Interior Design

by Philip Graham

  When I arrived home Molly was already settled in front of the television in the living room, and while cartoons raged she clutched the ragged whiskbroom she habitually preferred to her dolls. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, preoccupied with one of her How-To books, her long legs crossed, a hand sweeping through her wavy hair.

  “Where have you been, hon?” she asked, her book down, her arms out for a hug.

  “Just the park,” I said into her firm embrace.

  “Have a good time?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said and slowly slipped from her arms. When she turned back to her book I darted around the door to the basement. I waited. She hadn’t heard me. So I walked quietly down the steps, guiding myself by the sun filtering through the narrow basement windows. Already I could hear a muffled clatter. I opened the workshop door, quickly closed it behind me, and I flicked on the light.

  There it was, Dad’s Electric Shoe Scraper. The demonstration shoe in the metal harness slowly rose and lowered onto a rotating band of sandpaper—80 grit, which Dad said was the roughness closest to concrete. The odometer ticked along, the sole and heel wearing away while the shoe went nowhere, and on the floor was an eerie halo of sandpaper shavings and rubber dust.

  The sandpaper was worn, and I supposed Dad would have to change it when he came home that night. I knew that when the bottom of a shoe was finally a ragged mess he clocked the total. Then he could quote the shoe’s impressive mileage to prospective customers. I closed my eyes and listened to the regularity of the machine’s clank and scrape, which Mom always said drove her nuts when she loaded the clothes washer in the basement. I loved that sound, but I instantly regretted the thought because I could just make out Mom anxiously calling me upstairs as if she had read my mind.

  “Sammy?”

  I heard her start down the steps. I turned off the workroom light and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark.

  “Sammy?”

  She was downstairs now, her footsteps approaching, and I hid behind stacks of empty shoe boxes. Hunched low in the cramped space, my hands on the floor for balance, I felt a fine grit, and I realized that I’d left behind me a line of indicting footsteps from the circle of dust around Dad’s machine. Then I heard the door open and the light was on.

  “Come on out, honey,” Mom said gently. I rose from behind the boxes to face her disappointed eyes. I waited, but from the way her lips were pressed together I saw that she wasn’t going to say anything further, at least to me. I was grateful for that, and when we walked up the stairs I hoped for even the smallest glancing touch, on my shoulder or hair.

  *

  I joined Molly on the living room carpet and watched cartoons into the late afternoon. In the darkening room the black-and- white images cast swift shadows on our faces as a flying cartoon fox, eyes screaming in its sockets and tail flaming, plunged to its awful, temporary fate. Beside me Molly ran her hand across the edge of the bristles of the whiskbroom, making a dry, rhythmic sound like a movie projector.

  Mom was in the kitchen, cooking spaghetti yet again, and I could tell from the sharp little bangs of the pots and the staccato crunks of the can opener that she was trying to contain her anger while she waited for Dad. My parents usually argued about why the car couldn’t go into the shop this month, why we still didn’t have a color TV, or how terrible it was that Molly and I had to share the same bedroom. Just the day before they had fought over the tangled web Molly made from Mom’s spools of thread. Now I was sure they would soon argue over me, and I was filled with a shivery anticipation.

  Dad’s car slowly entered the driveway. Molly and I hurried to the window and watched, silent and motionless as if we were one child, the cartoon mayhem behind us. Dad stepped out of the car, his lips pursed from whistling some song that always stopped when he opened the front door.

  “Hey, kids,” he said, glancing at the TV and then bending to kiss us, “plenty of excitement tonight, huh?” We offered our small faces to his lips. As he held us his palms gave off the faint scent of shoe polish. But what I remember most about his hands were those drastically bitten-down nails, which I worried might never heal.

  We heard a crash behind us and we turned to the television. The fox lay flattened beneath a boulder, its bushy tail poking out and slightly waving, like a flag of truce. Molly flicked the bristles of her whiskbroom.

  Dad stroked Molly’s hair and she pressed her head against his hand. He punched me gently on the arm. “What’s your secret today, skipper?”

  Instead of my usual, disappointing silence, that evening I had an answer for him. “I’m sorry I went down to your workshop.”

  “That’s okay. Didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

  “No…”

  Mom clattered a colander in the kitchen. “Well, I’ll see you guys later,” Dad said, and he started down the hall.

  “Daddy, your shoes,” Molly said.

  “Oh, of course, honey.” He leaned down and carefully unlaced them. They were a shiny black, with tiny air holes that Molly loved. He stepped out of one and Molly rubbed her cheek against its pocked surface. Dad called out, “Allll aboard!” and he walked off in his socks to the kitchen. Molly followed and pushed the shoes across the rug, chanting, “Chugga-chugga, chugga- chugga,” racing the right against the left.

  Without turning from the burners, Mom arched her head for Dad’s kiss, a formality that I suspected was meant only for us. Molly circled the shoes around our parents and I dawdled at the door. We both knew they wouldn’t start in until we were back among our cartoons. With a significant glance our way, Mom then stared down the hallway, where she wanted us to go. Dad, as usual, was busy with some mail lying on the kitchen table.

  “C’mon, Molly,” I said, and she abandoned Dad’s shoes in the middle of the floor with a sigh.

  On the television a family of mice ran from a peg-legged pirate cat, and I could just hear Mom say, “I thought you promised to lock the door to that room down there.” The eye-patched cat snarled and slashed at the mice with a cutlass as they sped up the ship’s rigging, and I couldn’t make out Dad’s reply.

  “Take it to the store where it belongs,” Mom said, her voice rising.

  “What, and alert the competition?” Dad replied.

  Mom laughed her bitter laugh. “Who else would want a machine that ruins shoes?” The mice easily jumped on the swinging blade and slid down the cat’s tattooed arm. Surprised, it gaped at the mice, who huddled and prepared their next move.

  “Maggie, you just don’t understand, that shoe will help me sell many more.”

  I was nowhere to be found in their angry words and I turned up the sound on the TV. “Louder,” Molly said. The mice pulled the cat’s tricornered hat down over his eyes. Our faces were flickering masks, continually changing as we watched that endless cartoon feuding, where no matter what terrible things happened everyone miraculously survived.

  *

  As always, when dinner was ready we all sat at the table as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t stand the sight of the spaghetti, which we’d already eaten twice that week, and I closed my eyes.

  “These new shoe styles, who makes them, anyway?” I heard Dad complain. “Each one sells worse than the last.”

  “Somebody must be selling them, somewhere,” Mom said, as if talking to herself.

  I listened to the sucking sound of spaghetti lifting from the bowl, and when I opened my eyes I saw Mom scooping a large portion onto my plate. “Why do we have to eat this stuff all the time?” I blurted out, immediately knowing the answer.

  No one replied. Molly stared at me, surprised. She was usually the one who made the awkward mistakes. Then Mom said quietly, “Ask your father.”

  But I didn’t, and she repeated, “Ask him.”

  I stared at the spaghetti on my plate. I wanted it to disappear.

  Mom couldn’t help herself. “Go on, Sammy,” she said, “ask him why.”

  “Because it’s delicious!” Dad yelled at her. Then they b
oth rose and shouted, and when Mom cried out, “You sell things people walk on, why shouldn’t everyone walk over you too?” Dad held his ears and moaned, “No more!” He ran from the room and she followed.

  Molly pushed away from the table, her fork and knife clattering on the floor, but I stayed and twisted the spaghetti strands around my fork, making little splatters of tomato sauce on my plate, and I forced myself to eat as a punishment for my foolishness. This was the first time my parents’ disputes had spilled into dinner, and I was shocked at what I had wrought. Even now, when I think about that night, those harsh words seem solid, as if they have always existed.

  The bathroom door suddenly banged open. “Sammy?” Molly peered into the kitchen. Her arms and legs were covered with Band-Aids of all sizes, and little pink circles dotted her face. She flashed a conspiratorial grin that transformed into a mock grimace of pain, and then she ran down the hallway. I rushed after her into the living room, where Dad was roaring while Mom held out her wrists and cried, “Handcuffs!”

  Molly pushed between them. “I hurt,” she cried, “I hurt!”

  They stopped, amazed to see us. Mom collapsed on the couch, her hands grasping at her face, and Dad crouched down to comfort Molly. “Where does it hurt?” he asked.

  “Everywhere!” she wailed into his shoulder.

  “Well,” he said, picking her up, the grim line of his mouth easing, “the Tickle Bug can fix you.” Molly squealed and struggled in his arms.

  *

  Dad retreated to his workshop for the rest of the evening, Mom scrubbed everything imaginable in the kitchen, and Molly and I were left to ourselves. Later that night, after Mom tucked us in and turned off the light she lingered in our room. Suddenly she was repeating, “I’m so sorry, my darlings, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I murmured. Molly said nothing.

  “It’s just that, how are we going to manage?” Mom said. “I mean, what can we do?” She stood so still in the middle of our dark room.

  Molly turned away under her blankets.

  “I only want the best for you both,” Mom kept saying, “only the best.”

  “I know, Mom, I know,” I replied, hoping to draw her to my bedside for one more hug. I waited. Then she opened the door and before I could say good night she was gone.

  Molly fell asleep easily with a faint, satisfied grunt. Though I was annoyed at her stubborn silence, I relished those pauses between her steady breathing, for it was only at such moments that I could pretend I had my own room. Finally I reached under the bed for my box of tennis balls.

  Under the covers I held a flashlight between my chin and shoulder, and with a pen I drew on one of the balls. My pen sometimes catching on the fuzzy surface, I mapped out continents, river systems, and mountain chains, creating a strange world I could hold in my hand. It looked like none of the planets on the mechanical model of the solar system that spun so wonderfully when my science teacher cranked it up, and on my planet there was only one town, only one house. Inside lived my family, and spaghetti was our favorite treat. We ate and joked noisily at the table, and we all asked for seconds. I allowed no bitter words to escape from anyone. After our meal was done and we cleared the table and washed the dishes together, I put the tennis ball away under the bed with all the other happy versions of my family. I was careful to rest it only on an ocean, for I didn’t want to crush anyone. How optimistic I was, to think our troubles could be solved, and yet how pessimistic, to think they could only be solved on another planet.

  *

  The next day after school I easily slipped away from Molly when she began jumping on cracks in the sidewalk, and I headed for town instead of home. I worried about Dad and his store. It had been so long since Mom had taken us there, ever since Dad had motorized his display tables to turn in circles. “To better serve my customers,” he said, but Mom claimed they just made her dizzy, especially when Molly raced around them.

  I ran almost all the way, so that Mom wouldn’t ask where I’d been for so long when I finally returned home. Each swift step made me feel both weaker and lighter, and to encourage myself I pretended I was closing in on somebody, though a few of the adults on the sidewalk seemed to think I was being chased. “Hey you, stop,” someone yelled out behind me, but I never looked back, leaving behind imagined miles as my shoes slapped on the pavement.

  When I arrived, heady from all that intoxicating running, I noticed something new: a little speaker above the glass door blaring out some sort of tap dancing music. It almost seemed to accompany the steady rasp of my breath. Standing there before the storefront, for a moment I felt like Dad. I remembered one rare morning when Mom dropped him off and I watched from the car as his head turned slowly to take in all those varieties of shoes on artfully arranged pedestals in the window, and above them the neon sign—Frank’s Fancy Footwork. Dad loved that shoe store; I can’t recall him talking about anything else. Now I think I understand why, and I can say this because I’ve thought a lot about it: all that brick, the wide glass panes, and the sign with his name reflected something inside him. So when he entered the store each morning somehow he also stepped inside himself, into everything he wanted to be.

  My face still flushed from running, I opened the door. One of the fluorescent bulbs was out. Another flickered erratically, and the display tables revolved for the dimly lit and empty store. Dad came out from the back room, his shirt sleeves up. He stood by the cash register. He brushed back his hair.

  “What’s up, Sammy?”

  “Nothing …”

  “Well, you look bushed. C’mere.” He whirled the rack of shoe polish on his desk counter and reached for a drawer. “Have a lollipop.” Dad’s were special, in the shapes of animals. He handed me a bright green octopus.

  “Thanks Dad, great,” I said, even though a few of the arms were broken and stuck to the clear plastic wrapper.

  He took me to the back room, where orderly shelves filled with shoe boxes rose up to the ceiling. “Well, kiddo,” he said, straightening a few boxes, “I’m glad to see you, I’m here all by myself today. I had to fire another salesman. A real winner, that one was. No wonder sales are a little slow. Nobody cares enough about shoes, for them it’s just a job.” He paused and stared at me steadily, as if I didn’t believe him. I nodded.

  “Y’know, Sammy”—he grinned—“I’ll tell you a little secret: no shoe ever completely fits. That’s why it’s so important to relax your customers.” I nodded again and he gestured out—toward the stool he would sit on while serving customers, and the cool metal plate that measured foot sizes.

  “If a woman wants her shoes to be a size seven,” he continued, “just sell her whatever fits and tell her it’s a size seven. Y’see, you have to know how to fit with your customers, like they’re shoes too. Praise a mother’s child. If a man’s been to college, draw him out about what he studied, compliment the college life. You have to share something, and quickly. A customer can say ‘No’ easily to a stranger, but not so easily to a new pal.” He tapped his fingers against one of the shelved boxes. “It’s as easy as that,” he said.

  The front door opened. A fat man looked in, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Hello?” he called out, and he took a few hesitant steps inside.

  Dad turned and whispered to me, “Here’s your chance to see how it’s done. You won’t find me trying to sell any shoe polish before I’ve sold the shoes!” He set off for the showroom.

  Dad stood close to the fat man, who kept backing away from one display to another. I peeked out at them, and finally the customer stopped to examine a pair of heavy, official-looking shoes, near enough for me to hear Dad say, “Those will last you over twelve hundred miles, and much longer if you do most of your walking on carpets.”

  “Really,” the man replied. His mouth almost wrinkled into a smile, and then he moved on.

  I imagined I was a salesman and, thinking of Dad’s secret, I plotted my approach: I would casually mention my favorite cand
y bar to the fat man and discover it was his favorite too! I saw myself seated before him, tying the laces of his new shoes, while he wriggled his toes inside and we gabbed about caramel and chocolate.

  “Excuse me?” I heard Dad say.

  “Maybe next time.” The man sidestepped Dad and bumped into one of the display tables, which stopped turning. Then, with a low squeal it lurched back into its circular motion and the fat man was out the door.

  Dad flopped down into a chair and covered his face. I stood in the back room doorway, unsure what to do.

  “Look, Sammy,” he said quietly into his hands, “let’s not tell your mother about this, okay? It’s our secret.”

  “Dad,” I said quickly, “let me help. I can sell some shoes.”

  “Sure, son,” he said. He smiled across the room at me, a weak smile that also meant No. I turned away, determined not to cry, and I noticed for the first time an odd and irritating hum coming from the revolving tables.

  *

  I’m sure that no more than a few weeks passed before the afternoon when Molly and I came home from school and Dad was already there, sitting on the couch. His hands were cupped on his lap as if they had just covered his face, and I immediately remembered my visit to his store. Mom sat beside him and they both looked weary. When Molly asked, “Daddy, why are you home, are you sick?” they stared at us as if we were strangers.

  That evening Dad didn’t talk about his store and Mom didn’t complain about it. But their silence had no feeling of peace, and I worried that the words they held in were too terrible to be spoken. From then on Dad was always home when we returned from school, and during dinner I almost wished my parents’ arguments would start again, their quiet disturbed me so.

  Waiting on line one day in the school cafeteria, I stood quietly when one of the older boys began to push in front of me, somehow certain that he was about to turn around and say, loudly, “Hey, are you some kinda poor boy now your old man’s store’s closed down?” I imagined that even if he laughed and shoved me I wouldn’t reply, but instead he just swaggered ahead and cut in line even closer to the chicken chow mein. I considered walking into town but I didn’t have to—it was terribly easy to imagine Dad’s store with the window displays gutted, the neon sign shut off, and the tables inside immobile.