Ruby's Slippers (24 page)

I glance at Abby. She nods as if she understands, but I don’t. Maybe it’s because I’ve never felt driven by anything.

“But it wasn’t always easy. I worked long hours. The phone calls and the letters grew more infrequent. I tried to get your mother to come out west. I was earning okay money then. We could have had a decent house, maybe even enough backyard for a garden. But she wanted to stay in Kansas. She said she didn’t have to look further than her own backyard for what she wanted. I assumed that meant me. Ah, well …”

He rubs the back of his neck. “She’d heard a lot about Hollywood and the glamorous people out here. I think she was scared. She felt safe in Kansas, surrounded by family and friends. She had insecurities, you might know, from her withered leg. Ruby didn’t want me staying out of obligation. She was always afraid that I’d regret marrying her, thinking that she had held me back.” He shifts in his chair, making its joints squeak and groan. “Looking back, I’d say she was
afraid that I wanted someone else, that my ambition was just a symptom. She wanted me to have no regrets. She didn’t want me to sacrifice anything for her. I don’t know if she thought she didn’t deserve it or …” He shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know.”

Otto jumps down from my lap and disappears behind the desk. His nails click against the floor. I hear him sniffing around, his nose snuffling against the floor.

“The longer I stayed away,” our father continues, he tugs at the wedding ring, “the more I wasn’t needed by my wife, my girls. So I stayed here, retreated into my own world. Inside I felt like a fraud, going about my life, pursuing this dream which mattered less and less to me.” He pushes the wedding ring securely onto his finger. “We’re still married, your mother and I. Did you know that? We never divorced.”

Abby leans forward, bracing an elbow against her knee. Her features soften. “You wanted what you couldn’t have.”

He gives her a long, slow glance. “No, I learned what was really important. Ruby learned that lesson before we met. She knew what mattered. But she’d managed to find her way home. But me, well …” He shrugs awkwardly. “So many years had passed. I didn’t know how to get back. Have you heard the joke about old people saying they walked barefoot to school uphill both ways? Well, the journey here seemed like an uphill climb, but it was steeper trying to return home.”

Suddenly his eyes widen, and he pushes his chair back. “Hello?” He scoops Otto into his arms. It’s an awkward embrace. Otto utters a low growl. “What were you doing down there?”

“Here, boy.” I snap my fingers.

Otto wags his tail, squirming and trying to get loose. My father gingerly puts him back on the floor.

“Wait.” He snaps his fingers several times to get Otto’s attention. He glances over at me. “What’s his name?”

“Otto.”

“Otto, my boy, I bet you smell what I keep in this drawer.” He tugs open a heavy desk drawer and pulls out a candy dish filled with macadamia nuts. “Want one?” He holds a nut between thumb and forefinger.

Otto yaps.

Our father laughs. “Okay, little fellow.” He drops the nut, and I don’t have to see Otto to know that he instantly lunges for it. I can hear him chomping on the nut. My father gazes down affectionately. “Good, huh?”

He offers the nuts to Abby and me, but we both decline. He places the crystal dish back in the drawer and pushes it closed. Then he looks back at Abby and me, clasping his hands together on his desk. “So the polio finally got Ruby, did it?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I read it in the paper. Still get the
Maize Weekly
. Helped me keep up with you girls. That’s how I learned about the tornado and knew Dottie was in a coma.”

“Why did you give me the shoes?” I ask.

“Those shoes. The ruby slippers. Your grandmother had them. Oh, how she loved them. Was very proud that Judy Garland had given them to her. She worked in Hollywood at one of the big movie lots in wardrobe.”

“She was a seamstress,” Abby says.

“Sure enough. Young and pretty herself, from what I understand. She worked on several films in the late thirties
and up until 1945, when she married a captain just coming home from the war.”

“She worked on
The Wizard of Oz
,” Abby explains.

“Exactly.” He folds his hands together. “That’s where she met a young actress. A star in the making.”

“Judy Garland,” Abby adds.

“Being close to the same age, they became friends. Your grandmother was a motherly sort, and from what she said, Judy didn’t have much of a relationship with her own mother. The two girls bonded. When the movie wrapped, Judy gave your grandmother the shoes.”

“The ruby slippers.”

He gazes out the windows as if lost in his own past. “She named your mother Ruby after those shoes she so adored. She loved to tell about that time in her life. Sometimes she’d get out those shoes to show them off. At first folks believed they were the real thing, but as years went by doubts crept in. I guess their lives were so far from Oz that they could no longer imagine her story was true. So your grandmother stopped talking about them, stopped showing them to people. And as memories will, they got pushed to the back of a closet as she became busy with the chore of living life.

“Then Ruby came down with polio. It was bad back in the fifties. Lots of folks died from it. She was only eight and in bed for months and months.”

“Granny,” I say, feeling my chest tighten, “read her the Oz books.”

“While she was getting well. Then she gave your mother the ruby slippers.”

I remember Momma asking me to read the books to her when she was bedridden at the end of her life. We didn’t make it through the first one before she died.

For a moment my father doesn’t speak, as if remembering a private moment of his own. “Those shoes meant a lot to Ruby. They gave her the will to recover, to learn to walk again after the polio.” His blue eyes mist over. “She gave them to me before I left, said she wanted me to find
my
dreams. It’s why I brought them to you.” His blue eyes lock with mine.

Momma wore those shoes. She began life a new with those shoes, gaining confidence with each step. Pressure builds within my chest, and I fight back tears. My father wanted me to experience the same. And I have in a completely different way.

My father clears his throat. “Now, girls, those shoes are valuable. I’m not sure how much they’re worth. But you should be careful with them.”

“We’re taking them to the
Antiques Roadshow
. To see if we can find out how much they’re worth. If we sell them, then Dottie could buy back the farm.”

But suddenly I don’t want to sell the shoes that belonged to my mother. The shoes have brought my family back together.

A flicker of emotion crosses my father’s wrinkled features. “I’m glad you girls came.”

“Thank you,” I manage, “for giving them to me.” I realize my father wasn’t there for me through most of my life, but in his way he tried when I needed him most. Tears pearl in my eyes like hot rocks.

Abby stands. “Good-bye.” She pulls something from her pocket then, lays the blue printed tickets on his desk. “This is for you. For my show. If you want to come.”

He gives a nod but doesn’t say anything.

I think we’ve been quietly dismissed. With Abby beside me, we walk to the door. As we step out of the room and into
the colossal foyer, I turn toward her and see tears running down her face.

“He doesn’t know how to be a father, does he?” With an index finger, she tenderly pushes back a lock of hair stuck to my damp cheek.

“Maybe he knows better than we think.” I link arms with her, and we walk toward the door. After about five steps I realize Otto isn’t with us. I sigh. “Hold on. I’ve got to get Otto.”

Hoping I can lure him out of the office without sticking my head back in the room, I tiptoe up to the door and whisper, “Otto!” But he doesn’t come. I try snapping my fingers. No Otto. Irritated, I take another step closer. I hear a voice murmuring something. Craning my neck, I peer into the room.

My father sits on the floor, his back to me. Otto stands in front of my father, watching him with dark, serious eyes.

“Okay, my little friend, let’s try this again. And now—” he raises his voice, as if making a proclamation—“a spectacular feat never before attempted by man or beast!” My father holds out a macadamia nut in his hand that Otto sniffs. Cupping it against his palm, my father bends his arm back, rubs his elbow and fumbles under the collar of his shirt for another. I can see a nut bulging out from under the stiff seam. But both nuts slip out and collide with the floor. Otto lunges forward and gobbles them down, then licks his hairy lips.

My father chuckles. “Better than a coin, eh?”

Again, painstakingly, he picks up two nuts, his fingers arthritic and fumbling. Once again he tries to do the trick. “I’m getting old, Otto. Old and useless. How about you?”

Before he can fail again, I move forward. “Here.” I cover his hand with mine and help him pull a nut from his collar, then reveal two salty nuts to Otto.

While Otto chomps down on his treats, my father locks eyes with me. “You do remember.”

“Yes.”

He swallows hard, looks away from me. “I’m a fraud.”

I kneel down beside him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not a real father to you girls. I’m a lousy magician. And this isn’t my house, Dottie.”

I tilt my head then look around the room. “What are you talking about?”

“I work for the man who owns this house. I’m just an ordinary man. Nothing special. But I wanted you to think I hadn’t wasted all those years. I wanted you to think I was extraordinary. But it just made me look worse. It looked like I never thought of you two girls, but that’s untrue.” His throat works up and down, then he sniffs. “Can you forgive me?”

Otto doesn’t take his eyes off my father, waiting diligently for another treat.

“Of course.” I reach forward, cup his forearm. “We’ve all tried to be what we’re not at times.”

As soon as I walk back into my hotel room, I flop onto the bed. Tears well up and pour out of me without my consent. My grief flows like a gusher.

Sophia sits down beside me on the bed and takes hold of my hand. She smooths the hair back from my damp face. She doesn’t give me answers I don’t want to hear or her father’s sayings. She just offers comfort as if there are no words. Because there aren’t any to justify my emotions or explain how I feel.

Finally I grab a tissue off the table and begin pacing through the room. “It’s not the answer I was looking for. You know?” The words leap out of me. I sound like a rebellious teenager. Maybe I should have expressed more when I was that age rather than bottling it up inside me. “I wish I knew why all this happened!”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you be so calm? So centered? You haven’t had a perfect life either.”

“No one has. What’s idyllic anyway? Some green pasture we can’t possibly reach? Every pasture has potholes, ants, and cow patties. Everyone has to deal with problems. If we didn’t have problems, we wouldn’t ever grow or change.”

“And you handle your problems by talking to God?”

“Yes.”

Exhausted I sit back on the edge of the bed. “My father hoped those stupid shoes could help him reach his dreams.”

She smooths a hand along my arm. “People put their faith in all kinds of things. Even themselves.”

I take a shuddering breath. “That’s what I did. I didn’t trust anyone.”

“Ruby’s slippers have no power. I have no power. Neither do you, Dottie. We’re just flesh and blood, and those shoes are leather and sequins. But God … you can trust him. He is mighty and powerful beyond our imagination. He’ll never fail you.”

I chew on that for a moment, push it around. If my life suddenly worked out, would I say God had answered my prayers? If none of it works out, will I say the opposite? But I’m not sure either is accurate. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Of course.”

“Does God ever answer when you talk to him?”

She gives a wistful smile. “You might think I’m crazy and have me locked up.”

“What could be crazier than my life?”

She laughs. “True.” She readjusts her skirt, leans back against the headboard. “Yes, of course, he talks to me. He
tells me things, answers my questions. Sometimes it’s like a quiet voice whispering deep in my soul. That’s the Holy Spirit at work. Sometimes it’s a word from the Bible. Sometimes a friend tells me something, or a song plays and the message is what I needed to hear. I sense it like a quickening in my spirit. I’ve learned through the years that the answers are there if I look for them.”

“How do you know it’s not just your imagination?” My own has run amok lately.

“I weigh it against God’s Word. The Bible. If the message I’m hearing is contrary to the Ten Commandments or something Jesus said, then I toss it out.”

Contemplating this, I pace the length of the bed and back. “I prayed. Did I tell you that?”

She shakes her head.

“I did. I prayed for a family. And look where that got me.”

“Yes, look!” She leans forward, her eyes alight with excitement. “You’re like a daughter to me. And you have a new uncle. And there’s Leo too! Don’t you see, Dottie? You
do
have a family. It may not be the family you imagined, but it’s still a family. You have people who care about you, who love you. Your sister loves you too. And your father. He wouldn’t have given you the shoes if he didn’t. But we’re all just human. Our love isn’t perfect. Only God’s is.”

I trace the threads of the comforter with my thumb. “How did you get so wise?”

“The Word is powerful, remember?” She winks. “When I just started talking to God like he was a real person sitting beside me, my life changed. Tell him everything. He’ll listen.”

“What if I only have complaints?”

“You think he doesn’t know them already?”

“Then why talk at all, if he knows everything anyway?”

“Because he wants a relationship with us. We aren’t his robot slaves. He’s not a wizard with a wand. He wants us to come to him as daughters of the king.” She straightens, placing a hand against her chest. “He wants us to tell him everything—our troubles, our thoughts, our confusion, our joy.”

“I think I know what I have to do tomorrow.”

She smiles at me. “We’ll be with you all the way.”

* * *

WE STAND OUTSIDE the Seattle Convention Center together as a united group—Abby, Sophia, Tim, Leo, and me. Today is the day of truth. We’ll learn if the ruby slippers are authentic or if they’re a fraud, invented by my mother and her mother. But these shoes have value if only because they meant something to Momma and now to me.

Did they give my mother courage? Did they boost her confidence? Did they teach her to throw caution to the winds of life and dance? If so, then I want to keep them to remind me of how far I’ve come and where I still need to go.

But Abby may insist that we sell the shoes. She always needs the money. I do too, but it’s not about money for me. This is about family. It’s about finding a new life.

“Okay now,” I say to the team huddled around me, “don’t tell anyone why we’re here. No one can know what we have.” I tuck the box under my arm. “Not until we’re on air and talking to the
Antiques Roadshow
host.”

We all nod in agreement and walk together up the steps and into the building. First, we must pass through security. I hold the shoebox while Sophia hides Otto in her oversized purse. Tim sets off the security alarms. He explains he has a steel rod in his neck. They wand him, then pat him down
thoroughly. Finally we make it into the convention center. Our tickets show our time of arrival. Someone points us in the direction of a long, long line.

People mill around, the crowd’s thick. Lines for the concessions form as people get coffee, bagels, and donuts. Other lines snake around the hall with people who hold treasures of all shapes and sizes, from German beer steins to clown paintings. Otto sticks close to my heels as we weave in and out through the crowd.

“You can’t have a dog in here.” A woman’s screechy voice stops me.

Leo steps forward, bumps my arm. “He’s mine.” He tilts his head at an awkward angle. His gaze is aimed between the woman and me, not settling on any specific thing. “My seeing-eye dog.”

I cover a sudden urge to laugh. If Otto is a seeing eye dog, then I’m a cat.

“Oh. Well, uh …” Her brow folds into confusion lines. She focuses on the box I hold. “What brought you here today?” She looks like she rolled out of bed and drove straight to the convention center. Her hair is flat on one side of her head and sticks up in odd angles on the other.

“Family heirloom.” I shift the box, tucking it under my other arm.

“What do you have?” Leo asks.

The woman grins broadly, revealing a gold eyetooth. “My father loved to collect things. All sorts of things. For a while he collected stamps. But we had a flood one year and it ruined every single one.” She clicks her tongue. “Such a shame. Then he began to collect coins.” She pats a leather binder. “For years I’ve wondered what to do with them. I was tempted for a while to just use the coins like regular money. But my grandson told
me the coins might be worth much more than their marked value. Besides, some aren’t regular coins at all.” She opens the binder and flips through several plastic pages. “Look at this one!” She slips her hand inside the plastic sleeve and pulls out a grungy coin and rubs her thumb tenderly over it. “See it?”

I’m not sure what she wants me to see. I can’t quite read the year. It’s not a current American coin. I glance at Leo, but he’s carefully staring off into nowhere. The woman looks to Leo too.

“Nope,” he tells her. “And I don’t think my dog can tell me either.”

The woman’s face reddens. “Oh, yes. Of course. Well, anyway …” She puts the coin away and closes the binder. “I thought I’d bring the collection here. I like to watch this show. Have for a long time. I should probably bring more of my parents’ belongings that I have stored in the attic. But allergies keep me from going up there.” She looks at Otto who is sitting calmly at Leo’s feet.

“Well, good luck with that.” Leo’s hand links with my arm. He pushes us forward, leaving the woman in our wake.

We weave through the crowd and stop at the back of a line. I start avoiding anyone who looks at the box, turning away, not meeting their gaze. I hate to be rude, but so many people seem to be after these shoes. If I’m asked about them again, I decide to focus on whatever they have in their hands. A box of jewelry. A Civil War-era chair. A painting. Most people would rather talk about their antique, family history, or hopes for instant wealth.

The man who stands in front of us doesn’t hold any obvious artifact.

I ask him, “Are you just observing? Or did you bring something?”

His eyes brighten. He reaches into his coat pocket. “Just a pair of spectacles.”

“They look old,” I observe, not knowing what else to say.

He begins to point out the details to me, how the glass was formed, the type of metal the wire frames are made with. My brain glazes over until I hear him mention Benjamin Franklin. “Excuse me?”

A man with a bullhorn announces, “Remember, you may only have two items per person. Two items!”

The man in front of me taps the wire frames. “I think these may have been his.”

“Well, that would be significant, wouldn’t it.”

“How long does this usually take?” Abby shifts around, stretching, looking about, unable to stand still. This morning she has circles under her eyes. “I’m going to go check, see if there is a shorter line somewhere.”

“Good luck with that,” the man says. “I went to the show in San Diego last year. Took me all day.”

“Don’t worry.” Leo nudges me with his broad shoulder.

“We’ll make sure someone takes a look at these.” Sophia taps the box.

“Dottie,” Tim leans toward me, his voice hushed and urgent, “did you see who’s here, my dear?”

I half expect him to say my father, but there’s deep concern in his gray eyes. I glance around. Across the way, I spot Abby talking with the so-called FBI agent. “Oh, no. Now what?”

“Stay here.” Leo stops me with a hand on my arm. “You don’t want to lose your place in line. I’ll see what they’re talking about and—”

“What?” I catch him before he storms off, feel his bicep muscle bunch under my hand.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures me.

“But—”

His sudden frown makes my skin grow cold. “Where’d they go?”

There are so many people, it’s easy to lose someone in the crowds. But usually it’s not easy to miss my sister’s red hair. Yet I don’t see her anywhere. She’s disappeared with Chesterfield.

“We’ll split up and search for her,” Sophia suggests.

“You stay here.” Leo’s gaze bores into me. “Stay in line. Keep those sh—” He stops himself. “Keep the box safe.”

“We’ll find your sister, my dear,” Tim assures me, embracing my shoulders. I’m not sure if I’m more worried about Abby’s safety or if she’s bartering a deal without my consent.

My friends move away and into the crowd of people. I’m hemmed in on both sides by Benjamin Franklin’s spectacles and a woman who talks incessantly about her Civil War musket. I want to ask if it’s useable in case someone tries to steal the slippers right out of my hands.

“Excuse me.”

I turn toward an elderly gentleman. He’s tall and dignified in a dark-blue wool suit. “Are you Dorothy Meyers?”

Startled, I instinctively glance at his ear to see if there’s a curlicuing wire coming out of it that would indicate he’s with the FBI or Secret Service or some other government entity. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve heard you have something,” he leans toward me and whispers. “Something of value.”

His gaze drops to my hands, and I tighten my grip on the shoebox.

“Are those them?” He mouths, “
The shoes?”

“Who are you?”

“That’s not important.” He takes a step closer, and I smell mint on his breath. “But what
is
important is what I can do for
you
.”

Every cell in my body tightens in response, pulling away, going into lockdown mode. I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and give him a half-lidded aloof glance, trying to appear cool and unaffected.

He leans so close this time, I detect a fleck of dandruff on the collar of his suit. “I’d like to make you an offer. A very generous one.”

“Wait a minute!” An exotic woman with black hair and dark skin coloring intrudes on us. A diamond stud pierces her left nostril. She wears a long, flowing scarf around her neck. “How much has he offered?”

“Who are you?”

“You have to get in the back of the line!” The woman owning the musket edges her out with a blunt shoulder.

“Why are you making offers on something you haven’t even seen?” I ask. “They may not be valuable at all.”

“Don’t think like that,” Benjamin Franklin’s heir says. “Gotta be positive!”

“You don’t know their power,” the exotic woman tells me.

“Really, please. I don’t want to sell. I’m only here to find out …” I step out of line, clutching the box to me, and push through the crowd, determined to get out of this place, to get away from these people who only want the shoes. I hold the shoebox like it’s a football and begin running. I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I’m getting away from those who would take Momma’s slippers. Otto is right at my heels.

Then I barrel right into Abby. She grunts with the force of our collision, the corner of the box jabbing her in the rib. Her features harden, and her mouth opens before she recognizes me. “Come on.” She grabs my arm. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been searching all over for you.”

“I was right where you left me. In that line.” I glance behind me, but I seem to have lost my pursuers. “And all these people knew what I had in here. They all—”

“I know the producer,” she says, ignoring my rambling. “He’s going to put us on in five minutes.”

“On what?”

“Television.” She tugs me through the crowd.

I pull back.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “It’s not live TV. It’s all taped. They’ll edit it.”