People Like Us
All my memories are clouded with varying degrees of haziness. They feel like dreams that were too real. In the haziness, I tug to pull out a memory of anything relevant. I don’t find much; they’re all too sad or small to mean anything. I tell my therapist the same thing: I don’t remember much from my childhood, or, I barely remember what I did this morning. She asks me what I like to do for fun. Not much. I like to read and write. I’ve been playing Wordle. I heard he sold it to The New York Times. Big business wins again. She asks if I’ve always written. I say yes, it’s a hobby I couldn’t drop because I’ve been gifted too many notebooks. I can’t toss them. Most are empty. She asked if I remember any journal entries. Not really. What I meant is that they’re all too sad or too small to mean much.
She pulls out the memory for me and asks what my family used to do for fun. Not much. They like to stay home. She’s listening but doesn’t respond. I heard before that this is a type of tactic psychologists use. They stay silent to pressure you to talk more. Borderline intimidation. It works. I continue.
Not much, but we used to go to the mall a lot. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Puente Hills Mall. They filmed Back to the Future there. It was a real big thing a couple of years ago. They brought the real film car and the Twin Pines Mall sign in to display it. It was a big attempt to revive the dying mall. It worked for a while- brought in some foot traffic and people with deeper pockets. It was the last time I remember feeling like that place had any potential or substance.
Well, way before, it wasn’t like that. I was young. I didn’t know what Back to the Future was. I knew the mall for how warm it was in the winter and how cool it was in the summer. We used to go pretty often. Sometimes we watched a movie at the AMC there but, with a house of 8 people, it wasn’t a recurring thing. Movie tickets were a luxury. I remember the vitamin shop and perfume shop that had the moving shelves in the display window. We never stepped foot in there unless it was for trick-or-treating at Halloween. People like us don’t just buy perfume or vitamins. This was all before the Round 1 was built and before they closed down the Sears. It was even before they installed those kid strollers that you can rent- you know, the ones shaped like cars and have faces on them. We never got to ride in them. It was before they closed down the Johnny Rockets that was next to the AMC, but I didn’t care much about it. I only remember eating there with my family once. Again, 8 people. It’s a hot pot place now- real fancy. I’ve never been. People like us don’t go.
The mall had a distinct smell. It’s hard to describe. It smelled like the mall smelled when I was young. I always thought it was the carpet- you know, the one on the second level. They kept some of it. We always entered and exited through the same doors, the ones by the bus stop. It opens into that dingy brown carpet. I’ve always hated it. It makes the mall feel old and cheap when it was supposed to be different. At the entrance was this store where we bought lotto tickets and candies.
All this to tell you that it was my favorite store. It also had a distinct smell, and this one I remember. It smelled like mint gum and printed paper and tobacco, and sometimes it smelled like warmth. Do you know that smell that warmth gives off? Not like a fire, but the heat produced by the cooler they had. It smelled like that. Like heated lint. Like laundry being done without the lavender or soap smells. It wasn’t a big store, but I would be engulfed by the shelves filled with chocolate bars, chips, and gums and illuminated again by the white light in the cooler stocked with sodas, energy drinks, and those big, fancy water bottles. They had a counter where the register was and a wall full of different kinds of lotto tickets and scratch-offs, an assortment of bright colors muted by the flickering of a light in need of a change. The coolers and radio both made a muffled, buzzing sound like they were pleading for maintenance they’d never get. My parents would buy a scratcher or two and play them on the counter while my sisters and I browsed the shelves, sometimes finding something we would beg them to buy. Usually, I would ask them if I could get a pack of Juicy Fruit (it was my favorite gum). It was pure sugar loaded with artificial flavors that lasted measly minutes on the tongue. If they won anything from the lotto tickets or scratch-to-wins, they would buy us whatever we wanted. It was a luxury, sometimes, to get the gum I liked and didn’t have to share. We always shared. 8 people.
She’s nodding and smiling to show she’s listening. I’m tired from talking, but I find I’m smiling. She writes faster. My smile falters. She tells me it’s a good memory. What she means is that I don’t share a lot of those. I tell her I had forgotten. What I mean is that I had forgotten. There’s another pause and I don’t fall for it this time. I stare back. Borderline intimidation. She writes again, breaking eye contact momentarily. It was quick enough to make me feel victorious. Why don’t you go out more, she asks. It sounds like something you would have fun doing. It sounds like something you could do, together or alone. I realize that she doesn’t get it. I continue.
We just got bored of it, I say. What I meant is that not enough people with deeper pockets went to see the Back to the Future stuff. I can’t browse the big kid shelves in the big kid stores, like the vitamin or perfume store. They closed down because people like me don’t just buy vitamins and perfume. It’s a luxury. I don’t know if my favorite store is still there but, even if it is, I know the shelves in the front store won’t tower over me and immerse me in a new realm with sweets and saltines, and the thought alone makes me uneasy.
By high school, I learned that others called it the lame mall. The dead mall. Maybe it was the brown carpet. Either way, they were right. There were more spots out for lease in the mall than there were open storefronts. I learned the other kids didn’t trick-or-treat there or spend lazy Sunday afternoons lounging around, nor did they take shelter there when the weather went too hot or too cold. They don’t share the same memories, so I buried mine in a haziness I thought I couldn’t reach until they were fished out and floundering in front of us, smelling like heated lint and crying like buzzing lights. People like me grew up there, but people like us couldn’t stay. Our appreciation didn’t pay the bills and we couldn’t keep the mall alive.
I tell her that, as I grew up, we suddenly stopped going to the mall. Not much to do. What I meant is that I have shared everything now, from Juicy Fruit to memories. I don’t get the luxury to keep them to myself and it isn’t as sweet as I remember. I tell her that I think big business won. What I meant is that we lost. 8 people, you know? People like us don’t win.
Natalie Vargas is a Filipino-American writer born in the suburbs of southern California, spending most of her time as a full-time student studying, working, and writing. As an English major at CSU Fullerton, Natalie considers literature to be a great way of understanding the world around her— second, only, to exploring it. She plans to teach others the same as she aims to be an educator in the future.