Bentley Little - The Store

He felt guilty for even entertaining such blasphemy.

He met up again with Ben in front of the crowded espresso bar near the automatic double doors that led out back to the nursery. The editor, sipping a cafй au lait, gestured expansively about him as Bill approached. "Quite a place, here," he said. "Quite a place."

Bill nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Quite a place."

Ginny walked slowly, looking around her in awe, filled with a pleasant feeling that was at once immediate and comfortably nostalgic. The Store was beautiful. It was like being back in California -- only more so. Aisles stretched endlessly before her, stocked nearly to the ceiling with merchandise so new she wasn't even familiar with it.

She remembered the first mall she'd ever been to -- Cerritos Mall -- with Ian Emerson, her boyfriend at the time. That had been like this: the size, the scope, the wonderful impressive newness of it all. Cerritos at that time had been a small dairy farming community in the middle of the Southern California sprawl, but it had taken only a few years for an entirely new city to spring up around the mall. It had been like a catalyst for change, a magnet for houses and businesses and other stores, the hub around which everything revolved. Would this be like that? Would Juniper's population suddenly explode and a rash of development sweep through the town, obliterating their quaint, rural lifestyle?

She hoped not.

But it might almost be worth it.

The Store was a godsend.

She touched a pair of Guess jeans hanging on a rack, fingered an Anne Klein blouse. She hadn't realized how much she missed having easy access to all this. Driving down to the Valley and shopping at Fiesta Mall or Metro Center had always been fun, something she enjoyed and looked forward to, but having contemporary fashions here in town, being able to try on nice clothes anytime she wanted to, without having to plan a trip and spend an entire day, was totally different. She felt as though she'd been holding her breath for a long period of time, conserving her oxygen, and now she'd been set down in a rich atmosphere and was able to breathe freely, deeply. She'd been depriving herself, doing without, and while she'd adjusted to such an extent that she hadn't even noticed what she was missing, now that it was again available she was grateful.

This was heaven.

They'd never have to go to Phoenix anymore.

Everything they needed was right here in Juniper.

The Store was wonderful.

Shannon wandered happily through the Juniors clothing department. The items here were as good as or better than those in any mall she'd ever been in.

It was as if they'd taken all the best clothes from all the best shops and combined them in one store.

A discount store.

It was like a dream come true.

She pulled a skirt off a rack, held it up. There were fashions here that she'd only seen in magazines.

She put the skirt back, looked around for Samantha. Her sister was over by the shoe section, talking to Bernadine Weathers. Bernadine was a bore and a half, and Shannon didn't feel like listening to the older girl drone on in her usual monotone about what _she_ thought of The Store, so she moved away, deeper into the clothes department, past mothers and their daughters, past old women and middle-aged housewives, until she found three of her own friends by the lingerie.

"So what do you think?" Diane asked as she walked up.

Shannon grinned. "Awesome."

"No kidding." Diane glanced around furtively, as though checking to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Ellie and Kim, next to her, giggled. She leaned forward. "Have you seen some of the stuff they have here?" She motioned toward the lingerie.

Shannon shook her head.

Diane glanced around again, then walked back a few steps into the nearest aisle. She surreptitiously lifted a red lace teddy from one of the hooks on the aisle partition. "Crotchless," she said. She shifted the garment, holding the crotch out, and Shannon saw a large slit that had been intentionally incorporated into the design.

"Maybe you should get one," Kim said.

Ellie giggled.

"I bet Jake would appreciate it."

Shannon reddened. "Yeah, right," she said.

But she stared at the teddy as Diane put it back and thought that Jake probably would like it.

And she would like to wear it for him.

2

Ky Malory looked straight ahead at the shelves of the toy department, his eyes widening. Firecrackers, cherry bombs, and M80s in a multitude of colors were arrayed in a beautiful display before him, and he reached out and tentatively touched one, shivering with excitement as he felt the cool rough paper covering.

Weren't fireworks illegal in Arizona? Or had he and his friends been lied to about that? It wouldn't be the first time. Adults often seemed to lie or exaggerate when it came to things they thought were dangerous for kids to do.

"Ky?"

He looked up to see his dad standing next to him, smiling down at him. He quickly, guiltily, pulled his hand away from the shelf, stepped back, but the rebuke he expected did not materialize. Instead, his dad continued to smile at him. His dad was too tall! He couldn't see the fireworks!

He smiled to himself. That made him happy; that made him feel special.

Most stores arranged things for adults. Even the toys. But here was something just for kids like him, something specifically planned so that adults couldn't see it. It was obvious that the fireworks were put on a shelf this low so that parents wouldn't find out about them. Maybe they were illegal. Or maybe The Store just knew that parents didn't like fireworks. Either way, it was as if a pact had been made between him and The Store, and he vowed not to tell either his mom or his dad about it.

If he'd liked The Store before, he loved it now.

They were partners in this.

His dad's big hand clamped down on his shoulder. "I roofed this store, Ky.

Did you know that? This entire store. From one side to the other. From front to back."

He nodded at his dad, pretended to be interested, but his attention remained focused on the fireworks. The cherry bombs, he saw, looked like real cherries, their bodies red, their fuses green, like stems.

He'd never seen anything so cool in his life.

And the best part, the most bitchen part, were the prices posted next to the bar codes on the small ledge below the shelf.

M80s: twenty-five cents.

Cherry bombs: fifteen cents.

Firecrackers: five cents.

Five cents apiece!

If he and his friends put their money together, they could buy tons of them. They could drop them in trash cans, put them in mailboxes, tie them to cats' tails. They could blow up the whole fucking town!

"So how do you like The Store?" his dad asked. "Isn't it nice?"

Ky grinned up at him. "It's great," he said. "I love it."

EIGHT

1

Bill had fully intended to boycott The Store, but to his own dismay he found himself going there quite often. He was offended by the way the corporation had bought off town officials, hated the way The Store had bulldozed its way into Juniper, was suspicious of the unexplainable strangeness surrounding its arrival, but he had to admit that The Store had an excellent selection of . . . well, almost everything.

And the fact was, it was much more convenient to shop here in town than drive up to Flagstaff or down to Phoenix.

Still, he always tried to buy whatever he needed at locally owned businesses first. If they didn't have what he was looking for, _then_ he'd check The Store.

But the uneasiness he'd felt, that strange sense of disquiet that had remained with him since he'd seen the first dead deer, seemed to have vanished completely. It was hard to credit animal deaths and mysterious accidents when people were snacking on sushi and drinking espresso in a modern, well-lit, state-of-the-art retail store in which the newest books, CDs, video games, fashions, cosmetics, and household appliances were a mere aisle or two away.