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.”