Carla's pocket has sprung a hole. Her car keys and loose change rattle around in the hem of her coat. Shoppers stare as she flips the coat up waist-high to burrow her fist deep inside the silk lining, chasing elusive objects. Her daughter, Becca, stares fascinated. Four years old, she has a new passion for holes, crannies, basements and otherwise secret compartments. The pair of shoes Carla's spent all afternoon searching for dangle from Becca’s limp wrist.
Carla locates the car keys, but not the loose change. The mall car park is full of milling pedestrians. A reeking Santa rings a bell as an elf holds out a tin-can for charity. Carla walks past, apologetic. Muddy snow lies in puffed tracks. The wind snaps.
At the car, Carla takes off her coat. Becca is about to get in, and the car door slams shut. For a second, maybe two, Carla can't see her.
When the car door swings open, a feeling of disbelief, of being duped, washes over Carla. She looks up and down the car length. She can't see Becca's mousy, red-ribboned, pigtails. “Becca?” She glances up the row of cars, she scans around. Her eyes pick out a flapping coat here, a tweed sleeve there, a jaunty hat, a rainbow-colored scarf. “Honey, this is no time to play.” Carla circles her car. On a whim, she looks underneath, but sees only oil-stains. "Where are you honey-pie? Becca!”
Her eyes are faster than her legs. They are hounds, racing up and down the aisles of cars, fastened at waist-length, looking for flying pigtails, a pink gingham-checked skirt, a lime-sherbet scarf. An old lady in a peacoat accosts her, "Lost something?"
"Have you seen a little girl with pigtails, about ye high?" Carla is frantic now. Soon, two or three shoppers are helping her, squelching among the tufted snowtracks, zigzagging among cars, yelling for Becca.
Did she leave Becca at the shops? Carla begins to doubt the certainties of her mind. Real and unreal trade places through a thin membrane. How flimsy reality is. Carla dashes back inside the mall, revisiting all the shoe shops. Becca’s little voice echoes in her mind - shrill and imperative, “I am magic, Mama. I can shrink to the size of a pea.”
No one has seen Becca. The shop attendants don't even remember her. There's a banging in Carla’s ears. Her ribs hurt, her eyes sting. Her world unzips. On the other side, Carla glimpses an alternate reality, one of mute disbelief. Another Carla stares unblinking back at her, like a watery reflection.
Back at the car, the old lady in the peacoat admonishes her, "You should have watched her more closely!"
The wind has picked up now, the late afternoon gray shrouded by cold. The old lady goes home. The others wish her luck, offer to call the police. Carla sobs openly.
"This is not funny," she keeps repeating. That feeling of disbelief washes back, a tidal wave. Carla remembers a jigsaw puzzle she'd dismantled when Becca was two, learning to do one for the first time. One minute whole, the next second, two jagged pieces were missing, nowhere to be found, as if they'd slipped into another dimension through a hidden lining.
Just then, the car handle jiggles. Carla gasps; she sees the edges of coat, the bag of shoes lying on the car seat, flapping from the wind through the open car door. Becca stands there, pigtails mussed, a pleased grin on her face. "I went diving," she whispers.
Becca holds out her hands. Lying in her palms are shiny pennies, dimes, and quarters.