As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins Read Free Book Online Page B

between an old man’s dress shoes, reddish brown; crinkly white business-lizard loafers with a gold chain on one but missing from the other, and pull-on ankle-high boots of scuffed black suede with triangular elastic inserts on the sides.
    “Give those a try,” said Del. “I guess you need socks, too.”
    “I’ve got some right here,” said Beth, ripping open a plastic pouch. Ry pulled on the white cotton tube socks. Blue stripes went around the tops.
    The ankle boots were the only pair that looked like they had been worn by a person under sixty years old, so he tried them first. He could barely get his foot inside.
    Next he tried the dress shoes. They were huge. He would have been relieved about this except that it left him with the most horrible shoes, the shoes of last resort: the shiny white loafers.
    Reluctantly, he slipped them on. He hated to admit it,but this pair felt the best. They were all cushiony.
    “Wow,” said Beth. “You would need a lot of self-esteem to walk around in those all day.”
    Ry looked at his feet and legs in one of those little shoe mirrors that sat on the floor. The shoes were a metaphor for the decline of western civilization: crappy and glitzy and barely useful, but pretty comfortable. This is the narrator’s opinion. Ry didn’t think that thought specifically, but he felt as dispirited as if he had.
    The contrast between the shoes and the striped tube socks was interesting. Probably a metaphor for something depressing, too. It looked as if a lawn mower–riding failed gambler in shorts with a potbelly should be attached to his legs. But shoes were just something to put on your feet, right? It wasn’t like he had to wear these the rest of his life.
    Beth, meanwhile, said, “Men don’t know how to shop.” She went over to see what Del had missed. When she came back, she had a pair of blue-and-yellow Pumas. They were soiled and worn, but intact.
    They fit like gloves. Whatever that means when you’re talking about shoes. They fit like magic slippers, in a fairy tale.
    “You don’t have to pull the socks all the way up likethat,” said Beth. She folded the tops over and smooshed them down. “There,” she said.
    Ry felt almost normal. He looked at Beth with gratitude. She was pleased, too.
    “I know,” she said. “I’m amazing.”
    Pete and Arvin had materialized. Pete held a cookie jar shaped like a parrot. Arvin carried a teakettle.
    “Thoreau said to beware of enterprises that require new clothes,” said Pete.
    “But did he say you have to go barefoot?” asked Beth. “I don’t think so.”
    “I don’t think those shoes count as new,” said Arvin.
    “Did Thoreau say anything about ceramic parrots?” asked Del.
    “It’s for my mother,” said Pete. “She loves this crap. You should see her house—it’s full of it.”
    Ry tried to picture Pete in a house full of cookie jars. He tried to picture Pete with a mother. It wasn’t what you thought of when you first looked at him. That would be more like, I hope he doesn’t hurt me. Okay, not really—that was an exaggeration.
    He tried, in his mind’s eye, to morph Pete into Pete’s mother. He made him smaller, rounder, and softer, and eliminated the facial hair. He pulled the rest of the hairinto a ponytail and gave her sleeves. She only came up to Pete’s shoulder.
    “Oh my God, Pete,” she said. “That is too cute. I love it!” Her voice was gravelly, like Pete’s. He gave her his own mother’s voice instead. It didn’t quite fit, but it made her seem very motherly.
    Thinking of his mother’s voice made him think of his mother. He thought of how she looked when he said something she thought was funny. At first her face stayed the same, except for her eyes. They would twinkle. Then the shape of her mouth and cheeks would shift almost imperceptibly into her secretly amused expression. It was weird not to know where she was. She didn’t know where he was, either. Both of them sort of thought they