Chopping Spree

spring.

Not that arriving at the shopping center gave you a prospect of flowers, shrubs, or leafy trees. If anything, the mall’s grand new stone entrance, flanked with sloping hillocks of dirt, gave the place the look of a military outpost. Barry had told me the mall landscaping had been postponed because of the construction delays.

As I slowed to make the turn onto Doughnut Drive, the road that encircled the mall, I remembered something else Barry had told me: We’re giving shoppers entertainment and discounts these days, to make up for the mess. Tonight’s Red Tag Shoe Sale at Prince & Grogan was the discount magnet. The catered jewelry-leasing party was the entertainment. The mess was just the mess.

I slowed the van and glanced in the direction of the construction, where a line of workers were putting in a winding sidewalk that would soon be dotted with inviting benches, restaurants, boutiques, and coffee kiosks. All this, Barry had told me, was more entertainment. Shoppers want picturesque spots to sit, watch the folks go by, and eat food samples, he’d said. Shoppers don’t live in a storybook village. But they want to pretend they do.

And, he’d added, they were under severe pressure from the mall owner, Pennybaker International, to get the new village done. Malls Are Getting Mauled was the message from industry insiders. Suburban folks with money in their pockets were tired of concrete parking lots leading to blank walls enclosing identical sets of stores. They wanted to see and be seen as they strolled past trees, bushes, and sculptures. They wanted to go to the bank, the dry cleaner, and the bookstore, and then have lunch at an Italian restaurant overlooking a fountain. This was exactly what all the mall owners and execs, including Barry, were trying to offer. And at some point, all those shoppers would also need to purchase dresses, cosmetics, pots, pans, and shoes, which they could do inside the mall itself, a mere fifty steps away. The best way to promote Westside, Barry had told me, was to tack a fairy-tale village onto its back end.

At least Barry wasn’t bringing in Snow White and the Dwarfs, I reflected, as my van chugged along Doughnut Drive. The new road was perfectly named. A twelve-foot-high berm of unlandscaped soil circled the outer perimeter. At the eight-foot chain-link fence surrounding the construction area, I slowed again, then stopped at the gate. Barry was not there to meet us. Liz gave me a questioning look.

Beyond the fence, acres of flattened dirt—what would eventually become the mall’s new parking lot—sloped down to the roped-off area. There, a worker wearing a bright orange hard hat chugged around in a front-end loader, moving rocks from one enormous pile to another. The rest of the crew, clad in yellow hard hats, were clustered next to a hot dog vendor by the construction company trailer.

My eyes swept left and I barely escaped cursing aloud. The restyled back entrance to the mall—the one that led up to the Elite Shoppers’ Lounge—was surrounded by a lake of muddy drainage water. At the edge of this brown pond, an imposing line of enormous dump trucks obscured any view to that rear entry. Worse, the water came up to the trucks’ wheel wells. How were we supposed to transport boxes into the mall? By boat?

As if he’d heard my worries, the man driving the loader halted abruptly and hopped onto the rocks. This had to be Victor Wilson, the excavator Barry had mentioned, who’d been promoted recently to be the new construction manager. Victor was short and chunky, with a reddish brown ponytail sticking out from his orange hard hat. He shouted in the direction of the crew, who responded by tossing their trash and slowly moving back to the equipment on the sidewalk. I was impressed. After all the delays, it looked as if Victor was really cracking the whip.

“How are we going to unpack?” Liz asked me. “Where’s Barry? Where’s Julian?”

I scanned the drainage lake and spied a narrow wooden walkway spanning the water, curving around the row of trucks. Maybe we wouldn’t have to don hip boots, after all.

I pointed. “See that plankway in front of the trucks? If you can open the gate to the construction area, I’ll drive us as close as possible. With any luck, Julian will see the van.”

“Why did Barry even say he’d meet us at the gate?” Liz asked. “That’s not normal, is it? For a mall manager to help the catering team?”

“He’s an old friend.” I thought again of the flirtatious way she and Barry had seemed to be acting when we’d done our measuring. Then again, I’d learned in college that Barry was a seductive kind of guy. “Anyway, Liz,” I added mischievously, “maybe Barry wanted to see you.”

“Did Barry…?” Flustered, she ran her fingers through her silver-blond hair. “Did he mention my name? The fact that I was… helping you?”

“Liz, stop worrying. Everything will be fine. Just get the gate, OK?”

She hopped out, swung open the construction gate, and waved me through. Once the gate was shut and she was back inside, we bumped over deep ruts to get as close as possible to the big puddle. We ended up parking fifty yards from the wooden walkway. I still couldn’t get a good view of the mall’s rear entrance. Were the trucks parked flush against the shopping center wall? Hopefully, some kind of dike had been erected behind them, providing walking space that led to the mall’s entrance.

If Julian and Barry didn’t show up to help, and Liz and I had to skirt the truck-and-water mess to get to the lounge, we were going to have a devil of a time. I mentally calculated an hour and a half to haul everything in, another ninety minutes to set up and decorate the tables, another forty-five to do the last-minute prep on the food and set out the platters. Since my watch now said two o’clock, that schedule would put us right up against six o’clock—party time.

Liz and I heaved up the first boxes. We decided to trek down around the ruts to a foot-wide dirt path that seemed to run along the edge of the lake. The crow may fly as he may, but a smooth, longer way to the wooden plankway had to be better than negotiating hard waves of dirt. As we trod carefully on the springy plank boards, I spotted a foot-high wooden wall behind the trucks. So there was a seawall, thank goodness. Beyond it, a cement sidewalk looked dry enough for us to make it to the just-completed glass doors of the entrance. Despite the fact that I was lugging two boxes, I felt relief. Then Liz let out a little gasp.

Barry Dean had pushed through the glass doors and was striding along the sidewalk. Liz and I stepped off the end of the plankway spanning the drainage lake and started up the sidewalk toward him. Clad in a bright green sport shirt, khaki pants, and loafers, Barry acknowledged us with a hearty wave. Tripping along behind him was a young woman wearing a black halter top, white short-shorts, and chartreuse-green platform sandals. The woman was slender-hipped and big-busted. About thirty platinum ponytails stuck out from her head. She looked like a blond plant that had sprouted.

The young woman laid her hand on Barry’s arm to slow him. When he turned to face her, she did a little wiggle. Showing off her outfit? Demonstrating how all the pony-tails could jiggle at once? I groaned, shifted my load, and turned to check on Liz. She had stopped dead in her tracks. Luckily, she recovered quickly enough to grab her boxes before they fell.

Plenty of fish in the sea, I wanted to tell her.

“Honestly,” Liz murmured. She rebalanced her cargo, moved forward, and made her tone light. “That man would hit on my daughter.”

Enthusiastic honking kept me from having to reply. From between the trucks, I could see a white Range Rover rocketing over the dirt ruts: Julian. He swung in next to my van, hopped out with a bag in his hands, and hightailed it toward the plankway. Meanwhile, Barry and the blond bombshell conversed in low tones.

“Hiya,” Julian said, once he’d caught up to us. He put down the bag and expertly pulled off one of the boxes I was carrying. He’d cut his dark hair quite close to the scalp. (Not bicked, I wanted to tell Arch.) Julian was also clean-shaven and as handsome as ever. Plus, he was compact and muscled, dressed in balloon olive pants and a black T-shirt, and as usual, had come to work. Seeing Liz and her load, he immediately rejuggled my box so he could take one of hers. The kid was great: mature, bighearted, talented, and kind. I thought of Arch with a pang.

Julian swung the two boxes to one side as if they were nothing. “Hey, Goldy, I brought you one of those hot lattes made with cream from The Westside Buzz. You know, that drive-through place? I figured you’d be pretty tired by now, and since you gave up coffee, well—” He blushed and turned to Liz. “Sorry. We just met that once. I’m Julian Teller. Actually, I brought two lattes. One’s for you, Liz.”

“Thanks, Julian, but no,” Liz told him. “You have it. And it’s good to see you again, too.”

“I’m so bad!” Julian enthused, as he proffered me the bag. “I’ve already had two of those things, and each Buzz latte has four shots. I’m pretty wired, I can tell you that.”

“We can always use your energy,” Liz said, warming to him with a smile. Julian had that effect on people.