Mermaids by Patty Dann

Author:Patty Dann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The shoe store saved me that winter. I spent hours in the back with Lou, standing by the radiator, as he told stories about keeping kosher in South Dakota. I breathed in the licorice and shoe-leather smell and could almost forget the snow that covered the town and the fact I’d felt cold all my life. I told Lou what I knew about my father and even described his shoes, but he said he hadn’t seen them around. When Lou went to the front of the store to help customers, I’d quickly lift each shoe to my ear, the old caretaker’s old work boots, Aunt Sammy’s funny red flats—I held all the shoes to my ear but all I could hear was the hiss of the radiator.

One Saturday morning in March I woke up to hear Mrs. Flax jabbering on the phone. For a second I thought, this is it, Our Father Who Art in Heaven has returned. He’s at the train station. I’ll go pick him up and show him the town and we’ll all live happily ever after. I got out of bed and hid, watching Mrs. Flax from behind the kitchen door. She was sitting on the table, wrapping the telephone cord around her as if it was a mink stole.

“Why, that sounds like it’s just what I need,” she said. I wanted to pick up one of the chairs and throw it at her head.

“No,” she said. “They’ll be all right here alone.”

I felt free. The woman was finally abandoning us for good. My wings had been taped back and suddenly I was going to fly. I wanted to run into the kitchen and yank the phone from her hand, but she kept chattering in a way that made me realize it wasn’t Mr. Flax at all.

“Oh, no, I’d love to watch those boys train in the bullpen, Lou. Nothing would make me happier.”

When she finally hung up she stayed sitting on the table, swinging her legs back and forth. I stayed behind the door and said as calmly as I could, “What the hell was that all about?”

She began to talk about how she loved baseball, saying it really was her one true passion. She didn’t know a line drive from a catcher’s mitt, but she talked on, saying she was going on the most wonderful trip in the world. Lou had invited her to drive all the way down to Florida with him to watch the rookies play at spring training.

“In the bullpen, can you imagine,” she said.

“You two will be all right without me for a while.”

She hadn’t been seeing Lou for several weeks, and I’d begun to think he’d been mysteriously discarded with the rest of the men, but then there he was on the telephone, for some reason wanting to spend a thousand hours in a car with her. For years he’d been talking to everyone in town about someday going down to spring training. Apparently the idea started when he was very young.

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