Mall Ghosts

one

dead.
Repeated
evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old in it.

~ Marianne Moore, The Fish

.

The year was 2002.

I had just turned eighteen. My parents bought the newest ipod for my birthday instead of the cell phone that I had specifically asked for. So I dyed my afro electric teal in protest, but they didn't care. My kid brother joked that my hair finally matched my name - Aqua.

None of my friends really got to see my so-called rebellious transformation because I lived two cities over and I didn't have a car to drive yet.

I begged my mom to let me apply for a modeling gig at the shopping complex where half the senior class hung out, but she said that there was nothing wrong with the mall just off the highway near our house. Her argument was that it was closer to where we lived, on the way to her job, and just as good as the mall across town.

She was right up until the last point.

Ocean Park Mall was the site where someone managed to rob an entire store. Whoever it was never got caught. Somehow they pulled it off without tripping any alarms. An entire department just completely cleared out. How does that even happen?

The scandal was big enough to hit the local news. It was a miracle that the mall didn't get shut down. Still, a whole bunch of businesses packed up and left. Only a handful were left standing.

Nowadays, it seemed like the only things Ocean Park was good for was escaping the summer heat or grabbing a bite to eat in the two star food court. Every now and then Ocean Park would hold special events. Things like pop idol meet and greets, book signings, niche culture conventions, and that runway show that my mom signed me up for.

"Aqua Simone Moore," Mom huffed as she drove me to Ocean Park for my first fitting, "wipe that gloom-and-doom look off your face. You always look so unsatisfied and I cannot for the life of me figure out what is wrong with you."

I didn't answer. All I did was slump some more in my seat, which I knew she hated.

Mom narrowed her eyes at me - as if that would do anything - and finally sighed.

"Aqua, you know your father and I try to give you and your brothers everything that we can."

But nothing that I ask for, I thought to myself. Just because she and Dad substituted one thing for something else didn't mean I had to like it.

Not in a million years would I ever say this to her because that would get me in a world of trouble. Mom would go home and tell Dad and before I knew it, I would be listening to a thousand lectures about how I'm not grateful enough and how they don't know how I got this way.

Nevermind that I made perfect grades, stayed out of trouble, and almost never asked to go anywhere cool - but who cares when I'm not grateful and looking content when they choose to give me alternatives to the things that actually mean a lot to me.

I could have explained to my mom for the umpteenth time why it was important for me to have a cell phone to start keeping up with my friends over the summer before we all went away to college the next year. Or that the reason that I needed to land gigs at Arrow Crest Mall was for similar reasons.

I wanted to be near my friends. I wanted to spend time with them before this part of our lives was all over and we were flung across the country to different campuses. It wasn't too much to ask for, right?