The Mall (2 page)

The thought of their homelessness brought her back to the task at hand.

“Now if you want something to do, help me find the suites,” she said, stepping aside and waving him forward.

Owen glanced away from her, his face a firm mask of repressed anger.

Oh, great, Lara sighed.
 
Now comes the pouting.

“How about you, Coraline?
 
Got any ideas how to get to Grandma Charley’s apartment?”

The five-year-old was busy untying her shoes in the hopes of attracting the attention of one of the service Bots, though at her mother’s question she leapt to her feet and exclaimed, “Let’s ask one of the Bots!
 
They like to help people.
 
It’s what they do.”

Owen started forward with a sigh.
 
“This way,” the ten-year-old snapped, stomping forward up the concourse past a kiosk displaying fluorescent, spinning objects which dangled up and down like spiders on a silken web.
 
Lara wasn’t sure what they were for until she noticed one teenager affixing one to her ear in front of a display mirror.

“Mommy, can I get my ears pierced.”

“Definitely not, sweet pea.”

As they walked through the frenzied street of the virtual city, Lara found herself focusing on the people more so than the stores.
 
The Mall of the Nation had been designed to be a sort of consumer’s Utopia.
 
One of their advertising jingles even had the audacity to include the phrase “everything worth having in this world under one roof.”
 
Yet nearly everyone she saw, carrying their brightly bagged purchases, walked alone, their expressions frozen in a dumb-founded almost semi-hypnotic state of satisfaction.
 
But that smile seemed to disappear just below the surface of their skin.
 
Their hard-set jaws and slumped shoulders told a different story.
 
They were an anxious, lonely lot, searching for fulfillment that couldn’t be purchased.

Where were the families with tiny kids?
 
Where were the young couples?

Almost immediately Lara caught sight of a college-aged couple headed toward them.
 
The handsome blond man in a casual jacket made eye contact with Lara for one long moment, a brief flirtatious smile meeting his lips.
 
The hot young thing in a short skirt and high heels never noticed as she continued prattling in an endless stream beside him.

Then his eyes slid down and hardened slightly as he spotted Owen and Cora.

“Look at the puppies, Mommy,” Cora exclaimed shrilly, rushing up to the display case of a pet store called Mammals and More, where two white balls of fluff engaged in playful roughhousing.

Owen turned and grumbled.
 
“Mom, if we stop at every store along the way...”

“Oh, are we going to miss that appointment with your broker?”
 
Lara snapped at Owen in frustration.
 
She glanced longingly back at the blond man and noticed that he had lost all interest, his hand finding the tiny waist next to him and pulling her close for a quick peck on the corner of her brightly painted mouth.

Whore!

Where the Hell had that come from, Lara wondered with a certain degree of alarm as she turned back to her children.

“Why don’t you go show Cora the snakes or something?”

Owen seemed to be calculating an appropriate comeback when his tense frown dissolved and he looked almost pacified.
 
“You think they got chameleons?”

Rather than correct his grammar, Lara simply gave him a shrug and a single forced smile.
 
“Why don’t you go find out?”

Owen strode inside without a look back, while Cora glanced up at Lara with a hope-filled expression.

Lara gave her a nod, thus releasing the youngest of the Myers brood to scurry inside the pet shop.
 
Funny, how differently they had been programmed, she thought.
 
Like little machines designed with incompatible purposes, they responded completely different to the same stimuli.

Sighing heavily, Lara stepped over to a kiosk selling tasteful fake jewelry.
 
She selected a faux diamond earring and held it up to her ear next to the full-length mirror at the kiosk.

She wasn’t bad looking for a twenty-nine year-old.
 
Sure, she thought, I could have bagged that twenty-something college kid, no problem.
 
Trim figure, short brown hair, and light blue eyes with a sparkle of mischievousness still remaining from her girlhood.
 
So what if she was a little thick in the posterior!

Ben said that he’d always found that part of her alluring, though he was probably just playing the diplomat.
 
He had always been the more politic of the two of them, always stepping in to mend fences when she’d let her “Wild-Bill mouth” run away with her.
 
That had been their inside joke, as in, shoot first and ask questions later.

She found the lady in the mirror flashing a bit of her teeth through parted lips and almost didn’t recognize herself.
 
It had been a while since she’d actually seen a genuine smile on her face.
 
Had she laughed once since the day she’d buried him?

The day he left me, she thought bitterly.

She suddenly remembered the kids and glanced back at the pet store.
 
Cora had a huge smile as one of the store-keepers was holding a white rabbit out for her to stroke.

She’d never wanted them.

It popped into her head unbidden, like a subliminal image of a bleeding corpse spliced into a saccharin Disney film.
 
It made her feel cold and empty for having produced the rogue thought.

Ben had been an only child and had always sworn that he would have lots of kids when he started a family of his own.
 
Lara had decided at nineteen that she would never marry that sort of man.
 
Then that dark-haired bastard with his stage magician’s charm had materialized and ruined all those sacred teenage vows she’d made to herself.

Undoubtedly, she’d still be in this particular fix even if she’d never had the two of them, but without them, she’d definitely have a bigger cushion to fall back on.
 
Now there was nothing but responsibilities and lost opportunities.

“Those look great on you, ma’am.”

Lara swung around with a glare so menacing that the little high school nymph manning the kiosk actually took a short step back, an awkward lump rolling down her throat.
 
Tossing the earrings back into the display case, Lara gave the kid another one of her big smiles, not attempting in the least to make it look the slightest bit genuine.

She thought about saying something snide to the child, something about living life while you could, because when you reach my incredibly ancient age your decrepit soul just withers up and dies like an un-watered plant tucked into the dusty corner of a room.

The doors opened and Lara herded the children into the empty car.
 
Owen immediately began to look for buttons, but there were none.

A loud flourish of synthesized sound erupted from somewhere above them, followed by a polished female voice asking: “Which floor please?”

Lara turned a pirouette searching for a sensor or microphone of some sort.
 
Failing that, she finally lifted her chin toward the ceiling and responded: “Top floor, residential level.”

“Thank you,” the voice said with the sort of smug satisfaction of an overachiever doing a simplistic job well below their pay grade.

As the car smoothly began to rise, Cora and Owen rushed to opposing walls and pressed their respective noses to the cold glass.
 
A panoramic view of the Mall opened up before them below like a hot air balloon rising above an amusement park.
 
As far as their wondrous eyes could see were immense spaces spilling over with intense glowing colors like expressionist paintings on infinite canvases.
 
Outrageously-dressed crowds flowed from one passageway to the next like flocks of birds through an electronic sky.

For the first time that day, Owen was content to exist in the moment.

“Look, mommy, look,” Cora exclaimed, grabbing her mother with a strength that belayed her size and dragging her to the glass.
 
“Isn’t it beau-tee-ful?”

A second documentarian-style voice began.

“The Mall of the Nation in Houston, Texas is the largest consumer shopping facility in the nation.
 
At just under 8 million square feet and towering four stories, and one subterranean level for time-saving transport, the Mall of the Nation is home to 1600 stores and an additional three stories of residential apartments.
 
The Mall has been designated its own zip code by the U.S. Postal Service.
 
But don’t worry about getting around.
 
For your convenience, there are four separate trams to serve you.”

“The young and old alike will enjoy the Mall’s ice rink, Ferris wheel, wave pool, and aquarium that include over thirty-five thousand varieties of animal species.”

“Boasting a 30 screen movie theater, a five star resort-style hotel and two five star restaurants, the Mall is everything you ever wanted in one place. You may never want to leave.
 
And now with the grand opening of the Choice Life Estates, you won’t have to.”

“And because the Mall of the Nation is fully automated, we are open for your convenience twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred sixty-five days a ye…”

“Owen, can you please get it to shut up?”

Before Owen could even react, a feminine voice stated: “Audio deactivated,” and the enclosed interior became as silent as a glass tomb.

The elevator took its time rising to the residential level of the Mall, for which Lara was grateful.
 
It gave her time to plot out her approach.
 
She had consciously avoided thinking about this meeting for the past twenty-four hours, perhaps fearing that over-thinking might allow herself the opportunity to talk herself out of it.
 
All she knew was that she had exhausted all other options and that she must do this for the good of her children.

The car stopped and the door opened onto a wide concrete courtyard.
 
A cold wind blew Lara’s short brown hair back from her head and for a moment she had an inexplicable feeling of utter loneliness.
 
Her arm shot out and clutched Cora—more for her own comfort than out of protectiveness--who remained by her side, as always.
 
Owen had already started outside.

“Owen Frederick!”

The ten-year-old stopped dead in his tracks and glanced back impatiently.
 
“Mom, it’s just an apartment complex,” he said with a patronizing edge to his voice.

On the surface, that was exactly what it appeared.
 
So what had gotten her so edgy all of a sudden?

She rushed out and snatched Owen roughly by his wrist and started down the center of the courtyard, Cora in tow.
 
There wasn’t a single tree within view.
 
No flowers.
 
Not a single blade of grass.

Nor were there the typical sounds of a lived-in neighborhood.
 
No screams of children playing.
 
No dogs barking.
 
No mothers yelling at their teenagers.
 
For that matter, there was no sign of children whatsoever.
 
No bikes or skateboards.
 
No toys.
 
No discarded ice cream or candy wrappers.