Very Valentine

2. 166 Perry Street

THE LIMOUSINE SWERVES AROUND POTHOLES as we approach the entrance of the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Gram and I share the Li-Lac chocolate sampler as the skyscrapers of Manhattan loom ahead like giant piano keys, black and white against a silver sky.

Once we’re out of the tunnel on the city side, we turn down Second Avenue. The East Village looks like the old Greenwich Village I remember as a child. Tonight, it’s a late-summer carnival of dense crowds lit by pale pink lights and blue neon. As we make our way west into the heart of Greenwich Village, we leave the high-rises and nightlife behind us, and enter the hushed sanctuary of winding streets lined with charming brownstones, their window boxes stuffed with geraniums lit by antique lamplights.

From my bedroom window in Queens, as Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” played on repeat, I’d imagine the glamour and sophistication of Manhattan just a few stops away on the E train. I couldn’t wait for Sunday dinners in the Village with my grandparents. When Dad would make the turn onto Perry Street, and drive over the cobblestones, we’d bounce around in the backseat like tennis balls. The cobblestone streets signaled that we were almost there, the place where magic lived: the Angelini Shoe Company.

“Where is it?” our driver asks.

“The corner building. See that blue-and-white-striped canopy? That’s us,” I tell him.

The driver pulls up to the sidewalk and stops the car. “You live all the way over here?”

“Since the day I was married,” Gram tells him.

“Hot neighborhood,” he says.

“Now.” Gram smiles.

I help Gram out of the car. She fishes for her keys by the light of the streetlamp. I look up at the original sign, over the door. It used to say:

Angelini Shoes

GREENWICH VILLAGE

Since 1903

but years of rain have washed away the last three letters. Now it says:

Angel Shoes

GREENWICH VILLAGE

Since 1903

The l in Angel is shaped like an old-fashioned ankle boot, in off-white with teal buttons. When I was a little girl, I longed for a pair of boots just like the one on the sign. Gram would laugh and say, “Those spats haven’t been in style since Millard Fillmore.”

The spicy scent of new leather, lemon wax, and the oil from the cutting machine greets us in the entry. I bypass the frosted-glass paneled door, etched with a cursive A, which leads to the workshop, hike up my gown, and climb the narrow stairs. I reach the first floor, one large room that combines the kitchen and the living room.

“Go ahead and turn on the lights,” Gram says from below. “With these knees, I’ll be up by Tuesday.”

“Take your time,” I tell her.

I flip the switches for the track lighting over the kitchen counter. The open galley kitchen extends the length of the back wall. A long black-and-white-granite bar separates the kitchen from the dining area. Four bar stools covered in red leather with bronze tacks are tucked under the counter. I remember Gram hoisting me onto the stool when I was a child. How strange that here I am, in my thirties, turning on lights and making sure everything is safe for her, as she always did for me.

In the center of the room is a long farm table that seats twelve. The straight-backed chairs have floral crewelwork seats, embroidered by my mother. We share meals, meet with customers, and make our business plans at this table, the center of our family life.

An opulent Murano glass chandelier hangs over the table, dripping with bunches of crystal grapes and draped with beads of midnight blue. There’s a vase filled with fresh flowers in the center of the table year-round. Gram is a regular at the Korean market on Charles Street. Fresh flowers are delivered every Tuesday, and Gram makes it her business to go and choose the best of the bunch. This week, orange tiger lilies are stuffed into an antique crock.

Beyond the counter, in the living area, a long, comfortable sofa covered in beige velvet, with throw pillows of apple green and fire engine red, is situated under the front windows. Gram has a black leather recliner with a matching ottoman in the corner. The floor lamp next to it has a stem of clear, pressed glass, with a black-and-white-striped silk shade. A television set rests on a small table in front of the sofa. Sheer eggshell curtains hang from the windows, letting in light, while offering some privacy from the busy street below.

Gram stands in the entrance of the living room and puts her hands on her hips. “I could use a nightcap. How about you?”

“Sure.” I slip out of my shoes. “Did you water the tomatoes before we left?”

“I completely forgot! And it was so hot today.”

“No problem. I’ll go up.” I yank up the skirt of my gown and climb the steps to the third floor.

I stop in Gram’s room at the top of the stairs to turn on the small lamp on her dressing table, and notice the stack of books by her bed. Gram is a big reader. Once a month she heads over to the public library on Sixth Avenue and fills a tote bag with books. The stack includes: The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer, What Happened on the Boat by Angela Thirkell, Hold Tight by Harlan Coben, Women & Money by Suze Orman, and David Bach’s Smart Women Finish Rich.

My mother’s old bedroom, opposite Gram’s, is decorated for an only child reared in the 1950s. The look is fussy, a prim wallpaper with bunches of violets tied with gold ribbons, a small desk and chair painted white to match the bed, which is covered in a ruffled, lavender organza spread with matching round pillows placed along the carved headboard.

My room, which used to be the guest room, is next door to Mom’s. When Gram was lonely after Grandpop died, Aunt Feen lived here for a while. Ten years have passed, but her nearly empty flask of Bonne Nuit remains on the dresser, a thin puddle of amber perfume at the bottom of the bottle. A simple double bed with a headboard and a white coverlet is positioned between two windows with white cotton Roman shades.

There’s an old writing desk against the wall on one side, and on the other, a wingback chair, slipcovered in white corduroy. This room has the best closet in the house, a walk-in, with shelves in three-quarter surround. We played Big Business in it when we were kids. Tess and I were secretaries, while Alfred was chairman of the board.

I turn on the air conditioner. Gram can’t sleep in the cold, and I can’t sleep without it. I close my bedroom door behind me so the cool stays in. I pass the bathroom that has the original four-legged tub and forest-green-and-white-checked tile my great-grandfather installed when he bought the building.

Outside the bathroom, at the very end of the hallway, is a primitive set of stairs made of rough-hewn oak that leads up to the roof. My grandfather built the steps after years of using an old ladder to get to the hatch. There are endless discussions about these stairs, and my mother sends workmen over to fix them or to replace them with regulation steps with treads, but Gram sends them away. She refuses to change them. Gram is determined to squeeze the last bit of purpose out of every gizmo in this house, whether it’s these stairs, the 1940s alarm clock on her nightstand, or the body she lives in.

I unlock the screen door to the roof garden and push it open. There was a time when there was no bolt on the door, but now we lock every window and door.

I stand and close the door behind me, surveying the most beautiful garden in the world. There’s just enough light from the streetlamps on Perry to blanket the roof in blue. It’s our official outdoor space, which is what you call anything that has open air around it in Manhattan. In the summer, Sunday dinner is moved to the roof, where we push the furniture against the side walls so the grandchildren have their run of the space.

Through the fall and winter, Gram and I often take our coffee breaks up here, bundled in our coats and gloves. We’ve had some of our best talks under this city sky, just the two of us. Even though we spent a lot of time together when I was growing up, it was never one-on-one. When we’re on the roof, the workshop, the pressures of business, and our family problems seem miles away.

The décor of the garden hasn’t changed since I was a girl. In the south corner, there’s a large, circular, wrought-iron table painted white, with matching chairs. The table is flanked by three miniature evergreens in terra-cotta pots. The water fountain features a bronze Saint Francis holding a water jug, a small bird perched on his shoulder.

Along the fence line, in full surround, is our official garden, a series of plain wooden boxes four feet deep planted with dense, green tomato vines. We alternate the dependable big boy tomatoes with the heirloom style, which have proved trickier for us to grow. Our vines are planted in the same wooden boxes my grandfather built, their branches tied with remnants of ribbon from the shop, on the same stakes he used.

We cultivate around thirty plants a year, yielding enough tomatoes to can sauce for the entire family, with plenty of tomatoes left over to eat like apples all summer long.

A two-foot chicken-wire fence is attached to the fence line of the roof above the plants. It’s partly for safety, but also to train the tomato vines to follow a straight path as they grow toward the sun. The dense, fragrant leaves create a spicy green wallpaper that lasts until the end of summer.

Growing tomatoes is all about patience and process. We place the plants carefully in rich mulch in late spring. Soon, the tender vines fill with white blossoms. Weeks later those flowers become waxy clusters which, in turn, become small green orbs that grow larger before turning orange, finally ripening to a robust red before we pick them. In full harvest, the fat red tomatoes hanging from the green vines look like rubies dangling on a charm bracelet.

I lean against the front wall and look past the West Side Highway to the Hudson River. The streetlamps throw bright pools of yellow light the color of butterfly wings onto the walkway by the water’s edge.

In all the years I have watched the Hudson River from this roof, it has never been the same color twice, nor has the sky overhead. One day the sky is a mottled-gray leopard print, then blazing streams of white on hot orange, then a light blue expanse with a smattering of smoke-colored clouds. Just like the sky, the river’s mood changes in an instant, like a temperamental lover with a short memory. Sometimes there’s a wild surf, and other times it’s calm, with waves like the rippled flutes on a teacup. Tonight, the river rolls out like a bolt of silver organza, past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, where it drops off into a midnight blue pit of ocean. It seems to go on forever, and that reassures me.

It’s a slow summer night with only a few cars on the West Side Highway. There aren’t the usual sounds of truck brakes, car horns, and sirens; tonight it’s quiet, as if all of Manhattan is drenched in honey. The sky overhead has turned teal blue, with a border of pale white light that looks like lace over the clutter of buildings across the Hudson on the Jersey side. I can’t find the moon, but the Circle Line sails toward the shore of Manhattan, glittering in the dark night like a smoky topaz.

“Sorry, guys,” I tell the bright red tomatoes as I press them, their tough, glassy coats in need of the morning sun to ripen fully. The earth under the vines is as dry as sawdust. I unloop the old green hose from its stand and crank the water dial. Warm pulses of water turn cold as it gushes. I turn to water the plants. My bridesmaid’s gown is so tight it won’t move with me, so I put down the hose and unzip the back of the dress and slip out of it. My instinct is to save the dress, but for what? I look sickly in taffy colors and I can’t imagine any scenario in which I’d put this thing on again.

The gown stands before me like a stiff pink ghost. I turn the hose in its direction. Drenched, the sateen turns the color of a fizzy cranberry cocktail, the exact shade of the paint wash on Palazzo Chupi, Julian Schnabel’s West Eleventh Street creation that looms behind our building like a Tuscan villa. Now that shade of red would have looked good on me.

All that remains on my body is the Spanx, which looks like a salmon-colored bathing suit from the 1927 Miss America pageant. The boy legs grip my thighs like bandages. My midriff is bound so tight, you’d think the fabric was setting a broken rib. My breasts look like two pink snowball cupcakes sealed in plastic wrap. There’s not a ripple on me as I douse the vines along the front of the building, feeling free of the dress, the shoes, and the role of bridesmaid.

As I stand making rain over the tomato vines, the air fills with the scent of black earth and the slightest aroma of coffee. We put our coffee grounds around the roots, an old gardening trick of my grandfather’s. I think about him, and how Gram has a whole different view of the man I remember and loved. There seem to be some issues under the crisp white tablecloth he demanded be draped over the table at every meal. Maybe Gram will open up to me someday and tell me the story of their marriage, which is also the history of the Angelini Shoe Company.

My grandparents’ shoe shop, and this building, is one of the last holdouts from the old days in this neighborhood. The past ten years have transformed the riverfront from a slew of factories and garages to fancy restaurants and spacious loft apartments. The shoreline of the Hudson River has changed from a flat, forbidding wall of stone to a gleaming array of modern buildings made of glass and steel. Gone are the dangerous docks, black pilings moored with barges, and piers infested with grimy trucks. They’ve been replaced with green parks, brightly colored jungle gyms in safe playgrounds, and manicured walkways speckled with blue guide lights that pull on at the first sign of nightfall.

Gram handled the changes just fine until the big guns decided to alter our view forever. When three glass-box high-rises, designed by the famous architect Richard Meier, were built next door, Gram threatened to enclose our roof garden with a tall wooden fence covered in hardy ivy to keep out prying eyes. But she hasn’t had to yet, because there doesn’t seem to be anybody moving into the crystal towers. For months I came up on the roof dreading the neighbors. But, so far, our roof garden looks directly into an empty apartment.

I pull the nozzle close to my face, dousing myself with cold water, I feel the itch of the LeClerc powder as it washes away. Soon, all of Nancy DeAnnoying’s handiwork is gone, leaving nothing but clean skin. My hair tumbles out of its chignon under the force of the water. Wet, the Spanx chokes my body like a vine. I look around. I put the nozzle down. Then, I pull the bandeau of the Spanx down, give the bodice a yank, and roll the Lycra down over my waist and hips, pushing it down my thighs and calves. I step out of it. As it rests on the black tar roof, the full girdle looks like the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene.

I close my eyes and hold the nozzle high, dousing my body, like the plants. The cool water feels heavenly against my bare skin. I close my eyes; I relive a similar hot summer night long ago, when my sisters and I stood in a blue plastic pool while Gram spritzed us with the hose.

Suddenly, a blaze of light fills the roof. At first, I’m confused. Is there a police helicopter overhead using giant searchlights to ferret out drug deals? I can see the headline now: NUDE WOMAN FROLICS IN SPRINKLER DURING CRACK BUST. But the sky is clear! I look to the right. Not a bit of movement across Perry Street. I look to the left. Oh no. The lights in the usually empty fourth-floor apartment of the Richard Meier crystal tower are blazing.

I look directly into the eyes of a woman in a summer suit who looks right back at me. She is surprised to see me, but she is not alone. There’s a man with her, a tall, kind of gorgeous man with intense black eyes, wearing shorts and a T-shirt that says CAMPARI. We make eye contact but then his eyes move lower, darting back and forth like he’s reading incoming flights on an airport screen. It’s then that I remember I’m naked. I dive behind a tall row of tomatoes.

I crawl toward the screen door, but as I do, the hose goes wild, like a wily snake throwing a jet stream of water willy-nilly up into the air and all over the roof. I crawl back to it, cursing as I go. I grab the nozzle and then, staying low, move to the spigot where, from a very difficult angle, I crank until the water finally shuts off. As I crawl to the door and back to safety, the light from the apartment goes out, leaving our roof and what seems like most of lower Manhattan in darkness. I slowly lift my head. The apartment is empty now, a crystal box in the dark.

Downstairs, Gram sits in her recliner with her feet up. Her red patent leather pumps rest, pigeon-toed, by the table, while her suit jacket hangs neatly over the back of a chair. A frosty glass of limoncello waits for me on the counter. “You took a shower.”

“Uh-huh.” I tie a knot in the sash of my bathrobe. I’ll spare Gram the details of my display of public nudity on the roof.

“Your cocktail. I made it a double. Mine, too.” She toasts me. “The oil pretzels are on the table.” She points to her favorite snack, puffy Italian versions of popovers. I take one and snap it in half.

“I had a talk with your brother at the wedding. He wants me to retire.”

I’ve held in my anger all day. Now, I’ve had it. I snap, “I hope you told Alfred to mind his own business.”

“Valentine, I am eighty years old on my next birthday. How much longer can I…” She stops and reconsiders what she is trying to say. “You do most of what needs to be done around here in the shop, in the house, and even in the garden.”

“And I love it so much I’ll be a burden to you all of your life,” I joke. “The last single woman in our family sleeping in your spare room.”

“Not for long and not forever. You will fall in love again.” She raises her glass to me.

My grandmother has a way of encouraging me that is so gentle, it is only when I’m alone and reflective that I am able to recall her small turns of phrase that eventually shore me up and help me move forward. When she says, You will fall in love again, she means it, and also recognizes that I was once in love with a good man, Bret Fitzpatrick, and it was real. I had planned a future with him, and when it didn’t work out, she was the only person in my life who said it wasn’t supposed to. Everyone else (my sisters, my mother, and my friends) assumed he wasn’t enough, or maybe he was too much, or maybe ours was a first love that wasn’t meant to go the distance, but no one else was able to put it in perspective so I might make it a chapter in the story of my life, and not the definitive denouement of my romantic history. I rely on Gram to tell me the truth, and to give me her unvarnished opinion. I also require her wisdom. And her approval? Well, that’s everything.

“I worry that I hold you back. You should be young when you’re young.”

“According to Aunt Feen, I’m ancient ruins.”

“Listen to me. Only an old lady can say this. No one else will have the guts to tell you the truth. Time is not your friend and it’s, well…” Gram looks at her hands.

“What?”

“Time is like ice in your hands.”

I put down my drink. “Okay, now I’m completely panicked.”

“Too late. I’m doing the panicking for the both of us.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Val…”

The tone of her voice scares me.

She looks at me. “I’ve made a mess of things.”

“What do you mean?”

“When your grandfather died, he had a couple of loans against the building. I knew about them at the time, but when I went to the bank to settle, the loans were more than I knew. So instead of paying them off, I borrowed more to keep the shop going. Ten years ago, I felt like I could turn the place around to make a profit, but the truth is, we were just getting by.”

“And now?”

“And now, we’re in trouble.”

My mind reels. I think of us, working day in and day out and often on weekends. I can’t imagine that we aren’t making money. I take a sip of the limoncello, hoping it will fortify me. Gram and I never talk about the business side of shoemaking, the profits or losses, the expenses of making shoes. She is in charge of everything relating to the business. She handles the pricing of the stock, the number of orders we take, and the ledger. She uses an outside company to do the payroll for the employees. At one point, I thought of offering to take over the books, but had enough work to do in the shop. I’ve dedicated the past four years to learning how to make shoes, not how to sell them. I draw a modest salary from the business, but beyond that, Gram and I never discuss money. “How…how did this happen?”

“I’m the worst kind of businessman. I live in hope.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means that I mortgaged the building to keep the business going. The bank called when they adjusted the mortgage, and I tried to refinance, but couldn’t. In the new year, our mortgage payments double, and I don’t know how I am going to pay them. Your grandfather was a great juggler. I’m not. I put all my energy into making the shoes, thinking the business would take care of itself. When you came to work for me, I felt like I had the help I needed to pull me out of the hole I got us in. But we’re a small operation.”

“Maybe we should think about expanding, making more shoes, and hiring people to help us grow.”

“With what?” She looks at me.

“I’ve got it!” I clap my hands together. “I’ll make a sex tape! I’ll sell it on the Internet! Works for the starlets. Maybe it will only bring in a couple of bucks and a MetroCard, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Let’s hold off on the desperate measures,” Gram laughs.

I get up and embrace my grandmother. “There’s a solution to every problem.”

“Who told you that?”

“The Norman Vincent Peale of our family, my dear mother.”

“Mike invented upbeat.”

“Yeah, well, this is one time we should follow her lead.”

“Okay, okay,” Gram says and lets go of me.

“Gram?”

“Yes?”

“It’s only money.”

“It’s a lot of money.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I promise her.

Gram’s eyes fill with tears. She lifts her glasses and wipes her eyes. Gram is not a weeper, it’s rare that I see her cry.

“You’re not alone, Gram. I’m here.”

Gram makes her way upstairs while I close down the house, rinse our glasses, pull the drapes closed, and turn out the lights. As I do my chores, I review all the business questions I have for Gram. I climb the stairs to find out more about exactly what is going on around here.

Gram sits up in bed, reading the newspaper in her fashion. The New York Times is folded into a book-size rectangle. She leans on one shoulder into her pillow, holding the paper up, close to the lamplight as she reads.

Gram’s face is oval, with a smooth forehead and an aquiline nose. Her even lips have the faintest touch of coral left from her lipstick. Her deep brown eyes study the paper intently. She adjusts her eyeglasses and then sniffles. She pulls a tissue from the sleeve of her nightgown, wipes her nose, returns the tissue to its spot, and continues reading. These are the things, I imagine, that I will remember about her when she’s gone. I will remember her habits and quirks, the way she reads the paper, the way she stands over the pattern table in the shop, the way she uses her entire body as she places her hand on the lid of a mason jar to seal it shut when we can the tomatoes. Now I have a new picture to add to the pile: the look on her face this evening when she told me the Angelini Shoe Company is in hock up to the rooftop garden. I played it cool and calm, but the truth is, I feel as though I’m on life support, and I haven’t the guts to ask the doctor how long I’ve got.

“You’re staring,” Gram says, looking at me over her glasses. “What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the loans?” I ask.

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“But I’m your apprentice. Translated from the French it means ‘to help.’”

“It does?”

“Not really. The point is, I’m here to help. From the moment I became your apprentice, your problems became my problems. Our problems.”

Gram begins to disagree. I stop her.

“Now, don’t argue with me. I want to master making shoes because I want to design them someday and I can’t do it without you.”

“You’ve got the talent.” Gram looks at me. “You definitely have the talent.”

I sit down on the edge of the bed and turn to face her. “Then trust me with your legacy.”

“I do. But, Valentine, more than the success of this business, in fact, more than anything in this world, I want peace in my family. I want you to get along with your brother. I want you to try and understand him.”

“Maybe he should try and understand us. This isn’t 1652 on a Tuscan farm where the firstborn son controls everything and the girls do the dishes. He’s not our padrone, even though he acts like it.”

“He’s smart. Maybe he can help us.”

“Fine, first thing tomorrow I smoke the peace pipe with Alfred,” I lie. I’m not going to do one more thing to put me into deeper indentured servitude, emotional or financial, to my brother. “You need anything before I go to bed?”

“Nope.”

The phone rings on Gram’s nightstand. She reaches for it. “Hello,” she says. “Ciao, ciao!” She sits up in the bed, waves good night to me. “Il matrimonio è stato bellissimo. Jaclyn era una sposa straordinaria. Troppa gente, troppo cibo, la musica era troppo forte, ed erano tutti anziani.” She laughs.

I stand and walk toward the door. I can make out phrases here and there. Nice wedding. Pretty bride. Loud music. Gram’s vocal tone has changed, her crack Italian words tumble over one another and she hardly takes a breath, like a gossipy seventh-grader after her first dance. When she speaks Italian, she’s lighter, downright girly. Who is she talking to? I glance back in her direction, but Gram covers the mouthpiece.

She waves me off. “It’s long distance. My tanner from Italy.” Then she smiles and goes back to her call.

On the way to my bedroom, I turn the hallway lights off. Lately, these calls from Italy have become more frequent. Leather must be a hilarious subject between shoemakers and tanners, judging by the way Gram jokes on the phone. Whoever she’s talking to has a lot of pep for 5 A.M. Italian time. But how can she laugh when the wolf is at the door with a lien and a buyout? I go into my room, which is about seventy degrees cooler than the hallway. I close the door behind me so the cold air doesn’t waft down the hallway and give Gram a chill.

I am so upset, I cannot get in bed, so I pace. What a day. A wedding day so hot that when I danced with Jaclyn’s father-in-law he left a wet handprint on my dress. The humiliation of the Friends’ table, explaining myself, my life to a bunch of people I see only at weddings and funerals, which should tell me something about their place in my universe. Then I return home to bad news which, deep down, doesn’t surprise me as much as it should, if I’m completely honest with myself. I have noticed a shift in Gram’s mood in the shop. I preferred to ignore it, which is a mistake I won’t make again. From now on, I’m not going to pretend everything is fine when it’s not. I’m angry at Gram for mishandling the business. I’m angry that she assumed Grandpop’s debts without restructuring, or bringing in professionals to advise her. She has set the wheels in motion to close the shop, or maybe this is her way of letting the decision to retire be made for her. I can see it all now: Alfred will close the shop, sell the building, I will be on the street, while Gram goes off to live in one of those cold, impersonal condos, and someday her great-grandchildren will look at photographs of the shoes she made, like relics under glass in a museum.

I should have sat down with her when I came to work here and had her explain everything, not just the history of our family business, or the mechanics of the craft, but the hard facts, the numbers, the truth about what it takes to keep a small, independent company thriving in this era of mass merchandising and cheap foreign labor. I skirted all that because I was beholden to her for making me her apprentice and allowing me to learn how to make shoes. I was indebted to her, and now I will pay the price.

I would have handled things differently if my mentor wasn’t my grandmother. I never felt I could ask questions because who was I to ask them? But now, I know. I should have asked. I should have asserted myself! I wasted so much time. And there it is, the root of my anger and frustration, so obvious I should have thought of it sooner. I took my time until my thirties to find my calling, and then I waltzed in assuming that the details would take care of themselves. I should have come to work here full-time when I was young and my grandfather was alive. I should have become their apprentice right out of college instead of being sidetracked by Bret and by a career as a teacher, which I was never completely committed to. Then maybe we wouldn’t be in this fix.

I’m a late bloomer, and knowing a little bit about plants the way I do, sometimes late bloomers don’t bloom at all. I may never become the artisan I hope to be because there won’t be a master to teach me, or a place for me to perfect my craft. The Angelini Shoe Company will close, and with it will go my future.

I waded into becoming a shoemaker when I should have jumped in. I’d show up on weekends and help trace patterns, buff leather, dye silk, or cut grommets; but it wasn’t a calling for me at first, it wasn’t as if I was compelled to be a shoemaker. I just wanted an excuse to spend time with Gram.

Then, as these things go, I had an epiphany.

One Saturday morning, when I was still teaching English at Forest Hills High School, I came over to help. I draped a gorgeous piece of embroidered velvet over the cutting table. I picked up a pencil and traced around the edges, marking where the seams of the shoe would eventually go. I had traced the pattern instinctively, without breaking the flow of the line, as though something or someone was guiding me. I had an effortless connection to the task, it came as naturally as breathing. I had found my calling. I knew that was it, no more teaching. I would leave behind that career and my life in Queens, and sadly, Bret, who had his own life plan configured, which didn’t include a struggling artist with student loans, but rather a traditional life, the center of which would be a stay-at-home mother who would raise the children while he took Wall Street by the horns. I didn’t fit in his picture, and he didn’t fit in mine. Love, I decided then, had to wait while I started over.

I pull my sketchbook off the nightstand and wiggle the pencil out of the wire. I flip the pad open and leaf through my sketches of vamps, insoles, heels, and uppers, drawn tentatively at first, then with a stronger hand. I’m getting there, I think as I look at the sketches. I’m getting better, I just need more time.

As I flip through the pages, I reread the notes I’ve scribbled in the margins: try kid leather here? how about elastic there? velvet? Throughout the pages, knowledge imparted by Gram offers me the instructions and facts that I need daily, ideas to revisit and refer to in the day-to-day operation of the shop. Finally, I flip to a clean white page.

I write:

How to Save the Angelini Shoe Company

I am completely overwhelmed. I add:

Since 1903

A hundred and four years have come and gone. The Angelinis were educated and clothed and sheltered with the profits of their shoe shop, a life made and financed by the labor of their own hands. I cannot let the business die, but what does this business mean now, in a world where handcrafted shoes are a luxury? We make custom wedding shoes, in a world where shoes are manufactured and mass-produced in minutes and assembled by cheap labor in factories in corners of the world no one has heard of, or worse, pretend that they don’t exist. Making shoes by hand is an antiquated art form like glass blowing or quilting or canning tomatoes. How do we survive in a contemporary world without losing everything my great-grandfather built? I write:

Sources of Revenue

I stare at the words until my eyes blur. The only people I know with a real knowledge of money and how to gain access to it are Bret and Alfred, two men I’d rather not ask for help. I flip the pad closed, shove the pencil back into the wire, and drop it onto the floor. I turn out the light. I flip over and pull the blanket close. I’ll make this happen, I promise myself. I have to.