Window Shopping
Tony and Ziva go for a walk in a shopping mall. He has to explain the idiom to her.
"Come on, Zee-vah!" Tony was just about pulling her to follow him, her hand in his as he walked towards the shopping complex. "We are going window shopping!"
"Tony, I do not need windows and you do not need windows. Why are we going to shop for them?" Ziva was confused, thinking to herself that this must be yet another American idiom. There were so many of them and some just made absolutely no sense at all. This seemed to fit in that category.
Tony grinned at her, "Window shopping means that we are just looking at the displays in the windows of the stores. Not buying anything."
"Okay, I think," Ziva was still not quite sure of the idiom. "If we are just looking, why is it not called window looking?"
Tony shrugged and held Ziva's hand a little tighter, "I don't know; c'mon. Let's go window shop!" He grinned at her, making her laugh. He pulled their interlaced hands to his face and put a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. She laughed again and they locked eyes. Even her eyes were laughing, which made Tony happy.
The first stores they walked past were a nail salon, a hairdresser and a luggage shop. The pair turned a corner from the small entry hallway, and there was a large toy store next. Ziva looked at the display of Barbie dolls in the window. "I never had any girls' dolls. The only doll I had was a G. I. Joe that Ari found in the rubble of an apartment building that was bombed. My father took it away when I was six."
"Wow; my father took all of my toys when I was about twelve, after he sent me to the first boarding school. He even repainted my room and bought all new furniture. It was like he was trying to erase who I was." Tony empathized with Ziva having her doll taken.
Next to the toy store was a children's clothing store. Both looked at the child sized mannequins dressed in pastels for Easter. Tony commented on the little boy in the sailor outfit, "Major flashback here; my mom dressed me in sailor suits until I was about five. I hated them. When we'd go out, the old ladies would pinch my cheeks and tell me how cute I looked."
Ziva chuckled, "I bet you really were cute. I hated being dressed in pink when I was little. When I took ballet lessons, my outfit was a light blue." She remembered and shared about her last ballet recital, when her father had promised he would come and she looked for him the entire time. He never showed, and the day after, Eli had told her mother that Ziva would no longer take ballet lessons.
The next store was a sporting goods superstore; the displays were filled with baseball equipment and golf gear. Both stopped in front of the baseball display. "My uncle took me to many baseball games before I was put in boarding school. That was a lot of fun, with just him and me," Tony reminisced.
Ziva smiled, "Baseball was the first American thing I learned about. We played our own version of baseball in the field behind our farm house. I think we used a stick and a rubber ball. It was fun until one of the older boys stepped on an IED in the outfield. After that, we were not allowed to play in the field again."
The pair walked quickly past the next three stores, neither had any interest in the costume jewelry store, the perfume store, nor the cosmetics store. The leather retailer beckoned both with the unique smell of the leather goods. Tony grinned when he saw the female mannequin in the black leather mini skirt, vest with chains, and boots with a three inch heel. Ziva looked at him with a questioning look.
"You'd look fantastic in that, Zee-vah. Rowrrrr." He grinned even more.
"Only if I could have a whip as well," Ziva teased. She took his arm in hers and led him to the next store's windows. "Let us move on before your imagination gets you into trouble."
The men's clothing store had several male mannequins without legs dressed in a rainbow of shirts of varying colors. Ziva looked at all of the colors and at Tony. "I think the navy blue, or the mauve would really look good on you." Tony made a mental note of the colors Ziva liked for the next time he went shopping for dress shirts. Maybe he'd bring her along and let her choose the colors.
As Tony spotted the sign for the next store, he heard Ziva gasp. "Tony, look at all of the beautiful knives. There must be hundreds of them in the display cases!" Ziva was practically drooling over the knife display in the window. He watched her looking over each of the knives that caught her attention, like a kid in a candy store weighing all the choices. He could tell she wanted to handle the knives and made a mental note that bringing her back to the store would be a good way to buy her a gift in the future. Tony reminded Ziva that they were just window shopping today, and she reluctantly agreed to move on.
Next to the knife store was another clothing store, more of the type of clothing to appeal to teens. The pair kept moving to the pet store. One side of the pet store display had five kittens playing with toys and each other. One of the kittens was trying to catch its own tail. Ziva and Tony both laughed at the kitten's attempts, watching the animal run in circles trying to get its tail. Another kitten was watching from a perch above the tail chaser, and suddenly pounced down on the other kitten, startling it. The kitten jumped straight up in the air, and then chased the one who had pounced around the enclosed space. Tony and Ziva laughed at the kittens.
The pair moved on from the pet store, and the next turn was into the food court. Tony smelled pizza and led Ziva to the pizza vendor. He ordered two slices for himself with pepperoni and sausage, and Ziva ordered a slice with mushrooms and black olives. They got a large beverage to share and took their order to the tables.
"Thank you for the fun day, Tony." Ziva smiled at him and took a bite of her pizza.
"My pleasure, Ziva. Thank you for sharing about you." Tony grinned that special smile he reserved only for Ziva.