The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,37
days?”
Again, he shrugs.
Until you’ve had a teenage son, you can’t understand. Every conversation is like a jailhouse interrogation. An invisible lawyer leans toward him, saying, “Plead the fifth.” Pulling teeth doesn’t begin to describe it. Something could be terribly wrong in there, or he could be as placid as a summer lake, and you’d never know from anything he says.
“Peanut butter cup.”
“What?”
“If I have to have a cake, I want an ice-cream one with peanut butter cups. And here—” He brings his foot up, scraping his shoe against the dashboard. “If you want to get me something, how about new shoes?” He pulls a flap of delaminated sole away from the toe of his sneaker, then lets it slap back into place. “Or I could just glue these.”
“Shoes. Good. You might have to be more specific, though. Are Reeboks still cool? And I’m not getting you anything the kids at school will shoot you for and steal.”
“For Reeboks, they just shoot you and leave your shoes on.”
“That’s more like it.”
When we get to our neighborhood, he asks me to let him off on the curb. “We’re gonna ride the trails, a whole group of us.” He pulls his bike out and comes alongside the van.
“Be home by dark.”
He nods. “Hey, Mom . . .”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t make him move out, did you?”
“What? Of course not. Eli, where did you get that idea? I already told you what happened. It was the Shaws. They want us to move to Virginia so Daddy can work at a different church. It’s a big decision, and he’s trying to think it through.”
“All right,” he says. “I was just wondering.”
“I don’t want him out there, Eli. I’m as shocked as everyone else. And anyway, he’s not on the other side of the world. He’s just in the shed. You can go talk to him anytime you want. Maybe we should all go, the three of us.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal.”
Eli rides away, leaving me to wonder if we’re not as big a mystery to our children as they are to us.
Instead of going home, I wheel the car around so I can order the cake. The bakery refers me to an ice-cream place, where they seem incredulous that I need a cake for tomorrow. In the end, though, the manager promises it by two in the afternoon. Then I stop at the Foot Locker and puzzle over a dozen pairs of indistinguishable, neon-colored sneakers. Some of them seem to glow in the dark. Some would double the size of your feet. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did double duty as flotation devices either. And at these prices it’s hard to imagine any of them being made for a penny apiece in sweatshops. They’d be much cheaper in that case, right?
Right?
I should have taken advantage of Holly’s expertise when I had her. On the verge of giving up, I call Jed on his mobile number. “You’ve gotta help me out. Your brother wants new shoes for his birthday.”
“Cool. Get him some Rockports.”
“Is that what he likes?” I ask, glancing around at the names on the boxes.
“No, get him some Crocs. He loves those.”
“You’re not helping. I’m serious, Jed. I finally know what he wants and I’m getting it. I just don’t know which ones to choose.”
“How should I know? Who bought him the last ones?”
Duh, me. But I’m not thrifting sneakers for my son’s sixteenth birthday. “Jed, help me out.”
“Ask the dude who works there.”
Lowering my voice: “I already tried that. I think they work on commission.”
“If you can’t make up your mind, do a gift certificate. Or give him cash. That’s what I’d want.”
“I never have any trouble knowing what you want,” I say. “I’m not giving him cash. That’s cheesy.”
“Fine, then get him some black Nike Airs.”
“Black?”
“Yeah, black. He’ll like those.”
He’d better. As I check out, I can’t help reflecting that at this price, the Nike Airs better be made by seasoned Italian craftsmen who get long lunch breaks in a workshop somewhere in Tuscany.
“Would you like to look at some socks?” the salesman asks.
“What, the socks are extra?”
A long pause. He clearly doesn’t get the joke.
I make it home with plenty of sunlight left. No need to worry about sneaking the shoes past Eli. There’s a strange car on the curb, maybe one of Jed’s friends. Then again, he only has three or four and they hardly ever come over. What’s the point? They do all their fraternizing via