ONE
Eileen left the apartment, stamped down the stairs to find Neal out front. She needed to get away again for a while—maybe take him to see their friend Vinny, the shoemaker. If they hurried, they could catch him as he was closing up the shop. Closing was their favorite time to go because he’d let them help. He liked the shoes perfectly aligned on the counter for the next day, toes even in the order they’d arrived so he could fix them in the same order the next day. Eileen and Neal would check the tags, make sure the numbers hadn’t gotten mixed up.
Eileen loved the way the unlikely companions looked lined up along the counter, the narrow ladies’ pumps next to the steel-toed work boots with dirty creases in their huge tongues, the tired wing tips with run-down heels, having to visit one more city, a pair of white patent-leather First Communion shoes, hunting boots, all of them side by side, at attention on the counter, all bearing the creases and bulges of their owners’ feet, a still life of motion, the silent story of where they’d been and who they were. Always Eileen would find a pair with sides widened beyond anything the shoes should have been expected to bear. Surely Cinderella’s sister’s. The backs of another would be rubbed raw, curled inward, and Eileen would imagine an angry, hurried wearer, impatient with the need for them.
Eileen didn’t sense that Vinny recognized the shoes’ identities. They were a daily, changing, repeating assembly line of needy heels and soles. He liked them, Eileen saw, but showed no favoritism. Each would have a turn. Vinny worked slowly. He did everything slowly. He was huge. People said his brain was addled, that there was something not right about him. Eileen’s mother insisted he was dangerous, and they were forbidden to go to the shoemaker’s shop alone. But Neal and Eileen had long ago shot enough holes in that theory to satisfy themselves that it was all wrong. Vinny was harmless.
Eileen and Neal had found him and his shop the day after they moved into the neighborhood. Eileen dared Neal to sneak into the shop, knock down the shoes on the counter, and run. He did it, and did it again and again week after week until they were so good at it that the sport was gone. The friendship started the day they got careless. Always, Vinny had come to the door as they ran and made a terrible sound at them, some kind of yell unlike anything they’d ever heard.
But one time, that last time, he didn’t come to the door. There was nothing. So they slowed down halfway up the block, looked at each other, curious, then turned around, and with slow careful steps moved back toward the shop. At the entrance they saw the shoes on the floor, but the huge dark-haired owner was nowhere in sight. They hesitated, listened to the silence, then held their breath and stepped inside. Before they could hear themselves scream. Vinny came out from behind the door and slammed it closed. The entry bell, unaccustomed to such rudeness, clanged in protest. Eileen felt her chest tighten; she couldn’t breathe. Vinny was big, and she realized that if half of what her mother had said was true, they were in serious danger. She pulled Neal close to her side, ready to defend, but the look on Vinny’s face didn’t make sense. He was sad. That’s all. Sad. Not angry or mean. She saw that he knew they were frightened.
