The Mall - Megan McCafferty Page 0,3

miniature murderess were holding hands. And by that, I mean all four hands, all twenty fingers tightly interlocked in a way that didn’t seem at all romantic, but more like an improvised form of restraint. The assassin smiled at me menacingly, but at least I could see that she was unarmed.

Troy turned to Ghost Girl.

“Zoe, can you give us some privacy?”

“Ms. Gomez,” Ghost Girl corrected.

Troy sighed. “Ms. Gomez, can you give us some privacy?”

Without further acknowledging Troy, Ghost Girl—aka Zoe, aka Ms. Gomez—set down the tray of samples on a nearby table. Then she floated toward me, pressed a cold hand on my shoulder, and whispered what I’d hoped would be words of wisdom from beyond the grave.

“Fat-Free Fudgie.”

I don’t know why I expected anything different.

“Cassandra.” Troy stood straight and tall, projecting the matter-of-fact confidence I’d seen him use to great advantage as the lead attorney for the Legal Seagulls. “Meet Helen.”

My throat collapsed in on itself.

“Helen,” Troy repeated. “Like Helen of Troy.”

Troy had always loved that our names were heavily featured in Greek myths. Troy was the city fought over in the Trojan War. Cassandra was a princess of Troy, who saw visions of the future.

Clearly, I had not seen this coming.

“Helen,” he added, “whose great beauty caused the Trojan War.”

I choked. This Helen was not beautiful. She was tiny and terrifying like a feral Chihuahua with a horrendous home perm.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I somehow managed to ask.

“I thought it would be disrespectful to break up with you over the phone.”

“So, this is better?”

He shrugged and sheepishly looked at his feet. Helen bared her yellowed snaggleteeth. She was a smoker for sure. And her receding gums were common for a non-flosser. My parents would be appalled by her poor oral hygiene.

“So, you expect me to be okay with working next to you two all summer?”

Troy and Helen exchanged knowing looks. They released each other from their four-handed death grip, and Helen slid her palms into the back pockets of Troy’s pleated khakis.

“No,” Troy replied. “We don’t expect that at all.”

“Didn’t Zoe fire you?” Helen asked.

“She’s the assistant manager,” Troy said.

I leaned against the wall for reinforcement. Ten minutes into what was supposed to be my triumphant return to the Parkway Center Mall, I’d lost the job, the boyfriend, and—worst of all—the plan.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

I wanted to return to my blanket igloo and never come out again.

“I’m sure you can get hired somewhere else,” Troy said.

“Maybe another Steve Sanders,” Helen offered condescendingly. “Or at least a David Silver…”

A rush of angry adrenaline shot through me. I seized Troy by the strings of his ABC apron and shook him. Hard.

“You told her? She knows the 90210 Scale of Mall Employment Awesomeness?”

Troy had let Helen in on what was by far one of our best inside jokes. This betrayal was even worse than the kiss or anything else they had surely done together. And by the overly familiar way Helen was massaging his butt right in front of me, I assumed they’d done a lot.

“We never meant for this to happen,” Troy insisted.

“I had a boyfriend when we met.” Helen stopped groping Troy and casually twirled a crusty curl around her finger. “I was only at the Pineville prom because I went with Sonny Sexton…”

This was just about the only part of this whole sordid situation that made any sense to me. Sonny Sexton was legendary at Pineville High for being the first twenty-year-old senior in school history. Obviously, we’d never had a single class together. But I couldn’t avoid passing him in the halls, this denim-on-denim dirtbag who reeked of weed and Designer Imposters Drakkar Noir even at a distance. Sonny Sexton and Helen made sense. Troy and Helen? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“It’s kind of funny,” Troy said. “If you hadn’t insisted I go to the prom without you, Helen and I never would have met.”

My ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend rested her head on his shoulder, releasing a brittle crunch of Aqua Net dandruff onto his ABC polo shirt.

“We have you to thank for putting us together…”

For thousands and thousands of years, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, four types of body fluids—or humors—were believed to influence personality and behavior. Bad moods were blamed on too much black bile in the spleen. I got off easy with an IV and six weeks of bed rest. In the fourth century BC, Dr. Hippocrates might have treated a “splenic” temperament by surgically removing