‘I lied,’ Cynthia said.
‘Yeah?’ We sat in front of Big Easy Cajun in the food court at the Regency Mall.
‘When you first asked me out, I said I didn’t know who you were. That wasn’t true. I saw you on TV – at the courthouse when they let you go.’
‘Does that scare you?’ I asked.
‘Should it? They say you didn’t do those things.’
‘It scares people anyway,’ I said.
‘Not me,’ she said.
Somewhere in the mall, a machine started rattling, jackhammering a floor or laying down a new one.
‘So, what do you want to do?’ I asked.
She smiled as if I’d said something weird. ‘Let’s go someplace.’ The way she looked at me, I thought she would let me take her anywhere. She said, ‘Where do you wish you could go – if you could go anywhere right now?’
I could think only of the woods behind the house where I grew up. I said, ‘I like movies.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘If I could go anywhere, I would go someplace with ice. All ice. Walls of it. Nothing but ice.’
‘Why?’
She touched her thumbnail to her teeth. ‘I don’t know you well enough to tell. And anyway, it’s your turn. Where would you go if you could go anywhere?’
I would lie on a forest floor. Worms would crawl from the ground. The leaves on the branches above me would fold in the breeze. I said, ‘I would go with you to that place with ice.’
‘Nice one,’ she said. She leaned across the table. ‘Did they teach you to flirt in prison?’
‘You’re unusual,’ I said.
‘You are too.’
‘But you knew that already,’ I said. ‘From seeing me on TV.’
So she told me she lived with her parents in a house a mile from the beach. And she’d taken three courses toward an associate’s degree in respiratory care before deciding she needed a break. She’d worked full-time at the Cineplex for the past six months. A lot of guys asked her out while she was working – one or two a day at least. I was the first she said yes to.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘You should feel flattered.’
‘I do.’
‘I said yes because you’re unusual,’ she said, ‘and I am too.’
Then we walked through the mall. It smelled of dust and plastic and whatever they sprayed through the vent system. The lights were dim, as if the mall managers were trying to save on electricity. A woman in exercise shorts and earphones speed-walked past us. Another woman, pushing a stroller with a crying baby, walked the other way. Then we were alone.
‘I come here sometimes when I get off work,’ Cynthia said.
It was a lonely place. ‘Why?’
She said, ‘Anything’s possible.’
‘More like a land of the dead.’
‘Anything can happen,’ she said again, and when we came to a brightly lighted jewelry store, she ducked inside. I followed her to a glass counter, where a man in a brown two-piece suit gave her an undertaker’s smile and glanced at her hand for a ring. ‘Yes?’ he said.
Cynthia looked at the necklaces in the display case, then leaned toward him and said, ‘I need a nipple ring. Something that hurts.’ She nodded at me. ‘So does he.’
If she was trying to shock the man, she failed. ‘The Piercing Pagoda is on the other side of the mall,’ he said. ‘You might try them.’
‘Thank you.’ She reached to shake his hand. ‘My name is Cynthia. Do you live here?’
He smiled. ‘At the mall? Sometimes it seems like it.’
‘Me too,’ she said cheerfully, and she headed for the exit.
‘Nice to meet you, Cynthia,’ the man said.
‘You see?’ she said, when we were out on the walkway. ‘When we’re here, we can be anyone we want.’
‘You were just making fun of him.’
She shook her head, skipped a few steps in front of me, and turned to face me. ‘I was making a world and inviting him into it.’ She turned and headed toward the JCPenney entrance. ‘Come on,’ she said.
She led me to the women’s clothing section, went to a rack of jackets, and took one with a zebra print, another with a jungle pattern, and a third with leopard spots. ‘Hold these.’ She put them in my arms. Then she went to a rack of pants and took every pair with a flower or an animal print. ‘These too,’ she said, and piled them on to the jackets.
‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘If you don’t like the past, you still can have a good time,’ she said. ‘Eventually.’
‘Maybe we have different ideas of a good time.’
She picked up a leopard spotted hat with a black band and put it on my head. ‘What’s your idea of fun, Franky?’ she asked.
Before I could work out an answer, a woman clerk and a security man rushed down an aisle. ‘Uh-oh,’ Cynthia said.
‘No, no, no,’ the woman clerk said to her. ‘Not again.’
‘Out,’ the security guard said, and pointed back toward the mall. ‘Now.’
A second clerk came from another aisle, as if she would tackle us.
Cynthia took the hat from my head and set it on a manikin. Then she ran for the exit. I dropped the clothes and ran after her.
She was waiting for me outside the Piercing Pagoda.
‘You’ve done this before?’ I said.
‘I told you, I come here sometimes after work. It’s better than going home.’
I looked up and down the empty walkway. ‘It’s kid stuff,’ I said. The dim light hung like a weight. ‘I want to leave now.’
She stared at me as if I’d disappointed her.
So I said, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you.’
‘OK,’ she said, and she headed toward the doors to the parking lot.
But as we passed the Vitamin World kiosk, she darted into it as if she couldn’t help herself.
‘Get the hell out of here,’ the clerk said, even before Cynthia opened her mouth.
She picked up a box of Ultra Man daily multi-vitamins and said to me, ‘This might be what you need.’ Then she asked, ‘Do you also have Ultra Woman? I’ve been feeling … what’s the opposite of “ultra”?’
‘You can leave, or I can call security,’ the clerk said.
‘Let’s go,’ I said.
She said, ‘Who forgot to take his Ultra Man today?’
Then we were outside in the heat of the July afternoon, thunderclouds piling on top of each other. As we walked across the empty lot to our bus stops, her hand brushed mine. I put my hands in my pockets.
She would need to cross the highway to get from my stop to hers. But she stood with me as cars and trucks rushed past. ‘Are you going to take me home with you?’ she asked.
I felt a shiver. Dread. Desire. Mostly fear. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’
Jared thought I needed to get laid. But Dr Patel warned about going from zero to ninety. Viaducts and all that. ‘I’m pretty much wrecked right now,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said, as if that added interest.
‘When I get this way, I sometimes throw up.’
She nodded. ‘Maybe we should wait until next time.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said.
She stared at me as if wondering whether I was worth the bother. ‘Tomorrow night?’ she said.
‘You think so?’
‘Pick me up at the theater at eight,’ she said. ‘Find a car. We’ll go someplace.’ Then she stepped into the traffic.