Blue Smoke

his arm like a shackle as she pulled him along. “Are you, or are you not, my best pal and sometime booty buddy?”
    “Why am I being punished? Why would you drag your best pal and sometime booty buddy into the hell of a Saturday mall?”
    “Because I need this birthday present today. How was I supposed to know the last couple of weeks would be insanely busy and I’d forget about the surprise party tonight? Oh! Look at that outfit.”
    “No! No outfits. You promised.”
    “I lied. See, that color green’s made for me and me alone. And look how the jacket’s cut. I’m on staff at The Sun now. I have to dress like a professional. Just going to try it on. Two seconds.”
    He mimed a gun to his head, then a rope around his neck as she dashed off to the dressing room.
    He could run, he considered. He could just run away. There wasn’t a man in the world who would blame him.
    But, of course, he needed a present, too, for their mutual friend’s stupid-ass surprise party. Mandy had stomped on his notion of just picking up a bottle of wine on his way to the celebration.
    But she could buy the gift, and he’d go halves. What was wrong with that?
    Where the hell was she? What was taking so long?

    “It’s perfect.” Mandy all but sang it as she danced back to Bo with her shopping bag. “I’m going to wear it tonight. I just need to find the right shoes.”
    “I’ll kill you where you stand.”
    “Oh, stop.” She gave his hand a pat with a hand glittering with four rings. The eyebrow ring was history. Bo sort of missed it. “You can sit in the food court while I find shoes. Present first, though. Before my credit card starts smoking.”
    She pulled him out of the department store, into the belly of the beast. Everything echoed, everything moved. Bo thought, not fondly, of the House of Horrors he’d paid five bucks to endure at the age of twelve.
    “What do you think? Fun or practical?”
    “I don’t care. Just buy something and get me out of here.”
    Mandy strolled, like a woman who not only knew her ground, but who would be content to hike over it for hours. Possibly days.
    “Candles maybe. Some big, fancy candles. That’s sort of fun and practical.”
    She started to sound like Charlie Brown’s mother to him. Just a nasal wah-wah-wah . He loved her, he really did, but he imagined Charlie Brown loved his mother, too. It didn’t make her any more comprehensible.
    He thought maybe he could try praying, and cast his eyes up.
    Sound cut off. Voices, piped music, whining children, giggling girls.
    His vision telescoped, as it had once before. He saw her with perfect clarity.
    She was standing on the second level, arms loaded with bags, that mass of dark gold curls spilling over her shoulders. His heart did one long, slow roll in his chest.
    Maybe some prayers were answered before you thought to ask.
    He started to run, trying to keep her in sight.
    “Bo! Bowen!” Mandy shouted, sprinting after him. She caught him after he’d narrowly missed plowing into a thicket of teenagers.
    “What is wrong with you?”

    “It’s her.” He couldn’t quite get his breath, couldn’t quite feel his own feet. “She’s here. Up there. I saw her. Where’s the damn stairs?”
    “Who?”
    “ Her. ” He spun a circle, saw stairs and ran for them with Mandy at his heels. “Dream Girl.”
    “Here?” Her voice spiked up with surprise and interest. “Really? Where? Where?”
    “She was just . . .” He stopped at the top of the steps, panting like a hound on the hunt. “She was there, down there.”
    “Blonde, right?” She’d heard the story often enough, and craned her neck, searching through the crowds. “Curly hair. Tallish, slim?”
    “Yeah, yeah. She’s wearing a blue shirt. Um . . . without sleeves, with a collar. Damn it, where’d she go? This can’t be happening again.”
    “We’ll split up. You go that way, I’ll go this way. Long hair, short?”
    “Long, loose, over her shoulders. She had bags. A lot of shopping bags.”
    “I like her already.”
    But twenty minutes later, they met up at the same spot.
    “I’m sorry, Bo. Really.”
    Disappointment and frustration fought such a vicious war inside him, he was almost sick from it. “I can’t believe I saw her again and couldn’t get to her.”
    “Are you sure it was the same girl? It’s been, what, four years.”
    “Yeah. I’m sure.”
    “Well, look at it this way. You know she’s still around. You’re going to see her