Now everyone looked at the stage, apparently thinking Gwendolyn would suddenly pop out of nowhere like the voice had, and there she was, tall and haunting, walking slowly up the center aisle as heads turned, row by row.

She looked terrible, her face gaunt, the famous Gwendolyn lips that pursed out from all those magazine pages now slack and thin, her hair lying flat on her head, even a bit stringy. She was wearing a short skirt and a silk tank top that was wrinkled, with sandals that scraped against the floor with each step she took. But it was the walk that was the strangest, after seeing her striding down runway after runway in music videos and on television, her head held high and hips swaying to the music, eye on the camera, as if she knew how you envied her. Now she was tentative, taking light steps and holding herself tight even though she had the whole enormous aisle to spread out in. We were all applauding because we had to, but she seemed lost and uncomfortable, and when she reached the bottom stair that led to the stage I felt myself let loose a breath, relieved she had made it. The applause died out as Gwendolyn climbed the steps. The official Lakeview Mall greeter was waiting with her clipboard. She had been beaming, but suddenly her smile died and she squinted at Gwendolyn uncertainly, as if expecting her to collapse on the spot.

The emcee shook her hand and led her to the podium. Gwendolyn, towering above her, stood behind the microphone and looked out at us with the same dim, lost look that I’d seen the other day. She cleared her throat once and then jumped a bit as the sound echoed from one speaker to another to another. I wondered if she was sedated.

“It’s spooky,” Casey whispered to me, and I nodded.

A woman in front of me said loudly, “She looks like she’s on drugs or something. Damn good example to set for the kids here. She shouldn’t even be on the stage.”

“Hush,” her friend said.

“I’m just saying,” the woman replied, shifting in her chair. “And look at that hair.”

We were all looking.

The emcee next to Gwendolyn stood on tiptoe and whispered something in her ear, but Gwendolyn’s face never changed. She cleared her throat again, and we waited.

“Thank you for having me,” she began slowly, and we all relaxed a bit. Things were going to be okay. “It’s a real treat to be here overseeing a new generation of Lakeview Models.”

The emcee began applauding, looking nervous, so we all joined in. Gwendolyn was still staring at the back of the mall.

The silence had gone on too long now. I wished for words to come from her mouth, any sound that might get her through this. Her hands were gripping the sides of the podium, the tips of her fingers white from the strain. It was as if the Gwendolyn we all knew and expected had been left behind on those glossy magazine pages—or had never existed at all. She opened her mouth, took in a breath; I closed my eyes until I heard her voice echo around me.

“So without further ado, let’s begin this year’s show.” Her voice was flat, even, and as the woman ushered her off the stage to her seat of honor in the front row, Gwendolyn ran her fingers over her long, stringy hair, obscuring her face as she passed by. Once seated, her head stuck up above the crowd, and I watched as the people behind her, no longer charmed, grumbled and rearranged themselves.

Suddenly there was a burst of music, so loud that a woman behind me actually shrieked. It was disco, a fast beat and lots of technological-sounding blips and beeps along with the occasional loud panting of a woman’s voice. We all stared up at the stage, waiting for something while the music pounded on behind us. Then, the partitions slowly parted (with the help of Sumner and some other guy in a uniform, who tried hard to stay out of sight), revealing the leaves I’d seen before. Now, however, there were lights spinning across them, blue and green and red and yellow, catching bits of glitter that I hadn’t noticed until now. It was all a bit overwhelming, a definite change from the show of last year, which consisted of one lone ficus tree that the models walked by, posed around, and then pulled to the edge of the stage for the big finale, where they threw its leaves on the audience to symbolize fall. That fashion show had been the most innovative, until this year.

Suddenly, the music stopped, and the lights fell steady on the leaves, each a different color. The disembodied voice came again. “Ladies and gentlemen, please join the Lakeview Mall Models as we journey into fall. A fall of expectations... of new ideas... and of potential. Come, come with us ...”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” someone behind us said loudly.

“... to a world of color and style, of tweed and tartan, of reality and imagination. Close your eyes and feel the cool air, the sharp colors of the leaves, and the dreams of winter. Come, come, and journey with us ... into the Fall of Fashion.”

The lights started swirling again, the music came on full blast, and suddenly the models began to walk up on stage, each of them smiling big toothy smiles and vamping like nobody’s business. The first was a girl in a beret who flounced out on the runway, tossed her hat in the air Mary Tyler Moore style, and just let it fall on some woman in the second row who looked like she wasn’t quite sure whether to throw it back or keep it. Beret girl was replaced by a girl in a long tweed jacket who took it off and dragged it dramatically down the runway with such abandon that someone behind me began to speculate about the cost of dry-cleaning it. The next girl clomped down the runway in torn jeans and combat boots, tossing her hair and gyrating suggestively, grinning out at us. A group of older women, probably remembering the tame ficus-tree show of the previous year, made a big fuss of leaving in disgust.