He wouldn’t have minded one, but he remained silent.
“So what are you going to get him?”
“I don’t know.” She looked out the window. “He’d really like the membership in the health club renewed, but how can you give somebody that? Your fiancé?”
Biddy was hot in the car in his coat. They climbed the entrance ramp to the thruway.
“I don’t know,” Cindy said. “I’ll look around. A watch, or something.” She looked over at him. “So how about you? What’s new with you? Your mother tells me you’re in a choir.”
“Sister says he’s got one of the best sopranos she’s ever heard.”
“Really?” She smiled, raising her eyebrows exaggeratedly. “Another Caruso, huh?”
“Caruso wasn’t a soprano, was he?” His mother kept her eyes on the road.
“No, I don’t think so. I just meant a singer.”
They drove on, cars around them switching lanes in an effortless choreography. Cindy straightened a gold chain on her neck, moving the clasp around to the back. “So this is going to be a year-round thing, or just for Christmas?”
“Just for Christmas,” his mother said. “Sister thought it would be nice. I think it’s a good idea.”
Cindy said she thought so, too. She turned her attention to the road outside, and he watched the sun and shadow cross her face as they came off the turnpike. In the bright sun he could make out white hairs here and there, but in shadow her face was perfectly smooth. While they were parking, she peered into the mirror on the windshield absently, checking herself.
“All right, let’s get you kids out of the way first,” his mother said, shouldering her handbag. “Kristi, where do you want to go? That toy place?” Kristi nodded. “And, Biddy, you’re going to go to Herman’s first, right?”
He could wander endlessly through the sporting-goods store.
“Let’s do this,” Cindy said. “Save time: I’ll take Biddy to Herman’s and you and Kristi come get us when you’re ready.”
“That’d be great. You don’t mind?”
“I’ll look around for something for Ronnie.”
They split up and made their way through the crowd, Biddy fidgeting despite himself on the escalator down to the lower level. Ahead of him a woman had a large bag with a pink rabbit ear the size of an oar sticking out of it.
He threaded his way along the bottom floor, staying close to the larger plant stands in the middle and glancing back every now and then for Cindy. He led her past Koenig Art Supplies and Waldenbooks and stopped a few yards ahead while she poked her head into Hit or Miss.
She caught up to him and put her arm around his shoulder. “What’re you going to get me for Christmas, anyway?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Nothing? What kind of sugar daddy are you?”
“Ronnie’s supposed to get you things,” he said, faltering.
“Well, you’ll never make any time with offers like that. Sheesh.”
They turned in to Herman’s, at its mall entrance a cacophony of racquets, strung and unstrung. Her hand left his shoulder and she strayed into the tennis section. He followed and waited before finally turning away and finding the camping department.
He circled tents of all sizes, assembled like crabs or moon landers on wooden frames, and plucked guy ropes, and got down on his hands and knees and looked inside. He examined two or three different models. When he’d decided on one, he pulled out a small pad he had brought along and wrote, “Tent: EMS Explorer.” There was a good chance they wouldn’t get him one, he knew. He lingered by the sleeping bags as well, but in the end decided against listing one, figuring the more he put down the less chance he had of getting what he most wanted.
Beyond camping there was more to see. He moved along a wall of sneakers, mostly white with stripes of different shapes and colors. A wall full of left shoes, each on its own shelf, arranged by sport. He paused at the football section and picked the black Puma off the wall, fingering the white plastic spikes. He tried it on in one of the nearby seats — at times the size would vary with spikes — and then carefully wrote, “Puma football size 7½” on his pad. Cindy caught up to him at the basketball row. He was looking at the Converse All Stars.
“You like the stars?” she said. “I like those, with the horns. What are they? Pumas?”
“Uh-huh.” He wrote, “Converse All Stars size 8” on the pad.
“I thought I’d find you with the baseball stuff.” He put the shoe back on its shelf and shook his head. She took his shoulder again, lightly. “C’mon. Help me pick out a ski sweater. They got a sale going here.”
He found himself in front of a table piled high with sweaters, tightly knit and filled with color. He saw a kelly green he liked, but it disappeared as Cindy sifted around.
“How about this?” she said. She held up a dark blue one with light blue and red stripes across the shoulders.
“It’s really nice,” he said.
“Hello,” someone said behind him.
He turned. A stranger was smiling at Cindy, holding a sweater himself. Biddy turned back; Cindy’s sweater was suspended where she held it.
“What’re you doing here,” she said.
Biddy didn’t turn around again. The voice came over the top of his head. “Guy can’t buy a sweater?”
She looked down at the pile. She’s embarrassed, he realized; why is she so embarrassed?
“I called before and you were out,” the man said.
“Sean, this is Biddy. Walt and Judy Siebert’s oldest. Biddy, Sean.”
Biddy turned and the stranger nodded to him.
“Here you are,” his mother said. Kristi shuffled up behind her. “What’re you, interested in sweaters this year, Biddy?”
“I’m looking,” Cindy said. “Biddy’s helping.”
He glanced around. The stranger was gone.
His mother pulled a bright red sweater out by the arm. “Who was that guy you were talking with?”
Cindy colored. “A guy from my old class. Guy I went to school with. Hadn’t seen him in a long time.”
His mother kept digging around and he kept his eyes on Cindy. She was absorbed in the sweaters. He watched her spread them out and check prices. What are you lying about? he was thinking. What am I missing?
Outside the wind shook the windows and the television antenna rattled as it buckled and swayed back and forth. It was a noise friends of his always noticed immediately on windy days in his room but one he had long since grown used to. He set the Cessna manual aside and pulled out The Lore of Flight, opening to the page with the bookmark. It was black outside, and the wind seemed fierce. He considered closing the curtains to conserve heat. The pencil made a soft scratching noise while he underlined.
Light aircraft, however, share one important feature with their larger counterparts: their flying control systems are fundamentally similar. All types of aeroplane, except for a few unorthodox research aircraft, are controlled in the air by movable surfaces on the wings and tail. These surfaces are operated by a control column (or handwheel) and rudder bar, and govern the attitude and actions of the aircraft when airborne.
His father poked his head into the room. “Hey, champ,” he said. “Heard we had a little trouble today.”
Biddy shut the book and nodded.
“Your mother says you were giving her a hard time at the shopping center?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What happened?”
Beyond the window the wind was making hollow, muffled sounds, like a ghost. “We came out of Herman’s and there was this dog that must’ve gotten run over or something. Its paw was mashed. It wouldn’t let anyone near it.”