Saving the Moon, Page 3

  “Did you watch THE LORD OF THE RINGS? I thought you hated geeky stuff like that.”

  “You think Tom would have let me escape from watching that? No way. Plus, I have a geeky side that I let out sometimes. When it’s appropriate.”

  “I kind of like having Hobbit feet,” I said.

  “Eww!” she said. “Hobbit feet are for hobbits. Not for humans.”

  I could tell she was staring at my feet some more. I crossed my toes over each other. I generally tried to cover up my feet as much as possible. I knew they looked strange, but I didn’t think some shaving and toenail polish would accomplish much.

  Sure enough, Holly noticed the same thing. “You know, you have huge feet for your height. I’m, what—six inches taller than you? And you and I actually wear the same size.”

  “Really?” I didn’t care.

  “I have dozens of shoes just your size at my apartment, and back at’s house. He never sent them to me. I think he was holding on to them for sentimental reasons.”

  That didn’t sound much like to me.

  “I could tell you how to sneak in the window.”

  “I am not going to your apartment and taking your shoes.” The thought was creepy. And besides, the police had probably not even started letting people into it. If they had, her parents would be cleaning stuff out. And that was not how I wanted to introduce myself to them for the first time since the wedding.

  “Look, I’ve got to go.” I put on the black casual flats.

  “Those are so ugly. They make you look even shorter, with even bigger feet.”

  It was now thirty minutes until the funeral. I had to get the baby to a sitter and drive to the church. I had to leave in five minutes.

  I didn’t hear from her again.

  I figured the baby scared her away.

  At the funeral, I walked in late and stepped in to hear my brother speaking. He was having a hard time with it, kept having to stop and take a breath so he could wipe away tears. And Holly had complained he wasn’t in touch with his emotions, or that he didn’t have any, like the rest of us.

  I was an idiot. I had forgotten to bring any tissue. I didn’t go to funerals a lot, and I didn’t usually cry at them. I had not expected to cry at this one. I had to run to the bathroom and get some toilet paper.

  I half expected Holly to drift in over my shoulder and make some comments about not brining tissue to a funeral. But she wasn’t there.

  She was probably watching the funeral, I thought.

  Or maybe she was just gone. Maybe once the funeral started, the ghosts had to go back to the body and wait to be buried and that was why she was so frantic about spending time with someone—anyone—who would listen to her. Even me.

  I went back and dabbed at my eyes with wadded up toilet paper until the funeral was over. I talked to a few of her old friends, who, it turned out, were not so very friendly with her anymore.

  There was a luncheon following the funeral, in the gym of the church. Hardwood floors covered in many layers of lacquer. Basketball hoops overhead, and lines painted for the pine wood derby beneath. Scratch marks that had been coated years back. Card tables covered with wooden circles and white lacey tablecloths. Funeral potatoes. Green Jell-O salad with carrot bits floating in the top, but thankfully, no cottage cheese. White rolls that could have been turned into balloons. And ham, lots of ham.

  I sat by Tom and we chatted about the weather, about his job, about my parents, who were out of the country and couldn’t make it in time. Then I got daring.

  “Did you and Holly ever talk about—people who came back to just hang out, you know, after they were dead?”

  Tom admitted that Holly had had a couple of friends who died, and who she thought hadn’t really gone away. “They were drug addicts mostly. Maybe they didn’t want to go to wherever they were permanently headed. Or maybe they just didn’t know where to go next. They were pretty mixed up.”

  I took a bite of funeral potatoes. I didn’t look him in the eye. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I think that Holly came and talked to me this morning. I have no idea why.”

  Tom took this pretty well. He didn’t shift away from me or lean in closer to see if my pupils were dilated from drug use. “Huh. Could be,” he said.

  “It was really weird. She kept giving me fashion advice. I think it was really her. Why would I tell myself how ugly my feet were?”

  Tom, wisely, did not comment on this. “Was she angry?” he asked.

  “Well, sort of pissed. But not at anyone in particular. Just at life in general. Kind of like she had PMS or something.”

  “Well, maybe death does that to you,” said Tom.

  I stared at him, trying to figure out if that was a joke or not. It was sometimes hard to tell in my family.

  “Look, she said something about shoes. She had a lot of shoes at your house that you never sent her. And she said they were all in my size.”

  Tom’s eyes went wide. “You want her shoes?”

  I felt like an idiot. “No, no. I’m just telling you what she told me.”

  “Seriously,” said Tom. “I need to get rid of her shoes. She left—like—a hundred pair of them. She would never come get them. I have them all boxed up in the basement. I feel bad just throwing them out, but I don’t know if anyone at goodwill wants shoes from a dead person.”

  “I’m sure they don’t care,” I said. “I bet they get lots of clothes and stuff from people who die. There’s nothing wrong with their stuff, just because they’re dead.”

  “It seems a shame, though. If I could get someone to come over to the house and take the shoes, it would make me feel better.”

  “All of them?” I didn’t know what I would do with a hundred pairs of shoes, but how could I refuse to do something to make him feel better at a time like this?

  “Take as many as you want. Like I said, I will probably just throw the rest away, eventually. When I can stand to do it.”

  “Why didn’t she just take them to her apartment with her? Why did she leave them with you?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was this sentimental thing with her. She’d bought those shoes in that house and she felt like they had to stay there. Or she wanted to have shoes there in case she ever came back to stay for the night. You know, like she was marking her territory, and as long as she kept the shoes there it was still her house.”

  “Even after the divorce?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “That was Holly for you. She had weird ideas about shoes.”

  “What about all the other shoes? The ones in her new apartment?”

  “Yeah, she had hundreds there, too. I think her mother is taking them. I don’t care. I don’t want to have any other stuff to deal with. I have enough.”

  I felt bad then, talking to him about shoes in the middle of his ex-wife’s funeral luncheon.

  “Promise me you’ll come with me right after to get the shoes?” he asked urgently.

  “OK,” I said.

  I thought he would forget about it. He had to go around talking to a bunch of other people, relatives that we only saw at funerals these days. Holly’s parents. Her mother draped over ’s shoulder and wept and hugged him a lot. Holly’s father hugged him a lot, too.

  Finally, the funeral potatoes had been eaten, the rolls had been smashed and the green Jell-O had gone down the sink. The tables were cleared, the tablecloths in the washing machine, and the big brooms were taking care of the basketball floor.

  I was ready to go. I’d stayed long past the hour I’d told the babysitter.

  I was about to leave when Tom caught me. “You’re coming to get those shoes, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” I said.

  “I’m sure. I do not want Holly’s shoes. We fought enough about them when she was alive. I swear, she had to have more shoes than she had all her other clothes put together. It was like she thought buying shoes would fill something inside her. She’d put a pair on and th
e world would be different.”

  “Was it?” I asked.

  “Maybe for a little while, but it never lasted. And she had to go buy more shoes.”

  “Uh—. Do you mind if I ask a personal question? Did you ever tell her she had ugly feet? Or big feet? Or say anything bad about her feet to give her some kind of phobia?”

  “Her feet? Why would I care about her feet? Feet are for walking. I didn’t even notice her feet.”

  Well, maybe that was the problem.

  I drove behind Tom back to his house. It was huge, twice as big as mine, and immaculate as when they had been married. I always thought she was the clean freak, but clearly it was not true.

  “Come down here,” he said.

  I went down to the basement with him. Sure enough, there was a room full of boxes and boxes of shoes, all thrown together haphazardly, some next to mates and some not.

  “Try them on. See which ones you want to take.”

  I put on a pair of sandals. They looked great. Also, they were comfortable.

  “How long ago did she buy these?” They looked very fashionable to my eye, but I guess my eye wasn’t very current.

  “A couple of years ago, but she never wore them much. She never wore any of her shoes much. They’re still practically brand new.”

  I tried on another pair, pumps. They fit perfectly. They looked great. With a little shaving of the top of my foot, I could even wear them without nylons.

  “Please, take as many as you can,” said Tom.

  “I’ll take them all,” I said in a burst of enthusiasm.

  “Are you sure? You’re not just going to take them to the dump, are you?”

  “No, I’m taking them home. I’ll put some in my closet and some in the basement. They’ll be like a shoe store that I don’t have to pay for, where everything is the right size.” I wouldn’t even have to hold a baby in one arm while I tried them on.

  Tom helped me put everything in the back of the minivan, but when I drove home, I had to leave the shoes out in the car while I dealt with kids.

  It wasn’t until after dinner and bedtime that I had a chance to go back and unload.

  And that was when Holly came back. I guess the funeral hadn’t dissipated her, after all.

  “I told you they were good shoes,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “I’m a nice person, you know. You always thought I was selfish, but I’m not. I never was.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Plus, it’s painful to think that my shoes are going to waste. You know, ghosts don’t have any use for shoes. I think that’s the worst thing about being dead.”

  “Well, I’ll take care good care of your shoes.”

  “Will you? I think that’s all I needed to know. Goodbye.”

  I never heard from her again after that. And it wasn’t until my first daughter got married that I had to go shopping for a pair of shoes that wasn’t in the basement.

  THE HAND-ME-DOWN BAG

  I came home from school to find a garbage bag on the front porch. I knew what was in it without having to open the knotted ties. The contents were soft enough that they didn’t poke out anywhere along the edge of the black plastic, but rather seemed to be trying to spread out as far as possible. It was the thing I hated most in the world. It was a bag of hand-me-down clothes.

  At eleven years old, I was horribly self-conscious about anything that I wore. At five foot five, I had bird-thin legs and arms, but a stomach that sagged in the middle and breasts that were an annoyance in everything. They were just too big. They’d grown quickly, over the last year, and I had stretch marks on the sides of my chest like my mom has on her stomach, from six pregnancies.

  I still remembered vividly how comfortable I used to feel in my ten year-old body. I remembered not noticing the clothes that I put on. I looked in my closet, took out a pair of pants and a shirt, and stuck out arms and legs to fill them out. There weren’t colors that didn’t match or styles that didn’t look good together, as far as I could tell.

  I tried to heft the bag inside, but it weighed sixty or seventy pounds. I couldn’t budge it, and the more I poked at it, the more unstable the contents became. If I made everything fall out onto the dirt, Mom would be really mad at me.

  She talked about last year in the same way that I felt about it. Last year, when Dad was still alive. When she didn’t have to work. When we only got a few hand-me-downs, offered one at a time from friends who offered something we’d said we’d liked. When we weren’t yet the neighborhood charity cases.

  What I wanted to do was dump the hand-me-downs into the garbage can wholesale. If only I could lift the whole thing in.

  I could wait until the younger kids got home from school and see if one of them could help me. But they were all short and the garbage can was nearly as tall as me. Plus they didn’t mind the hand-me-downs as much. They didn’t notice the long, lingering stares of the other girls at school, the ones who had anonymously given their clothes up for the sacrifice of the bag. The ones who would never say what they meant, but instead said things like:

  “Nice top, Cherry. Where’d you get it? Macy’s?”

  Or, “I had a top just like that. Last year.”

  Or, “You and I have such similar tastes. I’d pick that same outfit out, I think, if I hadn’t lost all that weight over the summer.”

  Or “My grandmother got me a dress like that like year for Christmas. I don’t think I ever wore it. Is that one from your grandmother, too?”

  I tried to wear things under sweaters, even if it was nearly summer, or with the jeans cut down to shorts or dyed a different color. It never seemed to work.

  I didn’t even know who to avoid when I walked into school in a particular outfit. It wasn’t like the hand-me-down bag came with a name on it.

  When Mom came into my room to look through my clothes, I was always trying to get her to take things out that had been particularly embarrassing to wear. “Please, those purple jeans from K-mart with the purple thread flowers embroiders up the sides. I hate those, Mom. I’m never going to wear them again.”

  But Mom held them up to my waist, tilted her head to the side. “They still fit you,” she said. “I’m not giving away clothes that still fit. You have to wear them out if you want to get rid of them, Cherry.”

  It was clearly not the rule that other parents used. Not one of the things in the hand-me-down bags were torn or ripped or dirty. Not even the panties or bras that sometimes came. Mom insisted I take the ones that were in my size, and she wouldn’t buy me new ones until I proved to her that I didn’t have any left in my drawer.

  I let them sit for weeks on end, washing my two other pair in the sink each night so that I always had a spare, just in case. Until the new ones gradually came to have my house smell and I put them on one leg first, one night. And then the other leg, without pulling them up. And then to the knees. And then all the way, but just for a minute. And then they were mine.

  If I put the whole bag in the garbage can right then, Mom would be sure to see it, though. I’d have better luck if I put in one item at a time, for weeks on end, and covered it with potato clippings and leaves from the garden. But first I had to make sure that the other kids didn’t find out about it.

  I pushed and pulled the bag into the front room. Then I punctured the plastic at the top and began to take things out, one at a time. I was thinking as I went. I could leave out all the things that were too small for me, that were for the younger kids. They wouldn’t care. I only had to make sure that there was nothing in the bag that was my size.

  A leotard and tutu would have been great for Ellie, who at seven wanted to have dancing lessons that Mom couldn’t afford. Now she could turn on the television and at least dance along to the lessons that you could get for free.

  A Sunday dress that would fit Tara at nine and make her happy to dance around, even if the skirt was rumpled and the lace a little worse for wear.
r />   Something rugged for Mark.

  Nothing for me.

  Nothing for me.

  I dug through the bag an item at a time, carefully taking it out and refolding it when I had examined it for size. I didn’t want Mom to yell at me for showing no respect or for ruining clothes that might otherwise have been usable.

  I came to the bottom of the bag and pulled out a pair of glass slippers.

  At first I thought they were cheap dress-up slippers they sell at toy stores these days, the ones made out of plastic that break the first time you try to do a pirouette in them. But then I lifted them out of the bag, pushed away the black plastic, and weighed them in my hand. They were real glass. They had the weight of glass and the look of it. You could see straight through from one end to the other, though it was a little distorted, like looking through several feet of water.

  They were pumps, covering the whole toe, with a modest heel in the back. And they were just my size.

  I laughed and put one on.

  I turned my foot this way and that.

  “Where would I ever wear them?” I asked out loud.

  If they were real glass slippers, they would be very fragile. Not to mention how uncomfortable. And you would always be worrying about them breaking and the shards of glass getting imbedded into the soles of your feet.

  But I put the other one on anyway. “This is ridiculous,” I said out loud.

  And I stood up.

  What did I need feet for, anyway? If I got cut with shards of glass, then I could stay home from school for a few weeks and get out of P.E., which I had always been bad at. It didn’t seem like such a loss until I considered how much a hospital visit like that would cost Mom. We didn’t have insurance and every time one of the kids got a sniffle Mom would start feeding them chicken soup and orange juice in hopes of staving off an expensive visit to the doctor.

  I stood up and tottered around the living room. The glass slippers were remarkably comfortable. I had been so sure they were made out of glass, but now they felt flexible, as if they moved with every step.

  I took a couple of dance steps from the waltz we’d learned in eighth grade. The glass slippers worked just fine.