by Rose, L. A.
Iris steps on it. Halloween is actually two weekends from now, and Phi Delta Chi is doing a haunted house, but the houses nearby are covered with pumpkins and blow-up ghosts and black cat decorations and the occasional real black cat. Nobody gets into Halloween like college kids.
The house isn’t the same one as the one where the last party was held, but it looks similar enough that I have the fleeting urge to hide out in Iris’s car for the whole night as she parallel parks on the street. “I don’t know, guys. I think there’s a feather in my rectum, I should probably get that checked out.”
“Don’t be a baby. Worst case scenario, we can use you as the world’s shittiest furniture,” Iris smirks.
Mags rubs my cheek, the only part of me not covered in feathers. “You’ll be fine! Damien’s not here and you’re not naked. You’re kind of the opposite of naked, actually! It’ll be fun and we can leave early if we want to.
The lawn is swarming with sexy pirates, sexy devils, sexy vampires, even a sexy Hilary Clinton. Barely half the guys dressed up. I roll my eyes as we pass one dork trying to explain his non-costume to a sexy werewolf. “I’m a white guy! See? Salmon shorts.”
“You already were a white guy,” the sexy werewolf points out.
He looks down at himself, realization dawning. “Oh, yeah.”
I do my best to stride into the house like it’s a gathering of birds and I’m the hottest chick here, but I walk straight into a bunch of fake spider webs and have to wait while Iris and Mags unwrap me. While I’m caught in the web, the real spider appears.
She’s got a halo on and a pair of tiny white wings pinned to her back. They’re far from the tiniest thing she’s wearing. I hate her and all, but even I have to admit that she looks damn good. That appreciation, however, fades as she scans me and lets out a loud, unhurried laugh. Amber and Ellie—a sexy Elvira to rival Iris’s and a sexy zombie, respectively—join in.
“Well, well, well—” Sigrid starts.
“Are you really about to say ‘well well well, look who it is’? Because you’re not a Disney villain,” I interrupt. “At least, I think you’re not.”
She smiles sweetly. “I’m just glad to see that you’re here. I love it when people have the courage to come to a place where nobody wants them. It’s commendable.”
“Who are you?” asks Amber, acid dripping.
“A chicken. Duh.”
“No. Her.”
“Elvira.” Iris crosses her arms defensively.
“Sure you are. That’s cute.” Amber’s eyes flick downward. Her chest is about half a centimeter bigger than Iris’s.
I return to my own battle. “I couldn’t stay away. I just missed seeing you so much, Sigrid.”
“Same. I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing this.” She stares meaningfully again at my bulbous feathered body. “It’s a sexy Halloween costume contest, you know, not a contest to see who can be the most hideous.”
“Thank God, right? I’d definitely have lost that one.” I smile.
“Just don’t get any feathers on the floor,” she snaps and storms off, Amber following her with one last scathing glance at Iris. Ellie, who was texting the whole time, takes a full thirty seconds to realize they left before hurrying after them.
“She probably just saw a picture of Elvira on the internet and thought it would be a good excuse to have her boobs out,” Iris seethes. “She has no idea what Elvira stands for.”
“Who’s judging this contest, anyway?” I ask. Mags holds out a beer, but I wave it away. I’ve had enough of drinking.
Mags gestures to the back of the room, past the sexy werewolf and the white guy, who are now making out on the couch. “There’s a box and slips of paper. Each guy is supposed to cast a vote. The girl with the most votes wins.”
“That is unbelievably sexist and stupid,” hisses Iris.
“The winner also gets a fifty-dollar Starbucks gift certificate.”
Iris turns. “Mags, can you make my bra strap shorter? I think I can hoist these babies up another inch.”
After a while, I wander away, leaving Iris to fiddle with her cleavage and Mags to blush at a Batman who apparently has a thing for petticoats. A few people scowl at me, but more people laugh, making drunk bird puns. But my head’s somewhere else. I don’t even realize how often I’m scanning the room until my neck gets sore from constant swiveling.
“Fiona! Is that you under all those feathers?”
I turn. Brooklyn is an utterly gorgeous Catwoman, black latex clinging to every athletic inch of her. It’s enough to make a girl question her sexuality. “Yup. I think the feathers are actually controlling me now. If I lay an egg, don’t eat it. I could be a good bird mom.”
She lays a black-gloved hand on my shoulder. “It’s good to see you up on your feet again.”
“It’s good to be up.” I grin. “I’m sorry I haven’t been that active lately. I promise I will be. I definitely don’t want to leave Phi Delta Chi.”
“I’m glad. You’re a fun girl to have around.” She smoothes an errant feather on my elbow. “Doing your best to lose this challenge, I see.”
“Yeah. Sorry, it’s not that I don’t like what Phi Delta Chi stands for, it’s just that I think the Games are stupid.”
“You’re not alone in that.” Brooklyn sips her wine. Where in the world she found wine at a frat party is a mystery for the gods.
“I’m not?” I blink. “You think it’s stupid too?”
“More than a little.”
“But you’re…”
“It’s been a Phi Delta Chi tradition for the past three years,” Brooklyn sighs, lowering her voice. “It’s true that I got James to agree to the terms when I was a freshman, but only because Sigrid begged me to. I thought it’d die out. Instead it’s made us the most popular sorority on campus. If I suddenly announced the James Games were off, there would have been a riot. Besides, I think it helps the younger girls bond.”
“James said he owed you a favor and that’s why he agreed.”
She lifts the glass to her lips. “You’re digging.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
“I’m not the kind of person who goes around handing out bits of other people’s lives, Fiona.” Her voice gets steely.
“Right. Sorry.”
“Speak of the devil,” she says, and I look around for the sexy devil I saw earlier, but instead my eyes land on James, who’s just walked through the door.
“Funny,” Brooklyn murmurs. “He rarely comes to more than one party a semester…I wonder why he’s here?”
But I’m too busy mildly freaking out to respond. Act cool, Fiona. No, don’t act cool, there is no cool when you’re in a giant chicken suit. Act casual. You’re just a casual chicken who’s here for some Halloween fun and who definitely does not care if a certain boy did or did not just walk through that door.
I wedge myself into a circle of people that’s just big enough that I don’t have to pay attention to the conversation and just small enough that I look like I’m involved. James is dressed as an extremely attractive person, his hair even more perfectly tousled than usual, a white T-shirt unintentionally just tight enough to tease what’s underneath. A couple girls rush over immediately to chat him up, but he ignores them, glancing around with that haughty expression. Sort of like he’s looking for someone.
Sort of like maybe he’s looking for me.
It suddenly hits me with alarming clarity that I am dressed as a giant fucking chicken.
Calm down, Fiona. You are still wildly attractive. The feathers only enhance your sublime beauty. You’re Big Bird’s wet dream. I stick out my hip in an attempt to rediscover my sexuality and knock over an empty pitcher of beer, which clatters to the floor and draws James’s gaze.
That asshole takes one look at me and bursts out laughing.
I flee, finding Mags in the corner and distracting her momentarily from her boy. Mags is studying counseling and is really good at pep talks. “Mags. Help. I need
a pep talk.”
She strokes my feathers comfortingly. “You are a strong, beautiful, independent woman and the fact that you’re dressed as a big chicken does not detract from your sex appeal even one bit.”
“Okay. Keep going.”
“Confidence is what makes someone beautiful! And the fact that you have the confidence to wear that makes you the prettiest person in the room.”
“That one was kind of backhanded, but I’ll take it.”
“I’ve never seen a hotter chicken.” Her lips twitch. “Or…turkey. Or any kind of bird…oh, I’m…I’m sorry, Fiona, you look so funny!”
She dissolves into laughter. I wail something unintelligible at her and locate Iris, who is drinking her way into oblivion in the corner of the room. “Iris. Pep talk.”
“Elvira? More like el-why-are-ya,” she hiccups, glaring daggers at a distant Amber.
I shake her. “James laughed at me. Mags laughed at me. You’re my last hope.”
She shoves me away. “I don’t talk to birds.”
Should have known better. I whirl, intending to find the bathroom and pluck some strategic feathers now that the votes are most likely all in, but instead I find myself face-to-face with my worst nightmare. God, my worst nightmare has amazing bone structure.
“If you laugh at me again, I will decapitate you,” I inform him.
He tilts his head appraisingly to the side. “That language is a little fowl, don’t you think?”
“Oh, my God. Do you know how many people have made fowl/foul puns to me tonight? At least seven. That is level one of bird puns. Please.”
“I’m glad you came out tonight.”
His voice is soft. It startles me and I bluster, “Yeah, well, I thought I should make this party a little more fly.”
Damn it.
“What’s that? Level three of bird puns?” The corner of his mouth turns up.
“At least level five.”
There’s a moment of silence. He lowers his voice. “We shouldn’t be talking like this.”
“Then let’s talk the way they want.” I raise my voice. “What are you supposed to be dressed as, a nerd with no fashion sense?”
“At least I’m not a bird with no fashion sense.”
“Touché. You rhymed bird with something. Level two.”
The few people who were watching us see that we’re fighting and gradually lose interest. My chicken costume is no longer a novelty, and there’s enough nearly naked girls, and boys who’ve managed to incorporate shirtlessness into their costumes, that the fact that James is talking to me is not the showstopper it might have been.
“What kind of bird are you supposed to be, anyway?” he asks.
“I’m a hot chick.”
He nods. “Accurate enough.”
If this keeps up, I won’t last the night. “So you’re one of those annoying people who refuses to dress up for costume parties.”
“Making a fool of myself isn’t really my thing.”
“You should relax. Live a little.” I smirk up at him. “There’s no reason to act like you have a handful of feathers jammed up your butt if you don’t actually. Speaking as someone who actually has something close to a handful up there.”
“I like having my composure.”
“Sounds boring as hell.”
He’s not smiling anymore. “You don’t know what it’s like to grow up under a magnifying glass. To have every eye and camera lens on you whenever you walk outside. If you show cracks, they tear you apart.”
“I do, in fact, know what that’s like. Minus the camera lens. They don’t have a whole lot of cameras in the Amish community.”
He chokes on his drink. Take that, composure.
“You—you’re Amish?” he coughs.
“Was Amish. Why do you think I act the way I do now? Amish teenagers don’t really get to party. The most exciting thing I ever did before college was skip the morning cow milking one time.”
“Damn.” He squints at me.
I swat him. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop picturing me in one of those frumpy high-necked dresses. I know you are.”
“Oddly enough, it’s not that unappealing.”
“Believe me. It’s that unappealing.”
He looks down at me and then sighs. “I was trying to think of a pun that involved tender chicken breasts and your breasts, but any way I phrase it sounds creepy.”
“Actually, just you saying that on its own sounds fairly creepy.” I lean away from him against the wall and cross my arms, projecting an air of hostility in case anyone’s still watching. “Okay. I told you my deepest, darkest secret. Now you tell me yours.”
“I don’t hand out my secrets like party favors.” He leans forward just enough for me to wish the wall was another two inches further away. Or that the room was totally empty and I wasn’t wearing a chicken suit. Either one.
“So how do I earn one?”
“Why bother talking to me about it when you can look up my life story in the gossip blogs?” His tone grows bitter. “That’s what everyone else does.”
“I’ve spent exactly zero minutes, zero seconds looking you up on the internet,” I say indignantly, making a mental note to look him up on the internet later. “I didn’t even know you existed before I joined Phi Delta Chi and got showered in the juice of the million uteruses you ruptured with your presence.”
“That is disgusting—wait. You didn’t know anything about me before you came here? Anything at all?”
I shrug. “TVs and computers are with the camera lenses in Amish-land. I still don’t know very much about you.”
“Huh,” he says quietly.
“Huh what?”
“It’s refreshing, that’s all.”
“Yeah, a girl in a chicken suit has never Googled you before. That’s practically Aquafresh.”
He laughs. I point at him. “That’s not something you do very often, is it?”
“Do what?”
“Laugh.”
He pauses and raises one hand as if to touch his face and confirm.
“You should do it more,” I say. “It suits you.”
“Fiona!”
It’s Mags, bouncing over and knocking some dude over with her skirt. She doesn’t notice. She’s too busy noticing who I’m talking to.
“Oh—hello! I mean, hi. I mean, it’s nice to finally meet you. I mean—”
“What is it?” I interrupt, mercy-killing her babble.
“We have to go outside,” she stage-whispers. “Sigrid wants to showcase everyone’s costumes before the votes are counted. She’s making us runway-walk the front yard.”
“She just wants everyone to see me try to walk sexy in a chicken suit,” I seethe. “Well, fine. I can still strut my stuff better than anyone here, feathers are no feathers.”
“That was a pretty good one,” James remarks.
“A good what?”
“Bird pun. Chickens strut.”
“Yes, that was definitely, absolutely intentional. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go outside and start a revolution in the fashion world.”
Sigrid’s gone all out. She even found a red carpet somewhere, and now it’s stretched across the grass, collecting dew. Yellow Christmas lights lay along the edges. It looks more like an airplane landing strip than a runway, but nobody seems to care. It’s drunk o’ clock and everyone’s on time.
Ellie is using an upside-down red solo cup as a microphone, unaware that beer is dripping on her heels. “First up is Callie—um, what’s your name?”
“Berkemeyer,” snarls the girl on the red carpet.
“Berkemeyer! As a lovely—um—what are you?”
“I’m a mouse. Duh.” She points at a pair of gray ears on her head before striding down the carpet runway and shaking her butt at the nearest group of boys, who hoot and cheer.
She goes down the list, forgetting nearly everyone’s last name and most people’s first names. I s
can for James. He’s not here. He must have stayed inside. “Thank you, karma gods,” I murmur.
And then a lax bro moves out of the way and I see him in the back, watching the whole charade like he’s never been more bored by anything in his life.
“Fuck you, karma gods,” I mutter.
Ellie chirrups, “Iris somethingorother, as Elvira!”
Ha. There’s no way Iris would agree to this—except there she is, red-eyed and stumbling onto the carpet, beer sloshing over the edges of the cup in her hand. Uh-oh.
“You people,” she growls, staggering forward. “None of you actually appreciate Elvira’s aesthetic. You just want to see my tits.”
“Show us your tits!” some guy howls in confirmation.
“You wanna see my tits?” she leers at him.
This is bad. She is perilously drunk. Although it is impressive that she can still say the word ‘aesthetic’ without screwing it up. I look wildly around for Mags, but she’s off with Batman. Worst time in the world to distract a superhero, Mags. I guess I’ll have to save the day instead.
“Fine, you bastards!” Iris slurs, reaching for the top of her dress. I fly (more bird puns) into action, covering the distance between me and the runway in two great chicken leaps.
She glances to the side and real fear pops onto her face. She screams, apparently forgetting that it’s me and assuming she’s being attacked by a mutant bird of prey, but it’s too late to stop. I crash into her as a feathered blur, knocking both of us backwards into the grass.
“Help!” she shrieks. “Help—oh. Fiona. Why the hell—heck—are you inside a bird?”
I ignore everyone dying of laughter around us and wave Mags down. She enlists Batman for help, and the two of them hoist Iris off the ground. I rock back and forth until I’ve gained enough momentum to roll to my feet, feathers scattered beneath me
Iris grabs Batman by the neck. “Batman. You’re just the man for the job. The Batman for the job. My friend has been eaten by a giant fucking bird. Cut her out of its stomach.”
He sweats. “It’s just a costume, man.”
She releases him in horror. “Shit. You’re in league with the birds. Because you’re a bat.”