Gone-Girl-by-Gillian-Flynn

lock smashed off down here near the Spencer’s.’
Just then we passed the dark windows of Shoe-Be-Doo-Be, where my
mom had worked for more than half my life. I still remember the thrill of her
going to apply for a job at that most wondrous of places – the mall! – leaving
one Saturday morning for the job fair in her bright peach pantsuit, a fortyyear-old
woman looking for work for the first time, and her coming home
with a flushed grin: We couldn’t imagine how busy the mall was, so many
different kinds of stores! And who knew which one she might work in? She
applied to nine! Clothing stores and stereo stores and even a designer popcorn
store. When she announced a week later that she was officially a shoe
saleslady, her kids were underwhelmed.
‘You’ll have to touch all sorts of stinky feet,’ Go complained.
‘I’ll get to meet all sorts of interesting people,’ our mom corrected.
I peered into the gloomy window. The place was entirely vacant except
for a shoe sizer lined pointlessly against the wall.
‘My mom used to work here,’ I told Rand, forcing him to linger with me.
‘What kind of place was it?’
‘It was a nice place, they were good to her.’
‘I mean what did they do here?’
‘Oh, shoes. They did shoes.’
‘That’s right! Shoes. I like that. Something people actually need. And at
the end of the day, you know what you’ve done: You’ve sold five people
shoes. Not like writing, huh?’
‘Dunne, come on!’ Stucks was leaning against the open door ahead; the
others had gone inside.
I’d expected the mall smell as we entered: that temperature-controlled
hollowness. Instead, I smelled old grass and dirt, the scent of the outdoors
inside, where it had no place being. The building was heavy-hot, almost
fuzzy, like the inside of a mattress. Three of us had giant camping flashlights,
the glow illuminating jarring images: It was suburbia, post-comet, postzombie,
post-humanity. A set of muddy shopping-cart tracks looped crazily
along the white flooring. A raccoon chewed on a dog treat in the entry to a
women’s bathroom, his eyes flashing like dimes.
The whole mall was quiet; Mikey’s voice echoed, our footsteps echoed,
Stucks’ drunken giggle echoed. We would not be a surprise attack, if attack