A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion

Author:Una Mannion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2021-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

A fountain trickled over a plastic waterfall, and spotlights lit the pool below from underneath. At the top of the fake falls, plastic foliage was clumped in bunches to suggest something lush and verdant. Muzak played over invisible speakers, and the air was cool. Lighting in the mall always seemed dimmed, maybe to keep the temperature down, but any time I entered it, I felt as if I had stepped out of the brightest sunlight into shadow, and I had to readjust. Marie said malls were designed to disorient you. That’s why, like casinos, they never had clocks or windows. They wanted you to enter this fake world and lose track of time and reality.

Beatrice wanted to throw a penny into the fountain to make a wish. A group of teenagers had taken all the benches in front of it and were setting up their boom box. Mall rats. Marie had once asked Thomas what the collective noun was for rats. “A plague or a swarm,” he said. A plague of mall rats described them perfectly, Marie had said. Cassette tape in, the boom box blared AC/DC’s “Back in Black” while a girl around my age played air guitar with a cigarette between her lips. She looked like she couldn’t lift her eyelids up enough to see. It was only ten o’clock in the morning; the mall was just opening.

“Stop staring,” Ellen said to Beatrice.

“C’mon, Beatrice,” I said, taking her by the arm. “Throw it in, make your wish, and let’s get what we came for.”

I bought white Converse high-tops. Ellen and Beatrice spent nearly an hour in the craft and hobby shop discussing Beatrice’s bike decorations and finally selected crêpe paper, pinwheels, big sheets of blue poster board, masking tape, and face paints. In the fabric store, Ellen bought cheap yards of red and blue cotton, needles, and thread. Beatrice chose Philadelphia-themed dish towels for Marie’s new apartment in Wanamaker’s home goods section. We passed the Space Port arcade and stood at the door, looking in. The whole interior was painted black, even the floor. At the far end, they had ultraviolet lights that lit up psychedelic swirls on textured surfaces. Beatrice wanted to play a racing video game where you drove a car. I told her it was a waste of time, that it just stole your money, but I agreed to go in. “Just pretend you’re driving.” I leaned against her car door while she spun the wheel and crashed. Beside us, a full row of boys faced Space Invaders machines. I could only see their backs as they leaned, first one way and then another, ducking as Space Invaders, white blobs that looked like marshmallows, fell to earth. Amid all the noise I could hear the bass beat of the Space Invaders sound, like a fast heartbeat, underneath the staccato of players shooting and player death explosions. I looked over at Ellen, who was standing there watching the Space Invaders, and got a fright. Her white

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