Al-Anon boundary-setting principles.

Murray pushed back the two head hairs he had left. “I'm sure not wearing it.”

Tanner was rushing through the front door, late again. He stared at the costume, felt the puffy material. “You'd get shot wearing this in my neighborhood.”

The puffy foot costume was part of a big Labor Day Blowout Sales Extravaganza we were going to have at the Shoe Warehouse Corporation's 498 stores across America: 498 puffy feet were going to march into malls and streets to wave, pass out coupons, and overwhelm America. Getting ready for a big sale wasn't easy. We'd lugged hundreds of shoes from the stockroom and put them on shelves. We'd hung the Best Foot Forward banner across the ceiling.

“We could say it didn't come,” Murray offered.

I put the costume down. “I signed for the package with UPS.”

“We could maybe pay my nephew Lyle to wear it,” Murray offered, “but if it's not hypoallergenic, in ten minutes he'd be spitting up phlegm.”

“There's a bonus for whoever wears it,” Mrs. Gladstone added, coming up from behind.

Tanner stepped forward. “What would my bonus be?”

Mrs. Gladstone cleared her throat. “A watch—which, young man, you could sorely use—and overtime pay.”

“I got to wear the tights?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Can I wear my shades?” Tanner put on his mirrored sunglasses, raised his hands like a dancer, and froze.

Mrs. Gladstone's smile broke wide open. “I think they would greatly add to the depth of your characterization.”

 

Tanner put his best foot forward and stood on Wabash Street outside Gladstone Shoes and almost caused a riot. He was bowing to people, blowing kisses to women, patting little kids on the head, and handing out the coupons.

“What are you, man?” a teenage guy asked Tanner.

“I'm a foot fetish,” Tanner explained.

“No!” I shouted. “He's just kidding.” I glared at Tanner's face poking from the head hole; saw myself mirrored back. I hate mirrored sunglasses.

“I'm the Best Foot Forward,” Tanner said obediently and handed the guy a coupon. “And this is your lucky day.”

“Are you a right foot or a left foot?” a little girl asked him.

Tanner looked at the toes protruding out from his knees. “I'm a right foot.”

She squeezed his puffy big toe. “Do you feel stupid?”

“Yeah, I sure do!”

“Do you know Ronald McDonald?” another kid asked.

We hadn't covered these questions in training. “Are you kidding?” Tanner replied. “Ron lives next door to me. We hang out.”

“You know Mickey Mouse?”

A crowd was gathering.

“I know him. I'm the Foot, you understand? They all come to me.” Tanner gave a coupon to every person and this mass of humanity headed into the store. I followed them. A sea of customers clutching coupons rifled through the sales shelves, trying on shoes, leaving boxes piled on the floor. The line at the register was curling through the store and Mrs. Gladstone was ringing people up like a machine.

I've been through enough sales at this store—the Spring Fling, the Holiday Magic, the End of the Year Closeout—but I'd never seen numbers like this.

It was hard to keep an eye on everything, hard to help when people didn't know what they wanted themselves. Customers were leaning against the wall to try shoes on. There was no place left to sit. Tanner moved among his fans like a rock star and walked a few inside.

Then a rustle in the back. Tanner shouted, “
Stop it,
man!”

A panicked guy started pushing toward the front door, holding a box.

Tanner lunged after him, puffy toes swinging. “Hold it!”

I was by the door. The guy ran close to me, I stuck out my right foot, and he went crashing down.

“Yeah?
When?
”

The guy kicked him; Tanner pinned him down and shoved his knee with the protruding toes into the guy's chest as Murray called the police. But Gladstone customers are tough and dedicated. They kept shopping, clutching their coupons, keeping a wide berth around Tanner and the shoplifter. The police came and walked the guy off.

“Only in America,” Murray said afterward, shaking his head.

I looked at Tanner, saw that scar running down his face; his glasses were off, his dark eyes burning. If there was any doubt about whether he was one of us, that doubt was gone now. He was a sole man through and through.

 

The day after Labor Day, to celebrate the great Best Foot Forward campaign that was hugely successful across the country, and to show the unity and spirit alive in the newly merged Shoe Warehouse Corporation, Ken Woldman laid off 304 people nationwide. “We will continue to combine operations and to pass that cost savings onto our customers,” he said as if he'd just done something to help mankind. Mrs. Gladstone was furious at the news.

“
What
is that man thinking?” she shouted, shut herself in her office, and called him.

Murray was having nightmares that he was going to be the 305th to go. I tried to tell him Mrs. Gladstone would protect him, but Murray said the company was changing too fast.

“I'm a dead man, kid.”

I couldn't imagine the store without Murray.

I couldn't imagine the store without me, but Gladstone's was going to have to get used to me being gone, at least part-time. Murray was interviewing for part-time help. He faced a young woman and threw out his make-or-break question:

“Okay, say six customers come into the store at once; they all want to be waited on pronto; they start getting surly. What do you do?”

She looked at him. “I'd tell them to wait their turn and if they didn't like it, tough.”

That's the wrong answer.

Murray had asked me that question at my interview, too. I'd said, “I'd tell them help was on the way, and come and find you.” His face went soft when I said it.

“We'll call you,” Murray said to the young woman.

Just then the UPS man lugged in an enormous box and laid it down. “What's in this thing?”

Murray and I opened the box. Inside was a large gong-shaped bell with the Shoe Warehouse emblem.

Murray looked at it with hunted eyes. “Who knows for whom the bell tolls, kid. It tolls for me.” He bonged the bell in grief.

Tanner ran onto the sales floor.
“What was that?”

“The future,” Murray said miserably.

School was starting tomorrow. One day left of freedom.

Opal and I were standing at Belmont Harbor, watching the sailboats. A long sailboat moved slowly out to the lake; three people manned it. There are some things you can't do yourself—you need other people to help you.

This was one of those times for me. “I've been reading in my Al-Anon book,” I began, “and I'm learning how sometimes it's hard for kids with alcoholic parents to have”—I winced—“fun.” I stood there desperately trying to appear fun-loving.

Opal examined me. “You could definitely use more fun in your life, Jenna.”

A kid glided by effortlessly on a skateboard. “So, how do I do that?”

“You want to skateboard?”

“No, I mean, general fun. How do I enter into that?”

Opal started laughing. “You start by smiling.”

I laughed, kind of.

“And you stop taking yourself so seriously.”

That stopped me laughing. All my life people have told me I'm too serious. I was a serious baby, a serious toddler, a serious preschooler.

“What do you think is fun?” she asked.

I looked around. This was the difficult part. “Don't laugh,” I said. “Promise.”

Hand over her heart.

“I think selling shoes is a lot of fun.”

She cracked up.

“Okay, Opal. Brace yourself. I think that washing my car is fun.
And
I think driving is fun and it's more fun when the car is clean.”

She was guffawing now.

“I thought you liked my car!”

“Jenna, this is serious. Do you ever do things on the spur of the moment?”

“Sure.” My mind stretched trying to think of them. I mentioned renting a movie on the absolute spur of the moment and cooking.

She took my arm and yanked me deeper into the park.

“Okay, Jenna, stand on that rock and scream.”

“Why?”

“Because it frees your inhibitions.”

“I like my inhibitions.”

“Just try it.”

I stood on the rock and gave a short, soft shout.

“How did that feel?”

“Boring.”

Opal stood on the rock, threw back her head, and bellowed. Birds flew out of the trees, squirrels ran for cover. Her face looked peaceful when she was through.

I threw back my head and shouted louder. I let my hands go up and down and the shout grew within me. I shrieked.

But honestly, it didn't do much for me.

I liked to work. I liked to be purposeful.

Opal shook her head. “Jenna, you're probably going to be one of the top businesspeople in America.”

I grinned. Now
that
would be fun.

 

The first day of school came down hard like a big boot from above.

The best part of the day was how many people came up and told me I looked good. I tossed my head and felt my new wispy bangs play across my face. I was wearing green, the color of new life.

It was amazing how much I'd changed over the summer and how my classmates had not. Matt Wicks, who I'd had a crush on all sophomore year, seemed childish and boring. I felt like I was living out one of those fantasy movies where the sharp adult gets zapped back into childhood and has to go back to school and relive what was not worth reliving.

Journalism with Mr. Haloran was worth the experience, though, because Mr. Haloran had the deepest, bluest eyes in all of education.

I held the sheet he passed out with the four questions we always had to ask before turning in a paper to him:

Are the facts confirmed?

Is the writing clear?

Is the piece informative?

Will Mr. Haloran unconditionally love this?

I had my own questions for the school year:

Can I . . .

Maintain a B average?

Have a balanced life?

Survive?

 

I raced into Gladstone's and paused for a moment of silence at Harry Bender's memorial.

If life were close to fair, Harry would have been my father. He would have driven my mother up the wall, and it's safe to say that Faith wouldn't have turned out nearly as pretty, but that's a small price to pay for all the insight he would have shared.

Then the sound of jingling keys.

Burt Odder thumped into the store and plopped his damp body into a chair.

He was rubbing his calf, not surprising, looking at those old shoes he was wearing. He got up and I could see a gentle limp when he walked over to the men's loafers.

Everything within me wanted to ignore him, but I thought, okay.

This one's for you, Harry.

Harry always said you had to treat each customer like a friend.

I marched over to him, smiling. “I bet you're on your feet a lot during the day,” I said.

“You got that right.” He didn't look at me when he said it.

I picked up an excellent shoe that was dirt cheap on special because we only had wide sizes left. He had a wide foot. I told him about the depth of the cushioning and the ease of the walk and how the insoles massage the foot.

“You got it in twelve wide?”

“Let's just measure you to be sure.”

He sat down and took off his shoe, and instantly I regretted this whole thing, because this man had foot odor that could knock you senseless. Murray always told me to move to the side of a person to avoid the direct fumes. My eyes were tearing, but I got him up on the measurer. “I think you're a twelve and a half, actually.” I looked at his shoes that were almost bursting out at the little toe from the pressure. “Let me see what I've got.”

I went in the back, grabbed the twelve and a half wides, did some deep breathing to fill my lungs with clean air, and hurried back on the floor. He was waiting there, kind of docile. It's amazing how people respond to having someone address their foot issues. I put the shoes on him.

He stood up and almost smiled. “Are these too loose? I can wiggle my toes.”

“You're supposed to be able to do that.”

“Really.” He walked around a little bit. “How much?”

I told him the super sale price.

“Yeah. Yeah, I'll take them.”