Best Foot Forward Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  I’m a real ace at arguing with myself.

  Take a subject like Tanner Cobb.

  On the one hand, he stole.

  On the other, he helped his little brother read and count.

  Then again, he stole shoes in front of his little brother.

  But he brought the shoes back and offered to make up for what he’d done.

  My mind said, Don’t trust him.

  My instincts said, He might not be all bad.

  Inconsistencies are a royal pain; the older you get, the more they multiply.

  Books by JOAN BAUER

  Backwater

  Best Foot Forward

  Hope Was Here

  Rules of the Road

  Squashed

  Stand Tall

  Sticks

  Thwonk

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006

  Copyright © Joan Bauer, 2005

  All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-440-69591-9

  eISBN : 978-1-440-69591-9

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume

  any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Jean,

  who always puts her best foot forward

  And for Steven,

  who never gives up

  With deepest thanks to my editor,

  Nancy Paulsen,

  for her wisdom, perseverance, encouragement,

  and tireless good cheer

  My love and gratitude to friends

  Rita, Laura, JoAnn, Chris, Jo Ellen, and Teri;

  to my husband, Evan,

  my sister, Karen, and my mom—

  all remarkable sources of strength to me.

  I am indebted to Willie McLean,

  who shared his heart,

  and to Ken Thrall, a man of true sole.

  Chapter 1

  “Feet,” said Dr. Suzanne Rodriguez over the phone, “are the most abused parts of the body.”

  I held my cell phone, wiggled my toes, and wrote that down.

  “People don’t understand how much better their lives could be if they took care of their feet.”

  I wrote, Better Living Through Foot Care. I was doing this interview in my parked car. Dr. Rodriguez was the fourth foot doctor I’d interviewed this week. It was all part of the new push at Gladstone Shoes, where I worked, to eclipse every other shoe company in the galaxy.

  “Think, Jenna,” my boss, Mrs. Gladstone, had said, “how splendid it would be if Gladstone’s hired a podiatrist to train the sales force.

  “Call all the local foot doctors,” she had directed. “See which ones you like; we’ll comprise a list and pick the best.”

  Mrs. Gladstone was a big idea person, which meant she didn’t always think about reality. Chicago has scores of podiatrists.

  “I’m a teenager,” I’d mentioned. “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “You’ll learn,” she had said. “Everyone likes to talk about what they do. Ask them how they feel about their job. Ask them where they think podiatric medicine is going. Ask them to tell you their hopes and dreams.”

  Dr. Rodriguez was going on and on about how, when she was a young girl, she hated her large feet and they were a source of embarrassment to her, and that was when she knew that she wanted to help others with foot shame lead lives of freedom and comfort. When you ask foot doctors about their hopes and dreams, prepare to plunge deep.

  Other cars were pulling into the parking lot. My meeting was about to start.

  I thanked Dr. Rodriguez, jumped out, and lovingly locked the door. My new car was glistening red and cool in the early morning light. People talk about light dancing off a lake in summer or sunshine pouring through a kitchen window, but there’s a true beauty to light beaming off the hood of a recently washed red car that is absolutely yours.

  I rushed across the parking lot, past the little peace garden with the stone bench that I was going to sit on if I ever had time to relax. I headed through the back door and climbed the long staircase.

  “Hi, I’m Jenna,” I said to the group seated around the oval table. “My dad’s an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Jenna,” twenty voices said back.

  I sat up straight and tried to look brave. This was the second meeting of Al-Anon I’d attended since I got back from Texas this summer. Al-Anon is a recovery group for people who have alcoholics in their lives. At the meeting last week I didn’t say anything; now I was getting ready to spill my guts.

  I gripped the table in the St. Francis room of the Holy Name Catholic Church where these meetings took place—it was old and scratched; initials were carved into the wood. I looked at the painting of St. Francis on the wall. He was standing in a forest in a white robe, arms out, surrounded by adoring woodland animals. He looked like a Disney character in a happy glade. I thought there should be another picture in this room, given what we were all dealing with. St. Francis could at least look like he had a headache.

  “Something happened with my dad,” I said. The fan blew a strong breeze across the room. This group knew all about things happening with fathers. Suddenly I felt like crying. I kept thinking about how Dad was driving drunk, how I was in the car and had to stop him. “The thing is, I had to turn my dad in to the police. I know if I hadn’t done it he would have kept hurting himself or someone or me. I know that. I’m just trying to live with it because it’s on his record forever now and I think he hates me.” I didn’t want to cry, so I focused on the two squirrels at St. Francis’s feet, looking mellow. Why shouldn’t they be mellow? There are no alcohol issues in the forest. Of course there are predators, fires. I guess it’s always something.

  I said, “I want to stay
strong because I’ve got a good job and a lot of people are counting on me. So I’m trying to remember all the stuff I know about the disease and how it’s not about me, but I keep having these nightmares of him in jail and how it’s my fault. I couldn’t seem to deal with all this myself. So”—I took a huge breath—“I came here.”

  I didn’t look at the faces, just heard the words that came back to me.

  “Thanks for sharing that, Jenna.”

  “You’re brave to have done that, Jenna.”

  “You probably helped him.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Not my fault . . .

  Not my fault . . .

  I wanted to carve that into the table, carve it on my heart and mind so I wouldn’t forget.

  Not my fault.

  A fly buzzed across the table like a jet fighter going in low across a runway. Ron, our group leader, batted it away. “Setting boundaries,” he said. “Let’s talk about that.”

  “The healthier we are,” said someone, “the more we need them.”

  “And have to fight for them,” a woman offered as the fly dive-bombed her arm.

  “Weekends are the worst,” said a girl, Deenie. “My dad just checks out. He drinks until he can’t walk and then he sits down and drinks until he can’t talk. We just live around him; no one mentions it. He’s there, but he’s not.”

  I sat at the table, listening to the stories. It felt good to know I wasn’t alone. My dad doesn’t live with us anymore; I was eight when Mom kicked him out.

  This fly had a death wish. It landed on Ron’s nose and buzzed off to the wall. Ron rolled up the “12 Steps of Al-Anon” sheet; the twelve steps are principles for life, guidelines for getting stronger. Ron stood on his chair, and with one sure blow nailed it.

  “Sometimes,” said Ron, “you have to absolutely, completely, with all the strength you’ve got, say stop.”

  It was a major victory for boundary setting.

  We all laughed. It was good to be back.

  After Ron closed the meeting, we bowed our heads and said the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

  A short girl sitting at the end of the table was crying. Everybody’s got a big story here. Ron went over to her. I wanted to stay, but I’d be late for work if I did. School was starting in three weeks; I had so much to do at the shoe store before the big door of junior year slammed shut around me.

  Leave your burdens at the table. That’s what Jocelyn, my first Al-Anon group leader, used to say. I never quite knew how to do that back then. But I’ve changed so much since those days. I touched the table, lifted the hurt off my back, and plopped the mess down.

  The table didn’t crack, which I took as an excellent sign.

  “Bye,” I said to the group.

  “Bye, Jenna.”

  I ran out to my car, got in, and breathed deep. Mr. Bovier, my Driver’s Ed teacher, was always warning our class not to drive when we’re emotional—only well adjusted, unemotional people should ever drive, he insisted. Mr. Bovier was completely unemotional except when you’d forget to signal a turn across oncoming traffic.

  I started my car; it purred hello. I’d bought it with my own hard-earned money, bought it as soon as I got back from Texas this summer to celebrate my newfound maturity and the changes I was making in my life. I took a few cleansing breaths.

  I checked my rearview mirror, looked behind me, and pulled out of the Holy Name parking lot as unemotionally as a teenager could manage.

  Chapter 2

  “Is it okay to play with the squirrels?”

  The little boy stood in the children’s shoe section by the huge tree I’d made. Big green leaves made out of construction paper hung from the branches.

  “Sure,” I said. “There’s a whole squirrel family there—a father, a mother, a—”

  “There’s no father.” He stood on his toes to get the animals down. “And the mother’s sleeping.” He threw a squirrel on the floor and lifted the others out. “This is the grandmother.”

  I shook hands with the grandmother squirrel. “How are you, Grandma?”

  “She’s doing okay, except she has to work too hard.”

  I smiled. “Gathering nuts takes a lot out of you.”

  He nodded seriously.

  Two businessmen walked in and marched to the men’s oxfords. You have to have great range to work at Gladstone Shoes—I moved from forest family dynamics to assisting Corporate America.

  “Gentlemen, can I help you?”

  I didn’t need to measure their feet. These guys knew. The older man held up a square-toed oxford. “Eleven medium.”

  “Same shoe,” said the younger man, “in ten and a half.”

  It’s a privilege to wait on decision makers. “Great shoes,” I said and headed to the back, giving Murray Castlebaum, my other boss, a sympathetic look. Murray’s customer wasn’t sure about anything—she’d pick a shoe up, carry it around, then put it back in the wrong place. Murray kept asking her if he could help.

  She shook her head. “I’m just looking.”

  In five minutes she’d rearranged half the store. We call it search and destroy in the shoe world.

  I headed to the back room, jumped on the sliding ladder and got the shoes, raced back to the businessmen, slipped the oxfords on their feet. They stood in unison. The older man nodded. “Sold.”

  Poor Murray. Now his customer wanted help. She held up shoe after shoe. “Do you have this in brown?”

  “Just black and camel,” Murray told her. She put the shoes on the floor.

  “Do you have this sandal in teal blue?”

  “It doesn’t come in any kind of blue.”

  “Does this come with a closed toe?”

  Murray gripped a chair. “It’s a sandal.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “I guess I’ll have to go someplace else.”

  Would you please?

  Murray rolled his eyes at me.

  A teenage girl walked up to the little boy and told him he could play a few more minutes. She leaned down to him and whispered intently before going over to the stiletto heels. Don’t, I wanted to tell her. You’re young. Don’t destroy your feet.

  “I’m four and three-eighths,” the little boy announced proudly to me. “I can write my name!”

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re old.”

  Murray muttered that he was fifty-four and a half and getting older by the minute.

  The little boy pointed to the tree leaves. Each kid got to write their name on a leaf. I gave him a paper leaf and a crayon.

  A teenage guy came in. He had tan skin and short, curly hair and walked toward the athletic shoes. A long scar ran from just below his left eye to his jaw.

  The guy kept glancing at me. He had intense, dark eyes. “What kind of shoes are those?” he asked Murray, pointing to a support walker with extra cushioning. He had a low, earthy voice.

  “They’re for women who are on their feet most of the day and need extra support.”

  “You got them in an eight?”

  “What color?”

  “How many colors you got?”

  Murray said he’d check.

  The little boy handed me his leaf with WEBSTER T. COBB on it.

  “You can put that up anywhere on the tree, Webster.”

  Murray came back with an armful of shoe boxes. The teenage girl stepped in front of him and grabbed her stomach. “I feel sick,” she moaned. “Can I please have some water?” She motioned to the boy weakly. “Webster, come here.”

  Webster’s face clouded over. “She’s okay.”

  “Webster . . . I think I’m going to faint.”

  “I’ll get you water,” I told the girl. I rushed in the back room and filled a paper cup.

  Wait a minute—a red flag went up.

  The girl, that nervous guy. Suddenly, everything felt wrong. I heard Murray screa
m, “Come back with those!”

  I raced back to the floor, looked around, but the teenage guy was gone.

  Murray has many gifts, but running is not one of them. He lurched out the door screaming, “Stop! Thief !” The girl marched over to Webster. She tried to take his hand.

  “Webster, we’re going!”

  Murray walked back into the store with the security guard. Murray’s eyes turned to slits as he looked at the girl.

  “You know that boy who stole those shoes?”

  The girl grabbed Webster’s hand and yanked him toward her. I knew that shoplifters sometimes work in twos. One creates a disturbance while the other one grabs merchandise and runs out the door.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re a witness to a crime,” Murray informed her. “You’re going to have to wait until the police come.”

  “I’m leaving, mister!”

  Webster started crying, pulling away from the girl.

  Just then, Mrs. Gladstone came down from her office above the store. “What in God’s name . . . ?”

  “We had an incident,” Murray said.

  The girl was yanking Webster’s hand, telling him to stop crying; Webster broke free and ran toward the tree. He was wheezing, trying to catch his breath. Mrs. Gladstone stared at the girl. “Is that child sick?”

  “He has trouble breathing sometimes,” she said. “Webster, come on. Use your inhaler.”

  Webster nodded pitifully—he had huge eyes. He stuck an inhaler in his mouth and took a gasping breath.

  Mrs. Gladstone was not a large woman, but the strength of her presence made up for it. She walked over to Webster and bent down as much as she could. “My son had trouble breathing sometimes when he was your age. You’re doing fine, just let yourself relax. It’s going to be okay.”

  Her voice was so gentle. Webster closed his eyes and breathed more normally. Mrs. Gladstone’s son is now a world-class business sleaze, a supreme shoe scorpion, and, unfortunately, the new head of this company.