Tati spouts that off the moment she’s in the passenger’s seat. I raise an eyebrow at her. “Panties? You don’t have enough of them?”
“I don’t haveany,” she says, crossing her arms. “I never got to get my things in my apartment before I was dragged back here. My father had clothes brought in for me to wear, but apparently, he thinks women just grow underwear or something.”
I blink, still trying to compute that information. It leads me to wonder about the clothes she’s wearing now—a simple blue T-shirt with white sleeves and tight blue jeans. As I glance down, I immediately see that she’s without a bra. Her perky nipples are pressing against her shirt, begging to be noticed.
I can’t tell whether she’s flirting or not. Either way, she can’t walk around in public like this. “All right,” is all I have to say as I put the car in drive.
The drive to the mall takes less than twenty minutes. The entire time, Tati sits in silence, watching the world whiz by, the little smile that’s always playing at the corner of her mouth gone. I’m sure she’s about as pleased to be watched over like a hawk as I am to have to do it. Her father has really put us both in quite the predicament.
I know better than to try and commiserate with her. Whatever I might be feeling about having to be her babysitter, I’m sure it can’t compare to being the one who’s being babysat.
The only sign of life I see before we get to the mall is when we pass by the old department store a mile or so away from the mall. It’s been in a state of constant disrepair for years, looming over the trash-ladened parking lot with almost every window busted out from who knows how many vandals. Her eyes widen slightly the moment she sees it, then she looks down at her hands solemnly.
The mall is moderately busy at this hour, so finding a parking space is easy enough. I put the car in park and say to her, “I expect you know where the store is.”
“I knew where itwas,” she says. “Remember, I’ve been gone for the last six years.”
I sigh heavily. This is going to take longer than I was expecting it to. “Fine. Stay in my sight at all times. I want you right next to me or in front of me. Never behind me. Got it?”
She looks up at me with those big, innocent eyes and says, “Got it.”
“Good. I’d like to do this quickly, if you don’t mind, so don’t make me have to come find you.”
“Da, ser,” she remarks in a sharp tone and gets out of the car.
Into the mall we go. We’re walking side by side through the first department store, and she pauses here and there to look at the clothes on the rack before turning her nose up and walking away. She mutters something about ‘hating’ the store as we follow the path out and into the mall proper.
We pause at the map kiosk by the escalators. She studies the color coded blocks for a few minutes before pointing at one of them and saying, “Selah’s Confidential. Second floor.” She glances back at me. “Onward.”
As we ride up the escalator, I grimace at the heavy cinnamon smell that seems to be pumped in through the very vents of this place. I know it comes from the little store somewhere that makes giant, tasteless cinnamon rolls, and it’s probably part of the reason I’ve stayed out of malls since the nineties. That mixed with the perfume mist from the makeup kiosks along the main path is enough to make anyone nauseous.
The store, ‘Selah’s Confidential’, looks exactly like I would expect an underwear store to look. The decor is colored with pastel pink and blue walls while every rack carries lacy bras and panties of every size on little hangers. Barely dressed mannequins standin the middle of the aisles and in store windows, advertising lingerie that’s as sexy as it is impractical.
I hang around the front of the store as she goes in, content to keep vigil from here. Glancing at the lingerie on display, I realize how little I’ve ever been interested in lacy panties… but then as if by suggestion and quite against my will, I start to imagine Tati wearing some tawdry thing, her heart-shaped smile daring me to rip the fabric off her body.
I consider myself to have a solid wall of restraint when it comes to temptation… but I’m having trouble explaining my lapse of that restraint on the night that we had sex. And even now as my mind spins webs of her body in some combination of white and pink lace…
I need to get my mind off sex when it comes to her. I look away from the mannequin and glance around to find her. A moment ago, she was just off to my left, looking through the rack at the underwear, and now…
Now, she’s not there. I look around the store and quickly realize that I don’t see her at all. Shit. I walk into the store and straight to the cashier. Before she can greet me, I say, “I’m looking for a woman with curly pink hair, about five foot five? She was just here a second ago.”
The cashier’s smile drops and her eyes harden. I must look like a psychopath.
“She’s my sister,” I lie. “She was just here. Have you seen her?”
She nods, her expression softening a little. “She’s just…” She goes to point over my shoulder, then she trails off and looks around the store, her brow furrowing with confusion. “She was just there.”
Dammit. How did she get past me?
“You said she had pink hair?” A customer speaks from behind me. She’s an older woman holding an armful of bras. “I literally saw her slip out as you were coming in. She was hunkered down by the clearance aisle.”
“Thank you.” I turn and rush out of the store, but the moment I’m back out into the perfume and cinnamon air, I realize that I’ve lost sight of her. Shit. Where did she…?
She couldn’t have gotten far. Not this quickly. Maybe she left. But if she left, where did she go?
It hitsme as I leave the mall. Even though it feels like a long shot, I figure it’s the closest place to look, so I’d better try there first.
The way she looked at the old building when we passed it flashed through my mind when I was searching the mall for her. It would have been nothing for her to rush out, grab a cab or a car service, and get to it. Though, I don’t know why she would want to be there out of all the places in the world.
