The Ruby Slippers (38 page)

‘Yes. My father died.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘No, please, I’m over it now. To tell the truth, Michael, we had our differences. But somehow it all came to me.’

‘Good,’ says Michael. ‘These shoes were very special for me. I told you that much already.’

‘You surely did. To tell you the truth, I envy you having such rich experiences to draw on.’

‘Rich? Believe me, you don’t. Memories like mine, they haunt you all your life, and if anything they squeeze you harder over time. Look what it brought me to . . .’ He gestures vaguely at the shelves so that James is not entirely sure what Michael Marcinkus has been brought to, or how the acquisition of a million dollars might have made him suffer. Michael shrugs and drains his cup. ‘But all that is over now.’

‘So you decided to keep the place and stay on. I always thought that was on the cards.’

‘Stay on?’ exclaims Michael dramatically. ‘God no, I got out. Look at me; what would I be doing in a suit? I don’t work here no more, I just come here for coffee now and again. We sold out!’ And he looks over and waves to bring the smart young man up to them: ‘This is Marty – Marty Trabatore,’ he explains. ‘Marty, this is James and . . . and . . .’

And so Michael introduces James and the girl whose name he cannot grasp to the mystery man and explains how he and Grace had finally decided to throw in the towel on the business before it killed them both. ‘Marty here is twice the businessman I ever was,’ he points out generously. ‘Money comes to him. My first partner was an Italian, did you know that? But the best thing about it, Marty loves the Sunrise just the way it is.’

‘Ah,’ says James, smiling approvingly at Marty, who takes his cue to wax Italian: ‘I love the Sunrise; it is wonderful, a pleasure,’ he enthuses, his accent thickening with his passion. ‘How often you see a place so delightful, so traditional as this?’

‘That’s right,’ says Michael, taking up the baton. ‘Anyways, the deal is Marty takes on the business – for a consideration – so that it’s his, all his, only he agrees to keep it exactly like it is, down to the last detail.’

‘Down to the last detail,’ echoes Marty with a flourish and, seeing a customer arriving at the counter, he bowls away.

‘Terrific,’ says James, smiling. ‘Pretty neat, eh?’ adds Michael. ‘That’s why we came over, me and Jenny – wherever she is – to show him the ropes, if you know what I mean.’

‘Listen,’ says James, ‘we have to go soon, but I thought I should come over and drop these off with you.’

‘Sorry?’ says Michael.

Siobhan looks up, equally startled, as James continues, matter-of-fact: ‘It’s my decision. I want you to have them.’

‘What? You can’t do that. What would I do with them?’

‘What you always wanted to do: put them in a case.’

‘You don’t understand. I let go of all that – and them. Sometimes you have to with dreams – let them go.’

‘I think so, too,’ says James. ‘But out of interest, what
would
you do with them?’

‘Well, if you have something good, it should go to the good.’

James takes Siobhan’s hand in his and squeezes it: ‘Anyway, please. Take them. They are yours – more than they really ever were mine. I can see they still mean a lot to you. Take it from me, these shoes are no longer worth anything like they were.’

‘James!’ Michael protests, troubled still. ‘Truly. I wouldn’t know what to do with them, not any more.’

‘You could do whatever you like; you could throw them off the Empire State, or you could just you keep them somewhere. But I happen to think they would be better in your hands.’

The old man looks helplessly at Siobhan, who suggests, tongue in cheek: ‘You could always float them down the river and let them go where they go.’

‘Yeah, or tie them to a helium balloon and let them just fly away,’ suggests James, also trying to keep things light.

‘That is strange,’ perks up Michael after a solemn pause. ‘At one time I had thought that way myself – to take them to the East River and cut them loose. It would be madness, of course, and they would sink in seconds flat, and I would never really do it, but it’s how I see it in my mind’s eye – to just cast them off and so they would float away on the current, bobbing up and down like so, until they came at last to the right deserving person.’

This seems to strike a chord with all three of them: Michael, James and Siobhan, standing there looking at a pair of shoes in a box, marvelling into the luminous expanse that Michael has imagined for them, and visualizing the ruby slippers, gliding and swirling, now apart, now together, waltzing on the waters until they are lost in the mist.

‘So what’s going on here!’ A sharp voice rings out, startling them from their communal daydream. Jenny is standing there, looking them all up and down, more disdainful than puzzled. ‘So who’s all this standing here dreamin’?’ But now her gaze switches from the newcomers to the slippers, her mouth turned down in distaste: ‘And how in hell’s name did
they
get here?’ Michael looks up, smiling: so much like no-nonsense Jenny to be the party-pooper.

‘Jenny, allow me to introduce my friends,’ he says. But still she keeps her distance.

‘No, no, no,’ she says. ‘First put
them
out of my sight.’ Michael, James and Siobhan turn their backs to the counter, shielding the ruby slippers from Jenny’s fiery gaze. ‘I don’t never wanna set eyes on them objects no more,’ she says, then, realizing she has gone a little OTT, she adds, ‘Sorry.’

Michael introduces Jenny to father and daughter, clumsily rehashing the tale of Chinese oranges and chewing gum, which leaves Jenny totally mystified. And it is while he is relating this that Siobhan hears something, glances behind her and gasps. Side by side on the floor are the ruby slippers, left and right. And Sylvie, who must somehow have slid the box down while no one was looking, has, with great concentration, slipped a little foot into one of them and is steadying herself against the counter in order to insert the other. ‘Sylvie!’ rasps Jenny, mortified. ‘Someone get a picture of this,’ says James, entranced. ‘Beautiful, kiddo,’ says the proud grandfather. And even Jenny is silenced then, because her lovely daughter looks up at the audience in raptures. Her head is high, her eyes are shining and a perfect smile is on her face.

Siobhan has it all in a flash: ‘Oh, sweetie, you
shall
go to the ball!’

I
T
is odd how nobody really thought of the little girl before when they were considering what to do with the slippers. For who other than a child could hope to love the shoes so fully, or be so absolute in their desire for them, or gain so much pleasure from holding the things they have longed to hold? Sylvie had always been in the story in one way or another, starting with all the times her momma brought her to the Sunrise. Indeed, it had become a second home for her, a comforting and familiar place.

She loved to go and stand on the big green thing they called the ‘way-in machine’. Even though she didn’t know what it did, it was such fun to jump up and down on the bouncy platform and see the needle leaping wildly every time. And then there was the fierce hiss and gurgle of the coffee machine that was like her mother somehow – the angry flush of steam and the delicious smell together. It thrilled her to hear the ring of the bell when the door opened, looking up eagerly to see the next customer walk in with the light. And always she copied down inside her mind the face that was on the person, staring hard at them from her safe place. And she learned their expressions and practised them, making her face fit to theirs, so she might try out what it was like to be them and they would never know.

And she loved the little surprises. Grampa was always feeding her scraps and goodies, though Mommy hated that and called it ‘cupboard love’, whatever that was, and scolded him he should know better. And when her mommy left her sitting in her little corner while she went off to do things, she let her mind wander and be sucked away into the tastes and the smells, and the colours and the sounds – like the meat slicer swishing fast, then swooping and falling heavy, when Grampa pushed the wodge of meat into it, with the skiddy ringing sound of it and the slices peeling off and the smell of meat creeping sour and sweet like sick, along the gloomy rows.

And Benjy suddenly jumping out in front of her, making her squeal with joy because he pretended to make eggs come out of her ears, and pulled faces and sang to her and chased her around the shop, Grampa laughing behind and for once not being horrible to him at all. So, she got all wild and excited and then went giddy and fell down, back into her quiet space and lost herself again. She made up stories for herself, trailing her hand among the bumps and swirls in the shiny wood floor – stories with different fairies living on different shelves; bright shiny fairies and dark dusty fairies, squidgy jelly ones and hard glassy ones. They flitted across the tip-tops, where only she could see them, and hid behind the cans and cartons, and once a teeny-weeny white pony slipped around the stands only a swishy tail ahead of her.

Benjy rolled his eyes and did a silly dance, crossing his eyes and swinging his arms across like a monkey and popped up and down at the same time, and she screamed out laughing. She did colouring-in when Mommy said to settle down. Mommy always gave her another colouring book for finishing the last colouring book, and sometimes little toys, but she only wanted sweeties. Grampa gave her sweeties without her doing anything, and they tasted so good, and even Grandma slipped her a chocolate candy now and then from her hidey place, but then Mommy said it was ‘wrong and terrible giving candy to the kiddie like that’. But how could it be terrible, because it always tasted so sweet the whole world vanished until she chewed it to nothing? Her mommy never gave her sweeties, only another colouring book or puzzle book, and once a round thing called a yoyo which she couldn’t do, although her mommy showed her how, and tied it on her finger and made her throw it down over and over till her finger was sore. It never whooshed the way it should, and in the end she got so mad she wiggled it off her finger and threw it on the floor, and her momma was mad and ‘told her a thing or two’, so she went into a sulk. But it always came out like her mommy said – she couldn’t sulk for ever and sooner or later someone like Grampa did make her laugh, tickling her or making faces, and that was so delicious, even though she tried hard not to, because it made everybody smile and laugh as well, to see her go from down-face to up-face and not sulk no more.

At other times she was left with no one to make her laugh, so she just got bored and sat down and stuck out her legs and sucked her thumb, and her mind went away into the smell of warm bread and salami and olives and went into a dream of being in a sailboat, with birds that could change their wings for legs and their beaks for mouths and say things just like real people, like, ‘Ain’t that the cat’s pyjamas.’

Among all the days at the deli, the day she remembers best of all was when all the people were waving little green flags and being so friendly. She was at the front when Barrell went by the steamy window, then the old woman. It was like a cloud going over the sun. Grampa went out and stood and stared at her to make her go away, and the stinky old woman turned with her face yellow like cheese with eyes in it, black like the black round things ‘groan-ups’ eat, and just for a moment she stared right into her and opened a special secret face just for her. She remembered it, and it stayed inside her, and she saw it again in dreams and when she thought of things that were strange about the world.

Then there was the time Grandma came over to stay the night and she came down the stairs grizzling; she was so tired but couldn’t sleep, and Momma and Grandma were watching a movie that was all dark and shiny and fuzzy at the same time, with a man and a lady staring into their eyes and hers all sparkling and his hat pulled down. Mommy and Grandma had tears in their eyes, too. She squished in between them on the couch and got drowsy and nearly fell off to sleep, but jumped awake again when the music got loud at the end of the movie. The story ended when the man, who was good because he smiled when he wasn’t being sad, shot with his gun another man who was bad – he never smiled and was mean to people. Then the beautiful lady went away in a silver airplane going up in the sky. And when Momma got up to make some tea she pretended to be asleep so they wouldn’t send her straight to bed, and instead they let her stay there squidged between them. She heard them talking all quiet about ‘damn fool slippers’ and ‘damn fool Poppa’ and she didn’t really know what they were talking about, but she did wonder why they were making such a worry over Grampa’s slippers.

The next day they brought Grandma Grace back to the Sunrise in a taxi. Grampa was there but Mommy said he didn’t look right – he was all tired and mumbling and being like he didn’t belong to them. She was waiting for him to pick her up and hold her up to the ceiling like a plane flying and say, ‘Look what the wind blew in,’ like he always did, but instead he just looked old and tired and wiggled his fingers in her hair, not looking in her face, and then walked away and said nothing, wiping his hands. But then later he took her out to the alley and showed her the house they had made for Barrell the dog, and Barrell was at home in his house and Grampa said he had a TV in there. Then later she saw the squashed goldy box thing lying on the floor by the ice room. She bent down to pick it up and gave it to him, but Grampa snatched it away and she cried – not because he took it from her but because he was scary like he never was before. And then she cried again, and louder this time, because she saw her knee was cut on a tiny piece of glass. Mommy came running and was angry at her for not looking down first, but she was even angrier at Grampa. He said it was a ‘little accident with the mop’, but Momma just looked at him sideways, like she knew something was wrong.

She was there when Grampa and Grandma came round and all the family was there waiting and they pushed the tables together and ate dinner round the great big table and everyone chewed and chewed and said nothing, which was really strange because it was her who only said nothing all the days. And then they had apple pie and ice cream, but the ‘groan-ups’ made that go down so fast and then her daddy and Uncle Dan and Uncle Maurice suddenly shouted out, ‘Go play, kids. Go do things. Watch TV.’ And every time she came back they kept saying, ‘Go in the back room and play with your cousins.’ She went over to her mommy, but she just told her do what her daddy said (she never said that ever before). So she went over to Grampa, who looked just like a little boy staring at his feet. Then, after, she went and peeped around the door and saw all the ‘groan-ups’ staring at Grampa with angry eyes and red faces, like he should go stand in the corner.