The Dance Boots by Linda L Grover

from the easy chair that Rollie pulled up to the table for her. Grandma Lisette had stopped frying sliced baloney ring and frybread in the kitchen, turned off the stove, and was ready to enjoy herself. Her plate was full, her shiny face round as the plate and damp from work, unlined and happy. “Patsy, try yourself one of those pretty sandwiches. Look, they’re just toasty and crispy looking.”
    My mother picked one up between her thumb and first finger and took a small bite, then her third sip of beer of the evening. “Babe, these are the best tuna sandwiches I ever ate.”
    â€œThat’s because it’s chicken.”
    Rollie got up from his place next to me, excusing himself, “Forgot to say hello to Sonny,” and Frankie sat in the chair he vacated. “Hi, Artense.”
    Artense. My name. He could have said it under so many different circumstances. He pulled me out of the way just as I stepped off thesidewalk in front of a car, and said it again and again out of relief and gratitude for my life—Artense. He kissed me and was nearly out of breath with the experience—Artense. He asked to spend the rest of his life by my side, where he could watch me adore his dancing—Artense.
    â€œHi, Frankie,” I smiled, my head down, and thought about what else I could say that could continue this conversation. I was nearly eighteen, almost a woman, and should finally be able to talk with him as a woman would to a man. I raised my head and inhaled, waiting for words to continue.
    â€œWhat do you do now, you done with school? You working?” The moment had passed me by but Frankie was considerate enough to continue and take me with him.
    â€œShe’s going to start going to the junior college this fall,” my mother answered for me.
    â€œOh.” Frankie, his turn to be the tongue-tied one, thought for a moment. I could see him searching for something to say to somebody so impressive and foreign. “Do you like Manischewitz?”
    â€œShe doesn’t drink,” replied Patsy.
THE DAY LOUIS DIED
    The police had found Louis lying where he had fallen, in a half-frozen puddle in the alley behind the Stevedore Surf and Turf, where Stan and I had gone to eat after the prom. While Louis was still conscious, he was able to tell them my dad’s name. Then his lungs congested and filled quickly with pneumonia, what they used to call the Old People’s Friend, and he died not long after they brought him to the hospital. Just like she’d thought, my mother had to be the one to identify the body, to tell the police that it was Louis, and she had to be the one to take his wallet from his pants pocket. Inside, there was nothing but my graduation picture. No money, no socialsecurity card. Just a black-and-white wallet-sized picture of me. A high school graduation picture, the first graduate in our entire family, and so a very big deal. I suppose that when he put it in the plastic sleeve we must have looked at one another face to face. Louis, unbroken by twentieth-century America and federal Indian policies, the Indian boarding school, alcohol, jobs hard and dangerous and impermanent, a life’s playing field set on the edge of a cliff. Louis, on that day as he would be on the day of his funeral, handsome still in a used coat and green pants from the county work farm. Louis the soft-voiced incorrigible. And his granddaughter Artense in black and white, perching on the photographer’s wooden stool the same way my mother sat, ready to fly, in a secondhand sweater, hair shingled and teased on top, smile a mask that almost did the job. Artense, who did as she was told and would graduate from high school. Artense, unbroken but yet untested. He was fifty when I was born. A half-century gap in our experiences. Fifty years. Our lives coincided for less than twenty.
THE CLASS OF 1968
    Frankie found something he could say to a girl who would be going to college. “So,