The strip mall on the edge of town was pretty much what anyone would’ve expected. A concrete colossus, crammed with copious chain stores vying for attention in a distasteful temple to capitalism brought to almost religious proportions.

Zach normally delighted in exploring the many stores in the mall, seeing if anything good or interesting was on sale, but after the disappointment that the first day of his summer holidays was, he decided to head straight to the video store instead of risking running by classmates that would see him escorting his sister.

To his relief, the video store was one of the few stores that had an entrance on the inside of the mall and outside in the parking lot. ‘Bird Rentals’ was proudly displayed on a neon sign above the door and was accompanied by a giant inflatable bird. The bird looked like a penguin to the casual observer, though it had to be noted that it had blue feet, much like penguins don’t have.

Many people had wondered out loud what that had to do with movies and had asked the owner, mister O'Donnell, to explain his choice in mascot. O'Donnell, who before owning a video store was an ornithologist, had flat out refused to answer it and had replied that the first to figure it out would win free rental for life and the giant inflatable bird.

The owner of the ice cream parlor next door had declared the bird an eyesore and had been trying to figure it out for the past month, purely so he could stab the helium filled monstrosity to death.

Most of this feud had gone past the rest of the town, including Zach, who just gave the bird a cursory glance and walked into the store. Inside, he was slapped in the face by the scent of plastic boxes stacked together, the sweaty scent of too many people being regularly in one place, other people’s cigarettes and the reek of a specific off brand popcorn, that manged to have the smell of dish soap, but still taste like caramel apples. Mister O'Donnell had been trying to hawk this with his movies for the past three months and had resorted to putting a ‘limited edition, last chance’ sign over it.

None of the customers, six including Zach and Tara, were interested.

The sibling separated to look for something to watch later, Tara bee lining to the adventure movie section, while Zach just drifted between the shelves.

As he tried to pick a movie, he couldn’t help but overhear, and be distracted by, an elderly woman that was having a very one-sided conversation from the Adult Film section, blocked from view only by a once multicolored, but now a dirty yellow, bead curtain.

It was bad enough that the woman, who sounded a lot like his grandmother, felt the urge to read the descriptions loud enough for half the store to hear. But to make it worse, her husband, or maybe boyfriend, appeared to be deaf, so she had to repeat herself constantly. Which was made even worse by the fact that instead of repeating the whole list, she simply summed it up to the key parts of the video.

As Zach read the synopsis of ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’, wondering if he’d already seen it, the elderly woman, who he was praying wasn’t his grandma, distracted him by yelling ‘Interracial double penetration!’ in a raspy crow-like voice.

Zach put the comedy movie back and decided to take a little more distance from the shouting woman, scanning the store and hoping Tara was out of hearing range.

“Scat!” the woman screeched and Zach, who had had the misfortune of learning what that meant, shuddered and put the copy of Caddyshack he was holding back on the shelf as if he’d touched the contents of the movie.

He picked up another movie and quickly put it back when he saw it starred John Travolta. Even if he were interested, Sawyer would never let him hear the end of watching a movie starring the prancing pretty boy.

“Bondage!” the woman yelled, remaining quiet, before adding a moment later, “Lesbian!”

The shouting stopped and the beaded curtain opened. The woman leaving the Erotic Film section was over seventy but still wore a tight aerobics outfit. Zach thanked the merciful god that she decided to wear jeans over it, even if they were excessively tight.

Zach pointedly looked at the box he was holding, not registering what he was reading. A moment later, the woman’s partner followed. Much to his surprise, Zach saw that he was much closer to his age than than his partner’s. He wasn’t deaf, but bopped along to the music coming from his headphones as he popped his gum.

“Gross,” Zach said to himself and randomly picked up another film only to put it back a few seconds later.

“More like Footloser,” he muttered.

“Find anything?” Tara asked, holding two films for his approval.

“Not really?” he sighed, “What you got?”

She handed him the two movies. One was titled ‘Amazons’, the other ‘Barbarian Queen’. Zach hadn’t heard of either and going by what he saw on the cover, that wasn’t surprising. They looked like they might belong beyond the beaded curtain.

Apart from the genre, they had two things in common. One, there were five women on both covers, all carrying weapons and looking at the cover in looks that varied between violent and sultry, intensely gaping at the viewer. And two, it looked like neither of the movie had much of a budget for clothes for the heroines. In fact, the only thing that seemed to differentiate the films was that the one had a poorly drawn lion on the cover.

He read the backs, then shook his head at Tara.

“Absolutely not. I’m not renting these… They’re pretty much….”

“Pretty much what?” Tara challenged.

He looked around, saw that only the girl manning the register was still in the store, and dropped his voice so only his sister could hear him.

“Pretty much pornography,” he hissed.

He didn’t notice the girl looking up from her book and smiling.

Tara pouted at her brother, “They’re just action movies.”

Zach cast another dubious look over the videos and shook his head again, “No, Tara.”

“Sawyer would’ve gotten them!” she said, raising her voice just loud enough to gain the attention of the girl behind the counter. She looked at the two, smiled at Zach and returned to the book.

“I’m not Sawyer and dad would kill me if I rented you this. Go get something else.”

Zach pushed the videos back in her hands. She stomped her foot and stormed off to do as told.

Zach sighed, offering the girl a weak smile in apology, then realized he had never seen her before. He was sure he would’ve remembered an Asian girl with giant hair working the video store. He forgot his train of thought however when Tara, still angry, shoved a new movie in his hands.

“The Black Cauldron? Didn’t you already see this?”

“Babies love repetition,” she said sarcastically and left her brother to search again.

Zach shrugged, continued to browse the movies, half watching Tara, who was moodily stalking the aisles, to make sure she wouldn’t storm off home by herself.

In the end, nothing really appealed to Zach and he simply grabbed one from a rack simply labeled 'hot'

“The Karate kid?” he said to himself, not bothering to read the cover, “Might get a kick out of that. Heh, kick.”

He went up to the register where the girl was still reading, gently placing the tapes down not to startle her. She placed her book, which appeared to be a graphic novel, face up, looked at the videos, nodded and headed to grab the matching tapes.

As she did, Zach looked at the book, trying to read the title. What he saw was ‘刑事’. What he read was ‘kut snor hij toe.’

‘Must be Chinese,’ he thought to himself, then watched the girl for a moment, drumming the counter top as he did. She wore wide white shorts, which stopped just under her knees and a shirt that looked like she stole it from Ernie’s wardrobe. With little in the way of interesting girl-parts to see, he turned his attention to the counter which, aside from the girl’s book, had only three things worth mentioning on it. A small portable television that was currently playing a music video, though oddly with the sound muted, the register and a bowl of lollipops, all the same flavor.

He was considering taking one of the lollipops when the girl returned to put the videos into the cases. She offered Zach a very charming smile, but didn’t speak as she rung him up. Because she didn’t speak, Zach assumed she didn’t speak English and simply returned the smile to the round-faced girl and gave her the money.

As she counted the change, she leaned slightly past him, grinning to his sister and tossed her one of the icy blue lollipops.

Tara caught it, gave her a weak smile even though she was clearly still angry, and pocketed the candy.

The girl behind the counter arched a bushy brow to Zach and, when he didn’t speak, she simply smiled again and gave him his change.

Zach pocketed it, took his videos and, after inclining his head, headed for the door.

“Have a nice day!” she called after, with only the slightest hint of an accent.

“Thanks,” Zach replied, mortified at discovering that she did speak English, “You too… uhhh, ma’am.”

He looked over his shoulder, seeing the girl hide her mouth behind her fingers as she gently laughed at him.

He hurried out of the store.

“I bet she would’ve lent you rent the movies if you talked to her,” Tara said, making sure the girl could hear.

Even as the door fell close behind them, Zach was sure he could hear the girl’s laugh cutting through the store.

“I said ‘no’,” Zach said firmly, trying to regain some dignity.

Tara unwrapped the lollipop, dropped the wrapper to the asphalt and put it in her mouth.

Their walk back home was sans narration.

“Guess A’rat stayed with her sisters in the video store,” Zach mused as they walked.