Letters to Angie

Part 4: The Mall

It was about a ten-minute walk to the local mall, all of it taken without a word between them. When they entered through the main doors, they were instantly taken aback by the sheer emptiness of such a large building.

"Tuesday afternoon," Henry reminded her.

"Oh, yeah." She snorted. "What a waste of space. I mean, imagine what you could really do with real estate like this."

Henry rolled his eyes, more than keen on neglecting the prior situation, but not if it meant engaging in some thoughtless conversation about financial crises and poverty.

"What," she said, "you think I'm begin ridiculous?"

It was funny. She wasn't necessarily wrong. There was even a time when he would've agreed with her. But now, all he could do was shake his head and feign annoyance.

"Homeless shelters and soup kitchens, right?" he said. "That's where you're going with this altruistic spiel. Trying to play the holier-than-thou humanitarian bit."

"Maybe. You got a problem with that?"

"You live in the fuckin' suburbs. Daddy drives a brand-new Ford while Mommy drives a Lexus. You go to a private school with matching uniforms and an accelerated curriculum. Stop acting like life is cut-and-dry choices of good and bad."

"Last I checked, you go to the same boarding school," she retorted. "You've got clean clothes, and a fair shot at the same future as I do."

"But I wasn't born into wealth. My family's money was gained through blood and loss. And we don't have very much of it, mind you."

She scoffed. "I wasn't born into wealth either."

"Your house would beg to differ."

"Are we pretending like you couldn't hear anything while in my closet? It's not my house, it's his. Not my inheritance and not my family."

Shit!

She was right.

"You're quick to judge me because I'm actually saying something that makes sense," she continued. "Something you know is true, you just don't wanna agree with it."

She waited a beat for him to respond, but Henry had nothing more to say. He could've conjured up nonsensical babble for the sole sake of dispute, but like always, it was more effort than reward.

"It's a fact," she said. "Malls are a goddamn eyesore. They're large, ugly buildings when they're empty, and obnoxious when they're busy. They have jacked-up rent prices and produce an absurd amount of waste. They're the perfect representation of this country. A conglomerate of worthless businesses and fast-food joints. Stores with overpriced products and stupid ass knickknacks each bearing that same made in China sticker."

"I didn't realize you were such an environmentalist."

"I'm not. I'm sick of us getting blamed for what's happening when we're just inheriting this dump. We were negative five years-old when this place first got built. In a short ten to twenty years, if we live that long, we're going to get blamed for what places like this are doing to the world."

"Places like this only exist because people like us shop at them."

"We're not here to shop."

"Oh, we're not? Are we just here to stroll around and engage in meaningless conversations about how screwed the world is? Because when you were talking about fun, this isn't what I had in mind. Then again, I am a fun hater, apparently."

She grinned. "You are a fun hater. And no, we're not here for any of that. This is just another pitstop on the way to fun."

"So why even bring up any of that shit from before then? We're you hoping I'd have some valid input on the matter?"