In the town where I grew up, you couldn't go shopping without running into someone you knew. It was the icing atop the self-conscious cake of adolescence, to constantly anticipate stepping out of the dressing room to show your mom some jeans and into the surprise judgmental gaze of a classmate. It meant burying tampons under the other Target items you and your mom were buying, hoping that the attractive theater boy ringing you up…

All malls smell this same, which is mostly true. Auntie Annie’s pretzels and floor wax and perfume and air conditioning. All department stores are laid out the same way, which is actually true, and which gives me great comfort. Ladies shoes, handbags, jewelry, perfume, cosmetics, exit. Into the mall. I grew up in malls--or, rather, I grew up in many different places, but the malls were always the same. 
 1. Regency Square Mall,…