Emancipations

By Bella Blondeau

A decade after being placed in a foster home, twenty-two-year-old Maggie is struggling to live a normal life.

She is friendless, unable to relate to anyone around her, and stuck working a dead-end job in a dying mall. But the arrival of Priyanka, a new hire in the mall's food court, catches her eye. Like Maggie, the sixteen-year-old seems to be on the fringes of every social circle and a resident of a broken home. Unlike her, however, Priyanka wants somebody she can call a friend. Their newfound closeness fills Maggie with abject dread, as their friendship triggers the young woman's repressed memories as she learns more about the teenager's troubled life.

Maggie begins to relive things she would rather repress. But maybe through her past, she can save Priyanka's future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bella Blondeau
• Release date: Nov 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463377420

Bella Blondeau

Bella Lara Blondeau is a writer, blogger, and all-around miscreant.

Book preview

Emancipations

A Novel

By Bella Blondeau

Copyright © 2018 by Bella Blondeau

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form without written consent of the author – with an exception made for brief quotations in reviews and other noncommercial uses protected by copyright law. For permission requests, please email [e-mail]

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any persons, businesses, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Front cover image by teps4545

Book design by Bella Blondeau

Published by Hell’s Belle Press in the United States of America.

Please visit us online at hellsbellepress.wordpress.com!

Contents

Chapter One – Hallelujah

Chapter Two – The Sound of Silence

Chapter Three – Hey Girl

Chapter Four – The Light Before We Land

Chapter Five – Shake It Out

Chapter Six – Advice for the Young at Heart

Chapter Seven – Black Hole Sun

Chapter Eight – Breathing

Chapter Nine – For You

Chapter Ten – RAINBOW

Afterword

The house is more broken and lonesome than you will ever be.

- Nuala Honan

Chapter One – Hallelujah

I woke up one hour before I wanted to. It was normal for me at that point, not getting the sleep I needed. It’d been normal for years. Didn’t mean I liked it, but I was used to it. I was used to the feeling of being half-dead throughout most days, whether it was from sleep deprivation or something else.

Putting my coffee on, I ambled back into my bedroom and looked at myself in the mirror. Dark bags under my eyes, a sunken expression, ghostlike paleness – check, check and check. There was also an extra layer of greasiness to me, since I hadn’t showered in a day or two. Eh. Who cared? Throw on some body spray, some deodorant, and nobody would know the difference. I ran a brush through my oily hair a few times, then finally decided that I should put some clothes on. One pair of black jeans and a salmon blouse later, and I was all set to throw an apron on top of it all in a few hours.

I unplugged my phone from the kitchen socket after I poured my first cup of coffee, sitting down on my broken couch.

Missed Call. Pamela.

Sighing, I decided to just call her back later. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone – not that I ever was, really, but even less so than usual. I wasn’t a morning person, which is why I’d always been glad I lived alone. I’d probably act like too much of a bitch for anyone to handle. Or maybe I was just being too hard on myself.

I thumbed through Twitter for a while, looking at what was going on in the world and getting thoroughly depressed about it. A few minutes on Instagram fixed that at first, but then I just got jealous of other people having more interesting lives than me. Social media always did a great job of making me hate myself and other people in equal amounts.

I glanced out the dirty kitchen window, down at the cracked parking lot shrouded by withered trees. Winter was creeping into Atlanta, slowly but surely, despite global warming’s best efforts. A shiver fell down my back – I didn’t want to throw a jacket on and ride in this to work later. Didn’t have much of a choice, though. Rent didn’t pay itself. Stomach didn’t feed itself.

Stretching my hands above my head, I leaned back on the couch, which creaked and cracked with each ounce of pressure. Which wasn’t much, considering I clocked in at around 110 or so on a good day. The couch was just old trash, a second-hand piece of shit from a local thrift shop. Like most things in this house, aside from the nice bed Pamela bought for me. More like forced on me. She could’ve afforded to furnish this whole apartment, but I just didn’t let her. I didn’t like having nice things, because I wasn’t a nice person. Secondhand furniture, cheap clothes, discount make-up… that was what I deserved, and what I wanted.

Cheap, broken things for a cheap, broken person sounded about right.

After wasting a few hours just sitting around, thumbing through my phone, ignoring Pamela’s missed call, I found myself with a little under an hour before my shift started. Resigned to my fate for the day, I shoved my apron in my backpack from freshman year of high school and left my tiny shack, walking down three flights of stairs to the bike rack. Unlocking my old Huffy, I wiped some moisture off the seat and hopped on, winding my way through several turns before I hit the main road and turned left, towards North DeKalb Mall.

Allegedly, this mall used to be the place to be in the 80’s or 90’s. That’s what Pamela always said. So did all of her old lady friends. And I’m sure it was true, back then, because it looked like a dusty, sad snapshot of those decades, or at least what I knew about them. Flickering neon lights in winding shapes ran along the walls, and that ugly polka-dotted triangle pattern was on every carpet – ruined relics of Reagan, Bush and Clinton’s America. There’d been talk of a Costco getting built next to it for a decade, and last I heard, some big advertising firm had bought it and was going to turn it into an outdoor shopping center, like the one with a Wal-Mart down the road. Liven up the area by pushing out all the lower-income people around it. Just like the rest of Atlanta.

I doubted it. If time couldn’t knock this place down, some old fuckers in suits couldn’t.

My bike locked up, I walked in through the two sets of glass doors, the stagnant air of the mall washing over me, and took an immediate dip into the convenience store at the entrance. An energy drink, some gum, and I was all set.

Oh! Hello, Maggie. The balding man behind the counter greeted me.

Hey, Amir. I faked my best smile. How’re you today?

Good, good. You start work soon?

I shook my head. Nah, I got here a little early. Gonna probably eat lunch before I start my shift.

Ah. You should eat something at home. Everything here is terrible for you. He patted his gut. You don’t want to look like this.

I forced a laugh. I’ll try to keep that in mind, thanks. Oh, uh, here. I scrounged a wad of dollar bills out of my pocket and dropped it on the counter. Just keep the change. I don’t need it.

Oh, okay, Maggie. You have a good day, okay?

I waved as I walked away. I’ll try, Amir, I’ll try. You too.

Walking straight down the east side of the place, I glanced from right to left, looking at the same dead stores I walked past every day of my life. The closed Applebee’s, its unlit sign still hanging like a tombstone. The old Rack Room Shoes with nobody in it. The bar and grill that shuttered a few weeks ago. Things rarely changed around here, and when they did, it was just another part of this old place withering up and croaking. Occasionally, a corporate store would close, and some local Mom N’ Pop would take its place within a few months. For the most part, though, stores just stayed closed, some of them not even taking their signs with them. They still haunted the place like ghosts, reminding passerby that this mall used to mean something.

I pushed past chairs in the empty food court so I could take my favorite spot – right underneath the filthy skylight. It felt like the only bright place in this dingy building, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Just a gentle glow, not too overpowering, but not as bad the mild unease caused by all the flickering lights and dark corners of this place. Picking my table, I put down my backpack and drink, then glanced around at my food choices.

Wendy’s. Mr. Wok. American Deli.

Oh, and a popcorn stand, but who the fuck eats popcorn for lunch?

I went with the Chinese for today, something my stomach would probably pay for tomorrow.

Hey, Annie. I waved at the tired woman behind the counter.

Hi, Maggie! she smiled through cracked lips, even though she looked dead. How are you?

Tired, but alright otherwise. How about you?

She glanced around, then leaned in over the counter. Ready to get out of here.

I smirked. Sounds about right.

Annie gave my usual General Tso’s and fried rice with two spring rolls, and I went to go sit down at my table. Lifting pieces of greasy poultry with thick sauce into my mouth, I stared up through the skylight, letting my gaze slacken. Just another weekday evening for me. Monday through Friday, four til nine. Eat food in the same spot, work my same shift, go home and stay up too late and wake up too early. Talk to the same people along the way. Feel the same dime store existential dread in the background of it all.

That was basically my life.

Had been for a while now.

It didn’t seem like much would change at this rate. Today, though, something different did happen. It wasn’t much, but when I looked down from the skylight to reach my drink, I saw a girl. She looked kind of young for this place; kids didn’t hang out here much, unless they were ambling around waiting for a movie to start. Across the food court, she was shoveling some kind of food from Tupperware into her face, like her life depended on it. I stopped looking out the skylight and just focused on her. Not like I was trying to be a creep – it was just weird to see a teenager here, and one eating like such a weirdo too. After she finished, she gulped down some water and checked her phone, breathing a sigh of relief and leaning back in her chair. But when she leaned back forward, onto the table, she stopped and stared right back at me.

Urk. She smiled at me.

Urgh. I turned my head away, pretending that I was interested in the Deli and not this new girl.

I turned my eyes towards her a little bit, and she was still staring. Ugh. This was weird. Staring at people was fine, but I hated people staring at me. But she kept looking for what felt like a fucking eternity. Finally, she looked at her phone, got all wide-eyed, and scrambled to put all her shit away before walking over to Mr. Wok.

Didn’t she just eat…?

Oh, no, she was going to the side door and… going in? A few minutes later, she started manning the counter and Annie walked out in street clothes. Weird. I guess this chick was a new hire or something.

Amazing. Something new happened in this place. Guess Annie decided she was tired of shelling mediocre Chinese food all day and got some poor kid to do it for her. Not like I blamed her, seemed like a pretty shitty job to talk in broken English to sell more food. She spoke plain American English to me, because I’d known her for a while, but slipped on a fake accent because she thought it made her more charming when handing out samples. Worked like a charm, too. People were dumber and more racist than they liked to think.

I smirked. New girl couldn’t get away with that one, considering