{"id":78,"date":"2017-02-21T19:31:15","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T02:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/?p=78"},"modified":"2017-02-21T19:31:15","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T02:31:15","slug":"samantha-mall-walking-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-mall-walking-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Samantha – Mall Walking – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted on January 16, 2017<\/u> by Gordon Savage<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Fast forward to Friday on the first week of school. Samantha had been in a funk since her brother’s death. The only time she wasn’t sulking was when she was running, and she did a lot of that. Now school had started, and she brought her blues to class. Here’s what she had to say about what happened that day.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013 # \u2013\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

I was standing in front of my locker not really thinking, just feeling sad and angry. I still hadn’t come up with a way to make father pay for what he had done. I didn’t even notice Renee when she walked up.<\/p>\n

“Earth to Samantha.”<\/p>\n

It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. “Huh?”<\/p>\n

She stood there tapping her foot. She was dressed for the warm weather, a sleeveless white blouse and a really short blue skirt. Her brown hair was drawn back into a ponytail. It exposed opal earrings. She always seemed to dress well. “What’s with you, Sam? You’ve been moping ever since we got back to school. Hey, this is the big one. We’re seniors. You should be celebrating.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t feel like celebrating.”<\/p>\n

She gave me a sharp look. “What do you mean?”<\/p>\n

I remembered she had been out of state when Brian died. This was really the first time I had talked to her since she had returned. The memory still hurt too much to talk about. “I don’t want to talk about it.”<\/p>\n

“Well, we need to cheer you up. A bunch of us are going to the mall. Come with us.”<\/p>\n

“I can’t. I need to get home and go for a run.”<\/p>\n

She gave me another sharp look. “You’re kidding, right?” She put her hands on her hips. “You certainly can afford a break. You need a break. \u2026 And you need cheering up. No excuses, you’re coming with us.”<\/p>\n

This wasn’t on my planned activities for the day. I was planning on going for a run and then moping around the house. The mall did sound like more fun than pouting. Of course, I was expected to come home right after school. I had a cell phone. I could call home, but why should I? No one would care.<\/p>\n

Hesitantly I said, “Well, maybe \u2026”<\/p>\n

She shut my locker and grabbed my hand. She headed for the exit, pulling me with her. “‘Maybe’ nothing. You’re coming with me. Bill Compton is driving, and he and the rest are waiting for us outside.”<\/p>\n

I felt a twinge of fear. I should go home. But with Renee pulling me, I found it easy to follow her, and the fear began turning to excitement.<\/p>\n

When we got to the mall, the boys headed for the arcade. I felt like I should go with them, but Renee had other ideas. She and Rosemary Velasquez dragged me to the nearest dress shop. We stared at the mannequins for a moment. Then Rosemary said, “Let’s go in.”<\/p>\n

Renee and I looked at each other. I shrugged, and she said, “Why not?” The three of us headed for the door.<\/p>\n

We spent the next fifteen minutes working our way through the racks taking the hangers off and holding the dresses, blouses, skirts, slacks \u2026in front of us to see how they would look. I fell in love with a beautiful light blue chiffon gown. The prom was months away, but I had to try it on.<\/p>\n

When I came out of the dressing room both Renee and Rosemary oohed and aahed. I twirled in front of the mirrors. No question, it was perfect for me. I said so.<\/p>\n

“What’s it cost?” Renee looked at the price tag. “Four hundred dollars? Is that in your budget?”<\/p>\n

Crestfallen, I changed back into my school clothes. When I came out of the changing room, a stern looking matron with a name badge that said store manager on it was waiting for me. “Girls, if you’re just going to look, I suggest going to Penney’s or Sears.”<\/p>\n

I handed her the dress, and we ran out of the store, giggling. I could feel her icy stare on me until we were out of sight.<\/p>\n

We bought cinnamon rolls and window shopped for a while. Finally we wandered into the arcade to see what the boys were doing.<\/p>\n

Bill was playing G in a “House of the Dead” game. He was shooting zombies.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013 # \u2013\u2013\u2013<\/p>\n

More to come<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted on January 16, 2017 by Gordon Savage Fast forward to Friday on the first week of school. Samantha had been in a funk since her brother’s death. The only time she wasn’t sulking was when she was running, and she did a lot of that. Now school had started, and she brought her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSamantha - Mall Walking - Part 1 - The Oath Still Stands<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-mall-walking-part-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Samantha - Mall Walking - Part 1 - The Oath Still Stands\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Originally posted on January 16, 2017 by Gordon Savage Fast forward to Friday on the first week of school. 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She is currently on vacation in the Alternates\u2019 New York City. She plans to be on Alternate Earth four weeks and be back to continue her story thereafter. She\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91,"url":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-grounded\/","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":1},"title":"Samantha – Grounded","author":"gordonsavage@msn.com","date":"March 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Posted on\u00a0January 30, 2017\u00a0by\u00a0Gordon Savage Samantha was ready to face her punishment. She figured that the tougher it was the more motivated she\u2019d be to make sure she hurt her father. As expected, she was grounded, but it was a first time offense. She knew she had more work to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":210,"url":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-weapons-training\/","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":2},"title":"Samantha \u2013 Weapons Training","author":"gordonsavage@msn.com","date":"September 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Samantha has returned from her vacation and continues with her description of Plebe Summer. She had two roommates, Ashley Carr and Danielle Tennant. As the de facto room commander, she took a special interest in both of them. The first time at weapons training signaled a coming crisis. Let me\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":213,"url":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-ashley\/","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":3},"title":"Samantha \u2013 Ashley","author":"gordonsavage@msn.com","date":"October 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Although Samantha had headed off one emergency with Ashley, her roommate continued to struggle with the pressure of Plebe Summer. Samantha persisted in watching her progress until it came to a head after a particularly bad day at the obstacle course. The rope climb at the end of the course\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":101,"url":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/uncategorized\/samantha-i-didnt-do-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":78,"position":4},"title":"Samantha \u2013 I Didn\u2019t Do It","author":"gordonsavage@msn.com","date":"March 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Originally posted on\u00a0February 20, 2017\u00a0by\u00a0Gordon Savage Samantha had had a good scare. She had also violated her curfew and she knew she was in real trouble. Instead of chewing her out on the way home, her father let her stew. 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I never did find out who actually put the graffiti on the school wall,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gordonsavage.com\/sowhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}