Promises to Keep - Ann Tatlock [31]
“Sorry to take so long,” the woman said. “Al wasn’t in today, and only that young assistant of his was there. He’s good at fixing shoes, but he’s slower than molasses going up a hill in January. He gave me new heels, though. Take a look.”
She opened the shoe box and lifted out one brown pump. Though the heel was new, the shoe itself looked as though it had walked a thousand miles. I wondered why she didn’t just buy a new pair.
“Looks nice, Mama,” Mara said.
The woman smiled and, looking pleased, tucked the shoe back into the box. I couldn’t help but notice that she, like her husband, was older. Her hair was streaked with gray, and her hands were bony and gnarled. Fine lines sliced the skin at the corners of her eyes and dug tiny canals along her upper lip.
“Don’t worry about taking a while, Mama,” Mara said. “I’ve been talking to Roz. I know her from school.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She and her family just moved here from Minnesota.”
“Well.” The woman smiled at me, a small uncertain smile. “Welcome, then,” she said. “I hope you like Mills River.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said shyly. “I do.”
The man nodded in my direction but didn’t speak.
“Well, come on, Mara, let’s get home and get some lunch.” The woman put an arm around Mara’s shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
As my new friend was being led away, she hollered back to me, “I’ll see you in school, Roz.”
I lifted a sticky hand in her direction and watched her go.
chapter
10
Mara and I saw each other in school on Monday, but only from a distance. We didn’t actually speak until Friday, when an air raid drill sent everyone scrambling for the halls to take cover. All over the school, hundreds of kids dropped to their knees, touched their heads to the wall, and clasped their hands over their necks, fingers locked. We all went along with it because we had to, though we doubted being rolled into a ball would protect us from a nuclear bomb, especially if we suffered a direct hit on Mills River Elementary.
Wally always claimed that a nuclear attack was a real possibility, seeing as how Russia was just itching to bomb America off the globe. Mom said they would do no such thing, since the Russians were every bit as civilized as we were. But whenever they argued about it, Wally brought up the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which he remembered and I didn’t. We might have all been blown sky-high right then, he’d say, and the Russian babushkas would have been dancing in the streets of Moscow.
I figured if there were no chance of our Cold War enemy bombing us, then the teachers wouldn’t interrupt classes and make us line up in the hall like so many rows of sitting ducks. Surely they thought there was some merit to these drills. So whenever the air raid siren went off, I wondered whether all the old grandmothers in Moscow were putting on their dancing shoes.
That’s what I was thinking about when the person in a fetal position next to me whispered my name. I peeked out from under my arm and saw one dark and roving eye peering out from under the arm of the person beside me.
“Mara! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with your own class.”
“When the siren went off, I ran down the hall to find you,” she whispered.
“How come?”
“I had to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Did you mean it?”
“Did I mean what?”
“Shh! Quiet please.” It was Miss Fremont, my homeroom teacher. Her heels tapped on the linoleum-tiled floor as she slowly paced the hall. Mara and I retreated like turtles into our shells.
After a moment, as the tapping of her heels grew distant, Mara said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Did you mean it when you said you wanted to be friends?”
“Sure I meant it.”
“All right, then. Can you meet me tomorrow on the bench outside the drugstore?”
“Well, yeah. What time?”
“Around noon.”
“Okay.”
A scrap of paper traveled the distance between her head and mine, propelled by Mara’s index finger. “If you can’t make it, call me. Here’s my number.”
I took the paper, clutched it in my fist. “Okay. But don’t worry, I’ll be there.”
“If we don’t get blown