Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49

by Seanan McGuire

  “We go to church three times a week,” August points out, perplexed.

  “This one is different,” he says. “It’s … not part of the mall.”

  August groans. “Why the hell would you wanna go there?”

  “For something different,” Wendell says.

  Wendell pesters August about it for the rest of the week and finally she agrees, if he will give her forty dollars. Most of this week’s loan, he thinks, but it’s worth it.

  • • •

  The only Mass at Holy Family is at noon on Sundays. So when the St. Flavius Mass is over at ten, August and Wendell wait around until eleven, and take the ever-familiar 90 out to their destination. Two Masses in one day is church times two, and August is pissed. The only thing keeping her from blowing off the whole thing is the forty dollars in her pocket and the pending fall clearance at Strawberry.

  The driver of the 90, one whose face the two know well, is confused when they don’t get off at Capital One or the Megamall. He doesn’t have many other stops.

  “Where are you two going?” he wants to know.

  “Timbergrove,” Wendell replies.

  The driver doesn’t seem to understand. “Timbergrove Center? That’s a small place. What do they got there that you can’t get at the Supercenter?”

  It’s true. Timbergrove is cheap, and living there is almost as bad as living at the Walmart, but at least they have Olive Garden and Gap. Wendell isn’t sure how it came to be, but he is prepared for this question. “The, uh, Temple Emanuel,” he says. It is literally the only thing that’s not available to residents of the Supercenter or the Megamall.

  “The temple?” the driver asks. “But you two ain’t Jewish, are you? No, can’t be, I take you guys to the Catholic school just about every day.”

  “We’re going to a bar mitzvah,” Wendell says, and the driver finally shuts up.

  • • •

  “The standalone church is here? So how does it stand alone?” August demands after the two get off the bus.

  Wendell has left out this other part on purpose. If August was pissed about church times two, he knows she’ll be furious when she hears about this part. Buses generally don’t leave the highway, and Holy Family is off the beaten path.

  “So what are we supposed to do?” she asks in a panicked voice. “We can’t rent a car. And now what, we’re stuck at the boring-ass Timbergrove until the 90 comes back? That’s two hours, Wendell.”

  Two hours of bland shopping is probably worse than church times two. Wendell braces himself for her rabid protest when he tells her.

  “It’s just on the other side of the highway,” he says.

  August is ballistic for about a minute, and then she follows, grudgingly.

  • • •

  What people don’t realize when they’re riding the buses from one mall to another is that most of the highway—which is a straight line—is off the ground. There are parts that take you past ruins and factories, but most of it is essentially a bridge. It’s a very hilly part of historic Houston that they travel. Mall people don’t understand much about hills—you don’t find any in the smooth tiled floors of the galleria or the parking lot. The closest thing they have to hills are broken escalators. If the map Wendell consulted is correct, the off-ramp is right across from the Timbergrove Center, on the other side. The church is less than a mile from the ramp. They’ll make it.

  “Well, I have to have something to eat first,” August says.

  Wendell finds this to be a good idea. He didn’t get anything in church that morning. So the two go into the Timbergrove Center in search of something to eat. But Wendell knows that August expects him to pay for her, and so before he can head to the food court, he needs to go to an advance machine.

  If there’s anything Mrs. Weston finds more foolish than Wendell’s use of his teen funds, it’s advance funding. The machine will give Wendell a loan just as easily as the regular teen fund machine. The only differences are that this machine will keep twenty dollars out of his maximum, and that he won’t be allowed a loan the next day. He needs it a day early, so the machine takes a percentage for its trouble. Wendell will get over the loss of his twenty dollars, and over the twenty-five more that he spends on his and August’s meal.

  August walks the whole way with her arms crossed. Even Wendell is starting to regret his idea to find the church. Walking is harder than he thought. People who were fortunate enough to live in big malls never experienced sore feet or fatigue or achy joints, at least not from walking. If they had to get from one side of the Supercenter to the other, they call a mall cab—a small vehicle, what you might still call a golf cart even though no one goes golfing anymore, that would take you anywhere you needed to go for three dollars a minute. When August’s feet begin to feel the pain of too much effort, her instinct is to hit the number for the cab on her speed dial. Her hand hovers over the button on her phone, until she realizes how stupid that is, so she pockets her phone and groans loudly enough for Wendell to hear.

  The grass is taller than their knees and with each step their feet sink a little into the damp earth. People outside Timbergrove watched and wondered as they saw the two leave the parking lot on foot. Pedestrian traffic is never allowed on the highway. But now August and Wendell are fifty feet below the road, making their way to the other side. A bus roars overhead, startling them, and almost pushes August to tears. Mosquitoes buzz around her face and her muddy Skechers will definitely never be the same.

  Finally, after struggling up a gentle slope that leaves their calves screaming out in pain, the two see the church and are struck by the nothing that surrounds it—nothing more than grass and trees. Wendell knew that the church wasn’t in a mall, not attached, but he didn’t realize that it wouldn’t be anywhere near one. It is a white building less than half the size of the St. Flavius sanctuary. The two hear another loud, echoing noise out of nowhere. August digs for her phone again, thinking it is some unfamiliar notification tone, but Wendell notes an object moving in the tower of the building up ahead, swinging back and forth. The bells happen to be signaling the beginning of the service. St. Flavius doesn’t have church bells—it might offend the non-religious shoppers.

  August drags herself to the front doors for the sake of her boyfriend and tries to remember how much is left in her account. Certainly enough for a drink off the cart, even if the prices are jacked up the way they are at St. Flavius.

  “Better not just be Faygo,” she murmurs. Wendell pretends not to hear and pushes open a red wooden door.

  The teens are a little overwhelmed at the interior—the church consists of a pipe organ that nearly reaches the ceiling, and windows along the entire wall behind the altar to the green of the garden that lies behind the church. There are overhead lights, but they’re not in use; only sunlight illuminates the church and its thirty or so singing attendees. After taking a seat in the back row, August is pissed when she sees there’s no drink cart. There’s nothing. No attentive Sisters, no vending machines, and no HD screens on the walls. Just these singing people and the pipe organ.

  The minister, a small, elderly man in cheap-looking vestments, begins the service by welcoming everyone and making a ton of boring announcements about knitting clubs and youth groups and congregation picnics. He doesn’t use a microphone but Wendell and August can hear him just fine from their place in the back. Throughout the service, August contemplates how much forty dollars can really buy her at the sale back home, and what she needs the most. Wendell, despite how much he wanted to come, isn’t really listening either—instead he watches the birds eating from the feeder in the garden. One of them beats its wings so quickly that it’s just a blur. He has never seen anything like it.

  • • •

  When the service is over, the kindly minister corners August and Wendell to introduce himself. He says that Holy Family is nondenominational. He was happy to see the two and hopes they’ll come again. When they finally leave and make their way back
up to the Timbergrove, August doesn’t want to hang out with Wendell—she’s really too angry and might stay that way for a long time. She waits for a bus that will take her down the highway to the Supercenter where she can finally hit Body Central.

  • • •

  Monday again, Trenton and Wendell present their project with no problem.

  “I heard you were at Holy Family yesterday,” Trenton says, following Wendell down the hallway. “You and August.”

  “How did you hear that?” Wendell asks, dumbfounded.

  “Josh Neilson goes there and he says he saw you.”

  “Well,” Wendell says, “what of it?”

  “My family goes there. We weren’t around yesterday because my mom was sick, but we’re there almost every week.”

  Wendell is finding out a lot he never knew about his economics partner.

  “You got a ride for next Sunday?” Trenton asks. “If not, you can meet me at my place and my parents can drive you. We have a car.”

  Wendell accepts—and decides that since he’s going with Trenton, he can tell his parents and skip Mass at St. Flavius. August doesn’t need to know.

  • • •

  When Sunday comes, Wendell is nervous during his bus ride. He has never been to the Walmart and has never had any desire to go. When he arrives, he notes that there is only one entrance. He steps through the sliding doors and is promptly greeted by a bent and graying woman. He declines the offer of a shopping cart and walks past the various venues within—several families, and not just black ones, are taking their breakfast at McDonalds. The signs that hang from the high, ugly ceiling guide Wendell through the unfamiliar aisles to the residence. He realizes then that the doors to these apartments do not lead to a staircase. Everything at Walmart is on the same floor. It’s a little unsettling to him—don’t people know how to keep their home lives and commerce separate?

  Trenton is pleased to see that Wendell has come and invites him in. He finds himself in a kitchen bustling with activity. Trenton’s two younger sisters are helping their father prepare breakfast. Wendell notes that everything that comprises this meal—the pancake mix, the syrup, the juice, the butter, the napkins—are all Great Value brand, which he has never seen before.

  Trenton’s parents shake Wendell’s hand enthusiastically and invite him to eat with them. The family is all smiles in their pressed, clean clothes while having pancakes in their eat-in kitchen.

  “What made you want to come to Holy Family?” Trenton’s father asks.

  Wendell is unsure of how to answer—he realizes he doesn’t know why he wanted to go there. He searches himself for a moment, and answers the best he can.

  “It’s different.”

  “It sure is,” Trenton’s mother agrees. “I wouldn’t trade the view of the church garden in spring for anything!”

  • • •

  Trenton’s family owns a car. On the way to Holy Family, it comes up in conversation that his father is an engineer, and drives twenty miles to the plant. His mother is a night nurse at the Capital One and takes the bus. Wendell wonders why they’re living at the Walmart and buying food and clothes at the Walmart if they don’t have to. As if Trenton can read his thoughts, he turns to Wendell and mentions that his parents are saving for a house and will be moving in a few months. The house they have in mind, he says, is in a little suburb just a few miles down the highway. Wendell, having never gone past the Timbergrove, had no idea that anything like that still existed.

  Trenton’s father pulls off to the right and the family is descending, coming off the highway. As they travel down the ramp, Wendell, who can’t remember the last time he did so, feels something. He feels that he’s leaving things behind. He feels lighter, almost as if he’s outside of his body, and the word “escape” comes to mind. The sensation passes, and for one tingling moment he wants a Cinnabon and a Red Bull and his PlayStation and sixty dollars added to his account. But he won’t have any of this for hours. Not until the service is over.

  • • •

  Wendell is wholly relieved when Trenton’s parents drop him off at the Megamall. He hastily thanks them for the ride and then sprints inside, hailing a mall cab. Normally he would never waste money on a cab inside his own mall, which was certainly small enough for a young man to walk from one end to the other. But his appetite for spending that day is voracious. During his ride he reaches into his pocket and caresses his finance card, reading the raised numbers with his fingertips. First he buys an el supergrande gordita combo, then a Venti Mocha Frappuccino for dessert. Too much sugar, he realizes as he discards his empty plastic cup and green straw, and he doesn’t want himself looking like a fat bastard. So he runs a few stores down and buys the biggest canister of protein powder he can find in GNC, then dashes across the hall to some new fitness store and buys this miracle ab device that’s just like a rubber band you stick to the wall or something. Six-minute abs are totally doable. Muscle shirts are what he needs next. When the cashier at the athletic store tells him that his finance card is denied, Wendell hails another cab to take him to the advance machine.

  Wendell gets his advance, and then, boldly uses his mother’s PIN to do the parental override to get an additional loan for the highest denomination possible. When it shows up in her transactions, she’ll probably change her PIN again, but what matters is that Wendell has the money now. Armed with digital dollars and ready to strike, he sweeps the mall with purpose in his stride, hitting all his favorites, then his occasional haunts, and then finally the stores he usually can’t stand. At the end of his rush, holding more bags of every size, shape, and color than he can comfortably carry, Wendell hails his last cab for the night. At 6C, he pays the driver, but doesn’t tip, and then bursts through the apartment, ignoring his parents’ cries and questions at the sight of his purchases. He goes into his room, locks the door, and sinks into his work.

  • • •

  Wendell wakes the next morning not in his bed, but on the floor, his head spinning. It is ten o’ clock. Hours of school have gone by already, without him. August rode the 90 and smoked outside Capital One alone today, he realizes. Mrs. Weston was not one to let her son miss school. She would normally drag him out of bed and onto the bus every morning if he had overslept. But something had soured, he knows.

  Memories of the night before come flooding back to Wendell—his parents outside his bedroom door, screaming at him to come out, asking him where he got the money for all those things, insisting he has some serious problem. Wendell finally finds the strength to lift his pounding head and looks at the mess around him. His controller lies nearby, and the television screen is an image of blood spatter with the words GAME OVER flashing.

  As he sits up, an empty Red Bull can crunches beneath him, and he realizes it’s not the only one. Shrink wrap from new video games and DVDs lie twitching in the breeze created by the ceiling fan, some catching on and fluttering across the floor, which is littered with half-eaten packages of candy and potato chips. Wendell sees the cases on the floor but can’t remember a single title he bought. He is dressed, for some reason, in silk pajamas that he didn’t own before last night. More than twenty other bags sit in the corner, most of their contents spilled out onto the floor. Wendell couldn’t simply just buy all these things, he had to have them all, too—he had to have everything, and he had to eat, play, wear, watch, and just have it all at once. There’d been no time for pacing himself, or saving some for later, or saying no to anything last night. But now it’s morning, and Wendell would be glad to see it all disappear.

  • • •

  After he forces breakfast down and feels a little more competent, he sits on the floor in the aftermath of his spree and places all his new things back in the bags. He tries to figure everything out from the receipts, but there’s just so much. There are things he can’t even make sense of—a beaded curtain, two damn scented candles, carved wooden bookends, a porcelain doll. Wendell is nervous as he heads into one of the stores he vi
sited the night before to try to return the six pairs of sunglasses he bought there. Wendell has never returned anything in his life.

  Hours later, after being told countless times that opened boxes, clothes without tags, CDs without shrink wrap could not be returned nor exchanged, Wendell realizes that he really messed up. His parents will be home soon and they’ll have seen their transaction record. They’ll know how he got the money, and they’ll go to the Pepsi Texan financial office and ask that their son’s card be suspended. Without freedom to buy, what would Wendell be?

  A child, he thinks. Even if there were only a few months before he turned eighteen, he would never be able to stand having his parents know what he was buying and when, and having to get their permission to spend his money.

  • • •

  The next morning when August takes her seat next to Wendell on the 90, she doesn’t ask where he was yesterday. She doesn’t care. She has news.

  “I got in,” she says, beaming.

  Wendell frowns. Should he know what she means?

  “To The University of America. In the Mall of America,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You know, the original. The first mall to ever have its own residences and provide them with the benefits we all enjoy today.”

  “In Minnesota?” Wendell asks, perplexed.

  “Yeah,” August replies, “No difference, except it won’t be blazing hot when we wait for the bus in the summer. What the hell am I saying? We’ll never need to wait for a bus again! We’ll be in the center of everything.”

  “We?”

  “Well, yeah,” August says, “What are you gonna do, stay at the Megamall forever? There are at least twenty video game stores in the Mall of America. There’s a sheet metal workers union in the mall that trains you for free if you want to learn that. There’s a two-year college if you want that. I’ll live in the dorms and you can get a cheap place in one of the basement complexes. I’ll never have any problem seeing you.”

  They’d talked about staying together after graduation before, but he never thought it would mean leaving Texas. Wendell doesn’t know what sheet metal is. He just nods.