Malled

It’s Wednesday, the day of the girls’ outing. Not the outing they’re supposed to go on, to the snake-infested pond; they aren’t going there. For three days, they’ve been planning their escape.

The professor has called up satellite views of the area, and during rest hours, under the window, the girls have devoted themselves to figuring out the real-world counterpart of what they show.

Rosalind finds she has a talent for reading the maps and overlaying them on her memory of the ground. She has a good idea of the scale, and has found some landmarks – a big empty field a few feet off the path, some sheds and a barn that are recognizable. They’ve plotted their way through the woods and back to the dirt road.

From there, it’s down the hill through the evolution of road-making, until they reach the main highway. The mall is thirty miles away. Too far to walk. They’ve pooled all their money, and they’re taking a taxi. They have enough money to bring them back, but not if they spend much on food.

It’s meeting them at 3:00 at the bottom of their hill. That will give them time to lag behind the others and slip through the woods to the clothing stashed under a rock near their escape point. Only the professor had voted to meet Phoenix in the boring shorts and shirts they’re expected to wear to the waterhole.

The girls have a good breakfast the day of their journey. Two counselors carry two heavy straw baskets around the long tables. One is filled with hard-boiled eggs, the other with soft. Just like in the old days, there is fresh bread and butter and milk, things only grown-ups appreciate now. But the girls eat up. It’s part of the plan. “You never know…” has become their motto.

They are too nervous to eat much at lunch, and nobody wants to get high for this adventure. Rosalind has planted their clothes, three hard-boiled eggs and a chunk of bread, cutting out of crafts or dance, each activity leader thinking she was at the other. Now the girls lie on their bunks, trying to get as much rest as they can.

Sheba is remembering her father’s hand on her Grecian bun. Rowena is once more figuring out the timing, even though it’s too late to change anything. Rosalind is rehearsing what she’ll say when her mother finds out.

When rest is over, they jump out of bed. They’re ready and rarin’ to go. Hearts thumping, feet pounding, they go down the stairs to meet the rest of the girls at the head of the path.

They hang behind, trying to be forgotten. There are a lot of campers, and the counselors never pay attention to them – they’re too old. The counselors are for the little kids.

There’s a lot of noise and chatter on the way to the water. Our three drop farther and farther behind until they see the rest of the group disappear around a bend in the path. Rosalind leads them to the rock in the woods where she’s hidden one plastic bag of clothes and another of food.

The changing is fun, until Sheba discovers that with all her planning, she’s neglected to bring another top, and has to wear the ratty shirt she wears for woods walks. A weaker sister would have cried.

Rosalind and Sheba have short, flirty skirts, one of the few discretionary articles of clothing allowed by the camp. The professor has compromised with clean white shorts and a black polo. Maps in hand, they navigate through a series of paths, past some buildings lost in the woods, and out to the dirt road.

Rosalind twists her ankle in a pot-hole going down the next, almost-dirt, road, but it’s okay, she’s light and it can take her weight. The professor stops and picks up a downed branch for her to use as a walking stick. They’ve now officially got one cripple, and they’ve barely left the premises.

They get to the highway. The professor checks her phone for the time. It’s 2:55. Perfect timing. The taxi will be there in five minutes. They stand under a tree, waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

You know how it is, the first glimmerings that it, whatever it is, isn’t coming. That something has gone wrong. That things will not be as you thought. Rowena does not again offer up the time. Sheba has to ask. It’s 2:15. The taxi isn’t coming. They’re lucky nobody else has become interested in what three very young ladies are doing on the road.

Then just as the professor is about to call the taxi company, a car pulls up. The window rolls down. “You girls want a ride?” a woman asks. If it wasn’t a woman, they probably would have declined. .

They should have. Thelma Mack is known in her hometown as Mack the Knife. She’s got a short fuse, and has been hauled into custody a few times so she can cool off. Her husband is the only one who’s been stabbed, and he didn’t press charges. She carries a knife in her purse and another one under the seat.

The girls get in. And ride all the way to the Mall with this entertaining, sympathetic savior, who listens to their gripes and tells some rousing good stories. They get out of the car with good lucks and thanks bestowed.

You never know folks, which danger is for you, and which one isn’t. This one wasn’t for them.

The mall is huge. One of the largest in the country. They are underneath the thirty-foot scrawled neon “Interstate”. They enter, and look up through the open gallery at four layers of floors, with flashing lights, open shops, sidewalk vendors, restaurants, amusements… anything you can find in a city, you can find here. The ceiling is miles away. It doesn’t exist.

The place is full of mothers with strollers and young guys with no jobs who have the freedom and inclination to roam around looking at the scenery. The girls are part of the scenery, and they get their share of off-color comments, which thrill them.

It’s coming close to the time, and they drift toward the carousel. They don’t want to get there early and appear anxious; they don’t want to be late and miss him.

They get there at 3:05, because, after all, they are anxious. There’s been all this build-up. All this planning. At first they hang back, trying to lurk in the shadows and spot him first. But they don’t see him. A few women with children come and put the kids on the horses. But there is no Phoenix.

They come up front and mill around the ticket-taker, where they know they’ll be seen. They’re all getting that feeling in the pit of their stomachs again. Like when the taxi didn’t come.

Finally, Rowena says, “I’m going to check my mail. Maybe he left a message.” She reaches into her pocket. And screams.

The mall is a huge, vast cavern. The scream echoes. People come running. Through her big glasses, the professor’s eyes are huge with horror. “My phone! It’s gone!” A few of the young chaps melt away. They smell a robbery and don’t want to be blamed.

Though people have arrived on the scene, no one approaches the girl in the white shorts and black shirt, who just as quickly as she exploded, has reconstituted herself. The big eyes are looking up and to the right as she recalls in her mind’s eye, the odd little bump she half-felt just as she slid from the car. That was it. That was the phone leaving her back pocket. The moment when it became “not there”.

And speaking of “not there”, folks, did you think he would be there? People like Phoenix can’t commit themselves. Or rather, they can, but they don’t carry through on the commitment. They can’t be what someone else expects them to be, even if they like it. It goes against their grain.

But not as much as missing out goes against any adolescent’s grain. It’s the teenager’s job to accept all challenges and perpetuate the glory of his species by living through them or by dying trying.

Here comes Phoenix, tall and lanky, slouching to the carousel like an R. Krum drawing, with his blood-red hair and the white face of nerdism. He sees a bunch of people near the carousel, but there’s a big empty space around a girl with great big, black, hair, wearing white shorts.

As he gets closer, he sees her expression. He recognizes the “Aha!” of the technician. “I’ve figured it out!” he reads on her face. He walks toward her with complete confidence. “What?” he asks when he reaches her.

“I left my phone in the car.”

“That’s all right,” he says. “I’ll lend you mine if you need one.” He hands her his phone.

She looks at him piercingly. “Never mind,” she says. “It’s all right. I don’t need it now.”

They stand there smiling like idiots. These two were meant for each other. The professor’s too smart for boys her own age, and Phoenix likes younger women. They don’t expect anything of him.

He looks away from Rowena and scans the scant crowd. He is looking for a trio of girls. His eyes light on Sheba. His mouth opens. What is she doing here? She’s an episode he thought he’d put behind him. But no. She’s coming over.

“Hello, Phoenix,” she says. “This is Rowena Kaplan.”

Phoenix looks from one to the other with a frown on his face. Then the third appears, leaning on a stick. It all comes clear.

“And Rosalind Jaffe,” says Sheba.

His mind is whirling around this new material. These are not 3 chix out of nowhere who came upon his website. This is a deliberate incursion. These three girls not only know where he is, they brought him here. He feels violated. But he admires them for having pulled it off. They’re his equal.

For two hours, they play in the mall. Glorious fun, the best kind there is – half child, half adult. When the cops find them, they’re in the food circus, drinking Coca-Cola and eating guacamole with the girls’ hard-boiled eggs and bread chunk.

It seems that Thelma “the Knife” Mack not only took to the three girls she dropped at the mall, but she is a conscientious citizen besides. When she got out of her car, she saw the phone sitting on the back seat. She took the liberty of reading Rowena’s e-mail. There, plain as day, was the rendezvous – time and place. She didn’t like the sound of, “which one will wed”. The camp’s number was in the phone. She called it and turned them in to save them from Phoenix.

Phoenix - who looks up in shock to see the police coming toward him. For what? What did he do this time?

Nothing, they decided. It was the girls they wanted. And it was the girls they took, driving them thirty miles back to Manya’s, lecturing them all the way about the evils of the male animal.

They were back in camp by 6:00, just in time for dinner. In a broad covering of asses, every one involved decided to forget the incident. Manya, particularly, was relieved that the pool would not have to be dredged.

You think that’s what happened folks? Everybody got away clean? You know better. When the cops arrived at the little table of Mexican food, the not-so-young one, who had it in for punks, looked up the red-headed kid, and hit the jackpot.

A previous arrest! For blowing smoke in the face of a police officer – a high crime. At the time, he was only fifteen, a minor, not even borderline, and it did not go on the record. Not the official record. But the cops keep an unofficial one, just so they know who they’re talking to. It used to be in a ledger in the office, but now it’s on-line.

They took the young man into custody. Sheba cried. The professor fumed. Rosalind hid behind a menu, trembling like a rabbit, hanging onto her stick, her ankle beginning to throb.

The girls were returned to camp, sirens wailing. The entire contingent was out to welcome them back. The camp has been in an uproar since the three of them did not come back from swimming. The head counselor herself waded into the snakes, hoping not to brush up against any bodies.

It is time to call the parents, the only ones still uninformed. Except for Jason, who has already received a call from, of all people, Nina, who tells him that Phoenix has been picked up by the police at the Interstate Mall, that Sheba was with him at the time, and that the police are referring to her as the daughter of the Democratic candidate for congress.