The Mall

by Megan Mccafferty

  “Ohhhh!”

  I bucked as if we’d gone from zero-to-sixty in under a second.

  “Sorry!” He lurched backward. “Was that too much?”

  I shook my head.

  “No,” I said with a slight catch in my voice.

  “Oh,” Sam Goody said with a slight catch in his voice.

  And in the next instant, our chests crashed and our mouths mashed over the center console.

  We kissed to tortured and distorted, melodic and melancholic music unlike anything I’d ever heard before. As Sam Goody kissed me—eagerly, hungrily—I had an acute awareness of what I can only describe of anticipatory nostalgia. For the rest of my life, I knew I’d always remember kissing Sam Goody whenever I heard this song, these words.

  “Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be.”

  “Can I have another lesson tomorrow?” I murmured dreamily.

  “I wish I could,” Sam said, kissing me again. Only this time sweetly, softly, tenderly. “But I’m taking a road trip. I’ll be gone for a week.”

  He explained that he was taking time off to spend with his younger brother before driving him to college for freshman orientation.

  “I didn’t know you had a brother my age,” I said.

  “He graduated from Eastland this year,” he replied. “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Nope.”

  Yep, we’d totally made out before exchanging even the most basic biographical details.

  “Where’s he going to school?”

  I was curious, of course, but also more than slightly concerned that the Chevette might not make it to whatever campus and back.

  “Harvard.”

  We both winced as he said it.

  “So much for ‘life beyond the Ivy League’ in your family, huh?”

  “Well.” Sam smiled ruefully, adorably. “At least it takes the pressure off me to be the successful son.”

  And before I knew it, we were going at it all over again. I didn’t learn the first thing about driving that night. But I finally, finally, oh my God finally understood what the fuss over kissing was all about.

  32

  BOO

  “Did you get the map?” Drea asked before I’d even slipped into the passenger seat the next morning. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  Sam Goody had left me too dazed to return any of her phone calls.

  “Cassie! This is Drea! Did you get the map? Call me back!”

  “Cassie! This is Drea! You better have that map. Call me back!”

  “Cassie! This is Drea! You better call me back! Call me back!”

  So, the immediacy of her interrogation came as no surprise. I didn’t look forward to telling Drea about the outcome of my date-like transaction with my ex. But maybe I could cheer her up with the news that Sam and I hooked up?

  “I made out with Sam Goody!” I gushed.

  Drea tapped the brakes. “You did?”

  “I did!” I bounced up and down like a candy-addled toddler.

  “Congratulations! It’s about time you got some!” Drea double high-fived me. “He’s cute!”

  “He is cute!” My voice was all squeaky in a way I was unused to hearing. “And he loved my new look.”

  “Sam is the anti-Troy. Of course he loved it as much as your ex hated it.”

  Then Drea literally and figuratively shifted gears.

  “So. Did you hook up with Sam Goody before or after you got the map?”

  I fiddled with the silver hoop in my ear instead of answering right away.

  “About that…”

  Drea snorted and took a speed bump about ten miles over the speed limit.

  “I’m so sorry, Drea,” I said. “I realized, like, halfway into the dinner that I wouldn’t want to take the map from Troy even if he offered. I don’t want to be indebted to him in any way.”

  Drea sighed and drooped wearily on the steering wheel.

  “Couldn’t you have waited to take the moral high ground until after you got the map?”

  “I—”

  It was too late. Drea put the top down and the volume on the stereo way up. Between the synthetic throb of house music and the roar of the road, there was no way she could have heard my explanation even if I’d offered one. She preferred ruining her hair over listening to my excuses for letting her down. When we arrived at the mall, Drea swiftly exited the Miata, and I hurried to follow.

  “I really wanted to find the treasure,” I said. “But not at any cost.”

  “I get it,” she said curtly.

  “I can still help you with the application to FIT.”

  “Without the money, what’s the point?”

  “We don’t even know if the treasure is real, Drea,” I reasoned. “But you shouldn’t let that stop you from applying. I promise I can get you financial aid and all that…”

  If I perfected Drea’s application to FIT, she’d forget all about how I’d botched the treasure hunt.

  “Are you one hundred percent sure you can help me get in?”

  Any Mock Trial coach would tell you to avoid answering any questions requiring 100 percent certainty. There was no such thing. But …

  “Yes!” I lied.

  Drea didn’t want to let me off the hook that easily, but a barely there smile betrayed her gratitude.

  “Fine,” she finally agreed with an overly casual shrug. “But you’ll have to work around my schedule. I’ve got two bridal parties and a bat mitzvah scheduled for this morning. You know I’m covering all the appointments while Ma works on the Back-to-School Fashion Show.”

  I was only half listening as I unlocked the office door and switched on the light. In the battle for my attention, Drea’s academics were no match for sexual fantasies about Sam Goody.

  “Of course! Of course!” I babbled, imagining what he looked like with his shirt off. “Whenever and whatever you want…”

  We were so focused on ourselves—Drea on her busy day ahead of her, me on my busy night behind me—that it took a moment to register we weren’t alone in the office.

  “Boo.”

  33

  GHOST GODDESS

  Ghost Girl was back. Unfortunately, she was empty-handed. No doll. No map. No clue.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Zoe didn’t offer an explanation as to how she got in the office without a key, or why she was waiting for us in the dark. Honestly, asking for such petty details would’ve been an insult to her supernatural instincts. Do you ask a vampire why he bites? A werewolf why he howls at the moon?

  I did, however, want to know why she was apologizing to us.

  “I wouldn’t have given Troy the doll if I’d known you wanted it,” Zoe explained. “Did I think it was weird that he was asking me for my Cabbage Patch Doll? Sure, but who am I to judge what’s weird? I’m saving up for a coffin and want an ankh tattooed on my tongue.”

  Drea sucked sharply on her teeth. Not in disapproval, exactly. More like, disbelief. Why would anyone voluntarily do that to herself?

  “I didn’t care why he wanted it,” Zoe continued. “I just saw it as my chance to take that entitled prick down a few notches by making him my garbage bitch for the rest of the summer.”

  “I can’t get mad at that,” Drea said admiringly.

  “Please tell me you put a curse on the doll before you let him have it,” I said.

  A close-mouthed smile spread across her lips.

  “The biggest curse I put on him,” Zoe replied, “was putting him on the schedule with Helen.”

  I laughed hard.

  “I have to know,” Drea said. “Why’d you go after Slade? Those tanning pills were genius!”

  Zoe looked directly at Drea, then shifted her attention my way.

  “I’m tired of guys like him being shitty to girls like you,” she said. “Or me.”

  “Go on…” I urged.

  “Well, I saw what Troy did to you at the start of the summer. And then the way Slade spread those rumors. And I
know how that humiliation feels. Like, personally.”

  Wait, was Zoe saying what I thought she was saying? Thankfully, I had Drea to put it all out there, dispensing with any subtleties.

  “You hooked up with Slade?” she asked. “You?”

  It was a fair question. Slade was the tanned, taut embodiment of sun and fun. Zoe looked like she wandered away from a mausoleum.

  “Not Slade, but close enough,” she explained. “See, I wasn’t always like this.”

  She withdrew a photo from the inner pocket of her cloak. In it, a beaming french-braided girl posed with pom-poms on her hips in the green-and-yellow cheerleading uniform for Eastland High, Pineville’s crosstown rival. Drea and I examined the picture, then Zoe. The picture. Then Zoe again. A quadruple take was absolutely necessary.

  “That’s who I was before.”

  “Before what?” Drea and I asked.

  “Before I was hurt by a boy just like Slade,” she said simply. “They’re all the same.”

  I was instantly incensed. “What did he say about you?”

  Zoe lifted her chin, literally holding her head high.

  “It’s not what he said,” she said. “It’s what he did.”

  Her words knocked me right off my feet.

  Until that moment, I hadn’t considered the possibility that maybe I’d gotten off easy with just a rumor. Lots of girls have dealt with a lot worse at parties just like that one.

  “From that point on, I vowed not to let any boys fuck with me,” Zoe continued. “Or anyone else.”

  Drea literally bowed down in worship.

  “Amen!”

  She, too, was now fully indoctrinated in the Cult of Zoe, a new religion for feminist vigilantes.

  “Don’t go anywhere!” Drea hustled out of the office.

  Once we were alone, Zoe beckoned me forward.

  “Next time you’re down in the dumper,” she whispered, “take time to look up.”

  Was this a joke? Had Zoe gotten this koan off a greeting card? I almost laughed in her face. But when I looked into her tranquil, kohl-rimmed eyes, I knew she wasn’t messing around. Despite sounding awfully close to a Hallmark store cliché, her word choice was just strange and specific enough—the dumper?—to be persuasive. Zoe knew what she was saying. I just hadn’t, like, evolved to the point of understanding what she meant.

  “Okay,” I said, trusting her words would make sense in time. “I’ll do that.”

  Drea rushed back in with a crushed velvet scarf draped over her arm. It was extra-long and all black save for an interlocking vine design along the edge. The embroidery shimmered in a silvery thread that matched Zoe’s piercings.

  “I want you to have this,” Drea said. “It’s from our fall collection.”

  Zoe accepted Drea’s offering without protest.

  “Thank you.”

  She wrapped the scarf around her shoulders and pulled the ends tight across her body. This sumptuous embrace was so much worthier of a warrior goddess than the pathetic hug she would have received from me.

  “I knew it was perfect for you.”

  As always, Drea was right.

  After Zoe glided away, Drea turned to me.

  “Your mom’s out front.”

  “Actually! I’m right here!” Kathy swept into the room and gasped at the sight of me. “Cassandra! You cut your hair! When did you cut your hair? Why did you cut your hair?”

  We lived together, but hardly saw each other. If she hadn’t invaded my workspace, it’s possible Kathy wouldn’t have found out about my haircut until she drove me and my belongings to Barnard for orientation.

  “I think it’s chic,” Drea said. “Don’t you?”

  “It’s just…” Kathy forced a weak smile. “Different.”

  I could’ve said the same about the brassy highlights in her hair, but I didn’t.

  “Mo-om.” My tone was whinier than intended. “What are you doing here?”

  She held up a Bellarosa Boutique shopping bag.

  “Unfortunately, I need to make a return.”

  She’d finally come to her senses. Mom was returning the bimbo dress because she was a sensible middle-aged dentist, not a horny divorcée …

  Kathy held up a cashmere sweater in a pumpkin-orange shade known locally as “Slade.”

  “Thankfully, Frank didn’t cut the tags,” Kathy said. “And kept the receipt.”

  Wholesale, Gia got it for $150. It sold for $240. Fifty percent markup was the industry standard. Leave it to the Bellarosa ladies to push it up by ten percent—and convince shoppers they were getting a bargain.

  “I knew this would happen,” said Drea. “I tried telling Frank that you’re a summer, like Cassie here, but he insisted on buying that sweater in orange.”

  Because orange is her favorite color, I thought.

  “Because he thinks orange is my favorite color,” Kathy said.

  “It isn’t?” I asked.

  Orange is your mother’s favorite color. I thought back to all the orange gifts I’d given her over the years: coffee mugs and beaded necklaces and potted marigolds …

  “Nope,” Kathy answered. “Never has been. My favorite color is blue.”

  Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel. Like, you can’t get more different than blue and orange.

  “I think we’ve got one in your size in cerulean…” Drea said.

  For the first time since they announced their separation, I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I actually felt bad for them. Maybe I’d go out of my way to see her tonight at home. Maybe we could talk through everything that’d been going on for the last few weeks. Maybe I’d even tell her about what had happened between me and Sam Goody …

  “Oooooowwwww!” I howled.

  Kathy let go of my earlobe.

  “Cassandra! Put some peroxide on that,” she commanded. “It looks infected.”

  Or maybe not.

  34

  PROS AND CONS

  For hours, I failed to stay focused on reconciling Bellarosa’s bank statement. All I could think about was Sam Goody. How had I survived seventeen years without his luscious mouth…? How could I last another week…?

  So, it was a relief when Drea came bursting through the office, mid-scheme. I didn’t have to put up the pretense of working anymore.

  “Gia’s in a meeting! We need to get started before she gets back!”

  “Get started on what?”

  “On what?” she asked incredulously. “On getting me into FIT!”

  “Right, yes, of course,” I said, refocusing.

  She sat attentively in front of my desk, pen uncapped, yellow legal pad flipped to a blank page, ready to take notes.

  “Okay,” I improvised. “Let’s assess the pros and cons of your applicant profile.”

  Drea’s pen hovered over the first line.

  “Okaaaaaay.”

  “Nothing too complicated,” I said as reassuringly as possible. “Just the basics of your academic history.”

  The basics, as it turned out, were even worse than I imagined.

  PRO

  Lifetime of experience in the retail fashion industry

  CONS

  1.7 GPA

  No SAT score

  No portfolio

  No extracurricular activities

  No letters of recommendation

  I sighed. This should not have come as any surprise to me. And yet, I was still stunned by the lack of just about anything colleges seek in a candidate. I knew Drea wasn’t a dummy. But there was very little for her to demonstrate otherwise to admissions officers. And no “rewrite” of mine could ever change that. Drea’s prospects were bleak. I’d overestimated my abilities. I’d promised the impossible. I did not see a fat envelope from FIT in Drea’s future.

  Drea was watching me expectantly, waiting for the expert guidance I’d literally guaranteed her. There was no way to get out of this without hurting her feelings …

  Or was there?

  “
Do you have the application?”

  “No.”

  There it was. My out.

  “Well, we can’t really get started without it,” I said, hoping Drea couldn’t detect the relief in my voice. “That’s the only way of knowing exactly what FIT is looking for.”

  “Of course.” Drea nodded in complete agreement. “I should have thought of that.”

  “Contact the school and ask them to send you an application and a course catalog,” I said, “and we’ll go from there.”

  This was a brilliant first step. Getting the application required actual effort on her part, and I doubted Drea’s ability to follow through. And even if she did complete this task, it would take a few weeks for the materials to arrive in the mail. I’d be gone by then. By mid-September I had no doubt Drea would have already moved on too. No harm, no foul.

  “You really think I can get in?”

  Her voice was the most vulnerable I’d ever heard it. I’d never seen Drea so eager for my approval. For anyone’s approval. There was only one right answer. And it was a lie.

  “Yes.”

  Then Drea’s eyes twitched, and I wondered if both sets of fake lashes had gone rogue simultaneously. Only when rivers of black mascara started running down her cheeks did I grasp what was happening.

  Drea Bellarosa was crying.

  Correction: She was ugly crying. If Drea’s laughter sounded like a genocide of waterfowl, her crying …

  “WAHWAHWHWHWHWAHHHHHHHHNNNNNK.”

  … was a mega multispecies mass extinction event.

  I was so stunned by her raw show of emotion that I didn’t have the wherewithal to respond with common decency.

  “Gimme some tissues, already! Or do you want me snotting all over the merchandise?”

  I rushed over with the box of Kleenex. She took a tissue with one hand, and my own hand in the other.

  “No one has ever helped me like this.” Drea dabbed her eyes. “Seriously, Cassie. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  Most days I wasn’t fully convinced Drea even liked me.

  “I am?”

  Drea honked into the tissue.

  “Don’t go getting a big head about it,” she said. “I’m really shitty at picking best friends.”