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Chapter Eighteen / 2013


Nick

I've never been much of a shopper-person. My idea of "hanging out at the mall" has always been getting a smoothie and sitting around the food court ogling hotties on their way from the fancy designer stores with their itty bitty waists and overheated credit cards. Me and my buddies used to prowl through The Grove anytime we were feeling hard up for women from the clubs. Usually wearing shades to block out the overbearing sunlight that harshed our hung over eyes and hoodies that made us look bad ass and street.

Abbey hauled me to the Green Hills Mall, not too far south of Vanderbilt. After stopping in a Starbucks for fuel (because apparently the hospital coffee hadn't been enough for her), we started walking through the mall. The halls were so crowded we could barely move and more out of desperation to keep track of each other than anything else, we held hands. Her fingers felt slim in my grasp.

We did a couple laps just trying to stay afloat without getting trampled by the late shoppers before I pulled her into the middle of the hallway between two kiosks nobody was interested in. I looked at her. "What are we shopping for exactly?" I asked, "I don't even know what we're looking for."

She reached into her purse and pulled out a toy catalog. It was curled into a tight tube and rubber banded shut. "Matty marked up a catalog for us," she replied. "I don't know why we went to this mall. I just - I guess I was on auto-pilot. We really need a Toys R Us, I guess." She stared at the catalog. She looked up at me.

Something about the expression on her face told me she was about to cry. I looked around. This was so not the place to have a meltdown about anything serious - in the center of a frenzied post-Black Friday mall. "C'mon, there's a great Toys R Us down in Cool Springs by my place, we'll go there." I grabbed her hand again and she slid the catalog back into her purse and we waded back out through the crowds to the parking lot. It took us about ten minutes to cut through the fray and the smell of the Cheesecake Factory wafted along after us as we walked back to her car.

Once the doors were shut, Abbey just sat there staring at her hands on the wheel. I took a deep breath and watched cars circling like sharks, waiting for us to back out of the space so they could take it. I reached for the catalog, still sticking out of her bag. "What's he want anyways?" I asked.

"Does it matter?" she asked.

I looked over, unsure where she was going with this, then back down at the catalog page I'd opened to. He had circles and stars drawn on various things throughout.

"Do y'all do this every year?"

"Yeah," Abbey nodded. "I give him the catalog and a sharpie and he circles things he likes and stars on a 5-star system what he wants most to least and I do what I can... It's never been a lot, but I try to get a couple things for him. But this year... I don't know. I mean, Monica says he won't live past Christmas. So what's the point?"

I took a deep breath. I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I blocked it out until I could think of something to say that was appropriate. "So he wants the Pokemon DS, huh?" I said, looking through the pages. "We should've gone into Game Stop in there. I have a friend that works there..." I pulled my phone out and started going through my contacts list.

She looked over at me. "You think I'm a terrible mother for thinking that?" she asked.

"Thinking what?"

"That Christmas shopping for a kid that isn't going to live to enjoy the stuff he gets for Christmas is depressing and pointless?"

I shook my head, "I think you're an amazing mother who is very, very overwhelmed and doesn't entirely know what she's thinking right now because she is exhausted."

Abbey sighed. "I'm so tired of being overwhelmed," she complained. "I've been overwhelmed his whole life. When do I get to just be plain whelmed?"

I wondered if whelmed was a word. It must be if you can be over-whelmed, right? Can one be underwhelmed, I wondered? And what the fuck was a whelm anyways?

My thumbs rolled over the keyboard, tapping in a quick inquiry about the Pikachu DS. No way in hell was I wading through that mess if there wasn't even one in there...

Abbey looked at me. "I don't even know what he wants most this year. I kept bugging him to do this stupid catalog and he finally did and by then I just didn't have it in me to look at it."

"I'm texting to see about the DS. That has 4-stars."

My phone vibed.

We have one in stock but I can't hold it. When are you coming in?

I'm in the parking lot, I replied.

Outloud, I said, "I think it's great y'all do this catalog thing. It's a great idea. You know, we didn't do a lot for Christmas in my family, growin' up," I said absently, staring down at the heavily markered Lego brand page. Behind us, some car honked their horn trying to get us to back up faster. I stuck my hand out the window and waved them by.

Hurry man, these things are selling quick. People are going mental for the Pikachu.

"They've got one," I said as I turned the last page and I found a blank sheet of paper that had been inserted at the very back of the book. It was folded over and had 5 stars drawn on the front. I opened it and inside there was a crayoned drawing of three people - Matty, Abbey, and a non-detailed third person, just a stick figure with no hair or eyes or mouth. Underneath, in messy kid-scrawl, he'd written the words a whole family. The drawing was circled and stared with 5 very, very big stars.

I looked over at Abbey, who was still staring at the steering wheel. So I folded the crayoned page and I slid it out of the catalog and into my pocket.

"Do you want to go in?" I asked. "I can go get it if you don't want to go in."

She looked over at me, confused. "What?"

"I have a friend that works in the Game Stop. They have one there for us."

Abbey blinked. "One what?"

"The Pikachu DS?" I said.

"Oh," she said. Then her eyebrows stitched. "Oh. How did you --?"

"I texted him."

Abbey stared at me in surprise. "You managed to get him one of the hottest toys of the season from the car?"

I shrugged. "I guess so. They've only got one left though so we should probably get in there before someone else buys it."

Abbey pushed open her car door and we ran across the parking lot back into the mall, much to the disappointment of the shark-like parking spot hunters that lurked beyond the back bumper.




Abbey

I couldn't believe I'd unloaded like that on Nick, but I was even more in disbelief because he hadn't judged me even slightly. He'd just listened and comforted me and help me feel like I was doing something active to be a better mom, to act more hopeful for Matty. I felt understood for the first time in years by someone who wasn't a doctor. Of course, to be sadly honest, it was probably one of the first time in years that I'd talked to someone who wasn't a doctor.

The mall seemed a lot brighter and more festive now that I had my worry off my chest. The people jostling and crowding in around me weren't particularly wonderful but they were more than the blur of color and noise that they'd been the first time Nick and I had waded through the mess. I felt his hand snake back to grab onto mine and he squeezed and my fingertips brushed his knuckles. My heart raced at the feeling of his skin against mine, even if it was just our palms. I could feel the heat radiating from every one of his pores.

When we got to Game Stop there was a frenzy of excitement going on inside, and Nick shimmied his way through the huddle of people, letting go of my hand. I hung by the door and watched as he ducked and bumbled his way through to the shelf where the Nintendo DS display was. I could see the Pikachu box from where I was, and I watched Nick's hand jet out over the heads of several people blocking his way to the display to catch the box, and he waved his arms triumphantly, squishing and squeezing back through to the cash register with a grin.

Ten minutes later we were the proud possessors of the coveted Pikachu and four games for the thing that Nick had selected as the best games ever from the shelf. I had the bag looped over my wrist as we walked, still holding hands to avoid getting separated in the crowd. We were walking down the hallway when Nick suddenly spun and pulled me into a Teavana store - probably the only store in the mall that wasn't bustling beyond mobility - and ducked down behind a display. "Fuck," he muttered and he peeked through the display out into the hall.

I looked around. There were several employees helping the few other guests in the store, and luckily none of them had yet noticed Nick's odd behavior. "What in the hell are you doing?" I asked him.

"I just saw Lauren," he replied.

"So?" I asked, "Let's go see her, she can help us shop."

"No dude she thinks I'm at Vanderbilt. She's probably shopping for my Christmas present. Do you think she was headed toward the Apple store? I hope she was headed toward the Apple store. I really want that new iPad Air. But she won't buy it if she thinks I saw her and ruined the surprise..." Nick was rambling, a nervous edge to his voice. He hunkered further down the display so he was completely blocked from the hallway's view.

I stood there staring at him like he was nuts because, well, honestly...

"Do you see her?" he asked.

"Lemme look," I answered. I walked out to the hallway and I looked around. Lauren wasn't hard to spot in the crowd. She's super tall, like Nick is, and she must've been wearing heels that day because she towered even taller than usual. I glanced back into the store. Nick was pretending to read a box of acai berry tea. "Yeah I see her," I told him.

"Does she have an Apple bag?" he asked eagerly, eyes glowing.

"I'm not telling you that," I replied. I looked back out to the hallway. Lauren looked at her watch. She was standing by the Christmas tree looking frustrated. "She's not going anywhere," I told him, "She's just standing there."

Nick put the acai berry tea up. "What?"

"She looks like she's waiting for somebody," I replied.

Nick got up and inched along the row of displays to peek through the last one again. He narrowed his eyes as he peered out.

"Can I help you two with anything?" came a very zen, calm voice from behind me.

"We're good, thanks," I replied, "Just looking."

The woman followed my gaze, "Yes, I see that." She turned and walked away.

Nick suddenly let out a strange noise, and I turned around again to see Lauren greeting a guy with a big hug and a smile. I looked down at Nick. "That's Travis. My friend - the one that works at the Game Stop." Nick looked up at me, panicked, "What if he tells Lauren he saw me today? She'll know I'm here and not at Vanderbilt, she'll think I lied to her."

I stared at him.

His eyes got wide. "Oh shit, I must be getting a Playstation 4," he whispered in excitement and he turned away just in time to miss seeing them kiss.

"Uhhh..."

"No wonder she wouldn't let me go get it the other night," he was gushing, still back to. Which was good because they were still kissing, their mouths lingering.

Nick started to turn around and I grabbed his shoulders and kept him facing away. "You know, since we're stuck here a few minutes, maybe we should actually get some tea," I suggested. "Do you know any tea drinkers? I've thought about becoming one before, a tea drinker I mean. Maybe Monica would like tea. Isn't there a tea that's heart healthy? Maybe we should get Matty some."

I don't know why I was protecting Lauren from being spotted. Or maybe I was protecting Nick from doing the spotting, but I felt this urgency, like it was imperative that he not see what just happened out there. Maybe there was some kind of mistake, some honest reason why she'd kiss him, some cultural thing. But with a name like Travis... I don't know, I just didn't want him to see her, so I did everything but a cartwheel to keep his attention otherwise focused until Lauren and Travis had disappeared among the fray of post-Black Friday shoppers.

"Fuck tea, let's just go before Lauren decides to come in here for something," I said as soon as I'd noticed that they'd gone.

"Is she gone?" Nick turned around.

"Yeah I just watched her walk away," I replied.

Nick and I walked out of the mall. I was tugging him along persistently. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I hustled him across the parking lot to the car and he climbed in. I handed him the Pikachu DS with a sigh of relief as we got into the car. "I know, God damn it was crowded in there," he commented, mistaking the purpose behind my sigh of relief. "This is why I hate shopping," he added, wagging his finger, "It's a near death experience every time you walk through the doors." He leaned back in the chair, hugging the Game Stop bag to his chest contentedly. Then, "Shit I can't believe I'm getting a PS4 for Christmas." He grinned over at me like a Cheshire Cat. "I hope she got Call of Duty for it, I hear the graphics are unbe-fucking-lievable."

I pulled out of the space, leaving behind the mall, gripping the wheel tight, wondering what the hell to do about what I'd just seen.