But, like, not in a scary haunted house way.
Just a crying kid way.
She turns to see Tyler sitting at the kitchen table, his head resting on the table over his crossed arms, his little shoulders shaking.
“Hey Tyler. Whatcha doin’?”
“Nothing,” Tyler sniffles, looking up at her.
She courteously pretends not to see as he wipes his tears off his cheeks.
“I’m gonna have some hot cocoa. You want some?”
Tyler nods. “Okay.”
+
There are some kids who are still lingering outside of the aisle maze. Cora decides to give them a little scare.
She prepares to jump out at the kiddos, but she gets beat to it: Frankenstein’s monster (creature) bursts through the front door, extra hideous in the aggressively flashing light.
The kids all start screaming hysterically. They zoom across the room, smushing sausages under their feet as they go. It’s pretty gnarly.
“Boo!” Cora says when they reach her. But, like, comfortingly, she likes to think.
Apparently not. The kids just start shrieking and run away.
Oops.
“Holy shit,” Cora says admiringly, bounding over to Heather. She admires the fake but very convincingly infected-looking stitches drawn all over her face. “You look disgusting. Having your hair loose like normal makes it so much worse for some reason.”
“I know, right?” Heather says, and tosses her hair like she’s starring in the shampoo commercial from hell.
An approaching kid bursts into tears.
Aw, crap.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Cora says. “It’s okay.”
“Aaaahhhh!” screams the kid, who apparently isn’t into being comforted by a bloody-fanged werewolf.
“Really great work you’re doing here,” Heather says.
“Fuck you,” Cora says jovially.
Heather smirks and rolls her eyes, and just like that, Cora is afraid that this might be the beginning of a beautiful something.
+
Kristy finishes making the hot cocoa, then unearths a slightly stale bag of mini marshmallows. “How many marshmallows do you want?”
“My mom doesn’t let us have that kind,” Tyler says.
“Are you allergic?”
“No. She just likes to make them from scratch. She says store-bought marshmallows are trashy.” He makes a face. “Hers always turn out kind of weird.”
Kristy smiles at him. “How about this is our little secret, then?”
After a moment, Tyler smiles back slightly. “Cool.”
They both put marshmallows in their cocoa in silence.
Then Tyler says, “I hate this party.” His voice wavers precariously.
“It is kinda hectic, huh?” Kristy agrees.
“You didn’t do it right.”
I’m sorry, Kristy almost says—but then she realizes that she’s not. Not at all, really. Sure, it’s not entirely Tyler’s fault that a team of adults ran with his awful ideas, but he was the one who came up with those ideas in the first place.
She thinks of what Reddy said. Sometimes you just have to let people dig themselves into holes.
“You sure?” she says instead. “What did we leave out?”
“Nothing,” Tyler says after a few seconds. “But—”
Kristy blows on her hot cocoa, and lets him find his way to what he wants to say.
“I thought it would be cool,” he says at last. “Halloween is supposed to be scary. I didn’t want to just do baby stuff. I’m ten, you know. But I didn’t think that many people were gonna start crying.”
“I’m twenty,” Kristy says, “and I think all of us like baby stuff sometimes.”
“I guess,” Tyler says casually. Frowning, he adds, “A zombie lady yelled at me about patriot key. What is that?”
Kristy tries not to laugh. “You mean patriarchy?”
Tyler nods, shrugging.
“That’s my friend Amber. I think she was mad about the sexy mummy costume. It could be perceived as pretty disrespectful, you know.”
“Then why did that guy do it too? I didn’t ask for that.”
Kristy allows herself a little laugh. “That was my boyfriend. He was trying to make me feel better.”
“You were sad about it?” Tyler says uncomfortably.
“It wasn’t a costume I would have picked on my own.”
“Sorry,” Tyler says, embarrassed, and stares down into his cocoa. “My brother said Halloween parties have to have hot girls or they’re stupid.”
“How old is your brother?”
“Fifteen.”
“Well, I don’t think his rules apply for a kid party,” Kristy says gently.
“Oh.” Tyler looks up at her guiltily. “Are you cold?”
“A little.”
“You can wear my coat if you want. My mom has it, but I could go get it.”
Kristy smiles. “That’s okay. I brought something to change into, actually.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
He goes back to his cocoa. He seems calmer, but he’s still sniffling a little.
“Tyler,” Kristy says after a moment, “what do you say we mix this party up a little bit?”
“How?” Tyler asks.
Kristy smiles, and feels a little flush of pride for being the kind of person who keeps a princess dress in her car in case of emergencies.
+
Arthur is in the middle of singing a version of “We Are Never Ever Ever Getting Back Together” so bleak that he’s even making himself uncomfortable.
A weeping little girl dressed like a cupcake kicks him in the shins as he passes by her. “Stop it! You sound creepy! Taylor wouldn’t like it! She wouldn’t like it.”
Arthur plays on, mostly because he is quite convinced that he’s died inside, but then he hears Howie call his name from across the room.
Arthur looks up. Howie is, for some reason, wearing his reindeer antlers from last year’s fateful Christmas extravaganza. He’s standing beside Amber, who looks even more terrifying than she had that time Arthur unwisely dismissed Buffy the Vampire Slayer as “vapid” on the basis of the title.
Howie looks at Arthur with an expression of such intensity that somehow, impossibly, Arthur knows at once what he needs.
And so Arthur abandons his melancholy troubadouring.
Good riddance, Taylor, Arthur thinks—and then feels a little ashamed of himself. She really does seem like a very nice person.
He walks over to the stereo.
He presses ‘Play.’
And then Howie and Amber begin their choreographed routine to “The Monster Mash.”
“Oh,” Arthur murmurs, grimly hypnotized, “dear God.”
+
It would be better if the lights were still off. They’re not. Mitch didn’t waste any time in hustling over to the light switch and let there be light-ing up this sad place. Technically, it was a good move. The sound of terrified shrieking fades away as soon as the strobe-light-speckled darkness disappears. The kids all emerge from their mazey prison.
Unfortunately, now everyone is staring right at Howie and Amber, with exactly no distractions.
And so here they are, in the unforgiving fluorescent light, dancing.
Howie definitely used to feel a lot cooler when the audience consisted of only Amber’s mom. And even she was kind of judgy.
He goes through the moves like a depressed robot.
Ghost shimmy, ghost shimmy, werewolf arms, werewolf arms. Zombie twirl, zombie twirl, ZOMBIE TWIRL, vampire ballerina lift—
Why did Howie never question the existence of the vampire ballerina lift before??
“If you drop me,” Amber viciously whispers as he sweeps her gracefully into the air – or, well, tries, “I’ll kill you.”
“Yeah, uh, that would be a mercy killing,” Howie whispers back as he pantomimes biting her neck.
“I know,” Amber says miserably.
/> He lowers her back down onto the ground, and she staggers dramatically. Is it because she’s pretending to be someone who just lost a lot of blood, or because the humiliation is too hard to bear upright? Frankly, it’s impossible to tell.
They launch into yet more zombie twirling.
So much zombie twirling.
+
“Oh wow,” Heather says. “This is so bad.”
“Right?” Cora says, overjoyed as she watches Howie and Amber. Honestly, this is hands down the best thing to happen all night. This is taking her love of “The Monster Mash” to entirely new levels.
Then some disrespectful little jerk makes a very unwise choice, and interrupts Cora’s viewing of the performance of the century.
“You—you—you’re so ugly!” says a little girl dressed like a cupcake, pointing up at Heather.
“Wow,” Heather says. “Rude much?”
“So uuuglyyyy!” persists the girl.
“It’s just makeup. Stop whining.”
“But makeup is supposed to make you pretty,” protests the little cupcake.
Heather leans down and whispers, “You should see me without it.”
The little cupcake lets out a squeak of horror and scampers off.
Cora can’t help laughing at that.
“Okay,” Heather says, “you are way too happy about me scaring that little kid. Sociopath.”
“Takes one to know one,” Cora answers sweetly.
They both go back to watching the most magnificent and terrible dance the world has ever known. Cora is like ninety-five percent transfixed by the badness. The other five percent is strangely, tinglingly aware of Heather’s arm just barely touching hers.
+
The world becomes a blur.
Life loses all meaning.
It isn’t so hard to twirl like a zombie in such existential conditions.
And then ...
In what feels like two (or twelve) hours ...
The song finally, finally, fucking finally comes to an end.
Unfortunately, that means that Howie has to really look at the faces of the people who have just witnessed this.
He does.
Every single person, from the tiniest of kiddos to the tallest of parents, is sporting an expression of total blankness.
Well, except Mitch, who’s grinning like Christmas has come early.
And Cora might be making an encouraging face, but really, under the werewolf mask, there’s no way to tell.
The song starts up all over again. Shockingly, no one demands a repeat performance. Arthur hurries over to the CD player and turns it off.
The post-dance silence drags on.
And on.
And on.
Once upon a time, Howie thought he would never experience a tenser silence than the one that happened after Arthur kissed him out of freaking nowhere in the fake flower aisle those many, many moons ago.
Turns out, nope.
This is so much worse.
Then Cora erupts into a round of severe, Citizen Kane-style applause.
Shockingly, it does not lessen the weirdness of the situation one iota.
No one joins her in the clapping.
“Thank you, thank you!” Howie says, grabbing Amber’s hand and dipping into a seriously awkward bow. Then, because he figures it might be fitting, or something, he throws in a hearty, “Aroooooooooo!”
“Why are you a werewolf?” Amber hisses.
“Because the werewolf is the only one who likes our dance moves, and I’m showing solidarity!” Howie snaps.
Amber opens her mouth to snarl something back, but she’s interrupted by a new sound.
The sound of a poignant and delicately soulful piano intro.
Everyone in the room seems to gasp in unison.
“Is that ...” Howie whispers, almost not daring to dream it.
“The soundtrack,” Amber breathes.
“She’s saved us,” Howie says faintly. “She’s saved us all.”
Kristy steps into the room, dressed in sparkly blue and rocking the most heroic side-braid Howie has ever seen. And he’s watched all the Hunger Games movies, so that’s saying something.
That little miscreant Tyler is next to her, beaming.
All of the kids start cheering rhapsodically. Howie wasn’t aware it was even possible for kids to feel this much happiness about something besides candy.
And just like that, it’s like the dance never happened. Everything is suddenly, surreally okay as Kristy and her tiny admirers all start to sing.
Mitch comes over, jolly as ever. “Hey, super dancers.”
Amber groans. “Please forget you just saw that. Mitchell, please.”
“No way,” Mitch says cheerfully. “It was the best.” He grandly offers his hand. “May I have this dance?”
Amber stares at him, wary. “No monster moves?”
“No monster moves,” he promises, crossing his heart.
“Then you may, good sir.” Amber curtseys and takes his hand. He twirls her around. Amber looks so happy that even her horrendous Jane Eyre (Austen? No, Eyre) ensemble isn’t quite so freaky anymore.
What a pair of adorable in-denial goofs.
This time, Amber isn’t judged for her dancing queen ways. A bunch of the kids start swaying back and forth as they sing along.
Happiness, happiness everywhere.
Arthur shuffles over to Howie.
“I am an ass of the higher caliber.” Arthur leans down slightly to rest his head against Howie’s.
“True story,” Howie says sagely.
Arthur sighs.
“You also have an ass of the highest caliber, if that makes you feel any better.”
Arthur considers it. “It does, a little.”
“Good man,” Howie says, and kisses his cheek.
Meanwhile, the kids lift up their voices in rapturous song. They’re all looking at Kristy like she’s the bitchinest fairy godmother of all time. Which, actually, is supremely accurate.
Toil & Trouble Page 9