his bowlful-of-jelly belly. I was like a kid desperate to open her first present of the holiday season. I really did want to see his creation—but quickly. I had two more to-dos before the mall closed at 8:00 p.m. Sylvester ambled out of the back office holding a wood chest, roughly the size of a shoe box. The grain was textured in various shades of purpleheart, from eggplant to amethyst to the plum lipstick I was wearing when I’d royally messed things up.
“Ohhhh,” I gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
Sylvester had charged me far less than what the box was worth, but it still cost a shift at Bellarosa. Half a textbook. One mezzanine ticket to a Broadway show.
“Inscribed as requested.”
He opened the lid on its double hinge to reveal the words he’d carved on the inside. I traced my finger along the engraving.
“What’s that from, anyway?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Obviously I was lying. Nobody pays for the inscription of “nothing.”
I thanked Sylvester and sped across Concourse F. I was halfway to my penultimate to-do, when I felt an unmistakable presence trailing behind me. It was perfect timing, really. It couldn’t have been better if I had tried to plan it. Which is exactly why I hadn’t. Why bother trying to find Zoe when I knew she would find me?
I stopped, spun around. “Boo!”
My best attempt at a scare worked well enough, even on a seasoned creeper.
“Ha!”
I’d finally beaten Zoe to it. Spooked her before she spooked me. And she was positively delighted. I was equally happy to see her wearing the velvet scarf.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” She slapped her palms to her hollow cheeks. “Ha!”
It was a robust burst of laughter, and I loved hearing it.
“I have something for you,” I said.
Her eyes saucered with surprise. “Really?”
I led her to a slightly quieter spot in the shadow of the escalators. We sat on the tiled ledge of a large planter containing a mix of real and artificial trees.
“I read these and thought of you.”
I opened the flap on my knapsack and pulled out the leftovers from my stint as a co-conspirator in low-level anarchy. It was the best of feminist underground lit, zines with names like: Bikini Kill, Chainsaw, and Riot Grrrl. All made specifically by grrrls, for grrrls.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Zoe couldn’t flip through the pages fast enough “They’re…”
I understood why she was at a loss for words. It was impossible to fully describe the scope of these publications. Handwritten manifestos railing against “racist, classist, fattist, speciesist, heterosexist” culture. Lesbian erotica. Typed, single-spaced essays debunking “the many myths of female masturbation.” Song lyrics (“hey you think you know me but you don’t”) by bands (Bratmobile) I’d never heard of. Photo collages juxtaposing 1950s advertisements and modern pop star iconography, Disney princess and pornography. I wish I’d had such inspirational reading material when I was recovering from mono.
“Wow,” Zoe finally said. “Where did you get them?”
“Someone put them in the magazine rack at the music store,” I said. “There’s another anarchist among us.”
Specifics weren’t necessary. I didn’t need to mention the anarchist by name—or gender. Of course I didn’t miss the irony of one boy’s subversive act encouraging the radicalization of least one feminist, if not two.
Zoe closed her eyes and clutched the zines to her chest in full swoon.
“How can I repay you?”
“You already did,” I said, “when you told me where to find the final clue.”
When I was on Bellarosa’s toilet—down in “the dumper,” as Zoe had oddly and specifically put it—I looked up. And that’s when I noticed for the first time that the bathroom ceiling was at least a foot lower than in the store or back office. The low height contributed to the claustrophobic atmosphere that discouraged Bellarosa employees from lingering in the bathroom for too long. The ceiling was a grid of flimsy tiles, again, unlike anywhere else in the store. I got a fluttery feeling in my rib cage, the way I always did when I knew I was on the verge of solving the unsolvable.
I climbed onto the toilet, reached up, and poked at one of the tiles with my finger. It easily gave way. And there, hidden in that secret storage space right above the commode, was not another Cabbage Patch Doll, but a taped-up Reebok shoebox.
“The treasure!” Zoe exclaimed. “What was inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You didn’t open it?”
This was the most animated I’d ever seen her.
“If you’re so interested, why didn’t you open it?” I pressed. “You gave me the clue, remember?”
Zoe clicked