Tessa's not very athletic
so playing dodgeball in gym class
is maybe
not her idea of fun.
 
When the ball comes
flying at her head
it knocks her out cold
and by the time her gym teacher gets help
and the janitor cleans her blood off the floor
she's on her way to heaven
or as she sees it
the mall.
 
At the mall she meets Nail Boy
(more accurately Drill Bit Boy)
and he hands her a bag containing
(among other things)
A pink shoe
A yellow plastic cup with a daisy printed on it
A glass bowl
A red t-shirt
A roll of toilet paper
A blue prom dress
all things she’s bought at the mall.
 
As she looks through the things
she journeys through time to
her dad’s missing her first steps
the moment she realized she had best not let people know who she really was
her mother’s insisting she get highlights or a perm at age two
stealing Rick Vinik’s fourth-grade science project
and the completely disastrous junior prom.
But in the midst of all the bad times, there were also the good times:
eating chocolate on her roof
kissing Ben Silver in a game of Spin the Bottle
being called Tesseract by the cute boy in Old Navy.
 
Surrounded by her purchases
Tessa travels from babyhood to high school
replaying her life
seeing old memories in new ways
observing her mother’s obsession with looks
making friends
making enemies
and at times just surviving.
 
Nail Boy is not content
to let Tessa simply relive her life through the mall.
She’s in a coma and he’s pulled a plug.
He says she’ll wake up and leave the mall
once she answers an important question.
But it might take Tessa a long time to figure out
why she didn’t duck
when the ball came at her.
 
In the right light
Heaven looks a lot like the mall
and a badly aimed dodgeball
looks like a life-altering experience.

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