We reached the mall a little before noon. We had brunch first, ordering a la carte. I had Belgian waffles; Mom—Eggs Benedict. We didn’t say much to each other at the table. Mom chatted with a lady the next table over that she knew from the library. I just sat there and shoveled food into my mouth.
“Feeling better?” said mom, after her friend left.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I was okay before.”
She leaned closer and looked me in the eye. “You know, you really should call that girl.”
“Yeah. Maybe I will. When we get home.”
“James. If you want a cell phone, we’ll get you one. Why don’t you have a look around? We can put you on a prepaid, or some basic plan.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Why not? It’s important.”
So she paid the bill with a credit card and we split up to do our own shopping. I headed straight to the Verizon store, knowing I should take advantage of mom’s offer. But looking at all those phones just brought back the specter of yesterday at the beach. I don’t even know why, but I had to get out of that place.
On my way to Eddie Bauer—I was supposed to be looking for a new pair of jeans—I got distracted by the Apple store, and then Brookstone. After I had my fill of playing with their gadgets, I went off to fulfill my duty, only I couldn’t resist wandering into Barnes and Noble.
I poked around the manga racks for a while, turned a corner and found Burke staring blankly at the General Fiction.
“James! Hey man, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing. Just … hanging out.”
“I gotta get a book for school,” he said. “Fucking sociology teacher wants us to read something written by an African author. Any African author. But just try finding one. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know of any, would you?”
“Nega Mezlekia,” I said. “He wrote ‘Notes from the Hyena’s Belly.’ You’ll like it. Lots of action. It’s non-fiction, though.”
“Whoa, dude! You’re amazing! Mez—how do you spell that?”
“Just look it up under hyena.”
“Hey, how come you weren’t at the beach the other day?”
“Say what?”
“The beach. Weren’t you supposed to—”
“Look at this burn,” I said, displaying both of my ruddy profiles. “Does this face look like someone who hasn’t been to the beach?”
“Yeah, but, I thought you were going with us. Jenny said she invited you.”
“Oh man, you went with Jenny?” I sighed. “I overslept. I tried to find you guys, but…. Where’d you guys end up going?”
“Vero,” said Burke.
“Oh Gawd! I had no idea. I thought you guys were staying local.” I sighed again. “Was Jenny upset?”
“Well … she was a little mopey at first. She kind of holed up with Marianne, They went off by themselves, whispering back and forth. It was … kind of awkward. But then she met some guy, and that perked her up.”
“Say what?”
“There were some other Ft. Piercers there. We kind of linked up with them. You know Jared?”
“The pothead?”
“Yeah. Well, Jenny … uh … Jenny kind of … hooked up with him.”
“Shit!” I stumbled into a table and almost knocked over a stack of paperbacks.
