The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,29
kids?” I ask. “Did they climb up their poles with pork rinds and a jar of Nutella?”
Holly butts in. “Well, it was nice meeting you both.”
They continue down the sidewalk, discussing the merits of various ancient hermits, while Holly packs me into the passenger seat of her car.
“I thought you were gonna explode back there.”
“Don’t worry about Deedee. She’s impossible to offend.”
“If you say so, sister. She really seems to like her monks, though.”
She heads down York to Towson Town Center, deciding our first stop should be the Apple Store. Holly quickly marshals the youngest of the hipper-than-thou employees, guiding him around the shop asking one question after another about what an about-to-turn-sixteen-year-old would want most. I watch for a while, then wander off, browsing the sterile white shelves disinterestedly. What would they do if I suddenly whipped out my antique mobile phone? Would they even recognize what it is?
I find myself standing at a table full of iPods. They stand on plastic pillars, tethered in place to foil thieves, with various types of headphones plugged into their jacks. Across from me, a middle-aged Indian man in a rumpled gray suit slips on a pair of over-the-ear cans. Back in the pre-Walkman era, when I was a girl, these were the only kind of headphone around. He adjusts them carefully, then snaps his fingers. The sound is loud enough, even in the bustling store, that several people turn to find its source. Cocking his head slightly, he snaps again. Then he notices me and smiles.
“Just a little test,” he says, slipping the headphones off. “Noise-canceling, they say, but I snap my fingers and I can hear it perfectly well.”
“Are you hitting play? I think you have to turn the music on.”
“To cancel noise, you need more noise? No, thank you.”
He walks out, not angrily, but with the light step of a man who’s once again seen through the world’s lies. A contented gait, unless I’m imagining it. If Deedee were here, I’d tell her, no, it’s this sort of man they don’t make anymore, the one who walks into the Apple Store to remind himself of what he doesn’t need.
“You think Eli would want headphones?” Holly asks, still towing her teenaged assistant along.
“I’m not looking, I’m just standing here.”
In the end, she decides on an indestructible-looking messenger bag with a shoulder strap and a brushed metal buckle straight off an airline seat belt. Eli will love it, and while I make a point of not asking about the price tag, it can’t be as expensive as half the stuff in here. I’m relieved. Sometimes Holly doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t want her giving my son a thousand-dollar laptop or a handmade bike that will only get stolen at school.
We tour around the shopping center until Holly starts complaining about having to walk in high heels. “You don’t have to walk in them,” I remind her. “You choose to.” Then we stop for a half hour of iced coffee and people watching. I tell her about my afternoon with the Rent-a-Mob and how it ended, which makes her cringe in sympathy.
“So what were you talking to the Indian guy about? In the Apple Store?”
“That was nothing,” I say. “He didn’t care if the earphones played music, he just wanted them to make all the noise go away.”
“Like a cone of silence.”
“Pretty much. You remember Kathie Shaw?”
“Wife of Jim, who’s trying to get you to move to Richmond.”
I nod. “She was telling me she has tinnitus. She hears this ringing sound in her ears. It looked really painful too. What she wouldn’t do for some peace and quiet.”
“I bet.”
She swirls her straw around in the ice, hunting for the last ounce of coffee.
“Is this what I do?” I ask. “Complain all the time? You must get sick of having to listen to it.”
“You weren’t complaining, Beth.”
“I should be in Florida right now. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
“Now you’re complaining. But yes, you should be in Florida. And listen, if Rick doesn’t come out of his cave, why don’t the two of us go? After the birthday party, we could hop on a plane—”
“A plane? I was going to drive.”
“That van of yours would never make it. Besides, you’d spend half your vacation on the road.”
“Florida’s only a day away. I like having time to transition. Leaving Baltimore and stepping onto the beach an hour later doesn’t seem right. There should be some kind of journey in between.”