Where the Kissing Never Stops (17 page)

Mom was really nice, moving the TV in from the living room, bringing me hot tomato soup, and regularly putting her cool hand on my forehead.

“I’m going to bring a friend of mine home from work tonight,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “You can come out and say hi if you’re up to it, but you don’t have to, okay?”

I nodded as slightly as possible, like the Godfather, but it was supposed to mean tons.

“He’s a nice guy. I think you’ll like him.”

“Is he married?”

“Divorced.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has he got a name?”

“Rocco. But I call him Rocks.”

“You’re kidding.” I almost spilled my soup.

“Yes, I’m kidding. His name is Porter.”

“That’s handy. He can carry your bags when you run away together.”

“Does anybody tell you how good you look lately? Does Rachel tell you?”

“I lost a little weight while I was working with Mr. Kramer.”

And then she did a funny thing. She picked my hand up off of Batman’s cape and kissed it. It was very gallant.

“I like you, too,” I said, swallowing hard. “And it’s okay to bring your boyfriends home. Better here than out necking where the cops will pick you up and I’ll have to drive down to the station and bail you out of jail.”

She smiled again, lighting up the gloom. “We’ll be back around ten-thirty. Will you be okay? There’s about a thousand gallons of soup on the stove.” She got to her feet, then turned and looked critically at me. “We’ve got to get you a new bedspread. Something a little more grown-up.”

On Saturday, Sully picked me up for our field trip to the Emerald City Mall. As we drove toward Peggy’s, I assured him that I was hale and hearty, and I told him about my mom’s date.

“So did you meet him?”

“I staggered out in my pajamas. He was just this guy. I thought he’d have two or three gold chains and cufflinks as big as hubcaps, but he was wearing this kind of geeky sports shirt and he was going bald.”

“So what did they do?”

“I didn’t hang around very long, but I think they just drank some wine and talked. I could hear my mom giggling.”

“That’s all?”

“They never left the living room and she walked him to the door about midnight. I heard her lock up and go to bed.”

“Things are really working out well, aren’t they? I mean with you and your mom and you and Rachel….”

“And you and Peggy.”

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “God, I’m happy, Walker. I’m really happy.”

“Me too. I’d be a little happier if I could come clean with Rachel, though. About my mom.”

“Give yourself some time. She’s probably got some secrets too, you know?”

“I think about telling her all the time, but… Look, if I told her this morning, what could happen? I’d just screw up the whole day for everybody, right?”

“That’s a strong possibility.”

“See? If we’re getting along great, I don’t want to ruin it. If we’re not getting along so hot, I don’t want to make things worse.”

He pulled up in front of Peggy’s duplex and turned off the engine. “Look, there’ll be a good time. I know it.”

“When, I wonder.”

“That,” he said, climbing out, “I don’t know.”

The trip into the city was really nice. Rachel looked just great. She’d had Peggy put streaks in her hair and sweep it back, so she looked very speedy.

Sully had the top of his mom’s convertible down, and the sun was out. When we passed the oats, they were tall enough to wave in the breeze, and Rachel said hello and waved back.

There was one sticky minute when we got into the suburb of Love’s Park: a giant billboard advertised Ye Olde Burlesque.

“You know,” said Peggy, “that’s supposed to be a pretty good show. Pretty funny and kind of family-oriented and…”

Rachel, who was looking the other way, just smiled politely.

“Thanks,” I mouthed to Peggy, who smiled and shrugged.

We walked — four abreast, arms linked just like in the movie — into the Emerald City, following, of course, a winding road that started with a single yellow brick in the parking lot and grew until we reached the towering entrance.

“Tell me the truth,” said Rachel. “Don’t you think it’s kind of exciting?”

She drew us all to one side, away from the cataract of shoppers, away from the Munchkins clapping their gloved hands and pointing little kids toward the Tin Man and beyond him the Cowardly Lion and finally the Scarecrow, each one drawing the families deeper and deeper into the mall.

“Just listen for a minute,” Rachel advised. Grinning at each other, we cocked our heads. Sure enough: there was the surfy hiss of money changing hands, an occasional yelp or muffled name, and — my God — the footsteps. I remembered how my dad had told me that in the army soldiers broke ranks to cross a bridge because all that left-right-left stuff could shake it to pieces. I imagined I could feel the mall tremble and thought I could see the imperceptible shudder of the fixtures.

Rachel led us into the flux. “No cars,” she said, pointing like a tour guide, “no trams, nothing bigger or stronger than a person.”

“So people feel safe?” asked Sully.

“Right.”

“Safe enough to buy,” I added sardonically.

“God, I already want something,” Peggy exclaimed.

“What?”

“Anything, everything. I don’t care.”

We strolled down a mild incline.

“What’s way down at the end?” I asked. “Oz’s castle?”

Rachel thought for a second. “Neiman Marcus, I think.” And when I laughed, she did, too.

We passed Interior Systems, B. Dalton, Chrome Concepts, On Stage, Digital Den, and Noah’s Ark Pet Center.

“Some mall somewhere,” explained Rachel, “has a House of Nose Jobs.”

“Does their ad say, ‘Come in and pick your nose’?” asked Sully.

We took a break in the central court, sitting beside a Munchkin holding his costumed stomach. Three storeys up, a huge dome let in the light. Rachel checked her copy of the
Emerald News,
a one-page newspaper thrust into every hand by a fairly surly dwarf.

“It’s almost time,” she said.

“For what?”

“Watch,” and she rolled her eyes skyward.

Just then the Muzak was interrupted by recorded trumpets. The fanfare was elaborate, and I looked around for Dorothy and Toto.

Instead, high above us, the dome cracked and rolled slowly back. There were the frothy mares’ tails and the endless blue.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” intoned Sully, “Emerald City Mall proudly presents the weather.”

For a moment the whole place was nearly silent. Thousands of shoppers paused and tilted their heads back like they all needed eyedrops. Then someone moved, a child cried, the Muzak came on with a groan, and the moment was over.

“Do you guys want to shop?” asked Peggy, looking feverish.

Sully and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

“You should shop, Walker. Whose pants are you wearing?”

I looked down, too, half embarrassed. “Either my clothes are growing or I’m shrinking.”

Peggy took Rachel’s hand. “We’ll do it for you. We’ll scope out the best stores. Give us half an hour. Meet us by the Wicked Witch of the West.” Then they were gone.

On our own, Sully and I stepped into the human stream and let it carry us along. We swept past Slack Shack, Cinema VI, Foot Locker, Lady Foot Locker, and Harrison’s Hats.

“I can’t help it,” Sully said. “I want something.”

“God, me too. It’s probably against the law to be empty-handed in here.”

“How about this?” He pointed to a pink neon sign, and like weary salmon we slipped into the quiet pool of A Luv Pub.

“Gentlemen,” said a tall brunette in a camouflage-patterned jumpsuit trimmed in rhinestones. She looked like she was ready to parachute into Beverly Hills.

“We just came in,” I said, “to get out of the rain.” But I didn’t get a glimmer out of her.

“Let me know if I may be of any help.” She played that little tune like a doorbell.

“Imagine coming home to her,” I said.

“Imagine coming home to that.” Sully pointed to a mannequin in long stockings with garters and some kind of weird panties.

“Are those torn,” he asked, “or do they come that way?”

“They sure look drafty.”

On the wall hung long negligees, goofy little bras that looked like architecture projects in minimum lift, and every conceivable combination of strap and truss, all done in lace and leather. They looked frilly but uncomfortable.

“Oh, God,” I said, gaping at set after set of tassels attached to tiny cones.

“At last, something wholesome. Little party hats.”

“Do you think my mom has to wear these?”

“Beats me. How do you keep them on, anyway? Bondex?”

Just then, a tired-looking blonde with shopping bags from Nordstrom’s led a clerk to the spangly wall, pointed to a pair of golden tassels, examined them critically, then opted for pink.

“She can’t be a stripper, too, can she?”

“Even if she is, they can’t all be.” Sully pointed to the lines at both registers. Most of the women were around my mom’s age. Had they really come to the mall to buy a hat, a blender, an oven mitt, and a G-string?

“Would you want Peggy to wear any of this stuff?”

“I don’t think so. Would you?”

“Do you think Rachel would want to?”

“Beats me. Maybe you have to be old to get into this stuff.”

Luv’s commando ambushed us as we left. “Gentlemen,” she said, “perhaps next time.”

“Roll when you hit the ground,” I advised her.

Blank. No response.

Sully pulled me out the door. “Let’s go meet the girls.”

They were waiting right under the towering witch, and when Rachel spotted us, she handed her package to Peggy and ran to meet me.

Man, that really got me. I’d never had a girl do that before, throw herself into my arms, I mean, much less in front of a thousand strangers. Nobody seemed to give it a second thought, except maybe a nice smile here and there. Maybe Rachel was right about malls. Maybe they were magical worlds apart.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” she asked, just like she could read my mind.

“It’s great,” I said, holding her tighter.

“I meant the mall,” she said, grinning.

“I meant the mall.”

Peggy and Sully cruised up beside us. “There’s a free show,” she said. “Down there at the end of Munchkin Land.” She looked at us, question marks in both eyes. “With a stage and everything.”

“Why not?”

We slipped into one of the front rows and watched the other shoppers settle, some — like the birds out at my place — circling warily, some swooping right down to squabble over a choice spot.

It really was like downtown used to be, at least in a way. There were lots of old people — some the condo type with white shoes and matching belts, but others like Mr. Kramer, in clean overalls and blue Big Boy work shirts with the top button fastened, sitting patiently holding a straw hat or a cane or their wife’s mammoth black purse. On the edge of the crowd stood the mothers with their strollers, moving them back and forth, back and forth, like vacuum cleaners.

Beside me sat a banker type, reeking of English Leather; beside him a woman who kept tugging at her tiny skirt like it had a mind of its own; then a kid with three earrings, Security in his yellow blazer, motorcyclist, pimply genius, Vietnam vet, lady with a bagel. Just like downtown used to be.

Finally a girl in high heels and a miniature bunny suit featuring a huge cotton puff on her behind tottered out with a placard and balanced it on the easel at the edge of the stage:

Miss Maureen herself — packed into a spandex suit and grinning with only one side of her mouth like she’d just come from the dentist — introduced the ballet portion.

Nobody could stay on her toes for very long, though, and as they slammed down on their heels, then heaved themselves up again, it looked like a dance celebrating combustion.

Ten kids tapped to “Sunny Side of the Street,” and jazz dancing turned out to be preteens with yards of chiffon tearing around the stage until they all got low-grade fevers and began to bawl.

Still, flashbulbs went off constantly and we clapped along with everybody else, just like the show was going on in the big scalloped bandshell in Bradleyville’s park instead of indoors somewhere in a manmade Oz.

Rachel and I held hands most of the time and patiently listened to a singer — a pious girl who sang “My Way” the same way everybody else sings “My Way”— and then a rock band called Cryin’ Bob and the Furniture.

“Let’s go,” said Sully, holding his ears.

“One more,” Peggy pleaded. “Please?”

The next act was a magician modestly called Jack the Great. He pulled flowers out of his cape lining, turned ropes into ribbons, and produced a dazed-looking pigeon from a hat. Then he asked for a volunteer from the audience.

“C’mon, folks,” he chided.

“You do it, Walker,” Peggy said.

“Forget it.”

“Here’s one!” she shouted.

“Big hand, folks,” said Jack, pointing at me.

Rachel urged me. “It’ll be fun.”

“For who?”

Jack held out his hand. Everyone who didn’t have to go up there was staring at me like I was a real spoilsport. I climbed the makeshift stairs.

“What’s your name?” boomed Jack.

I told him.

“Speak up, Walter. Now, have you ever been a magician’s assistant before?”

“No, but I’m not Walter.”

“You just said you were.”

“
You
just said I was.”

Jack looked at the audience. “Is this credibility, folks, or what? Not only does he not know me, he doesn’t even know himself.”

I started to protest, but Jack was wound up. “Now, Walter, I’d like to talk to you a long time and get to know your hopes and dreams, not to mention your real name, but I’ve got a show to do here so I’ll need your belt.”

I looked down. “My belt?”

Jack looked around. “Is there an echo in here? Yes, your belt.”

“What about my pants?”

“Please, this is a family show.”

“They’re a little loose; I lost some weight.”