“Morning, love!”
“Mrgh,” came Jessa’s grumpy reply.
“Audrey’s here, and we’re going shopping! Thought you might want to come along for a girls’ day out.”
Jessa rolled over onto her back and opened her mouth wide in the kind of gigantic yawn that sent a ringing sound through her ears.
“All right,” she said, realising that her mother must have been pretty excited about a shopping day to be up, dressed and made-up at 10 am on a Sunday. “Gimme a few minutes to get dressed.”
“Woo!” Mrs Baxter danced out of the room.
Jessa pushed herself into a seat, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the bed, and blinked away the blur from her tired eyes. As she became more awake, the events from the previous day trickled in and filled the pit of her stomach with a heavy dread. She suddenly wished she’d declined the offer to go shopping.
“Are you ready, Jessa?” Mrs Baxter called from downstairs.
“Uhhh, almost…” she lied, looking down at her pyjamas.
#
Her mother had always had an affinity with commercialism, but the shopping bug had never really taken a hold in Jessa. Even Audrey, who was the most sensible—and the most boring—person Jessa could think of, would get excited about spending money on something new and fabulous.
“Okie dokie!” Mrs Baxter clasped her hands together excitedly. “We should start in the department stores, because I have some brilliant vouchers I can spend at Selfridges. Then we can stop for some lunch, and then hit the shoe shops and smaller clothes shops. Oh perfect, here’s the air shuttle.”
The familiar beep of the mall shuttle cleared the distracted shoppers from their meandering on the track marks on the ground. The gently hovering fifteen-foot pod lowered itself flush against the ground, and the entire side walls lifted up and into the ceiling, allowing passengers in and out from both sides. A young couple bustled out, loaded up with a surprising bulk of shopping bags considering the mall had only been open for about two hours.
Mrs Baxter led Jessa and Audrey into the front row of the shuttle. A few moments later, the cautionary announcement informed the passengers of the doors closing, and the air shuttle lifted a few inches from the ground once more and continued on its way, following the track on the ground below that lit up to remind any absent-minded shoppers to clear the route.
“Shall we ride just to the other end or to the top floor as well?” Audrey asked.
“To the top!” Mrs Baxter replied without a thought. Jessa drowsed next to her, clutching a to-go cup of tea that she insisted on getting from the cafe on the way in.
The hovering air shuttle travelled the one and a half miles smoothly down the centre of the mall, passing on the left the other air shuttle zipping in the opposite direction. Upon reaching the end, it opened up and let off two passengers, then closed again.
The pod turned 90 degrees so its longest side was against the wall, then zoomed upwards like an elevator, journeying up the five storeys of the mall before coming to rest at the top floor.
“Oh perfect, the teen section is up here. What do you think, Jessa? Shall we look for some new school clothes?” Mrs Baxter nudged her youngest daughter.
“Okay,” Jessa smiled, trying not to seem disinterested. “But maybe not here, this shop’s a bit expensive.”
“It’s a little on the pricier side, but that’s okay. To be honest, I got a little bonus at work recently, and Daddy agrees it would be nice to spend it by spoiling my girls.” She wrapped each of her arms around her daughters and entered the store.
“This is perfect for Jessa!” Audrey held up a blue and white sun dress.
Jessa’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding?”
“No, it would look adorable on you!” her older sister defended. Jessa shook her head, then grabbed the dress from her sister to put it back on the rack.
“What about this one?” Audrey tried a second dress. “It’s got this gorgeous sunflower print on the front.”
“Yeah and if you bring that thing near me it’ll have my vomit on the front.”
“Jessa, please don’t be vulgar,” said Mrs Baxter. “Why don’t you just try something on?” Her left arm bulged with a slew of clothing while her right hand flipped and skipped from rack to rack.
Jessa shrugged. Despite the enthusiasm from her mother and sister and their exclamations of items that would look “adorable” or “lovely” or “flattering,” Jessa just couldn’t get excited about clothes.
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Three stores later, and Jessa had picked out one item just to placate her family.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer something more feminine?” her mother asked when Jessa selected the dark red sweatshirt with a white old-fashioned bicycle printed on the print. “Or would you at least like to get one that’s not so baggy?”
“I want it baggy,” she replied.
“I don’t understand you young girls these days,” Mrs Baxter said.
Jessa sat cross-legged on the large beanbag stool in the centre of the dressing room while her mother and sister disappeared into adjacent cubicles to try things on. She waited quietly, vacantly picking at the frayed edge of the bottom of her jeans, when a very familiar voice yelled from another cubicle.
“Ugh, this is hideous!” the voice said. “Bring me another!”
“Yes, Miss Graves!” a nervous shop assistant said before scurrying off.
“What’s taking so long?” the impatient voice of Cecily Graves berated to no-one, just seconds after she had dismissed her apparent helper.
The pink-cheeked young woman returned with two black dresses.
“H-here you go, Miss Graves,” she stammered. The door opened a crack and Cecily’s outstretched hand grabbed the dresses and snatched them inside.
“Really, Elaine,” Cecily sneered loudly over the walls of her cubicle, “I sincerely hope my father isn’t paying you extra for this, considering all the atrocities you’ve been bringing me today.”
The woman called Elaine stared at the ground.
“Ohhh,” Cecily swooned. “Oh yes, now this is more like it. All right, I’m coming out.”
Jessa panicked. She couldn’t think of anything less enjoyable than running into Cecily Graves in a clothing store. Jumping up, Jessa looked around for an open cubicle to hide in, but it was a small dressing room, and they all appeared to be taken.
Her mother and Audrey were chatting away over their shared cubicle wall, giving each other a second-by-second rundown of the clothes they were trying on.
Jessa pressed her face up against her mother’s cubicle door and whispered as inconspicuously as she could.
“Mum! Mum, let me in! Mum! Hello?”
Unfortunately, Mrs Baxter was preoccupied with her positively Byzantine chronicle of some beige Capris that she couldn’t fasten, and she couldn’t hear her daughter’s plea for help.
Jessa darted toward the exit, but it was a moment too late.
“Jessa Baxter?”
“Hi, Cecily…” Jessa turned back around slowly.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Just here with my mum and sister,” Jessa gestured toward the other end of the dressing room.
“That’s a surprise. I didn’t know your family could afford to shop somewhere like this.”
Jessa rolled her eyes. “Yep. Shocker.”
Cecily caught a glimpse of herself in the large mirror on the dressing room wall and quickly lost interest in taunting Jessa.
The bandage-style dress hugged her body provocatively. She paraded up and down the dressing room like a model in a fashion show, teetering on her tiptoes, her hips swinging, ample and pendulumlike.
An older woman exited her cubicle to look at herself in the large mirror too, and Cecily immediately took advantage of her potential new viewer.
“I’m just not sure,” she hammed. “I feel like it makes my waist look big. Does it make my waist look big? Do I look fat?”
“Not at all,” the woman took the bait. “You look like a celebrity!”
“Oh, really!” Cecily schmaltzed. “That is so kind. And same to you. That long skirt is really slimming on you. And I find it totally cool that you’re comfortable enough at your age to wear a top that revealing.”
The lady quickly withdrew back into her cubicle.
“I’ll take it,” Cecily said. “Elaine, charge this to Daddy’s card. In fact, I want to wear it home.”
Elaine nodded and stepped forward to remove the electronic tag from the back of the dress. Cecily pulled on some very expensive-looking boots and a leather jacket and sauntered out of the dressing room.
Jessa breathed a sigh of relief.
Mrs Baxter and Audrey approached and handed to the assistant everything they had tried on.
“No good?” the tired-looking shop worker asked.
“Not today, thanks,” Mrs Baxter smiled back at her.
“Oh my goodness, Jessa! Hi!” Cecily flittered over to the Baxter ladies and leaned in to give Jessa a hug. “It’s so nice to see you!” she said exaggeratedly. Jessa stood with her arms planted by her sides, refusing to return the hug. She wondered if Cecily had deliberately waited for them to exit the changing room.
“Hi, I’m Cecily!” she said loudly, shaking hands with Mrs Baxter and Audrey. “I’m one of Jessa’s school friends—we’re in the same class.”
“How lovely,” Mrs Baxter beamed. “I’m surprised we haven’t met before. Jessa, you should invite Cecily over for dinner sometime.”
“Mmhmm,” Jessa squinted a glare at Cecily.
“Mrs Baxter, I would simply love to come over for dinner,” she smiled a big, gleaming, toothy smile.
“Wonderful, I’ll let you and Jessa arrange that, but honestly dear, feel free to come over any day. Are you here alone? Would you like to shop with us? We’re having a girls’ day out.”
“You know what, that does sound super,” Cecily squeezed the top of Jessa’s arm, “but I’m actually here with two of my father’s staff.”
“His staff?” Mrs Baxter enquired.
“Yes, Daddy has a full-time driver and personal assistant on staff, so they’re with me today while I enjoy a little retail therapy. Don’t get me wrong—we’re not that privileged. This is a rare treat. It’s Daddy’s way of rewarding me for getting good grades this year.” She flashed her bleach-white smile again.
“Well, I say…” an embarrassed pink flushed over Mrs Baxter’s face.
“Anyway, I’d better be off. Glen and Mark are waiting for me outside. Jessa, again, it was so good to see you,” she embraced Jessa once more. She smelled like vanilla and smoke. “And it was lovely to meet both of you.”
She shook the hands of Jessa’s family once more before strolling confidently from the store. Jessa waited until Cecily was out of sight and out of earshot.
“She is not coming over for dinner.”
“What’s wrong, I thought she’s your friend?” said Mrs Baxter, tidying a wayward curl from Jessa’s head and tucking it gently in among the others.
“Yeah right! She’s an evil witch, is what she is.”
“Jessa, come on.”
“I’m not kidding, Mum. If I never saw Cecily Graves again, it wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
“Jessa, be nice!” Audrey criticised.
“No way. She’s the worst. The worst.”
“You girls these days,” Mrs Baxter rolled her eyes.
As they walked back toward the car, Jessa couldn’t shake the prickling feeling that she was being watched. She tried to casually look from side to side, scanning for anyone looking in their direction.
Then suddenly came the sensation that she’d felt once before. The feeling of burning in the tips of her fingers.
She turned back and saw Cecily standing on the other side of the car park. She stood perfectly still, the tails of her long black hair whipping against her jacket, and in her hand was a lighter, its flame lightly flickering in the wind.
Cecily turned away, summoning two men to join her. And as the three of them walked toward a very shiny black car with tinted windows, Jessa’s eyes widened as she looked closer at Cecily’s companions: two men in long dark coats.