Blue Shoe
Page 30
Mattie greeted everyone, then walked across the sand calling for Harry and Ella above the roaring surf and the cries of the gulls. The kids had wandered far down the beach, and were tossing sticks into the waves. Ella’s hair had come out of its clips, and her dress was falling off her shoulders. She looked like Courtney Love. Harry had gotten soot from a campfire all over his shirt. Mattie wanted to scoop them both up, hold them and smell their necks.
She had never imagined she could love anyone the way she loved her children. Elation and the cold air off the ocean filled her chest. “Come back to the party soon,” she called, as a sudden wave sloshed over Ella’s party shoes.
Mattie covered her eyes. It was so hopeless. All she’d asked was for them to stay presentable for a couple of hours, and here they were, wet and covered with ashes and bits of seaweed. Mattie shook her head. She walked quickly to Ella’s side. “We’ll put your socks in the dryer, darling.” She held her, and looked out at the water. She thought of Daniel, and felt she had never been so happy. So why in the next moment did she see herself filling her pockets with rocks and walking into the waves like Virginia Woolf? She must have a screw loose somewhere. Oh, well. She breathed in her daughter’s sweet, salty smells.
Ella wiggled out of her arms. “I want to go back to the water,” she cried.
“Okay, sugarpie,” Mattie said. Ella ran back to the shore. Harry waved to Mattie. She waved back, watched them for a minute more, and then turned back to the party.
She was still far from the tables when she saw Isa, Lewis, and Yvonne step onto the sand. Someone must have escorted them to the patio. They were walking on their own toward the tables, two walkers parked on the deck.
Mattie tried to signal to Daniel, but he was busy talking to Ned. Isa, Lewis, and Yvonne, all dressed to the nines, limped and sagged along slowly. They were clutching one another, taking huge steps over tiny mounds of sand, preparing to step over pieces of driftwood. Please don’t let them fall, Mattie prayed, even as she tried to keep from laughing. They looked like marionettes with strings of different lengths for each limb, or martians just now arriving on these shores, learning to use human feet for the first time.
Mattie began to move toward her mother, slowly, as when her children had taken their first steps and she had been across the room, too far to help before they fell.
But Lewis and Yvonne held Isa up, and Mattie understood with a rush of admiration that Isa had always kept moving forward, one foot at a time, no matter how hard it was, no matter how the sand shifted beneath her.
She looked up and saw Al approaching them from the patio. They smiled at each other, both walking as quickly as they could. Al wore one of his father’s old corduroy jackets with suede elbow patches, and a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck. They got to Isa and her companions at the same time. They steadied Lewis, who steadied Yvonne, who propped Isa up.
The wind was howling, blowing sand around. Bright flags snapped in the breeze. It was so cold: people’s skin would turn purple and they’d look awful in the photographs. But once Isa, Lewis, and Yvonne were safely seated, and a stream of people came to hug Mattie, everyone seemed suspiciously happy. Mattie half believed that in spite of mishaps and confusion and wind, the other stuff, the love, would overcome.
Katherine, in a white lace dress and flowing rose scarf, had brought bubbles for the guests, and gave them out, to blow whenever the spirit moved them. And Angela had brought plastic leis: purple, pink, red, white, yellow, wacky and gloriously tasteless, like paper party hats. The children returned from the beach, hungry and dirty and petulant. Al got Harry to help with the shish kebabs.
Ella, overcome by the noise and windiness, began to cry, and when all else failed—hugs, and compliments, and chocolate—Mattie took a long, deep breath and gave her the little blue shoe to hold. “This helps me get through everything,” she whispered, and Ella’s eyes widened as she beheld the treasure in her hand as if it were a sapphire. She curled her fingers around it with determination, and put it in her cocktail purse along with her other valuables.
“Go sit with Isa now,” Mattie told her, and Ella kicked a long, serpentine path through the sand to the tables. Isa sat regally at her table, wearing the elegant silk dress Mattie had helped her pick out. She had on so much makeup that even from a distance she looked like embalmed royalty.
The winds blew harder, but minutes before lunch was ready, they parted. Calm split them down the middle, pushed them apart like a muscleman. When guests reached the tables with their food, they stepped onto a balmy beach.
Lewis said grace for everyone. Mattie looked off at the blue-green sea as he spoke, thinking about her father. In her mind, he was chagrined, so far away, alone. She turned away from him, sick with memories of Abby at ten in the yard at Neil’s, Abby bloated now in the little house on stilts. Actions had consequences, Alfred used to tell his children. Boy, did they ever. “Amen,” Lewis said. “Amen,” everyone chorused. And then they all began blowing bubbles at one another.
The cascade of iridescence blew like musical notes of light; everyone was breathing out good wishes, frivolous and loving, evanescent and silly. Mattie and Daniel kissed. Angela threw herself into Mattie’s arms. Ella rushed up, her purse hanging open, its contents dumped into the sand of the windswept beach, trampled over now by the guests.
“My little blue shoe,” Mattie finally managed to cry in a mottled voice, just as Ella burst into tears with much louder despair: “My lip gloss! My art medal!” Angela bent down to console her, and they took off hand in hand to search the beach. Daniel nudged Mattie with a questioning look, and Mattie whispered, “She’s lost the little blue shoe.” Daniel turned toward the beach, the sand and dune grass between here and there, turned back to Mattie and shook his head. He took her hand and kissed it.
The weather shifted again. It was going to rain. Rain, on her birthday—all because Ella had lost the little blue shoe! Help me, Mattie prayed, I’m cuckoo. Help me, please, thank you, please, help me, thank you. Slanted rays shone through a darkening swirl in the sky, rococo castles and feathers and mare’s tails in the clouds. Someone was pulling out all the celestial stops. It was so beautiful that Mattie could hardly bear it. She and Daniel walked past the table where Al sat with Katherine. Harry came and tugged on Al’s sleeve. “How soon till you can play?” he demanded. Al smiled, and asked him softly, “Did you bring a ball?” And when Harry nodded, Al promised to meet him a little later down the beach.
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