Chapter 19

It had not taken long to find a handful of children oriented locales that elatedly accepted her patronage and selfless volunteerism. Despite the many charitable organizations prevalent in the City and its history of providing for the those who could not fend for their own selves (indeed, San Francisco had been the first city in the United States to have an animal welfare organization) there were still many organizations in dire need of financial support. She decided on concentrating on three, one that served the Chinese children in Chinatown, one that served that Italian children in North Beach and one that served the Hispanic and Irish children out in the perennially sunny Mission district. She had noticed that those charities serving the immigrant population were not as well supported as others. She loved doing her rounds to all three places, feeling as if she were a roving Miss Pony and Nurse Teacher Mary Jane in one. There was no reward for her other than the smiling faces and embraces of the boys and girls who loved their Miss Candy, or in the small pieces of artful scribbles that were the makeshift thank you notes. She knew that at a certain level, she was not only fulfilling her need to serve and nurse others which had always been her higher calling (especially children), but that she had to somehow fill the maternal void that had been so cruelly denied her.

She managed to hide her latent sorrow of a widow in a version of happy warmth tempered with her broad, engaging smile. She had no desire to burden others with what tormented her soul and heart. However, if one base element of remained unchanged, it was her feistiness which had been not been undiminished with neither time nor trails.

Early on her in new purpose at the Italian children’s house, she had noticed the children walking funny. As she set about to examine them she had mentioned this observation to the House Nonna, Clemenza. The Nonna had exasperately thrown u p her expressive arms. “Che grosso problema, Signorina Candida! Before you came, little money…had to feed children before getting shoes!” her tone was one of offended misery.

Candice could not believe it…even in the abject poverty she had grown up in at Pony’s Home, there had always been properly fitting shoes, even if they were a bit tattered or patched up! “What?! No shoes??? How is this possible?” she stammered, secretly incensed.

The Nonna’s wide face pursed with shame, but Candice could not fault her…of course, if a choice had to be made, children should always eat and worry about shoes later… but that was then!

She quickly took a survey of what would suffice and announced to Nonna Clemenza, “I’ll be back…I’m going to find some shoes!” She purposefully marched up Corso Cristoforo Colombo which then became Montgomery Street, and made a right on Sutter Street, determinedly headed towards Union Square…she had recalled seeing some huge shoe emporium there and she was determined to obtain for her Italian children some decent shoes, regardless of cost!

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The window was vast, and the shoes in the display were the highest quality and beautifully presented. She did not bother to look up at the name of the establishment; she only saw the gold letters at the base of the window proudly announcing “The Largest Shoe Store in the West for Men, Women and Children” Having secured the knowledge that she had come to the right place, she walked in where a friendly greeter quickly directed her to the lower level, where the children’s shoes were. Candice went down and was momentarily delighted at what she saw…the room was done in a circus theme and it the whole area was full of eager shoppers with even more eager children. There were gay colors, toys and if her olfactory sense served her right, fresh popcorn and cotton candy. However it was very busy and when she finally flagged someone who could help her, the harried clerk was scurrying to the register with arm load of boxes.

Candice tried to engage her. “Excuse me, when you get a moment, I need help here…I need several pairs of shoes for the Italian children’s house in….” she started, but she was abruptly cut off with, “You mean that Charity house?” the clerk sniped very subtly as if she could not be bothered.

Candice felt her hackles rise in affronted offense but kept her cool. “Yes, that is correct. They need shoes and I am willing to…”

“I’m sorry…” the woman said with some finality and Candice was about to interject when suddenly a woman not much older than her materialized and asked, “Is there something I can help you with?” Her countenance was genuinely friendly and helpful, and her manner of dress seemed above the attending clerks. Candice noted that this must be someone of great influence, for the woman suddenly looked and acted very mousey. “Well, I…she…” the clerk started to blurt, but the woman’s blue-green eyes sharpened a bit. “I’ll handle this Florence…” the woman stated in a forthcoming tone, although it was distinctly an order. “Yes, Mrs. Bloom…” the meek reply squeaked and the clerk was gone.

Once Florence was out of earshot, the woman apologized, “I’m sorry, we are quite hectic here but that is no excuse to give any of our customers careless service, no matter how busy we are…I noticed she may have said something to upset you, and I do apologize…” Candice notice that this woman not only had large blue green eyes, her nose had a scattering of freckles across and her hair was just as dense with curls as hers. She felt quite kindred in her presence even if they had not been properly introduced. The woman’s smile was engagingly broad and honest as she continued, “..now, what can I help you with?”

Candy felt relieved. “Shoes…I need shoes for children…I volunteer at the Italian House and the current state of shoes or lack thereof there is a sorry state!”

The light in woman’s eyes told Candice she would gladly help her. “Ah! Very good then…we donate a lot of shoes to the Archdiocese already so we are happy to help you out here…I don’t know why Florence was so uncordial to you and your request, she knows we donate shoes all the time!”

Candice was now reassured, although she was taken aback that the woman thought she wanted them for free. She assured her that she would have been more than happy to pay for the shoes herself, but the would hear nothing of it. “Please, don’t think anything of it…I can give away this whole shoe store if I wished, the Bloom’s are truly happy to donate…I am Mrs. Peter Bloom after all…” Suddenly, Candice realized something “Wait a minute…Mrs. Bloom? This is Bloom’s shoe store?”

The woman laughed easily. “I sure hope so or I’m about to get into trouble for giving another shoe store’s inventory away! Where did you think you were? I can tell you our competitors not are as generous with the donations, so I’m glad you came here first!”

Candice chuckled lightly too, a bit embarrassed. “I just realized who you are…Alma Spreckles told me to look you up and I must accuse myself of not doing so at the time she told me…” Alma Spreckles had been gone for quite a few weeks and Candice had not noticed how long it had been, until now.

The woman’s large eyes widened in acknowledgement “Oh…oh my! You must be….Candice White, her friend from Chicago!”

“Indeed!” Candice recalled Alma would keep her other surnames unmentioned. “So you must be Ana Bloom?”

Ana’s hand was friendly on Candice’s arm. “That would be me! Call me Anita, everybody else does…Well listen, this is probably not how Almita envisioned us meeting, but tell you what…I’ll bring you back to the stockroom and you can pick what you need and then I’ll drive you over to the Italian House…then if it suits you, we then can go have a coffee at Café Trieste…then you can tell me all about your life so far here in the City!” she shared a coinspirational glance with Candice.

Candice was pleased and thrilled…Bloom’s Shoe Store was happy to give her two pairs of shoes per child, and she was set up with a house account for any other needs she would have at the other orphanages she was tending to. Candice however continued to insist in paying for some of them but Anita would not hear of it. Upon Candice’s guileless persistence, and Candice having mentioned her nursing skills being used at the orphanages, Anita proposed, “Listen...here is how you can return the favor…we have a fair amount of workers in our fields in the South Bay and we help them with their medical costs…can you come down every so often and do some nursing rounds, sounds fair?”

“Absolutely!” Candice agreed and so it was settled.

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As Anita nonchalantly drove them over in the stores’ Ford Model T Delivery Truck laden with shoe boxes, they found their conversation came easy, as if they had been old friends for a long time. “Alma is a bit of a pistol, rather much of an eccentric around here, and she seems to only be most comfortable with other eccentrics…my husband’s family has known the family she married into for a while and they were on cordial relations, but they claim she took a shine to me right away when I married into the Bloom family...”

“Really? How so?” Candice was curious…did that mean Alma thought she was an eccentric too? Anita Bloom seemed quite normal, although Candice noted that casual elegance of the sartorial pants she was wearing with flat two toned Mary Janes, her tortishell-horn rimmed glasses in the shape of cat eyes and the relative ease she shifted gears of the truck, the expert driving in the crazy traffic complete with hills at impossible angles of the City’s hills told her she had did not quite fit in to even the ‘typical’ San Franciscan frame.

House and quickly the two dozen children were happily trying on their new shoes, under the grateful gaze of their Nonna.. As Anita had suggested, they soon walked down to the Caffe Trieste coffee house around the corner from the Home and they sat for a leisurely visit with a couple of lattes and biscotti. A small trio played Italian arias in the corner and the air was thick and heavy with cigarette smoke and engrossed intelligentsia-speaking in several languages, although Candice noticed Anita did not smoke either.

Candice found out that her new friend was immigrant of sorts to San Francisco as well, albeit from a family of landowners and entrepreneurs in Central America. Having followed in her foremother’s tradition of determined feminine self-determination and with a thirst for higher education, she had come to the San Francisco Bay Area for university studies. It had been here in San Francisco where she had met one Peter Bloom, who was member of an established and prominent Jewish family, who were also highly entrepreneurial. In fact, his great grandfather had been amongst the settlers that arrived with the forty niners who panned for gold and made San Francisco a boom town. While the Bloom held several business interests, it was the shoe store that gave them the immediate recognition amongst the populace.

Peter and Anita had married within a year of meeting, in her words “Once you meet your soulmate, you know you have found him...I can truly say I never looked back the moment I had that revelation. Of course, certain details had to be considered, I Roman Catholic, he Reform Jew…but we still managed to have a nice Catholic wedding at the mission in Carmel, with the blessing of both our families and of the Church…”

“The church allowed you to get married?” Candice had asked, surprised. It was almost unheard of… a Catholic marrying a person of the Jewish faith, unless there was a conversion.

“Not exactly as you would think…but I think God has bigger things to worry than if two of his flock decide to get married…besides, my husband’s family practice the type of Judiasm that embraces Christians, quite ecumenical in fact…recall that I mentioned earlier they donate heavily to the Archdiocese? My father in law counts the Archbishop as a personal friend, he comes over for dinner quite often…and my own family had no qualms, although I think they had given up long ago in trying to crack my obstinate mind…they have come to trust me in that sense…” Her engaging eyes shone brightly. “We now have two darling little girls you will have to meet, and we are one big happy family, huge house and all, perfect for entertaining…But enough about us…tell me a little about you…you have been here for less than a year, correct?”

Candice swallowed, the pained sentiment rising in her throat. She got the impression Alma had not told Anita much and she felt she could not burden her new friend with her fractured past right away…yet…“Yes…I’m here because I wanted to start my life over…I…I lost my husband in tragic circumstances and I haven’t quite found my self again…I loved my husband very much…” she felt her voice crack and her eyes watered unconsciously. It was difficult for her not to mention Archie without having the events of that night flash in front of her.

Anita’s eyes immediately commensurated, and she reached out at grasped her hand warmly. “Oh, I’m so very sorry to hear that…I can’t even fathom how painful that would be…” Her face however was gentle and Candice could feel the unmistakable glow of strength she was sending to her....Candice recognized that Anita had known pain and tragedy in her past as well and knew the semblance what she spoke of. Anita pressed her hand a little tighter; Candice could feel the mutual pulsing of their flesh, forever fusing them as kindred spirits. “You will be allright in the end, it will all be as it had to be…” she presaged indubitably. Candice momentarily was astonished to hear this, for she had said it with such finite gravitas… her eyes having taken a deeper shade and looking at her so that Candice felt as if she been able to reach out of herself and submerged into her…it was not a casual utterance….it was as if Anita had been able to peer into some other realm of possibility. Upon seeing Candice’s quizzical gaze “Oh, I hope that didn’t sound too queer…sometimes when someone close to me feels afraid of the unknown or are in pain, I sometimes can feel them…I can reassure them…I also knew that when I met my husband that I was going to marry him , that he was the one fated for me by the the one who guides us all…” Anita blushed, hoping she had not sounded too cryptic. She moved on, more lightheartedly, ”in any case, you have come to the right place…and this spiritual work you are doing with the children must be rewarding…in the meantime, know that my family is yours, and our home will be always open to you… you must come and visit us soon, and not necessarily because you are holding up your end of the bargain!” she invited warmly, her mood lightening, Candice finding that it had the same effect on her. “We have a good size property in San Jose, which is south of here, so it is almost like being the country….definitely for the next holiday….”

Candice smiled, comforted that she had hit it off so well with Alma’s friend…she had been wise about whom would make the best friend for Candice, who was new to the area. “I would enjoy that very much…” Candy smiled, glad to have finally met Anita Bloom.

Chapter 20