“Something is happening,” she said. Then, “Oh, great, I’m talking to myself. Maybe I’m going crazy. Maybe Gramps put some of his old psychedelics in that music box he gave me. No! Maybe I’m having my coming of age, like in all those movies I like. That’s it. I’m just coming into my own.”
She tapped the dashboard to the rhythm of John Bonham’s drums. People had told her Zeppelin wasn’t normal girl music many times before, but then again, Maria didn’t think she was a normal girl. She was a product of growing up with Ignatius Apple as her only source of parental guidance.
About five minutes later, she noticed a tall man staring at her from the front fender of a Ford Escape.
“What the hell? Mind your own business, buddy.” Creepers at the mall were a norm. Getting hit on wasn’t something foreign to Maria, but when it left the safe confines of the mall and stretched out into the parking lot, that was borderline stalking—not to mention a little scary.
The man’s nose pointed out around the back tail-light. He had a head of wispy white hair, and his skin was the color of the moon. He jumped when he realized Maria was looking at him, and went back to hiding.
Maria raised her fist, waiting. Sure enough, the man poked his head out again. Then Maria let her middle finger come up. “Yeah, how do you like that, asshole?” she whispered.
The man seemed not to pay her middle finger any attention. He looked longingly at her, as if he were an entomologist studying a new sort of bug.
Claire’s laughter filled the air behind her, drifting in through the window. Maria looked back and saw Claire walking side by side with Joe, the cute security guard Maria had a certain soft spot for.
“Yeah, she’s right in there. Go say hi! Tell her happy birthday, too!” Claire’s pointing finger found Maria, who forgot all about the creepy man hiding behind the Ford Escape across the way. If he was still looking on, she didn’t notice.
“God, I must look like a mess. This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Maria whispered, quickly pulling down the mirror visor and taking in her oil-stained clothes and messy brown hair. “I can’t let him see me like this. I’ll have him running for the hills.”
Time was running out. Her hands searched Claire’s Kia blindly until they came upon a hat on the backseat floor. It was a silly hat made up mostly of pink feathers, which Claire had worn on Halloween the year before. It was not the type of thing Maria would be caught dead wearing under normal circumstances.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Only way I could look stupider is if I let him see me in my popcorn-greasy state. Maybe he’ll think I’m whimsical, a little cute. She rolled her eyes. Keep dreaming. What are my other options? Roll the windows up and lock the doors? No. What about burning rubber out of here? Borderline psychotic, Maria, and possibly a felony. How about—
Time had run out. They were a few steps from the car now.
She put the hat on. It was a little tight around her head, but she made do.
When Claire saw her, she burst into uncontrollable laughter. A heat ran up Maria’s arms, quickly followed by a tingle—the same tingle she’d felt when she thought of Ted ripping off that old woman. But when Joe smiled at her, she melted a little. The anger went out of her like air from a popped balloon.
“Hey, Maria!” Joe said. He had a thick head of blonde curls—surfer hair—and he was tan year-round, as if he lived on the West Coast instead of the sometimes-Arctic wasteland that Ohio could be.
Maria’s voice caught in her throat. “Heeeeey,” she choked out.
“Happy birthday. I like your hat.”
“It’s my hat,” Claire said. “But, yeah, you’re right, it looks better on Maria.” She grinned.
Maria’s face grew hotter.
“Gotta. Putt,” Maria said.
Claire titled her head as if she were confused. “What about Joe’s butt?”
Maria face-palmed. She had never been so embarrassed. Oh, well, maybe that wasn’t true. Gramps came in for career day when Maria was in the third grade, and told this wild story about how he was a great general in a war between witches, wizards, and the evil spiders of the Dark Forest, or something like that. Most of the kids loved it, but they didn’t know Gramps was being dead serious. She’d face-palmed then, too.
“Gonna be late,” she choked out.
“Right,” Claire said. “Nice seeing you, Joe.” She climbed into the driver’s side.
Joe wore a movie star grin. When he bent down, Maria could see the definition of his pecs through the opened collar of his polo security shirt. She bit the inside of her cheek and looked forward.
“Bye, Maria,” he said.
“Bye,” Maria whispered. Joe didn’t hear her. He stood there in the parking lot as the Kia pulled through the open spot in front of it.
Maria somehow looked even better in that silly hat. Like she was glowing, or something. I’ve heard the term ‘radiant,’ but I thought it was reserved for pregnant women…oh, God. No, don’t be silly, Joe.
He shook his head and walked back toward the Employees Only door. He had to get back to strolling around the crowded mall, looking for shoplifters and those damn kids in their roller-skate-shoes — Heelys, or whatever. As he walked away, he thought about two things: One, he felt like he was being watched; like eyes were boring into the back of his head. Two, he was going to ask Maria out the next time he saw her.
“What the heck was that? You totally chickened out!” Claire said. “Joe is so into you. How can you not see that?”
Maria had taken off the stupid hat, and her
