Five

The next morning I opened the apartment door and almost fell over Al. She was leaning against the wall, staring down at her feet.

She stuck one of her legs out, with the foot pointing like an arrow straight at me.

“Whaddaya think?” she said. “I’m not sure they’re me.” She made a face. “The real me, that is.”

“They aren’t anyone,” I said, glad she’d asked. Those shoes were plenty grotty, all right. They reminded me of witch shoes, long and flat, with nerdy little heels.

“Gunboats,” Al said glumly. “Big black gunboats. Why does she buy me shoes anyway? They’re my feet, aren’t they? I’m entitled to pick out my own shoes. If I bought shoes for her, she’d have a cow. And my toe’s right up to the end already. I can be crippled for life if I wear these babies.”

Al’s mother buys her stuff at the store where she’s in Better Dresses on account of she gets a twenty percent employee discount. Some of the things she buys Al loves, like her lavender sweater. Others she hates.

Al buzzed for the elevator, still staring at her feet. Shoes can do that to you, the wrong shoes, I mean. The elevator bounced to a stop and the door creaked open. The woman from the top floor stood there with her miserable little dog that thinks he owns the world. He had these tiny little eyes and a nose you can look up, if you’re close enough and you stomach can handle it, and see all the way inside his head. He looks as if he’s wearing a body wig. Plus, he smells. He is a totally disgusting little dog. Sometimes he’s on a leash, sometimes she drapes him over her shoulder, giving him little pats as if he was a baby and she’s burping him. Today he was nestled on her neck like a live fur piece, looking at us with his tiny eyes filled with hostility. The tip of his tiny tongue stuck out of his mouth, and you can’t tell me he wasn’t sticking his tongue out at us. He was like one of those wizened little heads people bring back from the rain forests of Brazil.

“Hello,” we said, skinning to the back of the car. The woman inclined her head slightly, just barely acknowledging our existence. She had on a black-and-white polka-dotted raincoat and a hat to match, although there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight. She always wears black lipstick and her cheekbones are hollowed out with brown blush. I think she’s in the cosmetics business. She looks to me like the kind of person who’s never been a child. Probably back when she was our age, they didn’t have teenagers. My father says teenagers hadn’t been invented yet when he was a boy.

You have to take what my father says with a grain of salt, however. Behind the woman’s back we made faces at her dog. Al put her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers at him, and I pushed up my nose and pulled my eyes down. The dog’s eyes rolled wildly and he snorted at us.

“What’s his name?” Al asked in her phony sweetsy voice.

“Sparky,” the woman said. At the sound of his name, Sparky thrashed around, letting out a series of nervous little farts. Al held her nose and I fought the giggle attack I could feel building inside me. I swallowed hard and the giggles receded.

Sparky’s mom put him down on the floor, and Sparky sniffed at our ankles and heaved daintily.

Al tapped the woman on the shoulder and said, “I think your dog’s going to be sick.”

“Oh, he never gets sick,” Sparky’s mom said with great conviction, not even turning to look. Whereupon Sparky let fly. All over one of Al’s new shoes. She jabbed an elbow into my ribs, red faced, not wanting me to miss anything. It wasn’t a big barf, as Sparky was a very small dog, but it was a barf nevertheless. We laughed nervously. Al didn’t seem to mind about the barf hitting her new shoe. In fact, she perked up considerably.

“Whoa, Sparky,” Al said as Sparky finished barfing and began to pee on her other new shoe.

In a stage whisper, Al said, “Sparky peed on my shoe.” The woman stared straight ahead. Sparky shook himself triumphantly and his long hair flew every which way as he rearranged his little self after the unexpected flurry of activity. The elevator thudded to a stop, and when the door opened Sparky’s mom whisked Sparky out so fast his little feet skimmed the floor.

“They’re ruined,” Al said happily, showing me her shoes in the harsh light of day. “Look. They’ll never be the same. I can’t wear them ever, ever again.” And she did a couple of bumps and grinds to celebrate.

“Here,” I said, handing her a tissue. “You might be able to save ’em if you wipe ’em off right away. They’ll be good as new. All I can say is, I’m glad your mother didn’t pay full price for those little beauties.”

“Please.” Al held up her hand. “God sent Sparky to me because I’m a good person. Sparky had a mission in life, which was to louse up these shoes. I must think of a suitable reward.”

“How about a one-way ticket on the Staten Island ferry?” I said.

“Or perhaps a gift certificate for the Chic Chien,” Al suggested.

We wandered toward school, both of us in a good mood.

“Why do you suppose she named him Sparky?” I said.

“Probably because her boyfriend gave him to her and he’s an auto mechanic,” Al said.

“Yeah, and Sparky bears a strong resemblance to a spark plug, right?”

“Yeah, and the best part’s when she looks up Sparky’s nose,” Al said. “It reminds her of her boyfriend.”

“Gross!” I said. We both got a little hysterical. Actually, for a day that had started out plenty zilchy, it was turning out pretty well.

When we got to school the bell was about to ring. We watched Mr. Keogh break up a fight outside the boys’ room. Mr. Keogh used to be our homeroom teacher. He used to call Al Al, but ever since he took us to the Bronx to visit his father in the old-people’s home, and Al did her Mother Zandi fortune-telling routine, he calls Al Mother Zandi.

“How’s business, Mother Zandi?” Mr. Keogh asked Al, straightening his bow tie.

“Not a heck of a lot going on right now, Mr. Keogh,” Al replied. “It’s our slow season. How’s your father doing?”

“About the same. Sometimes he knows me, sometimes not.” Mr. Keogh looked sad. “The doctors say that’s the way it’ll be with him. Some bright days, some dark. My father’s a good man. It seems to me he deserves better.”

We agreed, and I thought that my father deserved better too. I can’t imagine my father ever being in an old-people’s home and made up my mind then and there that I’d never let that happen to him.

To cheer Mr. Keogh up, we told him about Sparky and Al’s new shoes.

Mr. Keogh laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. He had to take out his handkerchief and blow his nose and wipe his eyes before he could go back to class.

“I’m glad I ran into you two,” he told us. “You’re always good for a laugh.”

“A good laugh is good for the soul,” we said in unison.

“Right you are, girls. And my soul needed a laugh in the worst way,” Mr. Keogh said. “Thanks.” And he walked away.

“Mr. Keogh is very spry for a man of forty-one,” Al told me.

“Mr. Richards was very spry for a man of advanced years too,” I said. “And he was right when he said a good laugh is good for the soul.”

“He usually was,” Al said. “Right, that is.”

“Did you tell your mother about the free tryout at Al’s Health Club?” I asked her.

“No,” Al said. “I figure what she don’t know don’t hurt her, et cetera. What I say is let’s just go for it. Did you tell yours?”

“No,” I said. “I figure likewise.”