by Lee Hollis
“I know! I’ve been searching for the perfect costume for months! Ever since I saw that Sofia Coppola movie about Marie Antoinette on Netflix I’ve been dying to get just the right look,” Liddy said. “And when Sonny showed up at my door dressed as a pirate I nearly fainted.”
“Her favorite sex fantasy is being captured by a pirate so I already had everything in my closet,” Sonny said.
“Not in front of the child, Sonny!”
Dustin, who was lounging on the couch with Leroy and Blueberry sleeping next to him while watching a Vin Diesel movie, suddenly realized and burst out laughing. “Me! She’s talking about me!”
“He’s almost sixteen, Liddy, I think he can handle it,” Hayley said.
“Doesn’t your mother look great, Dustin?” Liddy asked, trying to get Hayley excited about going to the party.
“I like the ray gun,” he said giving her a quick once-over before turning his attention back to his movie.
“That’s because it’s his,” Hayley said to Liddy and Sonny before turning back to Dustin. “Don’t give Leroy and Blueberry any more snacks. They’re getting too fat. Have a good night. I’ll be home early.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Liddy said. “You need to get your mind off you know who.”
“Who?” Hayley asked.
“Dad,” Dustin said, petting the top of Leroy’s head absentmindedly. “She’s talking about Dad.”
“Where is he tonight anyway?” Hayley asked, disappointed he was in Bar Harbor and not spending every free moment with his kids.
“He said he had plans. We’re going to get together tomorrow night. Bye. Have fun,” Dustin said, not taking his eyes off the TV.
After leaving the house, it took ten minutes for Liddy to climb in the back of Sonny’s Mercedes parked out front because of her giant, unwieldy, powdered white wig. She had to crank her head to the side in order to keep it firmly in place and not crush the top of it on the interior roof of the car. Hayley jumped in the passenger’s seat and Sonny drove them to Mary Leighton’s house on Bowles Avenue just a few minutes away.
The party was in full swing when they arrived. A lot of guests had similar ideas. There was an abundance of Avengers and Justice League superheroes and scores of Disney characters that never seemed to go out of style. The hostess, Mary Leighton, was dressed as Maleficent complete with black horns on top of her head and over-the-top white makeup and ruby red lipstick. Music blared and half a dozen people had cleared the middle of the living room to dance to one of Taylor Swift’s hit songs while the rest of the costumed guests had to shout in order to carry on conversations.
“I’ll get us some drinks,” Sonny said, making a beeline for the table with a large punch bowl and stacks of plastic cups.
Hayley and Liddy took in the spectacle before a loud grunting noise caused them to both spin around and find themselves face to face with a prehistoric caveman. His long-haired wig was matted and tangled. He wore a fur pelt over his tall, muscled frame and he carried a big plastic club right out of the Flintstones.
It took Hayley a few seconds before she even recognized him.
“Aaron?”
Aaron snarled and growled some more.
Liddy giggled coquettishly. “Aaron, you look so sexy as a caveman. So manly and powerful.”
“I thought pirates were your sexual fantasy,” Hayley said with a smile.
“What? I have to be limited to just one?”
Aaron playfully bopped Hayley over the head with his plastic club. “Me drag you back to my cave now.”
Hayley laughed.
Liddy fanned herself with her feathered eye mask. “Oh my . . . Is it me or is it suddenly very hot in here?”
“No, it’s you. Definitely you,” Hayley said.
Aaron noticed someone over by the front door. “Excuse me. I just saw a friend of mine come in. I’ll catch up with you later.”
He touched Hayley on the arm and then weaved his way through the crowd. Liddy whipped her head around to see who he was so anxious to talk to but shrugged it off when Aaron shook the hand of a golfing buddy who had just arrived dressed as a vampire.
“I heard he just started seeing someone,” Liddy said, frowning.
“Aaron? That’s nice.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“We broke up months ago. No, it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I’m happy for him.”
“Are you sure you’re not just putting on a brave face?”
“No, Liddy. I’m not.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious to know who it is?”
“Not really.”
“So if I happened to know the name of this new woman in Aaron’s life, you wouldn’t want me to tell you? I mean it’s just a name I’ve heard in passing. I have no proof they’re actually dating . . .”
“No, I don’t want you to tell me.”
Liddy raised her eyebrow, unconvinced.
“I’m serious, Liddy.”
“Okay. I believe you. You’d rather not know.”
“Why? Do you know?”
Liddy grinned. “I knew you would want to know.”
“I don’t. Forget it. It’s none of my business.”
Liddy suddenly gasped.
“What?”
“Turn around.”
Hayley turned her head to see Darth Vader breathing down her neck behind her.
It was a very elaborate costume complete with a black cape and light saber.
“I think he’s come to kidnap Princess Leia and whisk her back to his ship to have his way with her,” Liddy said breathlessly.
“That’s just what she’s hoping will happen. There’s a lot going on inside her head tonight,” Hayley said.
“Dance with me,” Darth Vader said in a deep, distorted voice very similar to the actual movie character.
He placed his black-gloved hand on the small of her back and led her out to the dance floor where they jumped around for the remainder of the Taylor Swift song before it segued into an Adele ballad and Darth Vader pulled her close to him.
She indulged him for a few moments before her curiosity got the best of her.
“Okay, who are you?”
“Darth Vader,” he said, again with the strikingly real Star Wars villain voice.
Hayley reached over and yanked up the mask.
“Danny?”
“Hey, babe,” Danny said, flashing that charming smile, his expressive green eyes twinkling.
“Did Dustin tell you I was coming to the party dressed as Princess Leia?” she demanded to know.
“No. I swear. It’s a complete coincidence. Great minds, you know? What do you think the universe is trying to tell us?”
“It’s telling me I need a drink and you’re an evil space villain bent on destroying the world,” she said pulling away from him and racing over to Sonny who was holding her plastic cup of punch, leaving Danny on the dance floor as a woman in a racy raccoon costume swooped in to take her place and tried to get Darth Vader to dance with her.
Chapter 9
Hayley silently cursed Liddy for drinking too much Bloody Vampire punch, which consisted of rum, orange juice, pomegranate juice, lime, and seltzer and having to be driven home early by Sonny from the party.
They completely forgot about Hayley and abandoned her.
She was about to call a cab when Darth Vader swooped in and offered her a ride home in his rental car.
Hayley tried to politely decline, but Danny was insistent, and now she found herself in the awkward situation of sitting in her driveway next to Danny whose puppy dog eyes seemed to be begging for a good-night kiss.
“Thanks for the ride, Danny,” Hayley said, quickly reaching for the door handle.
“It’s early. Why don’t I come in and say hi to the kids?”
He was angling for an excuse to get his foot in the door.
And she wasn’t in the mood to give it to him.
“No. I don’t think so. C
all them tomorrow and make arrangements to take them out to dinner or something. I’m sure they’d like that.”
“Five minutes. Just a quick beer and then I’m gone. I promise.”
“You aren’t going to give up, are you?”
He pulled down the mask that rested on top of his head and in his best distorted evil voice said, “You underestimate the power of the dark side.”
“Why do you say that?”
He lifted the mask again and said with a grin, “I’m quoting Darth Vader. He said that in one of the Star Wars movies. I forget which one.”
Hayley sighed. “Good night, Danny.”
She opened the passenger’s side door and slid out. He leaned over to say something but she didn’t give him a chance and slammed the door shut.
She hurried up the steps onto the front porch and inside the house. Once inside, she turned back around and watched him sitting there, a frustrated look on his face.
Then he shifted the car into drive and roared away.
Hayley walked into the kitchen to find Gemma in gray sweats and a powder blue T-shirt that read “Keep Calm and Carry On” leaning against the kitchen counter twirling some buttered spaghetti around on a fork and stuffing it into her mouth, a morose look on her face.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up and cracked a slight smile. Her eyes were bloodshot as if she had been crying. “Princess Leia. Nice. You look a lot like Carrie Fisher.”
“Now or back when she did the first Star Wars movie? And be careful with your answer. I’m helping you pay for college.”
“You look good, Mom,” Gemma said before sadly going back to focusing on twirling more strands of spaghetti around her metal fork.
“What’s wrong, Gemma?”
“I just had a really bad day at work.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It’s Edna. I think she’s trying to sabotage me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“To get me fired.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen. Aaron’s told me on a number of occasions how well you are doing.”
“I was doing well. But then today we got backed up because I supposedly double-booked appointments and it was a complete mess. People were yelling about their sick animals having to wait so long and Dr. Aaron got really stressed and after lunch he checked the computer and my name was typed in the system as the one who scheduled all the appointments.”
“So you made a mistake. He’ll get over it.”
“But I didn’t make a mistake. At least I don’t think I did. I don’t remember booking any of those appointments. I think Edna did and just typed my name next to all of them so Aaron would think it was me. He was really ticked off and didn’t speak to me all afternoon.”
“Well, did you explain to him that you hadn’t done it?”
“I wanted to, but Edna was sitting right there the whole time and she is the only other person with access to the computer so if I said anything it was going to look like I was accusing her and what if I was wrong? I mean, maybe I wasn’t thinking one day and forgot.”
“You’ve always been very detail-oriented, Gemma. I can’t believe you would do something like that and not remember.”
“I know. I thought the whole thing would just blow over, but then at the end of the day Edna and I got into an argument over the Halloween pet costume contest. You know my original idea was to take pictures of all the animals in their getups and post them on the wall so when people came into the office they could vote for their favorite. But Edna said it would make the reception area look too cluttered and refused to allow me to hang any of them. She told me to just post the pictures on our Facebook page, and I explained how half our customers aren’t even on Facebook and that it would only be temporary, and I promised to take all the photos down the day after Halloween, but she refused to budge and it got really tense and that’s when Dr. Aaron came out of his office and saw us bickering and he wanted to know why.”
“Well, I was there when you told Aaron your idea. You specifically mentioned hanging the photos on the wall.”
“Right! I thought he would side with me. But he was already mad about the scheduling snafu and he just started yelling that he didn’t have time for this, he was late for a Halloween party. He was irritated because I had told him he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this and that it was my job to handle all the details like I said I would, and if I couldn’t I should just cancel the whole thing. And then he stormed out. It was awful,” Gemma said, choking up.
She wiped a tear off her cheek.
“He’s just under a lot of pressure. Don’t take it personally,” Hayley said, gently rubbing her back. “And don’t give Edna the satisfaction of canceling the contest. It’s a wonderful idea.”
Gemma shook her head. “You should have seen Edna’s face after he left. She had this self-satisfied smirk that was so obnoxious I just wanted to slap it off her!”
“Well, it’s probably best that you refrained from violence,” Hayley said, picturing herself hauling back and punching that miserable old coot Edna right in the nose herself. “Just keep your head down and continue doing the best job you know how to do. And if Edna causes you more problems, then talk to Aaron. He’s a very reasonable and fair man. It’ll work itself out. Follow the advice on your T-shirt.”
Gemma looked down at the words.
“Keep Calm and Carry On.”
She smiled and then pushed the plate of buttered spaghetti toward her mother.
“I made too much as always. Why don’t you get a fork and help me finish it?”
“I thought you’d never ask. Mary Leighton can’t make a decent appetizer to save her life. I almost cracked a tooth on her overcooked chicken taquitos.”
Hayley crossed to the drawer to grab a fork.
She knew in her heart she was right.
Aaron was fair and decent-minded.
But there was a lingering thought in the back of her mind that perhaps Aaron was being tough on Gemma because of her.
He was technically the one who had ended their relationship.
However, on some level she had made it very easy for him and perhaps things were not as amicable between them as she had initially believed.
No.
He would never take out any anger on her daughter, who only wanted to work hard and do a good job for him and make both him and her mother proud.
He was better than that.
Edna was another story.
And Hayley was prepared to do battle if that nasty, bitter old shrew insisted on targeting her daughter.
In her mind, Hayley knew that Gemma was a smart, intuitive young woman completely capable of taking care of herself and no longer needed help from her doting mother.
But in her heart, Hayley was still the protective mama bear ready to maul any threat that endangered her precious cub.
Chapter 10
“Remember our first date? It was right here at the Criterion,” Danny said, looking around the historic Bar Harbor movie theater with its grand chandelier, art deco walls, and musty seats.
“We were juniors in high school, I think,” Hayley said, nodding.
“It was around Halloween, too,” Danny said. “I brought you to see a revival of Halloween because I knew it would scare the bejesus out of you and you’d cling to me through the whole movie. As I recall, it worked like a charm. Just like I told that Spanky kid his story will do.”
The 1978 Jamie Lee Curtis slasher classic about a babysitter and her friends targeted by a masked maniac named Michael Myers was one of the scariest movies Hayley had ever seen even to this day. That revival which marked their first date was over twenty years ago.
Hayley remembered how excited she was when popular big man on campus Danny Powell had asked her out on a date. She knew he had a roving eye and any kind of relationship with him was doomed from the start, but she jumped at the chance to go out with him.
They only had th
e one date.
Danny was the kind of guy who was easily distracted by any shiny object and that object was in the body of Beth Sanford, a pretty, stacked blonde and captain of the varsity cheerleading squad.
It wasn’t until several years later when Hayley was working in a local ice cream shop one summer that they ran into each other and things finally got serious. Danny came in for two scoops of blueberry ice cream in a waffle cone and flirted shamelessly with Hayley. He asked her to meet him for a drink after her shift at the Blue Oyster, a local watering hole that was eventually bought by Randy and renamed Drinks Like A Fish. After hooking up that night, the two were inseparable for that whole summer and they were engaged by Halloween.
Hayley wasn’t sure she had made the right decision coming to the movies with Danny and the kids.
She was already wary of his intentions and a “family” night certainly didn’t accomplish her goal of keeping a safe distance.
But Danny was insistent.
His uncle Otis had a secret moonshine run to one of his high-profile clients and wasn’t going to be back until late, and Danny didn’t want to be stuck in his cabin in Tremont watching TV and drinking beer alone.
So he was determined to have a fun night out with his ex-wife and kids.
Of course he picked Gemma and Dustin’s favorite pizza joint, Napoli, splurging on two large pies, and at one point he had everyone laughing so hard over one of his wild stories from his high school days that Hayley had to catch herself because she felt herself starting to let go and enjoy his company like old times.
She couldn’t risk that.
She still didn’t trust him.
The lights on the chandelier dimmed and the theater was plunged into darkness as the velvet curtains opened and the coming attractions reel lit up the big wide screen.
Danny casually yawned and stretched his arm out slowly, bringing it down behind Hayley, and shifting his body weight so he was leaning into her.
For a brief moment, Hayley was going to let the move slide.
The seats were small and Danny was a big guy and needed room to stretch, but then as his hand snaked around her left forearm she turned and said, “Danny, please remove your arm.”
He stared at her for a second and then cracked a smile. “Sure, babe.”