THE CLOCK ABOVE THE FOUNTAIN, AND OTHER THINGS I CAN HELP YOU WITH

WELCOME. YES, THE FOUNTAIN IS BEHIND ME.

Good afternoon. If you are looking for the restrooms they are past the pretzel counter and to the left, and if you are looking for the pay phones they are in the same corridor, third alcove. If you are looking for the clock, you are already under it.

My name is Marguerite Ocampo and I have worked this desk since the spring of 1986. In March of this year I decided to learn to whistle. I am forty-four. I mention it because people ask what I am doing when the mall is empty and my mouth is doing that, and I would rather tell you plainly than have you wonder.

HOURS: HOW TO READ THE DIAL IF YOU DIDN'T GROW UP HERE

The dial was installed in 1974 and the architect did not permit numerals. There are no hands in the ordinary sense. There is a sun, there is a moon, there is a pin in the middle, and there is the color of the field behind them. That is the whole instrument. Shoppers complain about it roughly twice a week and I defend it roughly twice a week.

Here is what I tell them. The field goes black at night, red at both edges of the day, and pale in the middle of it. The pin throws a shadow, and the shadow is long when the sun is low and short when the sun is overhead. If the shadow is long and lying to your left, you have time. If the shadow is short, the food court is busy. Below is a working copy, running live off your own afternoon or evening or whatever it currently is where you are standing.

INSTRUCTIONS, AS GIVEN TO ME, IN THE ORDER GIVEN

People are extremely generous with whistling advice. I have written all of it down because I did not want to lose any of it, and because none of it worked immediately and I did not want to blame anyone.

• Rudy Pelt, maintenance, March 14. "Wet your lips. That's it. That's the whole thing." It was not the whole thing.
• A woman with two cake boxes, April 2. Told me to smile first and then bring the smile in. This is closer than it sounds.
• Beatrix Nowinski, age nine, May 19, waiting for her mother by the koi. Put her finger under her own chin and said, "your tongue is in the wrong place, it goes down and back, like you're about to say too but you don't." Best instruction received to date. She whistled Frère Jacques at me twice and then left.
• The gentleman who buys the same navy cardigan every fall. Said his father could whistle for a cab across four lanes and never taught him, and he wanted me to know he was rooting for me. He didn't have a technique. He had a stake in it.
• Doreen at the pretzel counter, July. "Less air. You're using enough air for a room."
• Rudy again, September, revising himself. "Okay, I lied, it's the corners. Tighten the corners and leave the middle alone."
• A boy of about seven, October 26. Said, kindly, that some grown-ups just can't. I told him I intended to test that.

SOUNDS SUCCESSFULLY PRODUCED — A RUNNING INDEX

I keep the count on a card taped under the desk shelf where the lost-and-found tags are. It is not a scientific record. It is a record kept by a person who wanted, some days, to have written something down.

TUESDAY, 8 OCTOBER, 16:12

The mall was almost empty. The dial was going red at the left edge because it was October and the light goes early. I was refiling the stroller deposit slips and I was not thinking about it at all, which I am told is the trick and which I resent.

It came out clean. One note, about a second, higher than I expected and steadier than I deserved. I put both hands flat on the counter. Rudy was forty feet away emptying the trash by the directory and he turned around and pointed at me without saying anything, and I pointed back.

Then I could not do it again for eleven days. I want that in the record too. But it happened, and I heard it, and so did he.

▶ PLAY THE NOTE (approximate)  reconstructed by ear on the desk phone's hold tone

LOST AND FOUND, CURRENT CONTENTS

The harmonica has been here six days. I have not played it, because it is not mine, but I have looked at it more than is strictly necessary while doing paperwork. If it is yours, come to the desk and describe the initials and I will hand it over gladly. If it is not claimed by 20 November it goes to the county, which is the rule, and I will not be sentimental about it in public.

EVENING ANNOUNCEMENT

Attention Northgate shoppers: the mall will close in fifteen minutes. Please bring final purchases to the register. The east lot lights are on a timer and go bright at dusk, so you will be able to find your car.

If you can whistle already, you probably learned it at nine years old on a curb and you do not remember learning it. That is fine and I am not bitter. If you cannot, and you are over thirty, and you have quietly decided it is too late: it is not, it takes about seven months, most of it is nothing, and then one Tuesday at ten past four something in your mouth agrees with you.

Thank you for visiting. Drive safely. The fountain shuts off at nine and it gets very quiet in here after that, and I like it.