The Mall

by Megan Mccafferty

  Kathy was right, though. It would get easier.

  In six weeks, I’d be packing up all my stuff and getting the hell out of Pineville. Away from my parents’ midlife marital meltdown. Troy’s ratty, rageaholic rebound. Slade’s sleazy gossip. Sam Goody’s smirky jerkiness. Sonny Sexton’s stoner imbecility. Drea’s endless drama. But until then, my life at the mall would really, really suck.

  It definitely didn’t help that Drea had totally outmaneuvered me. As hard as I tried to focus on work, to update Bellarosa’s latest debits and credits, I couldn’t get her words out of my head.

  Silva Mundi

  -$775.25 to Muy Cheri Wholesale

  Silva Mundi

  +$1142.50 from Mona Troccola

  Silva Mundi

  -$372.75 to Glamorama Distribution

  Silva Mundi

  +$800.50 from Francine DePasquale

  Silva Mundi

  Drea knew that a fierce Odyssey of the Mind competitor such as myself would be incapable of letting the clue go unsolved. I managed to hold out for three days before my curiosity finally got the better of me.

  Silva Mundi

  It sort of sounded like Spanish, but it wasn’t Spanish. Portuguese maybe?

  I didn’t have to give her the double satisfaction of proving her right and providing the answer. I could translate Silva Mundi but keep the answer to myself, thus satisfying my inquisitiveness without perpetuating Drea’s obsession with this pointless quest. I’d be doing us both a favor. Maybe if Drea spent less energy on trivial pursuits like the treasure hunt and more on, I don’t know, anything else, she too would have a future outside the mall.

  So when it came time for my lunch break, I followed my Iberian hunch to the only place within the mall where such knowledge might be acquired. Fortunately for me, B. Dalton Books was located in a safe zone. But that didn’t stop me from looking over my shoulder every five seconds to make sure I wasn’t being stalked, spied on, or snickered at. I wasn’t sure if the “toothy” rumors had traveled through Concourse E, but I was in no mood to find out.

  I spent four years hauling heavy textbooks around in my backpack. But in direct defiance of the nerdy girl stereotype, I didn’t read much for pleasure. I didn’t have time, between earning a perfect GPA, extracurriculars, and teaching myself to ace standardized tests that only Troy and I and very few others in our school took at all seriously. In fact, the last item I’d bought at this store was an SAT prep book Troy and I had shared, splitting the cost fifty-fifty. That $15.36 gave me a far better return on my investment than my ex-boyfriend.

  After scanning the shelves, the closest I got to a Portuguese dictionary was The Travel Linguist, a phrasebook for tourists. Let down, but not totally out, I flipped around to the S section of the thin glossary at the back of the book. I found:

  Segunda-feira (Seh-GOON-da-FAY-ra): Monday

  Sim (SING): Yes

  Socorro! (soh-KOH-roh!): Help!

  But no Silva Mundi. Silva Mundi wasn’t Portuguese after all. Or if it was, it wasn’t a common enough expression to justify inclusion in the only Portuguese language book sold by B. Dalton. I was contemplating my next move when I felt a cold whisper on the back of my neck.

  “I warned you.”

  I turned, screamed, and dropped the book on Ghost Girl’s Doc Martens.

  “Ms. Gomez!”

  She smiled serenely. “You can call me Zoe.” Then apropos of nothing she added, “He will pay.”

  If I were a “spring,” the Macy’s makeup counter girl would classify Zoe’s cosmetic aesthetic as “nuclear winter.” Like any committed goth, she sought to approximate a translucent complexion that could otherwise only be achieved by death, burial, and disinterment—or, okay, fine, if pressed to offer a less supernatural explanation—a lifelong shunning of the sun. Regardless, I certainly did not want to stick around long enough to find out who she had decided to hex, or why she was telling me about it.

  “Coolcoolokaybyebye.”

  I sounded like an idiot. And, then, in my haste to get away from Ghost Girl, I made sure to make myself look like an idiot too, by tripping right over a pair of rockabilly boots and black jeans rolled just so.

  “Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes…”

  I would’ve tumbled right on top of him if an endcap display of self-help books hadn’t broken my fall. I was literally saved by Full Catastrophe Living and The Language of Letting Go.

  “Hey, Bellarosa,” Sam Goody said. “You should watch where you’re going.”

  He was sprawled out on the floor between shelves and offered no apology for obstructing the aisle. So I didn’t bother correcting the misconception that I was another Bellarosa cousin hired for the summer.

  “Hey, Sam Goody. You’re beyond loitering,” I said. “You’re lounging.”

  Sam Goody smiled. Not a smirk, but a genuine smile. He had decent teeth. Not perfect—the top row slightly overlapped the bottom. My bet? He’d once had a retainer and lost it. The mental picture of moody Sam Goody wearing headgear actually made me smile.

  “I’ve got an agreement with a guy who works here,” he said. “He lets me use his store as my personal library, and I let him use our store as his personal listening booth.”

  “I should call mall security on both your asses.”

  Then Sam Goody actually laughed, and I almost relaxed for a second until I realized that he might be laughing at me and not with me. Had he heard the rumor about me and Slade? Was he two seconds away from calling me Toothy?

  “Do you need another German translation?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied curtly.

  “I know some conversational Japanese too,” he said. “From my grandma.”

  “No,” I repeated. “I’m fine.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Because I saw you in the foreign language section.”

  So I supposed it was a good sign that Sam Goody had noticed me but hadn’t approached me with a toothy taunt. And since we were talking, I figured I might as well make use of him as a possible resource. It’s not like I had any better options.

  “Is Silva Mundi German?” I asked.

  “No.” He ran a hand through his pompadour. Sam Goody definitely used more hair product than I did. “It sounds … Spanish maybe?”

  “It’s definitely not Spanish. I thought it might be Portuguese but…”

  And then I stopped myself because why did I have to explain myself to Sam Goody? I craned my neck to get a look at the cover of the thick book in his lap.

  “What are you reading, anyway?”

  With zero subtlety, Sam Goody pulled the book away and shoved it under the army surplus satchel at his side.

  “It’s okay, a lot of guys read Playboy for the articles,” I teased. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

  Where was this coming from? Why was I still talking to this person? I would’ve walked away if he hadn’t decided to show me the hidden book. Life Beyond the Ivy League: 50 Schools That Will Make You Rethink College.

  “I didn’t take German to wallow in Sturm und Drang,” Sam Goody explained. “My parents expected me to work in finance. And Deutsche Bank is primed to become a global powerhouse in the wake of communism’s collapse.”

  As a maker and appreciator of plans, that sure sounded like a solid one to me. Far better than mine because it didn’t depend on anyone else but himself.

  “Well.” A hint of envy crept into my voice. “You have it all figured out.”

  “Oh sure, it was the perfect plan.” Sam Goody laced his fingers and cradled the back of his head. “There was only one problem. I hated Wharton and everything to do with finance.”

  The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania was pretty much the hardest undergraduate business program to get into in the world. Their students got hooked up with the cushiest summer internships at the top Wall Street firms. So why was Sam Goody wasting his summer working for minimum wage at the mall?

  “I didn’t take German for Goethe. I took it to please my parents
.” He knocked the book’s cover with his knuckles. “Now that I’m a college dropout, I wish I’d taken Latin, which would’ve been more worthwhile from a liberal arts perspective…”

  I couldn’t quit Odyssey of the Mind-ing. My brain edited out all the information that wasn’t relevant to my quest. I raced back over to the foreign language dictionaries to confirm my suspicion.

  “Latin!” I exclaimed, grabbing a Latin volume from the shelf. “That’s it!”

  Silva Mundi = Wood World

  Wood World was the only store at the mall devoted to the boner arts. Ha! Get it? Gotcha! Just joshing! Wood World sold quality woodcrafts but whee! That’s how giddy I felt—giddy enough to come up with a dumb dick joke with no one to share it with.

  Well, one person to share it with.

  “Thanks for the tip!” I shouted at Sam Goody.

  He was definitely not the person I had in mind.

  16

  BIMBO DRESS

  I was high from the thrill of solving the unsolvable. I did not get the hero’s welcome I had hoped for.

  “Drea! I got the next clue! Silva Mundi! Is Latin! For Wood World!”

  “Oh,” Drea said distractedly. “Awesome.”

  She blatantly looked behind me, not at me.

  “Jeez,” I said. “I thought you’d be thrilled that I’m back in with the treasure hunt.”

  “I am.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and gave me a little push. “It’s just…”

  “Look.” I firmly planted my feet because she needed to hear this. “I’m sorry I was so hard to deal with the other day. You may be used to being the one put through the rumor mill, but I’m not. I mean, the whole mall was gossiping about my terrible blowjob on the same morning I found out my parents’ marriage is over. It was just too much for me to handle, and I took it out on you…”

  Drea pressed her hands to my mouth to shut me up, but it was already too late.

  “Cassandra?”

  The door to the dressing room swung open and a middle-aged woman came out in a bedazzled spandex bandage that could only be described as a bimbo dress.

  “Mom?”

  The middle-aged woman wearing the bimbo dress was my mother.

  “What are you doing here?” Kathy asked.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  To be honest, hers was the more legitimate question. One peek at the collection of short, tight, sparkly options still hanging from the hooks in the dressing room and it was instantly clear to me what Kathy was doing in Bellarosa Boutique.

  My mother was putting herself back on the market.

  My mother was ready to date men who weren’t my father.

  My mother was probably going to get laid before I did.

  I swear I might have fallen down if Drea weren’t literally propping me up by my elbows.

  “Cassie works here, Mrs. Worthy,” Drea answered on my behalf.

  “Doctor Worthy.”

  Mom made this correction so often, it was like an afterthought. Kathy shook out her feathered pageboy. She’d had the same hairstyle my whole life. This sensible mom hair did not match this irresponsible bimbo dress.

  “Cassandra?”

  “Can you please change out of that outfit?” I pleaded. “It’s impossible for me to have a serious conversation with you when you’re dressed for a special senior citizen episode of Club MTV.”

  It was a mean thing to say. Kathy was still about twenty years shy of collecting social security. And okay, as much as I hated to admit it, my mother didn’t look terrible. Drea had selected a cut and fabric that flattered Kathy’s fuller figure, skimming her generous hips and thighs without clinging to any bumps or bulges. My mother actually had the body for this dress. And unlike her daughter, she also had the soul.

  “Have you been lying to me all summer?” Kathy asked.

  Her self-righteous tone put me over the edge.

  “Have you and Dad been lying to me all my life?”

  Kathy’s face fell. And the contrast between her depressed expression and this gaudy, good-time dress could not have been more stark.

  “Yes, I’ve been working here at Bellarosa Boutique, not at America’s Best Cookie,” I admitted. “But before you get on my case, think about who the bigger liar is here.”

  I’d been fibbing about my employment for a week. My parents had been perpetuating the myth of the perfect partnership my whole life. Who knows, maybe even longer than that? Maybe getting married and having a kid were just boxes to tick off, proof of demonstrable progress on the plan Frank and Kathy had set in motion when they met at dental school…?

  “Why did you lie to us?” Kathy asked.

  “I didn’t want you to know Troy and I had broken up.”

  Saying it out loud like that, I realized just how foolish I was. Had I really thought I could hide the truth from my parents forever? Or did I believe Troy and I would get back together before they ever found out? Both options were equally dumb.

  “You broke up?” Kathy clutched a hand to the rhinestones embellishing her chest. “But you were so perfect together! You had the plan!”

  All this time I’d thought we’d broken up because Troy cheated on me. But maybe that was just the symptom of a much deeper, possibly genetic problem.

  “We broke up,” I answered, “because you and Frank aren’t the only ones in the family who suck at relationships.”

  I bolted from the store before I saw for myself how much I’d hurt her.

  17

  EVOLUTION

  I was stabbing pulpy sludge with a straw when someone sat beside me on the bench. Tipped off by the mixed bouquet of Aussie Mega and Giorgio Beverly Hills, I didn’t even look up from my cup.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  “With all the people you’re avoiding,” Drea said, “there aren’t many places in the mall for you to hide.”

  I laughed ruefully. She definitely wasn’t wrong.

  “Your mom bought the dress I picked out for her,” Drea said.

  How nice for Drea to make a sweet commission off the dissolution of my parents’ marriage.

  “Maybe Kathy will go to you when it’s time to shop for her second wedding dress.”

  “Come on, Cassie,” Drea said. “Calm down.”

  Too late. I was all hopped up on syrup, citrus, and resentment.

  “Can I get an employee discount on the maid of honor dress when she remarries some old dude who isn’t my dad?”

  “Are you done yet?” Drea asked.

  I chewed on the straw in defiance, putting the soft tissue of my gums at risk and not giving a single shit what my parents might say about it.

  “Your mother has known us for years,” Drea said. “But she never set foot in our store until this morning. And why do you think that is?”

  “Because she’s having a midlife crisis?” I guessed.

  “At Bellarosa, we prefer to think of it as a midlife metamorphosis.”

  “Of course you do,” I muttered bitterly.

  “She’s changing,” Drea continued. “She’s not the uptight wife and mom she thought she was. And she came to Bellarosa Boutique because she wanted that inner transformation to be reflected on the outside, through her clothing.”

  The advertising copy practically wrote itself.

  “So for all those years she was married to my dad she was a lowly caterpillar?” I asked. “And now she’s a beautiful butterfly?”

  “Not exactly,” Drea said. “I’m saying that she’s evolving from one kind of butterfly into an equally beautiful but totally different butterfly.”

  “That’s not how evolution works…”

  She slapped her hands against the bench. “Can you shut off your nerd brain for, like, two seconds so I can try to make you feel better?”

  No. I didn’t think I could.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Drea began.

  Resistance was futile. I uncrossed my legs and made myself comfortable.

 
“Gia was supposed to be a hairdresser. Her mother was a hairdresser and her mother’s mother was a hairdresser. My dad’s family were the ones in the clothing business. When my parents got married, my dad’s father let him run Main Street Haberdashery, a menswear shop in downtown Toms River.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “Right,” Drea said. “Because my dad was as shitty at selling menswear as he was at being a husband and father. It was only as successful as it was because Ma was a quick learner and worked her ass off while my dad got drunk and boinked cocktail waitresses.”

  This was the most I’d ever heard Drea say about her father. I didn’t know where the story was going, but I definitely wanted to hear more.

  “Ma got fed up and filed for divorce when I was ten,” she said.

  “That’s when you moved to Pineville,” I said. “Switched to my school.”

  “Right,” Drea said, nodding. “At that point, she wanted nothing to do with him. And he wanted even less to do with us. So against all advice from her divorce attorney, she offered to give up any claims for child or spousal support if he signed over full ownership of the haberdashery. He never wanted to sell suits in the first place, so for him it was a win-win.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That could’ve backfired spectacularly.”

  “Yeah,” Drea replied. “But it didn’t. Because the last we heard, my dad had run up a ton of gambling debts and doesn’t have a dime to his name. Ma sold the shop and its inventory to Men’s Wearhouse, then used that seed money to start her own business.”

  “Bellarosa Boutique?”

  “None other,” Drea replied. “Mom named the store after herself, taking her maiden name as a final ‘fuck you’ to the husband she never should have married in the first place.”

  A shiny, pink-tracksuited mom dragged her toddler across Concourse B on a leash. She was in a hurry. Her daughter was not.

  “Come on, Ashley,” Tracksuit whined. “I do not have all day for this.”

  In fact, she looked exactly like someone who had all day for this.

  “If Gia hadn’t married your dad,” I pointed out, “she wouldn’t be where she is today.”