We learned to live without things during the devastation that generations before ours insisted were essential, like flying on airplanes, or slurping ice-cold creamy milkshakes, or getting measured for a bra at Victoria’s Secret. I used to know a girl who wore the remnants of a black VS lace pushup. Made her look like the goddess Venus flown down to Earth. Nick never mentioned it; simple living suited him, but for me, not having a bra settled in like a depression, and some days, a dim haze consumed me for the ache of having one.
“Okay, baby, if anybody can naviguess the mall, nab a genuine VS strap-up, and get out alive, it’s you.” Nick passed me the can of flat grape soda we shared. “It’s your seventeenth b-day,” he said. “Everybody does crazy ass shit on their seventeenth. You remember me doing those sick board tricks last year–Ollies, 50-50s–up in the parking lot formerly known as the 10 West. All those Not Deads just waiting for me to fall–haha!”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Aw, babe. Seventeen is special. Likely none of us’ll see the future—wait, I might.” He thumbed his chest. “Eighteen at midnight. But seriously, there’s your sister and Rishe, and don’t forget about Tam—all snarling Not Deads by the big one-eight. Facts.”
“No–just bad luck.”
“I support you, but now that we’re here, it’s dangerous, this quest. A lot at stake.”
Nothing moved except foul air over the acres of mall sidewalks.
“For you, maybe. I’m going.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay if I stand guard?”
I kissed him and crossed beneath fluttering awnings into deep shadows where storefronts loaded with merchandise flirted with me in total oblivion to the big yellow cleaning cart and its mop heads stiff with blood splayed like fallen soldiers around it.
A novelty store’s neon sign winked off and on. Inside, the shelves remained perfectly ordered. A former employee turned ND kicked and growled in the central aisle, its ankle hooked on some impediment. Stink rolled over me, and fear skittered up my spine.
I bolted to the map kiosk, my head swirling. Nick was right; I shouldn’t have come, but merely surviving didn’t compare to Venus.
Moonlight sliced between the mall’s murky layers, capturing papers in flight and drawing my gaze to Victoria’s Secret. Radiance framed a curvy mannequin wearing bubble gum-colored butt floss in an ethereal glow. I wanted to fall on my knees in worship; instead, I fled inside the tumbled store exploding with color and lace and froth. Here was my solace at last.
I wriggled out of my grimy tee and tossed it aside to try on padded bras. Unlined ones. Bras with straps and strapless bits of nothing. I stood naked from the waist up, rotating through a dozen bras like I might shuffle cards, trying to decide which one to take and which would give back what my generation was owed. I wanted them all, but Nick and I traveled light.
A putrid breeze wrinkled my nose, and I whirled.
The ND from the flashing neon sign store hissed at me through broken teeth. Its juices splattered and seared my skin. Decay coated my taste buds with yuck when I swallowed.
It lunged. I swung a fistful of bras—a white VS lace, a red boyfriend demi-cup, and a tee shirt bra in turtle green. The ND snagged bony fingers in the mess of straps. Its bloody teeth chased the turtle green bra, snapping, and I moved aside, letting it high step into a rounder of underwear on sale, four for twenty bucks.
I raced out past the glorious full-figured mannequin and the shattered storefronts. I didn’t stop running until Sixth Street’s sultry air kissed my naked skin. I sucked oxygen into my shaking lungs, half crying, half laughing over my near miss.
It was midnight. Nick’s eighteenth birthday. He’d made it and so could I.
Nick! Nick! I whispered, but that’s when I saw him, what he’d become, and the prize I’d gone after fluttered from my fingers, and I edged away.
Time with him was all I’d ever needed. Us.
To hell with Venus.
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