The Mall

by Megan Mccafferty

  This speech was all very sweet and sensitive and wholly unnecessary.

  “But the hatchback was fun, right?” I asked. “We had fun.”

  Sam blushed and nodded in agreement.

  “I’m leaving in six days,” I argued. “What’s wrong with having the most fun right now?”

  “I guess I’m not a right now kind of guy.”

  He spoke in such a low voice, I had trouble hearing him over the snarling guitars playing over the store’s sound system. It wasn’t Nirvana, but similar. The mumbly singer was crystal clear on the chorus: “Why go home? Why go home? Why go home?”

  “I can’t be with you right now without thinking about a week from right now when you’re at school and I’m here,” he continued. “Or a year from right now when you’re in New York and I’m in Portland or Seattle.”

  Portland—home to his hippie cousin and countless rocks to climb—was understandable. But Seattle? Why would Sam or anyone move to Seattle?

  “Isn’t Seattle the rainiest, most depressing city in the world?” I asked.

  “There’s a whole progressive scene happening in Seattle right now—politics and art and music.” He pointed to the air, filled with the mumbly singer’s moans. “Pearl Jam is from Seattle. Nirvana is from Seattle. Well, Aberdeen, actually, but…”

  Now I was the one who was totally confused.

  “You’re moving to Seattle to follow bands?”

  “No, no, no,” he said. “And this isn’t about Seattle, specifically. It’s about the future, generally.”

  “What about the future?”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “What about the future? Exactly!”

  He plowed his hands through his hair, making it poofier than I’d ever seen it before.

  What about the future?

  I didn’t have an answer for him. I’d had fun with Sam Goody—more fun than I thought I was capable of having—and that was enough.

  For me.

  For right now.

  “I’ve planned too much of my life, and it hasn’t worked out that well,” I said. “I don’t want to make more plans I can’t keep. So, why can’t we just keep having fun while we can…?”

  I placed my hand on top of his. Sam shook me off.

  “That’s not my idea of fun.”

  Sam was refusing me as I had refused Troy, as Troy had refused me. I thought I’d avoided the vicious cycle of romantic mistakes, but I was no better off now than I was at the start of the summer: rejected and dejected. How could such a smart girl be so dumb?

  “Good luck, Bellarosa,” he said, walking away.

  What Sam Goody really meant was: “Goodbye.”

  41

  THE END OF THE RUNWAY

  I wanted to be anywhere but the mall.

  I called the office of Worthy Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry and told the receptionist to put me through to whatever parent was able to come to my rescue.

  “Cassandra! It’s your mother. What’s wrong?”

  “Cassandra! It’s your father. What’s wrong?”

  Both picked up. Simultaneously. On separate lines. I told them I would explain later, but I needed a ride home immediately. I hung up, leaving it up to them to decide between themselves who would get to be my hero for the day. I figured it would take at least thirty minutes, more than enough time to stop by the fashion show to say goodbye to Gia. She had treated me decently all summer and deserved at least that much.

  Despite observing weeks’ worth of Gia’s painstaking preparation, I’d still underestimated the popularity of the Back-to-School Fashion Show. Was there really so little to do in Pineville that the mall was the cultural destination of the late summer season? The answer, evidently, was yes. The food court was a frenzy of activity. The Silver Strutters never attracted an audience like this. All booths, tables, and chairs were already occupied and standing-only crowds flanked both sides of the runway jutting away from the stage toward the Wishing Well. Long lines extended from all purveyors of food and beverages, including America’s Best Cookie, where I might have caught a quick glimpse of a sweaty, red-faced loser running around with a tray, trying to keep apace of the customer demand for free samples of a new cookie that was supposed to taste like pumpkin pie.

  “It’s such a good vibration … It’s such a sweet sensation…”

  Marky Mark and the friggin’ Funky Bunch. Sam’s boss, Freddy, was DJing the event and though his tastes skewed heavily toward classic rock, he was obligated to cater to the Hot 100 crowd. I guessed Sam would be put in charge of the store while he was gone, which meant I wouldn’t have to worry about another awkward conversation.

  I wended my way through the throng to the chaotic backstage area, where scores of amateur models jostled for position in front of a dangerously inadequate supply of full-length mirrors. I could barely see through the thick haze of hairspray and was about to give up my search for Gia when she came racing toward me way faster than anyone in six-inch stilettos should reasonably be expected to run.

  “Cassie! You’re a lifesaver! I was having a quadruple heart attack over here!”

  Well, at least one person at the mall was happy to see me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Drea didn’t show up! And you’re taking her place!”

  “In the fashion show?” I asked incredulously.

  “No, on President Bush’s cabinet,” Gia deadpanned. “Yes! The fashion show! What else would I mean?”

  “Drea didn’t tell you?” I asked. “She fired me this morning.”

  “What is wrong with that girl? She better be dead because I’m going to kill her!” she ranted. “She can’t fire you! Only I have the authority to fire you! You are not fired!”

  If Gia knew about our fight, would she feel differently?

  “I need you in this right now.” Gia pointed to a fuzzy, cowl-neck dress in a deep-wine color. “It’s the last look we’ll send down the runway…”

  “I can’t,” I objected.

  “You can.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You will,” Gia insisted. “Or…”

  “Or you’ll smother me with this mohair sweater dress and make it look like an accident?”

  Gia broke out into a wide grin.

  “Are you sure we aren’t related?” She squeezed my shoulders. “Come on, Cassie. You can do this.”

  Gia was the only person who had come through for me this summer in the exact way she had promised. She offered me a job and delivered on it. No more and no less. This was my final responsibility as an employee of Bellarosa Boutique and I would not let her down.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  “Mwah!” Gia air-kissed me so as not to wreck my makeup. “Mwah!”

  I took the dress and slipped between a set of curtains comprising the makeshift changing room. I didn’t understand why it was so important to Gia for me to be a part of the fashion show when a seemingly endless stock of primping, preening Bellarosa cousins were already lined up and ready to hit the stage. Surely another one could have taken Drea’s place. Why me?

  “Cassie Worthy! You look incredible!”

  I turned to see Bethany Darling representing Surf*Snow* Skate in a wetsuit-style bikini. What swimwear had to do with back-to-school, I had no idea. But she and about half a dozen other barely dressed models were lined up to hit the runway anyway. The store’s owner made an executive decision to overrepresent surf in the fashion show, which would give the audience a lot more skin to ogle than snow or skate.

  “Vicki told me the real story, that nothing happened between you and Slade,” Bethany said. “I should’ve known he was full of shit.”

  There was nothing about her demeanor to give me reason to believe she was anything but 100 percent sincere about this. It would’ve been easier for her to pretend she hadn’t seen me, to let me go off to college without ever offering this apology I didn’t need, but appreciated anyway. A Beach Boys song erupted from the speakers, Surf*Sno
w*Skate’s music cue.

  “That’s me! Gotta go!” And before she bounced away, she added, “We should hang out sometime!”

  Why—with less than a week left in Pineville—was it suddenly so easy to get along with people I never cared about? And so difficult with anyone I did?

  I couldn’t actually watch the fashion show from backstage. I could only hear the music and the crowd’s response to the various models—which, encouragingly, seemed to be entirely positive. Every single girl—and we were all girls, with the exception of Joey and Mikey and Pauly, resplendent in their Chess King rayons—exited ebulliently from the runway, gushing about how much fun they’d just had and how sad they were that it was already over.

  “Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”

  A female soul singer repeated these lines over and over again over a house groove. It was one of Drea’s favorites and Bellarosa Boutique’s cue.

  “Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”

  Bellarosa cousins surged in and out the curtains, entering and exiting, bringing me closer and closer to my sixty seconds in the spotlight. When it was my turn, I took to the stage doing a dead-on impression of Drea’s hip-swiveling strut I’d unwittingly committed to muscle memory.

  “Waiting on … my feelings, feelings! Waiting on … my feelings, feelings!”

  I stomped to the beat, all arrogance and attitude. Who needed stilettos? I was a fashion warrior in gold gladiator sandals, demanding—no, commanding—the audience’s full attention and getting it. I wish I could say time slowed down, but it didn’t. Before I could believe it, I was at the end of the runway, the turning point. I paused to slap my hand on a dipped hip—just like I’d seen Drea do a million times—when I was flattened by

  a barbarian horde,

  a stampede of horse-drawn chariots,

  a starving pride of coliseum lions,

  all rolled into one

  and

  taking the form of an ex–best friend hell-bent on revenge.

  42

  THE DUMPER

  I had to credit mall security for how swiftly they got the situation under control.

  It took four full-grown men to stop Drea from trying to drown me in the Wishing Well. In their defense, their training course hadn’t covered common protocol for two teenage girls wrestling each other to the death, so it must have been challenging for them to separate victim from perpetrator. If Gia hadn’t intervened, Drea probably would have been hauled off kicking and screaming to the county jail. Only someone with years of experience in breaking up domestic disturbances could have successfully herded the two of us back to Bellarosa.

  “What the hell has gotten into you?” Gia screeched at her daughter.

  We shook in silence, sopping wet and still in shock. Rivulets of black mascara ran down Drea’s face, as I imagined it must’ve run down mine.

  “WHAT. THE. HELL. HAS. GOTTEN. INTO. YOU?”

  Gia hadn’t touched her, but Drea rebounded as if she’d been smacked in the back of the head.

  “I was defending Bellarosa’s reputation!”

  “By making us look like trash?” Gia asked. “Do you have any idea how close you were to getting arrested? You’re lucky I keep up with my annual donations to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association!”

  “That rat”—Drea thrust a talon in my direction—“has no respect for our store and did not deserve to represent our family on the runway.”

  I was still livid with Drea. I only felt guilty about Gia. She worked too hard to get all caught up in our drama.

  “Gia,” I began, “I’m so sorry—”

  Drea shut me up with a lethal look.

  “Where’s my apology? For using me to get what you wanted when you knew you’d never help me get what I wanted? For leading me on about FIT?”

  “FIT?” Gia asked. “As in the Fashion Institute of Technology? In the city?”

  Judging by her puzzled expression, this was the first Gia had heard of her daughter’s ambitions beyond the boutique.

  “Don’t worry about it, Ma, I’m not going anywhere,” Drea said. “Some of us, like Cassandra here, are college material. But I’m a Pineville lifer. The mall is my pitiful destiny.”

  College material …

  Pineville lifer …

  Pitiful destiny …

  My insides twisted in delayed recognition of Troy’s words.

  “Your boyfriend’s voice carries,” Drea explained without me having to ask. “Doug heard you all the way across Electronics Universe. He recorded you two lovebirds on his portable tape recorder and played it back for me.”

  “Troy is not my boyfriend,” I replied defensively. “And I didn’t say any of those things about you.”

  “That’s right! You didn’t say anything! You didn’t defend me against his attacks because you agree with him. Just admit it. You knew all along FIT would never lower its standards to accept a lowbrow townie like me.” She used more of Troy’s words as weapons. “And that’s why you didn’t show up at the library. You couldn’t bother pretending anymore but didn’t have the balls to tell me to my face.”

  Drea stared me down for a few interminable seconds. Water dripped from her gloppy bangs onto her nose, but she didn’t flinch. Even when she was more bedraggled than bedazzled, there was still no fiercer force to be reckoned with.

  “I’m—”

  “You know what? Keep your apologies,” Drea said. “Because the only thing you regret is wasting your summer slumming with a slutty dummy who will never do any better than the Parkway Center Mall.”

  When she turned and walked away, I felt in my gut it would be the last time I’d watch her go. Drea Bellarosa was the undisputed queen of dramatic exits and always would be.

  It was impossible to meet Gia’s gaze.

  “When you let my daughter down,” she said frankly, “you let me down.”

  Then she handed me a clean towel and left me alone.

  I dragged myself into the bathroom. I needed to get out of these wet clothes, but I couldn’t muster the energy to undress. When I felt brave enough to look in the mirror, I gasped at my own reflection, which was far worse than I could have even imagined. At some point during my near-death experience, I must’ve smacked my mouth against the concrete. My upper right front tooth was beyond chipped—roughly half of it was gone, presumably swallowed or sitting among the pennies at the bottom of the fountain. I ran my tongue along the jagged diagonal. It was a bloodless—but traumatic—injury.

  I put the lid down on the toilet, sat, and sobbed.

  Why did it matter if Drea hated me? This summer at Bellarosa was just a placeholder until I could start my real life in New York City like I’d always dreamed. Once I got there, I wouldn’t ever have to see her or any of the other pathetic Pineville lifers ever again. At Barnard, I would finally find my people. I’d be surrounded by thousands of young women like Simone Levy who were ambitious and bright and would never settle for a lifetime of selling overpriced hoochie couture to a needy and fundamentally tacky clientele. And now that Sam Goody also wanted nothing to do with me anymore, no one tied me to this place I’d so desperately wanted to leave. I should have felt remorseless and relieved, right?

  Wrong. So, so, so wrong.

  I felt lower—and lonelier—than I ever had in my entire life.

  Truly down in the dumps.

  Or, as Zoe put it, the “dumper.”

  And that was when …

  I

  looked

  up.

  43

  MALL BRAWL SHUTS DOWN FASHION SHOW

  Ocean County Observer

  Sunday Edition

  August 18, 1991

  PINEVILLE, N.J.—An underage model for Bellarosa Boutique was assaulted at Parkway Center Mall’s Back-to-School Fashion Show on Saturday afternoon.

  According to Ocean County police officers on the scene, the incident began when Andrea Bellarosa, 1
8, of Pineville, New Jersey, tackled the model as she posed on the runway. Dozens of witnesses report hearing Bellarosa shout an obscenity before knocking the 17-year-old victim off the catwalk and into the nearby fountain.

  “She screamed, ‘Die, Mono [expletive]’ and charged the runway,” said Bethany Darling, 18, an employee for Surf*Snow*Skate who modeled earlier in the show. “[Redacted] never saw it coming.”

  Because the victim is a minor, her identity is being withheld.

  Tensions escalated when Bellarosa Boutique’s owner, Giavanna Bellarosa, 39, also of Pineville, attempted to stop her daughter from repeatedly dunking the victim’s head underwater. A team of police officers and security guards assembled to separate and remove the young females from each other and the scene. Potential criminal charges for Andrea Bellarosa included assault and disorderly conduct. However, after being treated for minor injuries, the unnamed victim chose not to pursue legal action.

  “It’s the craziest thing to happen here since the Cabbage Patch riot of Christmas ’83,” remarked Sonny Sexton, 20, a technician for Fun Tyme Arcade, referring to the infamous holiday stampede that resulted in the hospitalization of 14 shoppers and Kay-Bee Toy and Hobby employees.

  It was a disturbing end to the 12th Annual Back-To-School Fashion Show, an event that has long been considered a cultural highlight of the late summer season. One observer, Zoe Gomez, 19, assistant manager of America’s Best Cookie, struck a mournful tone.

  “The chlorinated waters of the Wishing Well run black with mascara today.”

  44

  STALLING

  A lot happened in the six days between my bathroom revelation and leaving for Barnard.

  First, I’d made it my mission to master K-turns, four-way stops, and parallel parking. I approached behind-the-wheel training with the same focus and intensity I’d always applied to my schoolwork, Mock Trial, or Odyssey of the Mind. My parents were sufficiently impressed with our practice sessions in the parking lot of Worthy Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry that neither objected to the use of “their” Volvo for the final driving test. I chose Dad’s, but only because I knew he’d be trading it in for a midlife crisis car soon enough. Frank’s Corvette was Kathy’s bimbo dress. They were adults and I couldn’t do a friggin’ thing to stop them from making utter fools out of themselves.