It Looked Different on the Model - Laurie Notaro [56]
“Nicholas!” I screamed, trying to shout over the grind of the surf. “Nicholas, run! Run!”
But he either didn’t hear me or was ignoring me, and that wave charged at him like a bull. It broke on the beach, feet from him, and then kept coming until Nick was thigh-high in water, and still he continued to do nothing but stand still.
He waited until the wave drained away before he turned around and started back up the beach, but by that time my husband and I were almost to him. He was soaking wet from the waist down.
“Nick!” I cried when I got to him. “Didn’t you hear us screaming to run? Why did you just stand there? Why didn’t you move?”
“My shoes got covered in sand when I ran,” he said, water dripping from his shorts. “I wanted to wash them off.”
“You were trying to clean your shoes off in the ocean?” my husband laughed.
“Nick, you are sopping wet,” I said, thinking that it was a good thing we were starting our trip to the Sea Lion Caves that day and had all of our stuff packed in the car. “And, by the way, your strategy to clean your shoes is a little bit off.”
The shoes were caked with sand, but it hardly mattered since they were waterlogged with seawater; with every step my nephew took, the shoes oozed and chunks of sand crumbled off.
After Nick changed into a new pair of shorts and his Paul Bunyan shirt in the backseat, we headed toward Oregon with Nick’s wet clothes and spongy shoes under the hatchback.
“I can’t believe that just when we bought you replacement shirts, you ruined your shoes,” I said. “Those will take days to dry out.”
“I can wear them,” Nicholas said hopefully. “I’ll just wear two pairs of socks.”
“Sure, and your mother will show up and we can show her your delightful case of trench foot,” I replied, but I did remember seeing a Target on our way down. I was hoping we would get to it before we had to stop somewhere for lunch and were turned away with a scowl and a finger pointing to the sign that said NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE. My theory was that we were at a hearty 50 percent, because we still hadn’t lost our standing from earlier in the morning when we had shoes but no shirt. To avoid that scenario, we pulled into a KFC drive-through where my nephew ordered a two-piece meal, plus popcorn chicken, plus an extra biscuit. With all of the food he was eating and the necessity of replacing his entire wardrobe, I wasn’t sure how much longer our vacation funds were going to last.
Thankfully, an hour later we approached the Target, pulled into the lot, and parked. My husband and I got out of the car, though Nicholas stayed put. I opened the back door and looked at him while he looked at me.
“Well …?” I asked. “Would you like to join us as we buy you new shoes?”
“Are you going to carry me?” he asked. “I only have socks on.”
“Kids your age in Africa are parents already,” I replied. “No, we are not going to carry you. You are going to walk in there with your socks on and we’re going to pretend that nothing is wrong. We’re a Walmart family that ended up at the wrong giant retailer because Pappy used a homemade GPS called a divining rod.”
And despite the fact that that was my original plan, I couldn’t help but blurt out, sometimes in an inappropriate volume, “I can’t believe you thought the ocean would wash your shoes off for you. I just can’t believe it,” every time we passed another person who had children with them who sported footwear.
We found the shoe aisle, and Nick naturally gravitated toward the most expensive pair, like we were on a reality makeover show.
“We’re going to stay in the three-digit range,” I reminded him. “You pick out a nice pair someone in India younger than you made with their tiny, skillful hands.”
Nick had just tried on a pair of shoes