The Art of Falling (21 page)

My mother and I sat in Aunt Mary’s office for ten minutes. It was fundraising season, and her secretary said they were “crazed.” Good. The longer we waited, the better the chances they needed to hire, I figured.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” my mother whispered.

“The same reason you have been all these years.”

“But I could contact Randall at the Arts Council and see if—”

“I can’t waste any more time and energy squeezing the square peg into the round hole. I need a paycheck.” I picked up a magazine from Aunt Mary’s desk—
The
Manufacturing
Confectioner
. New trade, new journal. I flipped through it back to front, trying to look studious, not really focusing.

“There’s nothing here for you.”

Nothing for a dancer, she meant. “You once told me the candy factory was your inheritance.”

“It’s been in my family since 1892.”

“Well, I’m your daughter. Just getting in line.” I grabbed a title from one of the articles. “Cocoa sustainability—I guess that’s a pretty hot issue, isn’t it?”

Uncharacteristically, my mother got up from her chair and paced. “I never thought this day would come,” she said. “This feels all wrong.”

Well, join the club. I swore I’d never give up the dream, never cop out. But things change. Since I’d met Angela, I’d experienced a kind of love I’d never known before. It was complete and unconditional, and compelled me to help her any way I could. And for this my mother had been an admirable role model: she had earned money reliably, and used plenty of it to support someone who was struggling to make ends meet. It was time I paid that forward. To do so, I was willing to cross the final line between dancer and candy maker—probably the only boundary neither of us had ever challenged.

We heard the door handle and Aunt Mary bolted into the room as if shot from a crossbow. I hadn’t seen her in a decade or so, but my first impression was the same: she was a tad more man than woman. She had none of my mother’s softness. Broad shoulders strained against her suit.

“Evelyn, Penny. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I need a job,” I blurted. “I’d like to learn the family business.”

“Aren’t you a musician or something?”

I felt my mother tense beside me; I spoke quickly before she unloaded. “Not anymore.”

She reached into her drawer and took out a job application. “What did you have in mind?”

It hit me that I had no idea what the various jobs in a candy factory actually were. I looked at my mother.

“I thought she might start in Quality Assurance.”

Aunt Mary snorted. “You don’t bring on someone new and put them at the top, Ev. She knows nothing about the business.”

“Aunt Mary’s right, Mom.” I scanned the pictures on the wall for a job whose nomenclature I might not botch. “I’d be happy with a job on the line. In packing.”

“Our packers are highly skilled. We’ll see if you can cut it—next week. I’ll start you in our mould washing operation. Plan to work fourteen days straight to get the lay of the land.”

“That’s an insult,” my mother said. “You weren’t treated like that. Daddy must be turning in his grave.”

“If that music degree qualified you to take over HR, then I guess you didn’t need me all these years.”

“I’m sorry, how many credits shy of that business degree were you? Daddy made me COO for a reason—”

“Don’t worry about it, Mom.” I looked at Aunt Mary. “Thank you. I’ll take it.”

Before she hurried from the room, she pushed the application across her desk and told me to bring it along when I showed up for my first shift tomorrow. I stifled a laugh, as I’m sure Aunt Mary would when she read my qualifications for this work.

“Congratulations, Penny,” my mother said. “You’re now a dishwasher.”

• • •

I was used to generating heat from inside my body. Now steam from the mould washer applied sweat from the outside in, through white smock, tee shirt, and jeans, until it invaded my lungs. My hair was plastered to my head beneath my net, and despite the gloves and the rubber drain mat upon which I stood, my hands and feet were pickled by day’s end. Used mould trays came at me in a steady stream, and I had to spray them with scalding water, load them into the washing machine, take them out, and before putting them in a box, wipe away the water that always collected in the bottom of the cups. The same minimalist movement, over and over.

The humid air made me sleepy. At one point I leaned against the side of the machine to close my eyes for a moment—and awoke to a man slapping my arm. I pulled the muff from my ear to find him yelling at me in Spanish. I slapped the earmuff back into place, nodded, and tried to take deeper breaths for the rest of the shift.

At day’s end, my shoes squished as I walked out front to wait for my mother to give me a ride home. The fresh air that hit my lungs tasted both sweet and tart. When my mother came out, she looked at me as if I’d been sprayed with vomit. She didn’t ask about my day.

Aunt Mary sequestered me in mould washing the next day as well. Guess I hadn’t quite gotten it down yet. My mother’s inheritance might have been hers for the taking, but I’d have to earn mine.

When I got home from work, I peeled off my clothes, took a hot shower, and flopped onto my bed. Where previously my muscles hurt from the added demands of dance, my joints now ached from sheer lack of movement. I turned on my phone and found a text message from Kandelbaum. He’d written: “We miss you.” I couldn’t help but smile.

Starting the third day, Aunt Mary rewarded my fortitude by rotating me through a series of line operations. I was grateful, since my shoulder had begun to complain in the mould washing room. A day of scoring toffee did nothing to silence it, however. The next day, a dull ache migrated down my spine as I bent over a conveyor, distributing potato chips on their way toward a coating of chocolate. No doubt my pain was exacerbated by disgust. I tried not to knead my muscles or otherwise manifest my discomfort. I caught Aunt Mary staring down at me from behind the huge glass windows of the observation deck often enough to know she was watching me. Even in this performance I did not want to disappoint.

I came home to a message from Kandelbaum: “Listen to the god within you, Penny.” If only he could see how the god within me was blossoming from hard, unselfish work—at least in the area of my bad knee, which was now the size of a small cantaloupe. The next day, I had to wear a compression stocking on the factory floor while shoveling nonpareils into little bags. I then weighed them on a scale—better them than me, with the extra water weight. It wasn’t long before needlelike pain began pricking my feet and legs. Why couldn’t my body ever behave? This was my chance to stop courting heartbreak and despair and fulfill a secure, societally acceptable role. My desire was great—I wanted to do this, for my friend. But physically, socially, and intellectually, this job was killing me.

I had to find a way to keep the blood moving before I lost all feeling in my feet. I began a simple step-touch to the rhythm of the moulds being flipped by the machine behind me—shovel, step, pour-touch-bang; weigh, step, adjust-touch-bang. To keep the noise of the pallet loader from driving me mad, I framed its
beep-beep-beep
as a supporting instrument, like a piccolo. I found when I swung my hips side to side, in a gentle mambo, the ache in my lower back eased.

In my peripheral vision, unusual movement up on the observation deck. I hoped it wasn’t Aunt Mary throwing a fit. But no, it was a group of schoolchildren on a field trip, pointing at me through the observation deck windows. When I waved to them, they applauded. That had to have been my oddest performance to date. It made me think of Kandelbaum and the pint-sized fan club of his jimmy-covered doughnuts. Who would have thought Kandelbaum and I would end up having this much in common?

On the drive home, my mother said, “You should start an aerobics class at the factory.”

“Sure,” I lied. With the fierce beauty of dance so newly reawakened in my soul, I couldn’t settle for being an exercise instructor any longer.

In the hope of making it through my Saturday shift in the retail store, Friday evening I kept my leg raised and knee iced. I wanted to visit Angela, but couldn’t bear to limp into her hospital room with my knee all blown up, looking like more of a patient than she did. And I would not chance her drawing the conclusion that it was my concern for her that had wounded me. I’d have to wait and see her when I got the swelling under control. I called her instead, although with both of us pirating what energy we could to sound happy, our conversation was strained.

The next morning my knee was a little better. I found two new voice mails from Kandelbaum—they must have been delayed coming through. “Angela found this on the Internet, and it’s too long for a text message,” Kandelbaum said. In the background Angela countered that it wasn’t too long, but Kandelbaum said it was if you were all thumbs. Angela said, “It’s from Martha Graham.” I delighted at the enthusiasm in her that only Kandelbaum could still inspire. Kandelbaum popped back on. “She was a dancer, you know.” I shook my head as Angela read a quote I knew so well I finished it along with her: “…and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.”

I cued up the next voice message and was startled when my phone rang right next to my cheek.

At five a.m.

As soon as I connected—before I even spoke—Kandelbaum said, “Thank goodness you’re there. It’s Angela.”

Love and panic amplified the pounding of my heart. “I need you to come, Penny,” Kandelbaum said. “Now.”

“Just a sec.” I met my mother at her bedroom door. She’d heard the phone.

“It’s Angela. Can you—”

“Of course.”

“I hate to ask.” My head kicked into overdrive. I re-sorted my day. “I’ll be blowing off work, you’ll be late, we’ll piss off Aunt Mary…”

“On a scale of my worries, pissing off Mary ranks somewhere after the tuning of my piano and the future of the arts in America. Let’s go.”

I asked Kandelbaum, “Shall I go straight to the hospital?”

“Don’t bother,” he said. “I’m at the hospital—but Angela isn’t. And no one knows where she went.”

• • •

Instinct told me Kandelbaum was overreacting. There were only a few places Angela would go. The apartment. Mrs. Pope’s. The gym. I called each on the drive down, to no avail.

Sitting in the car not knowing about Angela was as painful as standing still in the factory when my body wanted to move. I needed to take action. If someone required me to be still for one more day, I might explode. I pictured myself on the ledge of the high-rise, leaping far into space for the sheer joy of the movement.

“Where could she have gone?” I said. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t want to,” my mother said, “but I keep thinking of Merce.”

“Cunningham?”

“No, Mercy—our cat. Remember when he ran away, and it was a week before our neighbor found him under the—”

“Angela has not crawled off to die.” At least that’s what I said. But knowing Angela’s stubborn thoughtfulness, I wasn’t so sure.

My mother dropped me off in front of Independence Sweets so I could see if Kandelbaum had any news. She promised to smooth things over with Aunt Mary, but I wasn’t so sure she had control over that.

The place was swamped. A line snaked out the front door and onto the sidewalk, and the people waiting gave me evil looks as I pushed past. When he saw me through the kitchen window, Kandelbaum came out into the bakery to meet me. “Have you found her?”

I shook my head. “Just got here,” I said. Despite the uncertain circumstances, a sense of well-being washed through me. I was home. The bakery, with its close walls and enforced intimacy, seemed to smile in welcome. I wouldn’t have to stand around and make candy today. I was needed; movement was called for. I’d walk the city if I had to, but I’d find Angela and everything would be fine. Kandelbaum, on the other hand, shook like an alcoholic with the DTs. I sought to reassure him. “One night—not too long ago, as I recall—I came home to an empty apartment because she was missing—”

“Yes, when she was with me. This time she’s missing from the hospital. I waited there for a half hour thinking she was off getting some sort of test before a nurse came in to say she wasn’t there. She’d signed herself out, AMA.”

Against medical advice. Kandelbaum and I had learned all the lingo. “What’s the doctor’s main concern?”

“Another collapsed lung. She’s at high risk.” He waved his hands to indicate the crowd. “I can’t leave.”

“I’ll go now.”

“I’ve been at the hospital so much, I gave Pete the day off. My dishwasher hasn’t shown up yet. I’m afraid if I close the bakery I’ll lose it.” Kandelbaum’s heavy brows weighed on eyes already worried.

I gave him a quick hug, then brushed the flour off the front of my clothes. “I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

• • •

I found her on Market Street, some eight blocks from Presby. Curled up on top of her suitcase, out front of Thirtieth Street Station, she could have been taken for a homeless person.

I hugged her and kissed her. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I missed you.” Angela always knew how to take the bluster out of my sails.

“You scared Marty half to death, you know.” I hailed a cab and punched in the bakery number. “He went over to see you this morning.”

I told Kandelbaum she was okay and that we’d call him back once she got hooked up to some air. But he would not be appeased without hearing from Angela herself. I handed her the phone. “You’re going to get chewed out,” I said.

But she just listened for a moment, then said, “Let me rest up for today. I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I love you, too.”

• • •

“Now. What am I going to do with you?” I asked Angela once I got her attached to her oxygen and home IV back at the apartment.

“Why don’t you show me what’s in your hand?”

I’d grabbed the circus program and my parents’ wedding picture from my bedroom desk on the way out of the house and had been carrying them ever since my mother dropped me off. I sat down next to Angela on her bed and showed her the photo first. “This is—”

“Your father,” Angela said. “You look so much like him. Except one thing.” She reached over and touched my belly. “He knew how to smile from here.”

“Yeah, well.” I handed her the circus program. “Look at this.”

She set aside the picture while I struggled with the torrent of emotion any mention of my shortcomings always produced. But as she flipped through the circus program, one by one the pages again drew me in.

“Each body has its own beauty,” Angela said, affirming my five-year-old sensibility. “As if it had its own purpose.” We flipped through the book one more time, this time musing about ways each of the sideshow characters could be the hero of his or her own tale. Even as my best friend’s health waned beside me, I was reconnecting to an excitement and hope that felt an awful lot like life.

This time I would not let my father derail me. I rejected his message of shame. And when I did—for the first time—I could finally let myself feel his smile. It took seed within me, and I let its beauty spread through me until its warmth reached my face. Angela looked up suddenly and smiled back. For a long moment, we sat in happy comfort.

But the moment withered and passed. Angela shut the program and said, “I need a favor.”

Immediately I was aware of its importance. Angela didn’t ask, she gave. “Anything. You know that.”

“Take me home.”

“For Thanksgiving?”

Angela lay back onto her pile of pillows. “My mother’s team is on the verge of a breakthrough…gene transfer therapy…a cure is close…a breath away…if I can just hang on…”

Angela was quiet for a few moments—as quiet as she could be while breathing. She was sucking in and stowing away enough air to power her vocal cords. I recalled an earlier conversation:
When
those
final
hours
come, people want to go home.

“I need to get to her,” Angela said.

“Is that why you left the hospital?”

She nodded. “And once Marty catches on to why I’m asking, he’s not going to be able to do it.”

“I don’t have a driver’s license.” I hated to let her down at this stage of the game, but our options were limited. “We need Marty.”

She thought about this. “He’ll be able to do it if you’re there. You’ll keep his hands on the wheel.”

• • •

Later, after extracting a promise from Mrs. Pope that she would stay close, I walked to the bakery. The door was locked; it was after closing. I knocked. Kandelbaum’s teenage helper, Pete, looked up from his sweeping and let me in.

“He’s in the back, counting the drawer.”

I went into the kitchen. Kandelbaum had coins and paper money in tidy piles on the counter.

“Isn’t this the same counter you roll dough on? Money isn’t sanitary, you know.”

He finished counting a pile of quarters. “How is she?”

“Stubborn as all get out.” I pulled up a stool and tried to sound conversational. “She wants us to take her home. To Maryland, to be with her mother.”

He froze, a stack of dimes in one hand, a small sleeve of paper in the other. “Then the end is near. Angela and her mother must both suspect it. Dara told me she rarely leaves the lab these days.”

“You talk to Dara?”

“Of course,” he said, returning to his task of rolling coins. “She’s had me phoning her with reports on Angela’s condition.”

Apparently, Dara hadn’t trusted me enough to ask.

“So,” he continued. “Have you discovered an affinity for candy making?”

I laughed. The question was so ludicrous I couldn’t answer.

Kandelbaum walked to the back of the kitchen and into the walk-in. On the way back, he picked up a bagged loaf from a rack. “Have you eaten today?”

“Only a peach I nabbed from my mother’s kitchen counter. But no thanks, I don’t eat white bread.”

He took a serrated knife from a rack on the wall and sliced the loaf. His face grew peaceful. “Today you will.”

He opened the wine he’d pulled from the walk-in and poured a small amount into two coffee cups. My heart began to flutter. “You’re not going to make me pray, are you?”

He held up two slices of the bread. “Angela was dealt such meager physical resources in this life, not much more than flour and sugar and yeast. Yet she has created more of her life than anyone expected. In her honor, Penny. Please. Eat.”

He placed the bread in my hand. It still held some warmth at its center. I hadn’t noticed my hunger until I caught its scent, and once I had some in my mouth, I had trouble eating at a polite pace. When we finished our slices, Kandelbaum picked up the cups.

“Even as Angela grows weaker, her spirit gets stronger. She gives me hope. Please, Penny, let her give you hope as well. In gratitude that we were all brought together to know such love and friendship, drink.”

I took a mouthful and tried to believe something significant had happened. I tried to sense the bread nurturing my body, the wine infusing my soul. But it was all so invisible. It took such faith.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “This morning, when Angela was missing, you were shaking like a leaf. Now she gives you hope? What changed?”

“Now, we know where she is.” He stared for a moment into the bottom of his empty cup. “And hope feels better than despair.”