In front of the Gap, Sylvia and Jack stopped at a bench and fell into it and they just made out right there. And we were right near Macy’s and right around then I started to remember deep down somewhere in my head that there are no windows here at the Beverly Center. I went over and made a little ahem sound but they couldn’t hear me and I sort of watched Jack’s hand go over Sylvia’s shoulder and he was almost on her boob. There are two pregnant girls in school but they are both still in classes and they said how they’re fat as an excuse but I can tell it’s not regular fat especially because one of them is spending all her class time knitting a blue bootee. I only have kissed two guys and even then it was short, not a long time. And Sylvia seemed pretty good at it and I couldn’t really stop watching and then Barb and Nature walked up swinging their shopping bags and they went over and stood right over the bench and Nature said “AHEM!” just like I did only a hundred times louder and Sylvia pulled her face away from Jack’s and her mouth was all smudged and soft-looking and she laughed and said “Hi!” And they hugged. Even though didn’t we all just not see each other deliberately on the escalator? And Barb was quiet but she made a naughty scoldy look at Jack and I went over and no one really looked at me but I stood there too because I was Sylvia’s ride. So, if people were cars, in a way, I was the one kissing Jack, if you were to think of it that way. And Nature was talking about some party and Jack pulled Sylvia into his lap so there was bench room and Nature sat down and crossed her legs and waggled her foot around and her toes were painted dark red like she was forty years old, and then it was just me and Barb standing there and Barb said she wanted to go look at the new Gap sweaters with the zipper front. Barb is independent like that. She’s taking an independent-study class in school to learn Portuguese which you’d think would make her ineligible for popularity. Did you know they speak Portuguese in Brazil? I don’t understand why that is. And I stood there and Nature was holding Sylvia’s hand and Jack kept grabbing it back, and then Nature took it again and they were like a sculpture: Bad Homework Partner plus My Friend plus Her Boyfriend on Mall Bench.
“We’ve been here for hours,” I said.
“What?”
“We’ve been here since three,” I said.
“I had to get some presents,” said Sylvia, leaning her head back onto Jack’s shoulder.
“How are you, Louanne?” Nature asked me.
“Me?” I said. “I’m fine. How are you?”
Nature laughed, and she brought Sylvia’s hand to her mouth and kissed its back. She was wearing light-pink lipstick from the MAC store and it left an imprint like on an old CD cover. Sylv laughed her little tinkling laugh. Jack made a whimpering sound.
“Now you can get into the bar,” said Nature to Sylvia, holding up her imprinted hand.
“What bar?” I said.
“The Nature Bar,” said Nature, and everyone but me laughed. Then she looked back up at me, with her snappy brown eyes.
“Will you leave us alone for half an hour, Louanne?”
“Alone at the Bev?” I said.
Sylvia laughed.
“The Bev?” said Nature.
I blushed. “The mall?”
“Just for a half hour,” Nature said. “I need to talk to Sylvia and Jack about something important. I’ll tell you another time, I just have to talk to them alone right now.”
I checked my watch. Four-thirty.
“Five?” I said.
“Great,” said Nature, and her hair fell into her face like a curtain saying, Go home, Louanne, the corn is growing, the show is done.
I went into a fancy dress store where I could stand at the window and watch because were they all going to make out? But Nature just sat there holding Sylvia’s hand and Jack at one point kissed Sylvia’s neck and it was all so great for Sylvia. At one point, Barb came back with a big Gap bag and pulled out a purple zipper sweater to show them, and then left. She left? And then they all laughed on the bench for a while and after about ten minutes they got up to go. I knew they were going before they even got up. I’m not stupid. Nature was walking off with her hand in Sylvia’s butt pocket and Jack was by himself but he had a car.
I was Sylvia’s ride but she had two more rides now except Nature doesn’t drive a car because she got her license revoked because the story goes that she was driving on Franklin and she hit a raccoon and that would be okay except she got so freaked out she ran to the nearest house crying and sobbing and said she’d hit a person and they ran out to look, all scared and calling 911, but then it was a much smaller shape on the road and one with circles around its eyes and fur and paws and a snout. And then everyone thought it meant she should take a break from driving because she was clearly high on something, to think a raccoon was a person. They are really different. The saleslady at the store asked me if I wanted to try on that jacket, the one I was next to that I’d been petting for almost twenty minutes. It was a mink maybe? But faux fur. It was sort of a golden color, like a golden retriever. I said okay. She had to undo the cord which meant it’s expensive but I tried it on like it was the animal I killed while driving high and now I couldn’t drive either. So how would I get home? I’d have to wear my road kill home through the sparkly streets of Los Angeles. But it didn’t look good on me because my face is splotchy sometimes and it made me extra splotchy to have fur around it. Nature said she’s happy not driving because it’s so nice to get driven, like she’s a movie star in a limo, but everyone in school talked about the raccoon story for at least a week, and for a while people held up animals in the hall for her and said, Nature, is this a person? and it’d be a stuffed Snoopy. Or: Nature, is this a person? and it’d be an address book.
I went back and sat at the bench for ten minutes. They weren’t coming back. I knew that. I wanted to do my part anyway. I smiled at people walking by. An old man with overalls walked by; I don’t think old people should wear overalls; it makes them look like shrivelly toddlers. But I smiled at him anyway. Most teenage girls don’t give old people the time of day which is sad because all old people do all the time is think about how nice it was to be a teenager so long ago. After a minute, he came and circled back and he was wearing overalls and that little Jewish disc hat, and sat down. He smelled like cashews.
“Are you here alone?” he asked.
“I’m a quarter Jewish,” I told him. “I attend Yom Kippur services.”
“Good for you,” he said.
“My dad’s mom,” I said.
I smiled at him again, but the truth is, the smile is best when you’re walking, not sitting. Sitting, I wasn’t sure how long I could hold it.
“I’m meeting friends,” I said.
“Are you lost?” he said.
“Oh no,” I said. “I am extremely found.”