I’m at Southpoint Mall to visit Basil Thai Kitchen, a local chain with a space in the food court. This will require me to navigate the particular madness of being at a mall two Saturdays before Christmas.
The holiday cheer is palpable as soon as I walk in and find myself standing in a spot where I can hear two different Christmas songs playing at once: “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and Taylor Swift’s “Christmas Tree Farm.” A moment later, a child starts screaming. It’s like the opposite of a whispering gallery; instead of sounds traveling magically from one spot to another, everything crashes together in the middle.
As I make my way toward the food court, I pass some old favorites—Hot Topic is packed, thank goodness—and some spots that are new to me, like a Bath & Body Works offshoot called “White Barn” that feels spiritually connected to the Taylor Swift Christmas song,; a kiosk selling paintings of celebrities who died young; and a new fast-fashion outlet called “Q,” which I see a teenage girl point to while telling her friend, “I hate Forever 21.”
I’ve almost reached my destination when I see a table stacked with rubber ducks in medical gear. In an environment of aggressive retail, free swag is even more appealing than usual. Or—are they free? I walk up to the table and stare at them.
“You can have one,” a man standing nearby affirms. He’s here promoting Durham Early College of Health Sciences, a new public school, he says.
“Ah, cool—it is the City of Medicine!” I say, referencing Durham’s nickname.
“No, that’s our competitor,” he says, referencing the City of Medicine Academy.
I pocket a duck and keep moving, finally approaching Basil Thai. The spread is a familiar food court pan-Asian buffet—spicy chicken, sweet chicken, bang bang chicken, sesame chicken, and jalapeño shrimp, plus fried rice and lo mein. Meals come as combos in escalating tiers: one, two, or three meats, all served with rice or noodles.
I go with the cheapest combo and order spicy chicken and lo mein. With tax and tip, my total is $12.98. The cashier hands me two packets of soy sauce and a Styrofoam cup prefilled with water.
I find a seat next to a woman who’s playing Candy Crush on an iPad while nursing a slice of Sbarro, and dig in. My chicken isn’t particularly spicy, despite its name and despite being littered with seeds—they’re just bell pepper seeds, turns out. Still, the sticky glazed meat does what it needs to do.
The lo mein, tangled with cabbage and a single piece of basil, has the look and texture of something you aren’t supposed to eat but want to, like claymation hair. I shovel all of it into my mouth in about 40 seconds.
By the end of my meal, I’ve started to notice that most people around me have assembled their lunches from a combination of different vendors—teriyaki beef and a Chick-fil-A milkshake, Auntie Anne’s pretzel bites and Starbucks. I want in on the cross-pollination. I look around to see if there’s a way to spend the remaining $3 in my budget, but nothing jumps out. I head down the escalator.
When I reach the bottom, a woman approaches me. “They’re disappearing!” she says.
“What?” I ask, reflexively touching my pocket to make sure the rubber duck is still there.
“The cookies!”
She points at a kiosk positioned right by the giant Christmas tree in the middle of the mall. It has a sign that says “Our Mom’s Cookies” and a mostly empty pastry case.
I ask her if she’s the titular “Mom.” She’s not, she says, but she’s known the owner of the business, Janeen, for 30 years, and does guerrilla marketing for her.
“I have no children of my own, but God sent her to me,” she says.
Per her suggestion, I get a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie (“When you bite into it, it’s got a dried cranberry in there that sets the whole cookie on fire!”) for $3 and put two dimes in the tip jar.
She’s right: the cranberries hit like little fireworks in between sweet, meaty bites of chocolate and nut.
I sit on a bench to watch kids take photos with Santa while I finish the cookie. Some kids are crying. Others lean in close, whispering their Christmas lists in his ear.
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