Serendipity's Footsteps

by Suzanne Nelson

  Ray thought about denying it, but there was no point. She did have a Juilliard catalog. She liked to take it with her when she went down to the lake to play her guitar. Of course, it was a joke, her going to Juilliard. She probably wouldn’t even graduate with the rest of the senior class next week. (Her grades were dismal, and she was pretty sure she was flat-out failing English. Mr. Jarvis hated her so much, there was no chance of that grade changing.) Still, it wasn’t so bad to have something like Juilliard to cling to when the rest of life was a crapfest. It was a hallucination, sure, but she’d take it over reality any day. Besides, Juilliard might be impossible, but New York wasn’t. It was the perfect hiding place…the perfect place for someone to get lost forever. And after what had happened tonight, she needed that.

  “What do you care about New York, anyway?” Ray said.

  “I need to get Mama’s shoes back.” Chopine pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket. Ray snatched it impatiently, flipped on Mrs. Danvers’s desk light, and stared at the picture of a huge tree with hundreds of shoes hanging from its branches. “Tree of Lost Soles,” the headline to the article read.

  Pinny stabbed a finger at the page, making the red patent-leather Mary Janes strung around her neck swing wildly. Faded and tattered, one missing a heel, they were a sorry-looking pair. But for the eight years Ray and Chopine had lived together at Smokebush Children’s Home, Ray had never seen Pinny without her red-shoe necklace, bulky and awkward as it was. Mrs. Danvers had tried to convince Pinny to take it off for school, at least, but Pinny wouldn’t budge.

  Ray looked at the page, where Pinny had drawn a circle in red crayon around a pair of silver stilettos. “Those were Mama’s,” Pinny said. “She needs them back.”

  “Pinny, your mom is…” “Gone” was the kinder version. “Dead” was probably the real one, although Ray didn’t know for sure. Once, when she’d been rifling through Mrs. Danvers’s office, she’d come across Pinny’s records and the “whereabouts unknown” line beside her mother’s name. Not even Mrs. Danvers had the heart to tell Pinny the truth about the odds of her mom still being out there. What was the point?

  “My mama needs her shoes,” Pinny said with finality.

  “Well, you’re not coming with me to find them.” Ray stepped toward the door, but Pinny moved to block her.

  Sweat beaded on Ray’s neck, her heart tapping manic sixteenth notes. She didn’t want to do it, but she had to, for Pinny’s own good. She shoved Pinny out of the way and lunged for the door, yanking it open and slamming it shut in one fluid motion. Then, pulling hard on the knob to keep the door shut, she used her other hand to slip the key into the lock.

  She let go just as Pinny began jiggling the knob from the inside.

  “No fair!” Pinny cried. “You can’t lock me in!”

  “Bye, Pinny,” Ray whispered, laying the key on the floor in the middle of the hallway. “Somebody will come for you soon. I’ll send you a postcard, okay?”

  “Don’t! I won’t be here to get it.” There was banging from behind the door, probably from her kicking it. “You’ll change your mind. You need me. You’ll see.”

  But Ray was already running down the hallway and out the front door. She made one quick stop at the garden shed to grab the old pup tent and sleeping bag Mrs. Danvers kept from her “wanderer phase,” as she put it. Ray didn’t know how far she could get on the petty cash, so she figured the camping gear might come in handy, especially if she had to stay below the radar. She tied everything haphazardly to her duffel, then jumped the creek and headed for the tree line. Even with only moonlight as her guide, she wove through the bald cypress and pine trees as easily as if it were day. Her body had a built-in compass that had always pointed her toward safety, those hiding places where she could fade to invisible before anyone had even started looking for her.

  As she ran, the piercing pain in her feet brought her back in time. Back eight years, to a time before Smokebush, to a time when she was bounced from one foster family to another. Back to when she discovered that this strange, elusive “family” was something that would only ever belong to other kids, never to her. Back to when she’d first learned to run. Back to when her feet had been bullets firing through the grass, to when she felt the exhilaration of her feet pounding the earth. Back to a time before the pain began…

  —

  She’d always been a “runner.” That’s what her caseworker had called her in the conversations with foster parents that Ray wasn’t supposed to hear. Ray listened, though, her ear pressed against the door, the wall, or the window. She found ways. Her ears were buckets, collecting the words the caseworker dropped so carelessly. “Challenging,” “aggressive,” and “intelligent” were the words she used the most. And “runner.” That one was Ray’s favorite; it was the one that made the couples go pasty. It pleased her that she had that effect on grown-ups, that she could scare the polite smiles right off their faces. She ran from the moment she could walk—year after year, family after family. She ran, because that was the one thing she was good at, the one thing people could count on her for, and if there was one thing people did love about her, it was her ability to know when she wasn’t wanted anymore.

  That wasn’t the only way she scared them, either. All those wannabe mothers who thought that she’d be different for them, that she’d fall in love with them and transform into the daughter of their dreams. What they didn’t know was that Ray could vanish clear into thin air. When she put on her pink Converse sneakers, her feet grew wings. Sure, the shoes were ninety-nine-cent Goodwill specials, but it didn’t matter. They were magic, and they never let her down. In the time it took those mothers to reach for a box of cereal in the grocery aisle, or pull out their sunglasses from their purse at the park, Ray would be gone.

  Her shoes didn’t make a whisper when she moved. She could sit for hours tucked comfortably under a rack of clothes in Sears, or hidden behind the packs of paper towels on a shelf in aisle 9. Oh, they always found her eventually, the cops or the caseworker. But the mothers’ smiles were gone when Ray resurfaced. Instead, there was a tight-lipped resentment, as if Ray had ruined their picture of a perfect little girl.

  The last time Ray had run, she’d been nine and it wasn’t for fun. It was for survival. When Ray looked back on that day now, she could see how it had happened. Bearded Bridgette had wanted to teach her a lesson. It might have been because Ray made Bridgette look like she couldn’t do her job. Caseworkers were supposed to find suitable homes for foster kids, and so far every one had ended in disaster. Or it might have been because Ray nicknamed her Bearded Bridgette because of the dark fringe of hair stubbling her chin. Whatever the reason, Bridgette had grown tired of Ray’s disappearing act. That was when she gave Ray to Sal and Hugh.

  They seemed nice enough at the start. Sal, in her cardigan and glossy lipstick, had oozed cuddles and enthusiasm in her first meeting with Ray. Hugh had smiled broadly, too, and even brought her a used guitar, saying that he’d heard she loved music.

  But then they took Ray home, and Sal’s cardigan, along with the woman she was while wearing it, disappeared. Hugh worked on an oil rig in the Gulf, so he was gone for months at a time. On the good days, Sal spent her time on the couch watching TV. When Ray walked in from school, Sal glanced up, surprised, as if she’d completely forgotten about her. But there was usually some sort of microwavable meal in the freezer, or at least a can of Chef Boyardee, and Ray was glad for that. Because then there were the bad days, right after the stipend check came in the mail and Sal got her hands on the meth.

  Those were the days when Ray ran. She waited for the signs. Sal snapping at her for scrounging in the kitchen for food scraps, or yanking her hair for spilling a cup of water. When Sal got dangerous, Ray hid. She slept with her sneakers on so she’d be ready. Then, when Sal came for her, eyes wild, Ray would skim past her and out the screen door, running through the cornfield out back. Running, running, running in those pink Converse sneakers until she got to
the cemetery.

  It was her favorite place in the whole world. It was filled with overgrown graves where bluebonnets flowered by the hundreds. A small chapel rose from the center of the graveyard, the color of a ripe apricot in sunshine. Ray didn’t put much credence in God, but she figured if he were around, he sure would appreciate that color. It was like a beacon to heaven, if there was a heaven. And if there was a heaven, then it would stand to reason that her parents might be in it. Maybe if they looked down, they’d see her huddled up next to that apricot church. It was so bright it’d be hard to miss, even from way up there.

  Some people would’ve been skittish about spending night after night among tombstones. Not her. Dead people weren’t nearly as scary as live ones.

  Ray usually got her timing perfect. She would wait it out in the cemetery for a day or so, then she’d ease back toward the house. She’d walk in and find Sal worried and tearful. Sal would scoop her into a hug, apologizing over and over again.

  But the one day that started all the pain, her timing was off. She came back to the house to find Sal crazed and screaming. She tried to run, but Sal slammed her against the wall. It seemed like her head split right down the center, and then everything went black.

  When she woke up, the room was dark except for the flames leaping from the kitchen sink. She struggled to stand, but her legs collapsed under her. That was when she realized she was barefoot.

  She crawled toward the kitchen sink and saw them crackling with fire. Her pink Converse sneakers crumbling to ash before her eyes.

  On her hands and knees, Ray scrambled out the front door as the flames spread to the curtains and cabinets. Through blurred vision, she saw Sal sprawled on the porch, passed out probably, but Ray still steered clear of her. She stood, but the world spun wildly and she lost her balance, toppling the trash cans full of beer bottles off the porch and onto the gravel road. When she leapt off the porch, a thousand shards of glass sliced into her bare skin. But Ray didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow. Not for a second. Her feet were slick and shredded, but she pushed on through the cornfield, forcing them to move against their will.

  When Bridgette and the police found her the next morning, she was sleeping on a rotting pew inside the apricot chapel, surrounded by a trail of bloody footprints. Bridgette didn’t take her back to Sal and Hugh’s this time. There was no lecture about being cooperative. Instead, Bridgette climbed into the back of the ambulance.

  On the ride to the hospital, Bridgette laid something on the gurney beside her. “Here,” she said stiffly. “I got this out of the house for you.” Ray opened her eyes long enough to see the guitar that Hugh had given her. Ray figured it was Bridgette’s way of apologizing, but she didn’t say thank you. She wrapped her fingers around the guitar’s neck, and every time she thought she’d scream from the pain, she squeezed her guitar instead.

  It took weeks for her feet to heal. When they did, the scars stayed behind as jagged, puffed flesh crisscrossing her soles. The pain stayed, too. Not as bad, but still there, pounding out its ruthless pulse every second of every day.

  When Bridgette dropped Ray and her tender bare feet off at Smokebush Children’s Home, Mrs. Danvers frowned.

  “She hasn’t worn shoes since the incident,” Bridgette explained to Mrs. Danvers’s chipmunk-cheeked face.

  “That won’t do.” Mrs. Danvers shook her head until the skin under her chin wagged back and forth. “You’ll need shoes for school.”

  Ray nearly laughed at the mention of school, knowing she’d skip every chance she got. But she figured she better play along, at least for now. After all, Bridgette had already told her that Smokebush was her last option.

  Mrs. Danvers led her down the hallways of threadbare carpet and puce walls to a box of hand-me-downs.

  “These look about your size.” She offered her a pair of faded gray Reeboks.

  Ray was gingerly shifting her weight from one foot to the other, a habit she’d gotten into, trying to make the needles shooting up her soles retreat. She thought about the only pretty thing she’d ever had besides her guitar, the only pair of shoes she’d ever loved. It wasn’t natural for her to ask anyone for anything, to let anyone see her want. Wanting led to hoping, hoping led to trusting, trusting to loving…it was all too dangerous. But she missed her running wings.

  So she took a chance and asked, “Do you have any pink shoes?”

  “I’m sorry, darlin’. This is all we have.” Mrs. Danvers held out the ugly sneakers, gently cupping her hand under Ray’s chin.

  Ray snatched the shoes and jerked away, biting her quivering lip. No one was ever going to see Ray Langston cry.

  She waited for Mrs. Danvers to go pasty like those foster moms, but she didn’t. She straightened, saying, “I bet Pinny could work wonders with those shoes. It’s a special talent of hers, giving shoes makeovers.” She turned down the hallway. “I’ll take you to her.”

  Ray knew better than to have expectations about the girl called Pinny. There wasn’t much point holding people to expectations when everyone failed them from the get-go. But even without expectations, the round teenage girl that Mrs. Danvers brought Ray to in the rec room surprised her. She sat at a folding table hunched over a mound of glitter, her fingers fluttering above the pile. Her lime-green glasses teetered on the tip of her nose, threatening to drop.

  “Pinny,” Mrs. Danvers said. The girl popped her head up like an astonished prairie dog. “This is our new friend, Ray. She’ll be living with us from now on, and she needs some help with her shoes.”

  Pinny pushed her glasses up to her almond-shaped eyes, but they immediately slid down again. “Hi, Ray.” She smiled wide. “Have a seat. Show me your shoes.”

  Ray tilted her head. Pinny looked about thirteen or fourteen, but the awkward way she fumbled with the glue and sequins in her hands made her seem younger, much younger. Ray stared, trying to unpuzzle Pinny’s odd look, until Pinny did it for her.

  “Stop staring,” Pinny said in a thick, slow voice. “It’s Down syndrome. Not the plague.” Ray had never heard of either. But if this Down syndrome didn’t bother Pinny, it was sure as heck none of Ray’s business to be bothered for her. Pinny glanced down at Ray’s bare feet, her white-blond hair a drifting dandelion fluff about her face. “You look kinda funny yourself.”

  Mrs. Danvers laughed, then looked at Ray and shrugged. “That’s our Pinny, the truth-teller. Everyone needs a truth-teller in life.” She motioned for Ray to sit down. “You work on those shoes, and they’ll turn into something to love.”

  Ray thought about running, but her feet were too tired and too sore. There was no apricot chapel here to run to anyway. So she sat down.

  Pinny offered her several jars of glitter. “I like mine with sparkles. See?” She held up the remains of a canvas sneaker dripping with glue and globs of glitter. “You try.”

  Ray examined the other odds and ends on the table: sequins, feathers, puffy paints. Her eyes stopped on a container of safety pins. Ignoring Pinny’s attempts to chat, Ray set to work. An hour later, she’d covered every inch of her gray sneakers with safety pins, until the outside of her shoes looked the way the inside of her feet felt.

  The second she was finished, a flash popped in her face, and she squinted up to see a photo spitting out of a beat-up Polaroid camera.

  “I don’t have any like that in my collection,” Pinny said from behind the camera. She waved the photo in the air until the picture developed, then added it to a rubber-banded stack. Ray peeked at the stack. They were photos of shoes, dozens of them.

  Pinny eyed Ray’s shoes intently. “Why do you want to wear hurt like that?” she asked quietly.

  “It’s all I have,” Ray replied. But she only wore the shoes when she had to. The rest of the time, in the middle of class, in the hallways at Smokebush, she went barefoot.

  She never liked shoes much after that…until the day she saw the pale pink ones in the Pennypinch. But it was all because of those shoes that the horrible
thing had happened.

  Shoes, Ray thought now as she ran through the night under the wide Texas sky, were just another thing she hated.

  DALYA

  Memory is a fickle muse. A young girl might recall a random stranger on the street—a woman’s striking olive eyes, or a man’s shock of carrot-colored curls. But when one person grows to a multitude, memory opens at the seams.

  Dalya watched typhus weave its hand of death through the camp, emptying the barracks. Hollowed bodies passed before her in wheelbarrows so frequently that she barely glanced at them anymore. Until a face came before her she would never forget, a face that lay inches from her own one night, gasping for breath. Her mother’s.

  She’d watched this face exchange its roundness for jagged angles, trade its hope for resignation. Now she watched it contort painfully as the cough choked her mother, time and time again.

  Dalya felt the twisting of her own bowels and the fever in her throbbing head, but she ignored them, cradling her mother through another violent spasm.

  “It is time to tell you,” her mother whispered. “You will live. I will not.” She clung to Dalya’s hands. “You are all that is left.”

  “No,” Dalya started, tears in her eyes. Her father, her brother, her sister, and now her mother. Lost. Part of her wished to follow them, while another part railed against it, wanting and hoping to live. It angered her, this hope, because it felt so selfish, so greedy. But it stayed, obstinately, all the same.

  Her mother raised a finger to her lips. “Find Leonard Goodman, the man your father told you about. He can help you.” She told Dalya his address again and made her repeat it until she had it memorized. “Promise you will find him. Promise.”

  “Yes,” Dalya said.