It's a Mall World After All

Copyright © 2006 by Janette Rallison

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Walker & Company,

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rallison, Janette

It's a mall world after all / Janette Rallison.

p. cm.

Summary: While working at the mall, organizing a school fundraiser, and trying to prove that her best friend's boyfriend is seeing another girl, high-school student Charlotte's best intentions always seem to backfire.

eISBN: 978-0-802-72144-0

[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Shopping malls—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.

4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title: It's a mall world after all. II. Title.

PZ7.R13455Its 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2006001971

Contents

one

I
've heard stories about supermodels that were discovered while shopping at the mall. That's sort of what happened to me. Only instead of being discovered by a high-powered talent agent, the perfume lady at Bloomingdale's discovered me. Two weeks ago while I walked through the store with my best friend, Brianna, the cosmetics manager came up to us and asked if either one of us would be willing to offer samples to shoppers through the holiday season. Brianna didn't need the job, but I did. So now I stand in front of the department store entrance like some sort of human air freshener and spritz the latest fragrance on unsuspecting strangers who pass by. This is the ultimate weird after-school job because if you did this anywhere else but a high-end department store, you'd probably be arrested.

It's not like I'm even good at this job. To tell you the truth, I'm not that impressed with designer fragrances. I mean, what exactly do they put in the bottle that makes it cost so much? Ground diamonds? Nearly extinct flora? Every time some woman stops, sniffs her wrist, and murmurs, "Well, that's a delightful scent," I nearly say, "Yeah, but so is spring-fresh Tide, and they don't charge a hundred dollars a bottle for it."

Never once have I told a woman, "Yes, it's expensive, but you're worth it," or "It will drive men crazy."The only man this perfume will drive crazy is your husband, and that'll only happen when you inform him how much it cost.

So yeah, I'm not the best perfume saleswoman, and it's a good thing I don't get paid on commission. But I will say one thing for the job—I have a great view of the mall courtyard. I can see halfway across the building. It's sort of like being a field observer on teenage life. I know who's on the prowl for new dating material.(They're the girls who dress up, do their hair, and come all the way to the mall to buy a Cinnabon.) I know who's depressed. (These are the girls who buy something in every store.) And I know who's depending on winning the lottery to get by in life instead of going to college. (These are the girls who come to the mall every single day. I mean, do they not have homework to do?)

In between spritzing people with perfume, I imagine I'm writing my doctoral thesis on the subject. You know, the psychology of shopping and what your purchases say about you. Someday I'll write a long, impressive paper about everything I've learned from my time in Bloomingdale's and entitle it: "It's a Mall World After All."

Hey, the fragrance business can get pretty boring at times.

The most exciting thing that happens is, occasionally a guy will come by and pretend to be interested in perfume just to flirt with me. I flirt back if he's not from my high school. It's not that I'm a snob or anything. It's just that all the guys from my school are immature jerks. Really. I see enough of them to know.

I used to think it was just a girl thing to go and hang out at the mall. My dad, for example, hates to set foot in department stores. He'd probably resort to wearing bath towels cinched together with rubberbands if my mom didn't buy his clothes for him. But a lot of guys from my school hang out here. I see them wandering by on a regular basis.

I wasn't surprised when I saw Bryant Anderson or Colton Taft by the fountain in the courtyard between Bloomingdale's and the escalator. Bryant is Brianna'sboyfriend; but it's not like they spend every waking moment together, so I didn't think anything of him being at the mall without her. Colton has been Bryant's best friend since freshman year, so they hang out a lot.

In between trying to entice customers with the spicy and exotic smell of Midnight Star, I watched the guys sit down on the benches by the fountain. Bryant's letterman jacket stretched across his shoulders, and he surveyed the expanse of the mall like a king looking out on his domain. His blond hair was mussed, as though he didn't care enough to comb it; but Brianna says he uses styling gel to get it to stay that way, so who knew how much of his I'm-so-good-looking-I-don't-have-to-worry-about-my-looks attitude is just an act.

Sitting beside him, Colton fiddled with his watch. Colton is just as handsome as Bryant, but in a more sophisticated way. Colton's dark brown hair is never out of place. His clothes look like he irons them before he puts them on. He doesn't have the strut of the typical jock but the smooth walk of an underworld spy. Bri­anna has told me more than once I should go out with Colton. She thinks we would make a great couple because (1) he is her boyfriend's best friend, (2) we'reboth in honors classes and occasionally study together, and (3) we both have names that start with the letter C and so are destined to be together. Bryant and Bri­anna. Colton and Charlotte. How cute, right?

I have to keep reminding her, she is absolutely not to play matchmaker based on the letter of my first name, and besides, I have a policy of not dating guys from our high school, even if Colton is the only person in our study group who remembers I like diet soda, but not Diet Coke. Whenever we meet at his house, he always has diet root beer for me. You gotta give a guy bonus points for buying your favorite soda.

But still, it wouldn't work out between us for many reasons. First of all, I haven't forgiven him for beating me in the National Honor Society presidential election, and second, he never pays any attention to me.

At least not in
that
way. When he wants to rub in the election results, he'll smile over at me and suggest I call him Mr. President; and when he doesn't understand some concept from our microeconomics homework, I'm the first person he calls. He says I do so well in the class because I'm a girl and am therefore predisposed to understand the intricacies of shopping.

I'd love to be able to tell him no, I'm just smarter but about twice a month I have to call him for help on some calculus problem, which ruins any possible gloating.

So despite all of Brianna's suggestions, Colton and I weren't likely to ever be a couple. If she wanted to have some sort of best-friends double dates, she'd just have to find a new boyfriend. Which, in my opinion, wouldn't be a bad idea.

Colton took off his watch and held it up to his ear as though to check to see if it still worked. It brushed against his hair. I absentmindedly sprayed Midnight Star onto a woman whose hands were too full of shopping bags to ward me off.

And that's when two girls came and sat down next to Colton and Bryant. Not just sat down, mind you, but sat down close and started up a conversation. From all the way across the courtyard, I could see Bryant smiling at them, leaning close, taking in their miniskirts and tight tops. For several minutes the air around me remained Midnight Star-free as I stared at Bryant and these girls.

They didn't go to our high school, and each of them carried a Gucci purse. This meant they had enough money to spend hundreds on an accessory that did nothing but beg thieves to steal it. Most likely they went to Leland Prep, the local school whose unofficial motto was, "Do we have to apply to Stanford—I thought we owned that place?"

I've been to a few Leland Prep parties, and I tried to remember if I'd ever seen these girls before. One had bleached-blond hair; the other, red hair so bright it had to be out of a bottle. I couldn't place them.

Did Bryant know them, or was this just a chance encounter in the mall during which he had momentarily forgotten he already had a girlfriend?

Surely, any minute now Bryant would remember Brianna, then he and Colton would stand up, give the girls the brush-off, and leave.

Only they didn't. They stayed there talking and smiling. At one point Bryant even reached over and flipped the blond girl's hair away from her face—a blatant flirting move.

I held the perfume bottle limply in my hand. What a two-timer.

They kept talking, and I wondered how well Bryant knew "Blondie." I wished I could hear what they said. I mean, it was possible, wasn't it, that the girls were just asking for directions to, say, Bath and Body Works, and Bryant was merely saying, "Here, miss, why don't I move this hair out of your face to help you see better."

The group stood up and walked two by two to the escalator. Colton and the redhead stood in front, while Bryant rode up the escalator with his back to the railing so he could continue to look at Blondie.

I watched them till they moved past my line of sight. Once they got to the upper story, would they split up, walk around together, or perhaps even head to the food court or the theaters? It might be a double date, after all.

And if it was, Brianna had a right to know about it.

Still gripping my perfume bottle, I walked to the store's elevator. The Bloomingdale's shoppers would just have to do without Midnight Star for a few moments while I secretly spied on my best friend's boyfriend and the shameless blond hussy he escorted up the escalator.

Once I made it to the top floor, I hurried through Women's Sweaters and reached the front of the store. Bryant and his group had just exited the escalator and walked over to a jewelry store next to Bloomingdale's.

Colton handed his watch to the man behind the counter. Apparently to have it checked, or fixed, or something. I stepped behind a rack of blazers and peered out at the four of them.

And then someone tugged on my shirtsleeve. I turned to see a little boy, maybe six or seven years old, holding out a pair of women's black shoes. Not the elegant ones, but the type that resembled nurse shoes, only black. Like your nurse didn't have any confidence in the doctor's ability to save you, and was saving herself the trouble of changing shoes for your funeral.

"Do you work here?" the boy asked me.

My white lab coat-looking smock and name tag had given me away. "Yeah," I said.

"Can you help me with these shoes?" he asked.

"I don't work in that department," I told him.

He continued to hold the shoes toward me. "But you're a lady, and you know about shoes, right?"

I glanced back at the group by the jewelry store. Colton turned away from the sales counter, so I knew the group was about to leave. I didn't want to miss where they went. "What do you want to know?" I asked the kid.

"How do I tell what size to get my mom?"

"Have her try them on."

"I can't. They're a surprise for her."

I pulled my gaze away from Bryant and really looked at the kid. Although his black hair was neatly combed, he wore a faded yellow shirt under a stained jacket. His jeans were nearly worn through at the knees, and his own shoes were done up with laces that had broken and been knotted together. He didn't carry anything that indicated he had money on him.

"You want to buy shoes for your mother?" I asked him.

"For Christmas. Only I don't want to make her wait for Christmas to give them to her, because her feet hurt when she comes home from work." He held the shoes up for my inspection again. "So how do I know if these fit?"

I set my perfume bottle on the top of a rack of blazers and took the shoes in my hand. Size seven. The price on the sticker read $69.99 I didn't have the heart to ask him how much money he had. "How tall is your mom?"

"Shorter than you," he said.

Which was almost a given, since I'm five nine.

He held his hand up as far as it could go. "She's about this tall." Well, only if she was a dwarf. His hand didn't go up very far.

"These might fit her," I said, "but they're kind of expensive. Have you looked at the other pairs?"

He shook his head. "They have to be black. Her work says so."

I glanced back out at the mall. Bryant, Colton, and the girls sauntered across the hallway in my direction. I took another step behind the blazers and lowered my voice. "Well, if the shoes don't fit, she can bring them back and exchange them for another pair."

"Really?" His face lit up like he'd never heard of this aspect of shopping. And maybe he hadn't.

I peeked over the blazers. Bryant, Colton, and the girls had come into Bloomingdale's. They walked right past me. I kept expecting one of the guys to look over and see me. I actually held my breath for a moment.

I shouldn't have bothered. Both Bryant and Colton were too busy with their conversation to notice me. They stopped in front of a display of women's wallets, and one of the girls picked through them. If I had been a bit closer, I could have heard what they said. "Good luck with the shoes," I whispered to the kid; then when I was sure the group wasn't looking at me, I slunk from one clothes rack to the next. And then to the next. I pretended to straighten the sweaters on the rack while I strained to hear the conversation.