The Mall (10 page)

Lara hadn’t even realized that she had been staring at a woman in a business suit, seated in the seat opposite them and nibbling on a low-calorie energy bar, until the woman glared at her.
 
She had been ignoring the pangs in her stomach for several hours now in deference to the children, but now the urge was becoming irresistible and the growling had started.

“Mommy, your tummy’s talking.”

Normally, Lara would have had a snappy reply for her youngest, but tonight, the creativity well was dry.
 
The only words that came to mind—ones she kept to herself—were, “Yes, dear.
 
Mommy’s hungry.”

Even with the tram, it still took them fifteen minutes to reach the parking garage at the north entrance.
 
The elevator took them up to the roof where the Toyota SUV sat parked.
 
The top level of the garage lay nearly empty except for three or four cars.
 
Lara’s SUV sat near the elevator, the backseat folded down and filled to capacity with boxes and clothing on hangers, gathered in a rush.
 
It was humbling to see the remnants of a person’s life loaded into a space as limited as a vehicle.

Owen quietly brooded while Cora filled the vacuum left behind by doing the lion’s share of the whining.

“Why are we leaving?
 
I wanted to ride the Fairy Wheel?”

“We can’t this time, hon.”

Owen quietly stood beside the passenger door, glaring at Lara when he thought she wasn’t looking.
 
When she unlocked the doors, he threw himself into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind him.

“Hey, you got to ride in the front on the way up here!”

“Cora, get in the car,” Lara snapped, climbing behind the wheel.

She made a sound of frustration deep in her throat and settled into the only available space left next to the boxes stacked on the backseat.

Lara glanced at the gas gauge.
 
Sucking in a surprised breath, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” Cora wanted to know.

“We’re on empty,” Owen told her.
 
It was the first words he’d uttered in half an hour.

Lara glanced up at Owen incredulously.

“You said before we left that you needed gas and for me to remind you and the last time I reminded you, you yelled at me and told me to stop reminding you.”

Lara sighed and rested her head on the steering wheel again.
 
She’d had to drown out a lot of voices to keep that fantasy going that everything was going to be just fine, but like all deception, the truth had caught up with her like a relentless animal.

And now she was feeling its teeth.

“I’m sorry,” she said weakly and finally lifted her head, blowing a few stray hairs out of her eyes with her outthrust bottom lip.
 
“I’m sorry that every one of my plans to find you guys a bed tonight fell through.
 
I’m sorry for letting it even get to this point, sitting in our car with all our worldly possessions around us.
 
I’m just sorry for being a bad mother.
 
Maybe one day, you’ll see that sometimes a parent feels like a child, still capable of making mistakes as big as she did when she was five and ten years old.
 
Just at my age, the stakes are much bigger and the damage can be that much greater.”

She sighed heavily and stared at a crucifix--along with several other jingly trinkets-- hanging from her keychain in the ignition.
 
In that moment, she couldn’t for the life of her remember exactly where it had come from or why she had thought it was a good idea to put it on a keychain.

When Lara glanced over at her son, he wore a confused expression that she couldn’t read, a cross between “who-are-you” and “is this some sort of trick?”

“That being said, we’re going to take a vote as a family unit, since honestly,” Lara scoffed, “I’m not feeling very parent-like right now, and I haven’t the least bit of maternal instinct on the best route to go from here.”

Half turning in her seat so that she could see both her children, Lara took a deep breath and said, “Okay.
 
Here’s our options:
 
A) We can drive out of here to look for a grocery store to get some food and a hotel to spend the night, assuming, of course, that we actually have enough gas to get us where we need to go; or B) We can eat bologna sandwiches…”

Both Owen and Cora moaned in unison.

“—and stay in the Mall over night.”

“The Mall!”
Cora yelled, arm
raised
.

Owen frowned.
 
“Won’t they throw us out if we’re not buying anything?”

“I figured maybe we could afford three movie tickets and wait it out until morning.”

Cora squealed loudly and grabbed Owen’s shoulder from the backseat.

Owen looked Lara over, the tension slowly dissolving from his face.
 
“Let me get this straight?
 
You’re going to let us stay up all night and watch movies?”

“Yeah,” Lara said with a tired smirk.
 
“That’s the idea.
 
Take it or leave it.”

“And you’re saying that it’ll be okay to hop from screen to screen?”

“Just this once.”

A smile was slowly dawning on the ten-year-old’s face as his little sister flung herself into the front seat, grabbed her mother around the neck and gave her a loud smack on the cheek.

“I’m almost out of health points.
 
Loan me a credit.”

“This is my last credit, man,” Chance told Jesse, stabbing the Merlin the Wizard player button.

“
The Elf needs food badly!”
the game’s synthesized voice urgently advised.

“Just get over here and give me a hand,” Jesse
yelled,
his finger a blur as he blasted monsters with his arrows.

They had been playing Gauntlet for a good part of the night after leaving the CD store.
 
When they’d first come into the Di-lithium Mine arcade it had been crowded with the late night crowd of teenagers.
 
Now there were less than ten people left.

“
The Elf is about to die
!”

“C’mon, use your magic!”

“It’s not going to help, Jess,” Chance muttered, slapping the magic button with his palm.
 
All the monsters surrounding him disintegrated, but it did little good for the starving Elf.

Questor the Elf disappeared in a flash of light.
 
Jesse pounded the side game with his fist and bellowed in frustration.
 
“Let’s blow this place!” he growled, grabbing his skateboard from where it leaned against the wall and tossing the other at Chance’s feet.

“I just zeroed out my card to stay in the game,” Chance protested.
 
The moment he stepped away from the joystick some other kid that looked to be about ten slipped in and took over.
 
What were kids that young doing out this late, anyway, Chance wondered?
 
Could there possibly be parents in this world more incompetent
than his own
?

Jesse dropped his board to the floor just outside the arcade and stepped onto it, riding it casually up the nearly empty yellow coded corridor.

“Dude, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Chance warned, glancing back down the corridor.
 
“What if fat ass is still around?”

“Are you kidding me,” Jesse sneered.
 
“He won’t bother us again.
 
He’s too busy
hassling
some little old lady in the red zone on the other side of the Mall.”
 
He leapt off his board.
 
Managing to keep the same pace, he snatched the board from the floor and tucked it beneath his arm.

“Don’t you think we should head to Dickie’s?
 
He’s probably wondering where we are by now.”

“What happened to spending the night in the Mall?”

“I said that on a goof, dude.
 
Like when you said you wish somebody’d shoot President Connally.
 
You weren’t serious either.”

“Shit yeah, I was serious,” Jesse chuckled.
 
“Hell, I think spending the night here is the least lame idea you’ve ever had.
 
A lot better than staying at Dickie’s.”

“What if my folks call his house?”

With misgivings and alarm bells going off all through her head, Lara fed fifteen of her last remaining twenty-six dollars into the vending machine just inside the theater entrance and received a debit card back, newly embossed with the Mall of the Nation logo.
 
Directly next to this machine
was
an automated ticket vender and a flashy digital marquee.

Owen and Cora stood before the massive marquee, reading a scrolling list of the thirty some movies currently showing.

“
Goonies
,” Cora cried.

“No way, Smeagol, you already saw that one!”

“I want to see it again.”

“Thirty movies to choose from and you want to see the only one you’ve already seen?” Owen scoffed.
 
“I want to see
Explorers
.
 
I hear they build a spaceship in their backyard.”

“Judging from the show times, it looks like we’re going to have to see this
Back to the Future
thing.”

 
“Currently number one at the box office and very popular with all age groups,” the theater’s patron liaison Bot interjected.
 
There were a total of fifteen Bots assigned to the theater, one for every two auditoriums, each one with the fluorescent yellow strips bearing the name and logo of Cine-Verse, the theater chain, all over their bodies.
 
“It stars Michael J. Fox from the popular television show
Family Ties
and Christopher Lloyd from
Taxi
.”

“That’s the one with the cool car in it,” Owen remarked.

“I want to see
Goonies
,” Cora cried, that whiny quality entering her voice.

“Is there any policy against buying different movie tickets for my two children?” Lara asked the liaison.

“No policy per se, although management does try to dissuade the practice, especially after hours,” the service Bot replied.
 
Then in a more official sounding voice, it said, “Management is not responsible for any injuries sustained on the premises due to a lack of parental supervision or disagreements between adult parties.”

As the children continued to argue, Lara leaned closer to the Bot and discreetly asked.
 
“Is there…
human
security here?”

“There are two Security Agents posted on the premises after hours.”

Well, that assuaged her fears for the time being.