On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad

Author:Chandra Prasad
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2007-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

It was one of those rare winter days when the sun was so hot it could make the skin burn, when people left their overcoats and muffs and gloves inside even though the ground was coated in snow and icicles dripped impatiently from the rooftops, some crashing to the ground with heart-stopping aplomb, like daggers thrown from God’s own hand.

I’d come to the DiRisios’ tenement because Ceci had begged me. We were almost through with 20 Hrs., 40 Min., and the little girl couldn’t wait until evening to read the last chapter.

Indoors she grew impatient and sulky as we leaned over the book. Her attention alternated between Amelia and the rays of sun beaming through the grimy windowpanes in the kitchen.

“Please, Charlie, let’s go outside to read—our secret.”

“I’m not going to be your coconspirator. You’ll have to ask your mother first.”

And surprisingly, perhaps because the bright sun was affecting us all, Mrs. DiRisio agreed.

Ceci put on her boots, her coat, and her omnipresent skullcap. She rushed through the rooms, grabbing my hand as she barreled past. “Come on! Before she changes her mind.”

Outside, we walked several blocks simply because our antsy legs propelled us so. Eventually we realized we’d need a suitable place to read and returned to the stoop leading into Ceci’s own house. Though the steps had been shoveled, we giggled about our cold backsides. I asked Ceci what we would do if the temperature suddenly plummeted. What if we froze right here, exactly as we were, for all of time? She stared at me solemnly before letting loose a wild, delighted squeal.

I don’t know how long we read before the man appeared. From a distance he looked unassuming rather than alarming—just another fellow from the neighborhood making his way. It was Ceci who couldn’t stop staring.

“Doesn’t he look swish!” she declared, and her eyes must have been sharper than mine. It was only when he was very close that I saw how regal his clothing was: the gleam of a gold pin stuck through his lapel, the way his boots glistened shiny-clean despite the slush.

It was only when the man paused in front of the stoop to gaze at us that I realized he was President Angell.

I told myself I had nothing to fear. He probably wouldn’t recognize me—wouldn’t even know I was from Yale. And even if he did, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Why, at that moment I wasn’t even playing hooky! I was antsy, then, when he insisted on staring at Ceci and me as if he’d never seen anything quite like us before. His bespectacled eyes affixed to our faces until I felt I had to say something, anything, to break the moment into smaller, more manageable pieces.

“How are you, sir? Strange weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

President Angell continued to stare, squinting through the sunlight at the book, and back at Ceci and me.

“It is,” he said at last, looking as if he wanted to add something more.

My own mouth was slack and half-open, an idiot’s mouth, ready to fill the air with empty words at the nearest opportunity.

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