How to Avoid a Lost Love: Ten Ways to Keep Those Walls In Place

[sansura]

No seriously, it's a short story about wandering. Under the cut.

Building a Legend

“Your hair is tickling my eye.”

“If you would just hold still for one more minute, the picture will be over and you can scratch your eye.”

He pulled his hand from mine and pushed my hair out of his eye. The photographer clicked her tongue and moved in front of her camera.

“If you are serious about having your picture taken, you need to stay still. We’ve been here for fifteen minutes and I have appointments to keep.” She came up to us and straightened our hands, pushed me flush against his body, and messed with my hair until it was out of his eyes.

At this distance, she was one of the most unattractive women I had ever seen. Her eyes were murky blue, covered by thick-lensed glasses that looked so dirty I was surprised she could even see us. She was wearing a blue pin-striped business suit over a bright orange shirt. The scarf that covered hair was also orange. It looked like it was supposed to be tied in a bow at the top of her ponytail, but one side had come undone and it was sagging on her shoulder. Right now the sneer on her face suggested that she was very displeased and that we should take her more seriously.

I’m sure we both looked apologetic. “Don’t move until I count till five. One. Two. Three.” I heard the camera click. I could feel Matt slumping against me. “We’re not done yet.” She snapped. It seemed to take forever before I hear the camera click again and her finally saying five.

We broke apart and he gave me an exhausted smile. “Can we never do this again?”

Before I could answer the photographer interrupted, “You can pick these up in about three hours or tomorrow.” Matt sighed.

“We’ll be back in three hours.” I told her. Matt grabbed my hand and we went back out into the parlor. The parlor had only one couch, red with dark purple pillows. The walls themselves were covered in silk of the same color. I felt like we should have been smelling incense and having our palms read. We found the photographer in the phone book listed under “Eternal Memories.” Even though it was in the mall, it was better than “First Light Photography.” We had paid her in advance, after being directed to her website, which had photos “of the highest quality and resolution.” They all looked the same to me, but I felt that Matt and I should at least have one good picture of us while we were young.

“You know, our kids are going to think that this picture is the sweetest thing that they’ve ever seen.” Matt said to me.

“We don’t have kids yet.” I sighed. It was my idea, but not for his reasons. “At least we have a picture that actually shows us together. We only have to wait three hours.” I told him.

He pulled me against him and grumbled into my neck, “Three hours in a mall. Our children must be told of my sacrifice.” I went to pat his head and remembered that he had caked it full of gel for the picture. I hugged him instead. He kept bringing up children. It just wasn’t the right time, we were young. We weren’t ready for such a change of lifestyle.

“Look at it this way - we can get our Christmas shopping done early.” It was worth a little trouble to get a nice picture before responsibility set in. “Just a sec. I’m going to see if there’s a bathroom in here. I don’t want to use the main one.”

“Don’t leave me for too long.” He flopped onto the couch and picked up the magazine. The couch contrasted nicely with his dark hair and his black shirt. It might have made a better picture than us against the green backdrop.

I went to the back room where the photographer was rolling up the backdrop. This room was relatively normal. It was painted white, divided into three sections, with a different center piece for each. The one she chose for our portrait was bare, us standing against a colored backdrop. “Excuse me.” She grunted but didn’t look up from whatever she was doing on the floor. “I was wondering if I could use your restroom.”

She straightened up and said, “I’ll show you.” She started walking towards the third set up. It was three blocks stacked in triangle formation with a box full of toys and dolls beside it. I felt like I could have found the restroom with simple directions, but maybe she thought I’d steal something. Right behind the lights there was an unmarked door. She pulled out her key and unlocked it. Bathroom security must have been something to worry about at the mall.

“Yell when you’re done so I can close it back up.” Then she walked away.

The bathroom was painted a nauseating green that left me seeing stars when I turned on the lights. There were actually two stalls and a black marble sink that took up a good portion of what space was left. I went to the mirror to straighten my hair and see what I could actually take off. Half my hair was in a ponytail resting on top of my head, while the rest tangled around my shoulders. It was starting to give me a headache so I took the ponytail down and just pulled it all back. With my hair out of my face, I could see that I had a line of eyeliner curving under my eye all the way to my nose. Shit. I couldn’t believe that the photographer hadn’t told me about this before she took the picture. She was certainly in my face enough to notice.

I tried wiping it off, but it was waterproof. By the time I managed to effectively scrub it away, I had removed all mascara from my left eyelashes and most of my shadow. Even though I tried to scrub away the other side, I still ended up looking like someone had punched me in the face. With the eyeliner gone my blue eyes seemed to disappear into the whiteness of foundation. Or at least they would if they weren’t blood shot as hell. I went into the stall and used the bathroom. While I was unbuttoning the top button of my shirt and getting ready to leave the stall, the photographer walked in. “You done yet?”

“Sorry, I was just straightening up a bit.” I said when I walked out of the stall. She was standing right in from of the sink, retying her scarf.

“Do you mind if I wash my hands real quick?” I asked. She shook her head and stared at me through the mirror as she finished. My makeup might have been a bit messed up, but I still wasn’t wearing an orange nightmare underneath a perfectly respectable suit jacket. And she could have told me about my problems, I was having my picture taken. There was no way for me to tell her that orange and blue didn’t mix without being rude.

I offered my thanks when she finally moved out of my way. I could feel her eyes on me as I washed my hands. When I looked at the mirror to try to catch her, she turned around to face the door. She didn’t leave the bathroom till I did. The lock clicked behind me. “I’ll have those pictures for you in about three hours.” I nodded my head and bolted out to the parlor.

Matt was slouched into the cushions of the couch with his eyes closed. “Took you long enough.” He stretched up off the couch. “According to Architectural Digest, more than thirty percent of all malls in the U.S. have indoor fountains. Aren’t you glad we’re experiencing part of this great tradition?”

“Thrilled. More importantly, they have coffee shops and fall sales. Come on.” I led him out of the shop, and into the bright light of the mall.

Even though it was Wednesday morning, in late August, there were people everywhere. They walked in groups or couples, with kids and without. There were only a few people walking by themselves. It was loud and some groups were just chatting in front of stores, causing congestion, making people even louder. Even though they made the ceiling impossibly high, I always felt like I was cramped into an elevator with twenty people all talking on their cell phones.

The mall interior was painted with clouds. There were two floors, and in front of some stores the clouds had smiley faces. I didn’t know if it was graffiti or intentional interior design. When I adjusted to the sound of the mall, and its color scheme, I had no idea where we were. I stopped in front of Matt. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you were actually heading somewhere, not just silently stalking the family in front of us. Looks like a shoe store. Do you want to go in?” I didn’t need any shoes, but we did have three hours to burn.

“Let’s see what they’ve got.” I started walking in and Matt followed. Less than ten minutes later, after being harassed by a saleswoman and being pushed around by an angry old man, we were back outside the store.

“I want to go home. We could pick up the pictures tomorrow. Come on.” I started to walk towards the entrance.

Matt stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Look at that woman with the red hair. Thin. Purple shirt.”

I scanned the crowd and found her. She was walking quickly, almost running, breaking up groups of people and not deviating from her set path. “She looks like a charging rhino.” We laughed. I suppose we both thought that she would change her course at the last minute and swerve around us. We didn’t move out of her path. As of yet she hadn’t knocked anyone over.

She was staring straight ahead, not looking at anyone. I don’t even think she saw us standing in front of her. I had never experienced something I could call a human car wreck until her boney shoulder crunched into mine. On impact, my arm went numb and only Matt holding firmly onto my shoulders kept me up.

“Fuck. That bitch really ran into me, like a linebacker. I can’t feel my arm.” I wiggled my fingers as I turned around and watched the lady continue her rampage. That was going to be one hell of a bruise. I turned around to yell at her, but I didn’t want to make a scene. I muttered a quick “bitch” in her direction and turned back around.

“Well, you didn’t move.” Matt said.

“I shouldn’t have to move. It’s the principal of the thing.” I stood there for an extra minute, rubbing my shoulder.

“These clouds are starting to scare me. I’m just glad they’re not painted on the entrance hallway.”

“I’ve got a better idea. We could try to enjoy this. And I don’t want to come out here two days in a row. Besides, by the time I get off work, the mall will be closed.” We walked by a Sunglass Hut and a Dippin’ Dots. I wasn’t in the mood for mall food. “We’ll get coffee.”

Matt agreed. There was a coffee shop called Coffee Shoppe in the middle of the mall. The entire area was open and the coffee shop looked out towards the largest indoor fountain and glass elevator combo. Regardless of these perks, there were hardly any people sitting at around. At least we had missed one mall demographic by coming to the mall on a Wednesday morning.

We got lattes and sat down. My watch said that less than an hour had passed since we walked out of Eternal Memories. I took a sip, getting mostly whipped cream. Then I sipped again this time getting a bit of chocolate and coffee. Matt was looking at the fountain, tracing the rim of his cup. His face was scrunched up, showing the wrinkles in his forehead.

“You know that look adds at least thirty years to you. I feel like I should whip out the Geritol and Polident.” He turned back to me and rolled his eyes.

“Well there’s not much going on here. If I knew we’d have to wait so long for the photos, I’d have brought a book. I guess we could always go wait in the photo shop.”

“Jesus. Matt, look over there.” The rhino woman was walking toward us. She had two large boxes under her right arm. Her right hand was being held by a little girl that was holding a little doll that had blond hair and a green dress that matched hers exactly. The doll’s eyes probably matched too. Balanced on her left arm, pressed against her body, was a baby dressed in blue with a Sponge Bob pacifier.

Matt spoke without moving his eyes from her. “I was going to suggest you confront her for her rudeness, but she looks like she can barely stay upright. No wonder she was in hurry.”

She came into the coffee shop and dropped her boxes on the table beside us. When I startled, she looked up and smiled. “Sorry about that.” Then she brought her children up to the counter and ordered a coffee. I never wanted to bring children to order coffee. I would have probably just left them sitting on the table with the boxes. I liked the idea of them, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for the responsibility.

I turned to Matt. “Do you think that she realizes she ploughed into me less than twenty minutes ago?” I asked.

“I doubt it. Where do you want to go next? We can pretend that we’re getting married. Go into the jewelry store; try on their most expensive rings. Run for it. Get chased by mall police. Pick up our photos on the way out. What do you think?”

“We’re already married. We’d have to hide our rings, and I’d probably lose my real one. Still, it’s a good idea. Or we could just go look at a music store. See if there’s anything we want to spend money on.” I put a lid on my coffee and stood up.

The woman was situating her kids at the table. I had to slide out of my chair to avoid hitting the little girl. Her eyes were brown and they did match her doll. I tried to get this across to Matt, but I don’t think he understood because he flashed me a confused smile and put the lid on his own coffee.

We walked to the record store in silence. Matt was looking in the windows of every shop we passed, ignoring the calls from the cell phone vendors when we passed them. I had to look when they yelled to me, but then they would start telling me about their phones, and then I had to run. It was rude, but I felt it was less rude than ignoring them. Matt didn’t care about rudeness. He would pretend they didn’t exist even if they were right beside him yelling in his ear. The aisle to the record store was full of cell phone companies. I was out of breath by the time I reached the store entrance. I stood outside the metal detector and waited for Matt to show up.

He strolled up to the entrance and held out my latte. No wonder he had to walk through those piranhas. “You know they were making fun of you for running like that. You don’t need to be afraid of them. They aren’t just going to come up and take your money.”

“As true as that may be, my way is more fun. Let’s go see what they’ve got.” The store was small. Two aisles of CDs ran down the middle of the store and DVDs lined the walls all the way to the back of the store. It was on the back wall I saw the merchandise that I wanted. Matt wandered off to shuffle through the CDs, while I went to look at the stuffed animals and novelty toys on sale.

The back wall was covered in action figures from The Simpsons Movie, Spider Man 3, and Family Guy. There were all sorts of strange stuffed animals, backpacks, and playing cards from cartoons and movies that I didn’t recognize. My favorite item was a little white stuffed animal with eyes that took up most of its head, three horns, purple hair, and two human feet.

“It’s only three dollars.” I singsonged to Matt, resting Quagie on his shoulder. Quagie was going to look great on the bedroom dresser. I would bestow him to my firstborn child. Matt glared at Quagie and returned to his browsing. I made sure that Quagie followed Matt to every CD he looked at until Matt took him from my hand and tucked him under his arm.

“You really like that white thing don’t you?” Matt asked as we walked out of the store.

“Of course I do. He has so much personality. And his name is Quagie.” I pulled him out of the bag and took off his tags. I looked at my watch again. We still had more than an hour to wait. “What are we going to do now?” I asked.

“We could ride the elevator and see what they have upstairs. We could get some of those big candles that your aunt loves. Maybe pick up a sweater for my dad. Actually get some of that Christmas shopping done in advance.”

“I was joking. I don’t really want to go Christmas shopping. But if we come across something that’s cheap, I guess we could pick it up.” There was a line of people waiting to ride in the glass elevator. It was small enough that no more than five full grown people could fit in it comfortably. This resulted in families getting on one at a time, while those remaining threw pennies in the fountain.

I was digging in my purse for a quarter. Usually, I hated the idea of throwing money into unmoving bodies of water, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. Matt interrupted my search. “There’s our favorite woman in the elevator.” I looked up, half expecting to see a woman with a bright orange scarf. It was rhino woman. She had the boxes gripped in her right hand this time. Supporting the baby and holding the girl’s hand with her other arm. We watched her ascend and the doors open. The girl pulled free of her mom to look over the railing at the fountain from above. She danced her doll along the rail as her mother struggled to move the baby to her other side so she could grab hold of her daughter and pull her back away from the rail.

“She’s going to notice that you’re staring at her.” Matt told me. I shushed him, and pointed out that he had noticed her again in the first place. The line had moved forward while we were watching her struggle. I moved forward.

She was still struggling with the children and boxes. The baby was crying now, flailing arms, and purple-faced. The little girl was standing on her toes, dangling the doll on the other side of the rail. I turned back when I heard the ding of the elevator and tried to get Matt to move forward.

“Goddamn. That girl’s going fall right into the fountain if her mom doesn’t pull her off.” Matt said. There were other people standing behind us now, they too were watching the woman struggle. Another family got off the elevator and walked past without helping. It was our turn to get on the elevator.

“Come on, Matt. If she still needs help when we get up there, you can hold her boxes.” Matt only started moving when the woman managed to grab her daughter’s hand. In the elevator we could see only in the opposite direction. People were still looking up towards the elevator, but clearly not at it. Someone yelled. I could see their faces switch to shock, a few people started running to the point just beyond my vision. As soon as the elevator started to open, we ran out. The woman was there, clutching her daughter and the baby to her. Both the baby and the little girl were wailing.

I went to the lady to see if there was anything I could do to help. Her boxes were tossed across the aisle. People made a wide circle around her as they passed. Matt picked up her boxes as I walked to where she was sitting with her children pressed against her. The little girl was crying about her doll and the baby was just crying. “It could have been you baby, it could have been you. Don’t you understand that? You could have died. I’d never see you again.” She kissed her daughter and pulled her even closer.

“Miss? Is there anything I can do to help? Are you all alright?” I knelt down beside her and yelled over the sound of her crying children. She shook her head no. “My husband’s got your boxes for you. I can look after your little girl for a minute.” She stood up, supporting the weight of her baby and her daughter. She thrust the wailing boy into my arms.

I cradled his head and tried to walk around a bit, humming what I hoped was a soothing song, but that didn’t seem to help. His mother had put her daughter down, but still clutched her hand. With the other she was digging in her purse. She used a tissue to wipe her face and her daughter’s. Then she pulled out a cell phone and started talking. I couldn’t hear what she was saying over her son. I tried to look the little guy in the eye, but he was having none of that. Every time I tried looking at them he would cry even louder. I was afraid he was going to go hoarse.

She got off the phone and walked to me. Matt was still standing by the railing, boxes in hand, staring at us. She took the baby from my arms. As soon as he was there he quieted a little. As soon as he had his pacifier in his mouth he was quiet as an angel. The girl had stopped crying as well and was just staring at me. I stared back until she looked away. Matt came up to us. “Thanks for all the help. Would you mind waiting with me till my husband gets here? He should be here within the next ten minutes.”

“No problem.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed, “we’re stuck here for a while longer anyway. I’m Matt, by the way.”

“Sorry, I’m Tina.” I thought about offering to shake her hand until I realized that her hands were full of kids.

“I’m Rachel and this is Christina and Jayden. I would carry the boxes too, but I don’t want to take any more chances.” Matt assured her and we all climbed into the elevator to go back down to the coffee shop and wait for her husband.

On the first floor, the remains of Christina’s doll were still visible in the fountain. Mall security had finally arrived and was trying to figure out how to clean the pieces of the doll up without getting their uniforms wet. She had started crying when she’d seen pieces of porcelain in the fountain. “I got her when I turned eight.” She told me as her mother put Jayden into a height chair.

Our bag from the music store was still on my wrist. I pulled out Quagie. “I found him earlier today. This is Quagie. Quagie, I’d like you to meet Christina.” I made him do a little bow in front of her and she laughed a little.

“What is it?” She asked.

Matt came up behind me and asked, “Would you like to hear the legend of the great Quagie?” We both nodded. As I made Quagie walk up to Jayden, Matt told the story of his origins. “The best part about Quagie is that he can fall from anywhere and he will never break.”

I passed Quagie over to Rachel. “Can Christina keep Quagie for right now? I think he’d be happy with a girl like her.” Rachel smiled and agreed. Christina still looked sad about the loss of her doll, but I was sure that she would grow to love Quagie. I looked down at my watch and realized that it was near noon. Matt and I could go get our pictures.

“I can’t believe she didn’t manage to break the doll in daycare.” Rachel said, “I had to pick up her and Jayden early because she had been using her to hit another girl. She’s just been acting wild today.”

“There’s no way that this mall has a daycare.” Matt jumped in.

“Of course it does, this place has almost everything. Do you all not come here often?”

“Not the biggest fans of crowds.” I responded. We could go get our pictures if her husband would show up. I looked over to Jayden. He was drooling on Quagie, the little monster. Thankfully, Christina looked just as horrified and pulled Quagie away from him. This triggered another round of crying.

After Jayden was silenced, Rachel said, “You all can go if you’ve got something to get to. My husband should be here any minute. I just needed to calm down a bit. I really appreciate it.” After a round of polite goodbyes and an exchange of numbers, we headed back towards Eternal Memories.

“I can’t believe you gave up Quagie.” Matt said.

“Yeah, but at least I didn’t give him an entire mythology.”

Matt laughed, giving me a quick kiss on the temple. “Let’s go get our pictures. Then we can see if there’s a nice non-mall-related store that sells crazy stuffed animals. We can buy them out and create an entire universe for our children.”
I smiled. That sounded like a pretty good idea.