“You forgot this,” I said to her, in a voice that didn’t sound like me, and threw the shoe back at her, hard, and stood watching as it hit her square in the forehead, the same spot where it had hit me. Then it fell to the floor, bounced once, and landed upright, as if it was waiting for a little foot to wiggle into it.
She was stunned, staring at me open-mouthed. She had gold fillings on two back teeth. I noticed this offhand as the crowds pressed around us and the sun beat down and I was suddenly tired, sure I’d never make it the short distance back to the store.
“I’ll have you fired,” she snapped, squatting down to grab up the shoe, and then added on the way back up, “and I’m calling mall security and reporting this. This is an assault.” She looked around at the few people who had seen me throw a shoe at this woman, and pointed to each of them as she added, “Witnesses! You are all witnesses!”
Everyone was looking at me, suddenly, and the place was too bright, and so hot, and all I could see was her face and her open mouth, yelling. I spun around, reaching out like a blind person in the hot glare of that skylight, pushing people aside, and I began to run. I ran down the middle of the Lakeview Mall with those banners swishing overhead, seeing the shocked expressions of people as they jerked out of the way, yanking children and strollers aside. I could hear her yelling behind me, but I didn’t care, couldn’t think of anything as I burst out the main doors into the parking lot and kept running, my feet pounding the pavement. I wondered if this was how Gwendolyn felt, searching the streets for some kind of peace. If at fifteen she’d ever felt the same way, tall and lost, not fitting in or finding a place for herself, anywhere.
I was still running, nearing the edge of the parking lot that led to the road home, when I thought I heard someone—Sumner—yelling my name. I couldn’t stop, not even for him, as I took the turn and headed into my neighborhood, slowing my pace and breathing heavily, the wind swirling in my ears.
I found myself at the neighborhood park, still trying to figure out what had come over me. I walked past the swings and the jungle gym to what was called the Creative Playground, built by a bunch of hippie parents when I was in grade school. It was made of wood, with slides and hiding places, and tires stacked one on top of the other creating vertical tunnels. I crawled underneath the main slide and folded myself small, as small as I’d been in second grade when I first discovered this space. I barely fit now, my knees at my chin, but it was mossy and quiet and somehow right then it seemed like the perfect place to be.
I was fired, obviously. No more Push Socks, Push Socks. I took off my name tag and stuck it in my pocket, wondering what kind of charges would await me when I got home. I wondered if you could get arrested for an assault with a Smurf shoe at a mall. If I’d go to jail. If I could go home.
But soon I wasn’t thinking about that anymore, or about the woman or the Hot Summer Deals Sidewalk Sale. I leaned my head against the slippery wood behind me and thought of better times, of that summer in Virginia Beach. I thought about Sumner running through the sand, chasing a Frisbee as it flew over his head. About the way he made Ashley human and shrimp cocktail at the hotel restaurant and my father’s pink cheeks, his grinning as he slid an arm around my mother’s waist, pulling her close. I thought of Ashley’s high, singsong laugh and that ride down in the Volkswagen with beach music on the radio and the stars overhead, the summer so new with so many days left, each sliding into the next. I wished I could go back somehow and start it all over again, with me and Ashley by the curb waiting and listening for the putt-putt of the Bug to come around the corner. I’d live each of those days the exact same way, when I was no bigger than a minute. When my parents were still in love and Sumner held us all together, laughing, until the day Ashley sent him away without even thinking of what would happen once he was gone. No more laughing, no more drawing together from the opposite sides of the house, all coming together to Sumner’s voice, his laugh. I missed who we all were then. One summer and one boy, and suddenly things weren’t the same.
I walked home. I’d fallen asleep under the slide, dozing off in the mossy quiet, only to wake up confused, having forgotten where I was, the sun slanting down hot on my head. Some little boys were sliding down above me, their voices high and giggly, calling out to their father to watch. He was wearing sunglasses, reading a paper by the tire tunnel, and looked up each time they told him to. I waited until they were gone before I slipped out and unfolded myself to my true size.
I went into the house through the back door, hoping to avoid seeing anyone; but of course there was another power meeting going on at the table, with Lydia and my mother hunched over the clipboard that seemed attached to my mother’s hand lately and Ashley sitting in the doorway that led to the living room.
“Well, obviously we’ll have to replan the whole wedding party,” my mother was saying as I stood on the other side of the glass, invisible. “We can’t have five ushers and four bridesmaids. Somebody’s got to go.”
“I’ve seen it done before,” Lydia said, tugging at her sequined shirt. “Four bridesmaids, three ushers. But it never looked right to me. You need symmetry in a wedding party. You’ve just got to have it.”
“I still cannot believe this,” Ashley grumbled into her hair, which was hanging down one side of her face. “I’m going to kill her, I swear.”
“There’s no time to think about that now,” Lydia said in her loud, brassy Floridian voice. “We can hate Carol later; now we’ve got to come up with some kind of a solution. Quickly.”