The Fourth One Today

Yara was sure about two things: the mall was called Riverdale, and her car was somewhere inside it.

She started on level four, because level four sounded right. She walked further and further, past two hundred cars, pressing her key. Nothing answered. On level five a white car beeped at her, bright and happy, and for one second she loved it. It was not her car. A dog looked at her from the back seat.

At noon she stopped searching and went down to the parking office.

“I've lost my car,” she said.

The man behind the desk didn't laugh. He didn't even ask what color it was. He took a key off a hook and drove her down through the garage in a little white van, level by level: five, four, three, two.

Her red car was on level two, next to the elevator, ten steps from the door.

“Thank you,” Yara said. “Really. Sorry. I don't usually—”

“It's fine.” The man opened a small notebook on the dashboard and wrote one line in it.

“What are you writing?”

“You're the fourth one today,” he said. “And it's only half past twelve.”