In Your Shoes

by Donna Gephart

  “Nope. No joke.”

  “Good, ’cause that stuff ain’t funny. Anyway, a guy can’t die from that.” Randall looked at Miles again. “But if it hurts bad enough, he might wish he could.” Randall laughed, but it turned into a cough.

  “It’s true,” Miles said. “I read about it last night. Dick Wertheim was hit—”

  “Wait up.” Randall, still cradling his bowling ball, pivoted. “What was this dude’s first name?”

  “Don’t be dumb. It’s short for Richard.”

  “Oh, yeah, I knew that.” Randall finally took his turn. Signature hop. Five pins clattered down in the quiet of the bowling center. “You distracted me on purpose, Spagoski!”

  “Did not,” Miles said, even though he had. “You’re just a lousy bowler, Rand. So anyway, this guy was hit by a tennis ball right in his, well, you know. Then he collapsed, hit his head on the ground and died. Died! It’s like you could die from anything at any time. We could die right now.” Miles felt that familiar racing heartbeat.

  He forced himself to get up and take his turn anyway.

  “We’re not going to die right now. And that guy definitely didn’t die from getting hit in the junk.”

  “Indirectly he did.”

  “No. He died from hitting his head on the ground.”

  Miles thought Randall would make an excellent lawyer someday. He was good at arguing. Or maybe he’d be an international business mogul. Randall made big bank buying and selling sneakers online.

  “Why do you keep talking about such weird things all the time?” Randall asked, approaching the lane for his turn. “I don’t think it’s good for you.”

  Miles shrugged. “Thought it was interesting. That’s all.” But the truth was, Miles wondered the same thing: Why did he think weird ways people died was fascinating?

  “You see that?” Randall screamed.

  Miles hadn’t seen.

  “Aw, man, you weren’t even looking. Why aren’t you ever looking when I bowl a strike?”

  “Sorry.” Miles didn’t tell his friend he was too busy thinking about death again to focus on his strike. Sometimes Miles wondered if maybe his obsession was keeping him from bowling a perfect game.

  Seriously, Miles thought. What is wrong with me?

  What is wrong with me? Amy Silverman wondered.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing her first-day-at-a-new-school outfit of a blue-and-white-striped sweater, jeans and her black-and-lime-green sneakers, one of which had a heel lift, Amy checked her phone for the millionth time. She hoped for another text from her dad. He’d already wished her luck the night before, but it wasn’t enough for Amy. She wanted him to be there with her.

  Even her best friend, Kat, hadn’t texted her yet this morning.

  How was Amy supposed to face this day all by herself? She didn’t even have her dog, Ernest, to keep her company and help her feel less nervous.

  Amy allowed herself to fall back onto the bed. But the quilt smelled moldy, like it had been sitting at the back of an old closet for a hundred dusty years, so Amy sat up again. Just then, her phone vibrated in her hand.

  Her heart thumped as she checked the new message.

  It was a photo of Ernest with their former neighbor, Pam. Ernest and Pam were wearing matching sunglasses. Pam was grinning. Ernest looked annoyed.

  The photo made Amy’s stomach clench. It wasn’t fair that Ernest was with Pam in Chicago while Amy was stuck in Borington—er, Buckington, Pennsylvania, without her dad. This wasn’t how the story of her life was supposed to unfold. In one chapter, she was happy with her family in their Chicago apartment, and in the next—everything fell apart.

  Every. Single. Thing.

  How would Amy ever get her old life back?

  She replied to Pam’s message with a smiley face emoji wearing sunglasses because it was the perfect response. But Amy wasn’t feeling smiley or cool like that emoji. She was angry and lonely and, if she was being completely honest, scared. What she really wanted to reply with was the poop emoji, because that’s exactly how her life felt right now. Like one big poop emoji.

  Amy fell backward onto the smelly bed again. She wondered what would happen if she stayed there and skipped her first day at the new school. Would anyone notice?

  “Breakfast!” Uncle Matt knocked on the bedroom door. “I made waffles today, Ames. Big first day at school and all.”

  Amy bolted up. She wasn’t getting out of this.

  “Blueberry waffles!” Uncle Matt yelled from the other side of the door, as though they were the most exciting thing since modern embalming techniques were invented.

  Amy’s dad had always made waffles for breakfast on big days, like the first day of summer vacation or when her mom got the job with the post office several years ago. Waffles were his specialty, especially blueberry ones.

  Everything felt wrong today.

  “Ames?”

  “Be there in a minute,” she managed to say.

  “Huh?” Uncle Matt knocked on the door again. “Can’t hear you, Ames.”

  Amy took a sharp breath. “Be right there!” Then she let all the air leak out of her, felt a hot tear snake down her right cheek and smooshed a thin, gray-covered pillow over her face.

  The pillow smelled like mold, too.

  As Miles and Randall walked toward the front counter, Grandpop Billy called, “How much did he hustle you for, kid?”

  Randall inhaled deeply, a soft wheeze rattling. “Ten bucks.”

  “Warned ya.”

  “You did,” Randall called. “See you later, Mr. Spagoski.”

  “Have a good day, Pop!” Miles called. “Hey, you need anything before we go?” Before he left the bowling center, Miles always made sure his grandfather had everything he needed. It wasn’t so easy for his grandpop to get around with the terrible thing that happened to his legs from the accident all those years ago.

  “Nah, I’m fine. Get to school, you hoodlums.”

  “Will do, Pop. See you later.”

  Miles placed his bowling bag behind the counter and squirted some disinfectant spray in Randall’s bowling shoes. He’d once read there are 250,000 sweat glands in a pair of feet, which is gross. Plus, his mom told him he had to spray every pair of shoes before they went back on the shelves, even his friends’ shoes. Especially friends’ shoes! Miles placed the giant pair of shoes on the shelf and grabbed his winter jacket and backpack.

  Then he looked at Grandpop Billy, bent over at his spot at the snack counter. Miles’s heart gave a tug. He touched the ten-dollar bills in his pocket and nodded. Miles had almost enough money for the big gift for his grandfather’s seventy-fifth birthday. It was going to be the trip of a lifetime for a guy who owns a bowling center—an all-expenses-paid vacation to the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame in Arlington, Texas.

  “Let’s go,” Randall said, walking backward toward the doors.

  The boys walked out into the blustery parking lot.

  “Hey, guys!” Miles’s dad, George Spagoski, called from the bright-orange Buckington Bowl van. The one with the giant fake bowling ball and pins on the roof. The one that looked like a fat pumpkin on wheels. Mr. Spagoski hopped out of the driver’s seat and turned his collar up to cover the back of his neck. His thick, chapped fingers were wrapped around a paper cup of coffee from Wawa.

  “Dad.” Miles nodded.

  “Mr. S,” Randall said, wiping his nose.

  “You guys heading to—?” Mr. Spagoski looked down and his shoulders sagged. “Miles, you forgot to change out of your bowling shoes.”

  Surprised, Miles looked at his feet. “Oh, man!” His sneakers were in his bowling bag, behind the counter. He’d never forgotten to change out of his shoes before. What had happened today? Was his mind too cluttered with worries?

 
; “You can’t wear those shoes back on the lanes,” Miles’s dad said. “The grit and dirt from the ground will scratch the wood.”

  “I know. I know.” Miles shifted his backpack onto his other shoulder. “I have another pair at home I can wear on the lanes. But these are my lucky shoes. I get better scores when I wear these.” Miles got a pang of sadness that he wouldn’t be able to wear his favorite bowling shoes again on the lanes, but then he remembered his score and that he won ten bucks from Randall. “Hey, Dad, I just bowled a one-eighty.”

  Miles’s dad gave him a fist bump. “That’s terrific.” He took a noisy slurp of coffee. “Inching closer to that perfect game.”

  “You know it,” Miles said. He looked down at his bowling shoes and felt that strange tingling sensation again.

  Randall nudged Miles with his shoulder. “Come on. We gotta go.”

  “Yeah. Later, Dad.”

  “Aren’t you going to change into sneakers now?” his dad asked.

  “Yeah,” Randall said. “Aren’t you?”

  Something inside Miles’s brain snapped like a rubber band. These were his lucky bowling shoes, but maybe they’d be lucky outside the lanes, too. It wasn’t like he could wear them on the lanes again anyway. Maybe, like a powerful talisman, they’d keep something horrible from happening to him. Maybe they’d be a lucky charm to help him get a girl to go to the dumb dance with him. “Nope,” Miles said. “I’m going to wear these today.”

  “To school?” his dad asked. Another noisy slurp of coffee. “You’re going to wear bowling shoes to school?”

  “I am.” Miles imagined some girl finding him interesting because of the shoes, and he got a dreamy look in his eyes.

  Randall looked horrified, or maybe his facial features had just frozen that way.

  “Suit yourself,” Miles’s dad said. “Just don’t wear ’em back on the lanes.”

  “I won’t.” Miles shifted his backpack again and shivered from the cold. “I don’t want to scratch the lanes. I’m not an idiot.”

  “No, you’re not.” His dad walked toward the doors of the bowling center, holding his coffee out in front of him. “But you’re weird. You know that. Right?”

  “You look like a dork with those shoes,” Randall said as they walked toward school. “More specifically, you’re going to look like a dork near me, which will make me look like a dork by association.”

  “Dork by Association? Sounds like the name of a band.” Miles reached up and hit Randall in the chest with the back of his gloved hand. “Believe me, you’re tall, dork and not handsome without my help.” Miles knew this wasn’t true. Randall was the Sultan of Style and wouldn’t be seen dead wearing bowling shoes outside of the lanes. “Besides,” Miles said, “I’m thinking these shoes might be a way to get a date for the dance.”

  Randall slowed for a second and then glared at Miles. “Explain.”

  Miles’s mouth wasn’t working so well because of the below-freezing temperatures, but he managed to say, “Some guys get tattoos. R-r-r-right? Some dye their hair purple. You know, like it’s their s-s-s-signature thing. It makes them quirky cool. My signature thing is going to be w-w-w-wearing bowling shoes. Perfect. Right? Why didn’t I think of this before?”

  “Because it’s dorky, Miles.” Randall wiped his nose with the back of his gloved hand. “Painfully, horribly, get-your-head-shoved-in-a-toilet dorky. My signature thing is wearing cool kicks, so I don’t want you messing up my vibe. It’s bad enough when you wear those ratty-looking, tired sneakers, but these shoes? Uh-uh. Don’t you know anything about style, Spagoski?”

  “You’re just jealous.” Miles’s feet were freezing inside the bowling shoes, but he didn’t mention it. “People will think I’m cooler than you for wearing something so different.”

  Randall turned and punched Miles in the shoulder.

  “What?” Miles asked.

  “You’re an idiot. And I don’t want people to see me with you if you’re going to wear those stupid bowling shoes to school. They’re fine on the lanes, but—”

  “Bowling. Shoes. Are. NOT. Stupid. You are!” Miles thought about his grandfather, who, Miles imagined, wished he could don a pair of bowling shoes, but that was pretty hard to do when you didn’t have the bottom parts of your legs. Miles’s whole body filled with rage at the unfairness of life. He faced Randall, planted his feet and looked down at his multicolored shoes with the thick white laces. “Bowling shoes are awesome!” Miles may have spit on Randall a little when he yelled. Then, poking Randall in the chest with a gloved finger, Miles delivered his final shot: “Tate McAllister will probably think they’re so hot she’ll want to make out with me.”

  “Excuse you? What’d you say?”

  “Thought you didn’t want to be late for school?”

  Randall shoved Miles hard with two flat palms against his chest.

  Miles stumbled backward. He planted his bowling shoes again, steadied himself and blinked, shocked that his best friend would do that. Then Miles wielded his words like weapons: “I said she’ll want to make—”

  Randall didn’t let Miles finish. He charged into him with all the force his skinny bag-o’-bones body could muster, searing anger sizzling through the frosty air between them.

  The two boys dropped like bowling pins at the masterful hand of the late bowling great Billy Hardwick.

  “Get off!” Miles screamed. “The grass is fr-fr-freezing my butt.”

  “Apologize!”

  “There’s people, Rand. Get off me!”

  “Apologize for what you said about…Tate.”

  “I didn’t say anything. Just that she’ll want to—”

  “Aaaahhhhhhh!” Randall had swiveled and grabbed for Miles’s feet. He pulled his own glove off with his teeth, then managed to untie and yank off Miles’s right bowling shoe. All the while, Miles pounded gloved fists on Randall’s back, screaming, “She’ll want to make out with me! She’ll want to make out with me! She’ll love my bowling shoes!”

  Randall rocketed up, holding Miles’s bowling shoe high, like a trophy. “Is this it?” He was panting and wheezing. “This what she’ll love so much?”

  “Give it!” Miles yelled, and leapt for the shoe. His socked foot froze instantly.

  Randall held the blue, red and vomit-beige* bowling shoe even higher, out of Miles’s reach. “Say you’re sorry.”

  A couple kids walked by, gawking at the odd duo.

  Miles hopped on the foot that still had a bowling shoe on it. “You’re a jerk!” he screamed once the kids had passed. “Give my shoe back before I—”

  “Say it, Miles, and I’ll give it back. Say it!”

  Miles screamed toward the sky: “Bowling shoes will definitely make Tate McAllister want to make out with me!”

  Snorting like a wild bull, Randall pulled his arm back and flung Miles’s bowling shoe upward with what seemed like superhuman strength. Then he took a couple squirts from his inhaler.

  The bowling shoe took flight as though it had wings. It made a poetic arc against the cloud-spattered sky.

  * Vomit-beige should be a new crayon color. Could you please work on that, Crayola?

  Bowling is all physics and energy distribution. It’s F = ma. So it is actually one of the most science-y sports, because it literally is just a ball and a surface and objects to knock down. —CHRIS HARDWICK

  If you know anything about Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion, and I’m sure you do, you realize one of two things happened next.

  Thing 1: Gravity did what it does best and exerted its force on the bowling shoe and pulled it to Earth. Thunk.

  No story.

  Thing 2: Something got in the way of the trajectory of the bowling shoe at the tail end of its wild arc and stopped its forward momentum. Blam! Thud.

  BIG story.

  Thing 2, of
course, is what happened.

  Something didn’t get in the way of Miles’s red, blue and vomit-beige bowling shoe. Someone got in the way.

  But it wasn’t her fault.

  (Even without getting all science-y, Isaac Newton could have figured that out.)

  Kerchunk!

  The heel of the shoe connected soundly with Amy Silverman’s forehead.

  Like universes colliding.

  Like two unrelated stories connecting.

  Like fate, forehead and flying footwear had come together in exactly the way they needed to.

  But for the moment and without the gift of insight, foresight and second sight, Amy was simply and significantly shocked. Why would someone do this to her? Especially on her first day at a new school? Weren’t things hard enough for her already?

  From the force of impact, Amy was thrown backward onto her bottom, legs straight out in front of her, hot tears stinging her nearly frozen eyes.

  There was a bowling shoe on the pavement near her.

  A bowling shoe?

  Amy felt a sudden, fierce longing. Surprisingly, it wasn’t for her mom, but for her dog Ernest, who surely would have protected her from the bizarre flying object. Ernest, who, Amy was positive, did not enjoy wearing silly sunglasses for stupid selfies. Ernest, who would leap into Amy’s lap and lick her face no matter what had happened. Ernest, who was the kindest, most loyal corgi ever to walk the Earth on four fine, furry paws. Ernest, who was unceremoniously given to their neighbor Pam before Amy and her dad moved 765 miles from Chicago, Illinois, to Buckington, Pennsylvania. Because, for Pete’s sake, you couldn’t possibly have a dog when you lived in a—

  “Hey!”

  Two boys ran toward Amy. Well, the tall one ran, and the other one, arms flailing, limped/hopped.

  Amy would notice that.

  Ignoring the throbbing in her forehead, Amy quickly tucked her right foot underneath her, hiding her black-and-lime-green sneaker with the two-centimeter heel lift. The extra rubber at the bottom of her right sneaker made her look weird, she knew, but she also knew those sneakers had been a gift from her mom—an expensive gift. She instantly hated herself for doing that and stuck her leg out in front again. Her mom wouldn’t have wanted her to hide that part of herself—her leg-length discrepancy, the reason she was slightly shorter on her right side.