The Time It Takes to Fall by Margaret Lazarus Dean

Author:Margaret Lazarus Dean [Dean, Margaret Lazarus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2007-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

14.

ALTHOUGH WE HADN’T EXPECTED IT TO, THE NEW MALL CHANGED the way we lived. Soon it was where we spent all of our time. When our father was done with work, he’d pull up and idle in the driveway. Delia and I came running out, locking the house behind us, me with my physics book under my arm. The longer my mother was gone, the more we seemed to want to avoid spending time in the house. We’d drive to the mall in silence, park in the acres of parking lot, and when we all walked through the wide set of doors, that cool air and soft music and recessed lighting worked on us like a drug, calming the jumpy feeling we all had. Sometimes we had dinner in a restaurant on the Concourse Level, but more often we ate in the Food Court, where we didn’t have to agree on anything, the three of us chewing different fried foods at a plastic table, not bothering to take our things off the plastic trays.

The mall did something to me that I would never recover from. Only the best would be good enough, and the best was to be determined at a national, not a local, level. I begged for the things I saw at the mall, things I hoped would transform me into a better person: tapes of the bands that Tina and Chiarra talked about, glitter nail polish, a princess phone, a portable cassette player, glow-in-the-dark earrings, a set of three lip glosses that smelled like various fruits. I’d start working on my father, still sitting in the Food Court, trying to convince him that I needed these things. In the stores, I begged for things I didn’t even want, just so as not to have to leave the mall empty-handed. I saw kids from school in the stores with their parents, begging for new things too. We’d meet eyes, but not talk. We were all playing catch-up, trying to correct our incorrect lives, to replace all the things we owned that we now realized were wrong.

One night soon after school started, my father suggested we try a new restaurant at the mall. We noticed right away that he seemed more purposeful than usual; he kept checking his watch as we parked and walked through the main doors. He led us to the entrance of the Italian restaurant on the first floor, the nicest restaurant in the mall. It was dark inside, red tablecloths and red booths lit by low lamps and a flickering candle on each table. My father lingered in the entryway, looking for something, even though the sign said PLEASE SEAT YOURSELF.

Then I saw why we were here. I spotted her before my father did; she was sitting in a corner booth, smoking. The glass of red wine in front of her was half empty. My mother looked like a stranger, like a woman I’d never seen before, her skin and eyes glossy in the candlelight.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.