Just Another Day at the Mall
by Gerri Leen

The mall was dead, with that weird, ringing emptiness only a place
supposed to be filled with people can have. Terry hauled out a bag of
jelly beans, lifting it carefully to fill the bin; he'd spilled it last time, and Mary had made him pick up every last one. He'd nearly put his back out crawling behind the gumball row to get the holdouts.

He'd complained to her about it, but once she was gone, he'd done a quick sweep to make sure there weren't any he'd missed. He didn't want someone to slip on them because of his carelessness.

"Hey, Terr. Check it out." Carl held up a girlie mag. He wasn't supposed to be reading that kind of thing in the store. He wasn't supposed to be reading anything in the store. But Carl did whatever he wanted when Mary wasn't around.

"Yeah, great."

"You're not looking. Do you even like girls?"

"Of course I like girls." Now, if they would just like him back--freshman girls only had eyes for upperclassmen. "But if Mary comes in and sees me goofing off, my ass is toast."

Carl's ass was never toast. Carl had to have something majorly dirty on
Mary, 'cause she never busted on him the way she did Terry.

A family wandered by the shop. The little kids looked in, eying the candy hopefully. Terry laughed; he'd always eyed the candy, too. Now, he was definitely sick of the stuff--he never would have believed that you could finally have enough candy.

Carl never got sick of candy. He popped open a roll of generic Smarties
and settled in with his mag. They weren't supposed to call them Smarties, but everyone who walked in did, and Terry didn't fight the trend when Mary wasn't around.

"I'm taking a break," Terry said, suddenly sick of the smell of candy--and the smell of Carl. The man smoked out before every shift, came in smelling all sticky, smoky sweet, the way only a true pothead could.

"Yeah, whatever, dude." Carl didn't even look up. Carl probably wouldn't put the mag away even if customers came in. Then again, there weren't many customers to come in.

Wandering down toward the latest in a long line of anchor stores at
their crummy end of the mall, Terry watched as a really pretty blonde
woman walked by him, intent on something. She didn't smile, had a
faraway look in her eyes, as if this were a crappy day for her. Was she
stress shopping? They got a lot of that at the Candy Bin--women and
chocolate, he wasn't sure he got the connection, but it sure racked up
sales.

The adults from the group that had passed the candy shop earlier were
moving around sort of frantically in front of the department store. The
kids weren't with them.

Great. They'd be having a missing kid drill in no time.

He expected the people to stop the lady, but they must have taken a good
look at her and decided not to bother her. Terry eased up next to her
so he could see what kind of look could fend off an "I've lost my kid"
parent. The woman looked grim--like she'd lost her best friend. Or
maybe a relative or something.

Terry figured the kids would turn up. They usually did, inside a store,
hiding in a dressing room or under the racks. Or maybe riding the
escalators up and down--stupid little jerks could lose a finger goofing
around on those things. Happened all the time, only it had never
happened in this mall. Which meant maybe it was only a matter of time?

He followed the woman, leaving the parents to find their spawn. He'd
never disliked kids until his job at the Candy Bin. He had to deal with
way too many spoiled brats who only wanted the green apple jelly
beans--even though they were all mixed up together--or who wanted to
know what it meant to malt milk. When had he become the freakin' answer
man?

The woman seemed to be making a beeline for the back doors. They led to
the parking lot and nowhere else. He heard the sound of crying, turned
and saw the kids from before being held by two clerks.

"It's okay. We'll find your parents," one of them said, but she seemed
more put out than really worried. Store this big, she probably dealt
with lost kids once a day at least. And being so close to the door, she
was like the last line of defense. She must hate her job.

The blonde blinked a few times, staring at the kids, then she looked
back toward the entrance, like she was just now piecing together what
she'd seen. She took a step toward the clerks and kids, then stopped.
Terry just stood, watching her, wondering what she was doing.

She took another step, then another. Finally, she said, "I think I know
where their parents are."

The first clerk looked at her really funny, as if she was startled at seeing her.

But the second one said, "We've paged," eying her fingernails as if she'd just had them done at the Nail Palace and the little girl she had the death grip on was going to screw them up.

"No, I mean I think I saw them. If you just go get them."

"Our rules are very specific. We've paged."

Terry laughed quietly. It was what Carl would have said.

"Fine." The woman squared her back; her voice was low and she sounded
really pissed. "I'll go get them."

Terry followed her out, keeping far enough behind her that she hopefully
wouldn't notice he was totally stalking her.

The parents were standing by the half-assed fountain that had been in
front of this space for as long as Terry could remember. The husband
was sort of gray; the wife was crying.

"It's empty in here. Why can't we find them?" the man said, his voice
rising.

"They're in there." The blonde walked up to them like she was a cop or
something. All in their face, here to help, kind of stuff. "In the
store."

"We asked. The girl at the front counter hasn't heard a page. She said
there's always a page."

Terry glanced back to see who they were talking about. Dee was working
the perfume counter. Dee liked to sneak outside and take long smoke
breaks when the store was dead, even though she was supposed to be on
front zone to make sure no one stole anything or whatever. The Candy
Bin was too small to have zones. And even if it weren't, Terry would
have had to cover them all while Carl reinterpreted the concept to mean
zoned out, which he was great at.

"I saw a girl and a boy. Tell me what they're wearing, and I'll take you to them."

"They're both in jeans," the mother said. "Molly's in a red sweatshirt. Jason's in a green t-shirt."

"They're back here. Come on." She led them quickly to the clerks.

One of them was on the phone with mall security. Terry could tell 'cause she had the same tone Mary got when she called to report shoplifting. Mall security was a joke.

The kids broke away, running for their parents like it was their last
chance at freedom. Terry felt like cheering them on.

The family left, leaving a couple of relieved clerks in their wake.

Terry could hear the mom lecturing the kids--she seemed scared and mad,
and he guessed it made sense that happiness meeting anxiety would sound
that way.

The blonde woman looked over at him. "Are you following me?"

He sort of shrugged. "I just...I watched. I saw what you did."

"I didn't do anything."

"Yeah, you did." He moved a few steps closer to her. "You look like
you've had a really bad day."

"I have. Something happened and I...it's just a really awful day."

"You want some free candy?" Giving away candy was so against the rules.


"No, but thanks." She walked over to the mall exit, then she turned to look at him. "You'd have helped, right? I mean if I hadn't."

"Kids get lost all the time."

"But you'd have helped?" It seemed real important to her.

"I guess. Yeah."

She nodded, as if she was working something out. When she looked at him
again, she seemed like she was about to cry.

"Are you okay? I mean, we could go get a smoothie or something. I totally know the guys who run the stand."

She shook her head.

"Okay." He looked down. "It was nice of you to help."

"Yeah." She sighed. "It's just that earlier, in the middle of the worst part of my entirely horrible day, I was sort of...mad at God. And I dared him to show me He cared. That angels were real."

"Did he?"

She nodded. "I think they're all around us."

Terry knew the store was still empty. Maybe she was off her meds or
something?

"Do you believe in God, kid?"

He shrugged. He went to church on Christmas and Easter. But he wasn't
sure he really believed.

Smiling a little, she pushed the door open. "I bet He believes in you."

"Yeah, and we all believe in lithium," he muttered to himself once she
was gone, wondering if maybe the clerks had been right to diss the lady.


He took his time getting back to the shop, decided to check out the
latest music at the store upstairs and hopped on the escalator. The
mall was starting to pick up; there were people ahead of him, a mom and
her little boy.

A little boy who was reaching down between the step and the side of the
escalator.

Terry grabbed his hand, causing the kid to cry out, and the mom to turn
on him.

"He was...he was reaching. It's bad. Dangerous. Kids lose fingers."
Kids lose whole hands.

They were at the top. She took her son's hand and yanked him after her.

"Yeah, you're welcome." Terry stared hard at her as she turned to give
him the "evil, pervert, child snatcher" glare. Like he'd steal her snot-nosed kid?

He turned to head down to the music store, was startled to see the
blonde leaning against the railing, arms crossed over her chest, a
gentle smile on her face as if she'd never had a bad day in her life.
"Nice save, Terry."

"Uh, thanks." How the hell did she know his name? "I thought you left."

"I don't really leave. I'm sort of...on duty here."

"Here. In the mall?"

"I'm pretty much Zone One. In a cosmic sort of sense." She laughed.
"So, Terry, about this lack of faith. We're going to have to work on
that." She put her arm around him, gave him a friendly squeeze.

Linda from the pretzel shop glanced at him as they walked by. She
didn't seem to notice the lady, just looked back down. Which was too
bad, 'cause he'd been trying to get Linda to like him since seventh
grade, and it would seriously beef his creds if she saw he was with this
babe.

"She can't see me," the lady said. "I show up when I'm needed, and then
I disappear again."

"But I saw you."

"I've been watching you."

"You have?" Her job must be super boring if she'd been watching him fill bins.

"You have potential. That's why I let you see me. I wanted to know what you'd do. How you'd act...react."

He wasn't sure if he should tell her that being this close to her was causing a definite reaction in places his mom would wash his mouth out with soap for talking about.

"Your mind is in the gutter."

"I'm a teenage boy. My mind lives there."

She laughed. "Actually, it doesn't. Not compared to Carl--he's really a skank." She let him go. "I'll be seeing you."

"Really?"

"If you look hard enough." She leaned in, kissed him on the cheek.
"And keep paying attention. Angels can just be humans who see what's
going on around them and act, Terry. Makes my job much easier."

"Hey, what's your name?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She walked off, her rear end moving way
too slinkily for a celestial being.

Terry thought she was messing with him. She glanced back, smiling in a
silly way before she faded away.

Who knew God had a sense of humor?