Aeropostale in the Burlington Mall
by Abbie Galipeau

Runestone, volume 11

Aeropostale in the Burlington Mall
by Abbie Galipeau

Runestone, volume 11

After Vincent Scarpa

If the air conditioner isn’t broken in the store, I fight a passive battle with Angela to keep it on—she always turns on the heat, even if it is close to a hundred degrees outside, thankfully we can wear clothes meant for the weather because we sell clothes meant for it; we are all teenage girls in the store, even if Angela and Cate are both twenty (Kristy is older, somewhere in her thirties, but no one thinks so) we wear the tank tops we sell, I wear jeans throughout the summer, the other girls wear shorts and skirts and dresses but we are teenage girls: this does not come without a price—Gina tells Cate to cover herself, Sabrina pulls down her shorts constantly, a man older than my father stares at my chest while he asks me how to pronounce the store’s name and Sandra thinks Hannah has her ass out in her low-rise pants; we all threaten to quit but none of us ever do, we all want Kayla to quit but she never will, she leaves for college soon anyway so we only have to deal with her for another month, she and I are the only ones going off to college, the other girls are still in high school and when the store is dead we talk about it, we talk about everything—Cate and Sabrina know everything happening in my life, and they tell me bits of theirs, Annabel used to know everything but she’s gone for the summer, we all miss her dearly; inevitably Mom brings her kids shopping for school, her daughters venture into the girl’s section on their own while her sons mutter a yes or no when she points something out for them, Dad bring his kids seldom, Mom calls the tank tops and shorts we wear indecent—it seems pointed when she shouts about it right in front of our faces—we take it but it some of us end the day in a borrowed sweatshirt, we face that for the remainder of the summer: Mom takes her stress out on us, her kids run rampant through the store as if it were their first time out of the house, we do all we can to preserve the store and its organization; it’s a valiant effort, if I do so say myself, jeans folded with the crotch tucked in, t-shirts box-folded, tank tops laid flat; Annabel comes back and Kayla leaves, we run out of shorts, we get sweaters and long sleeve tees, Kristy goes on vacation for a week and it’s well deserved (even if Gina disagrees) and this is my last week, the girls go back to school, the store dies down, once I leave, Angela turns the heat back on.