Page 88 of Cackle

“No costume?” she asks. She’s wearing Ouija board knee socks and a blouse patterned with skulls.

“No,” I say. I toss her the Mounds.

“Here,” I say flatly. “Happy Halloween.”

The rest of the week I spend every spare minute brainstorming viable excuses I could use to get out of dinner. A variety of illnesses. A head cold. A chest cold. The flu. Allergies. Strep throat. A stomach virus. Food poisoning. Pink eye. Ringworm. Or maybe the death of a relative? I have a lot of dead relatives. It wouldn’t be a lie to say that my grandpa died. It was six years ago, but he did die.

I wasn’t raised religious, but a common warning from my grandmother (still alive) is that you get out what you put into the universe. The ole “What goes around comes around.” Karma.

Since things already aren’t going so hot for me, I can’t risk any cosmic consequences.

By Thursday afternoon, I’ve resigned myself to going.

When I get home, I open my closet, readying myself for a long, frustrating solo fashion show in which I get to confront how terrible I look in everything I own, but instead I find a new dress hanging front and center. It’s a deep yellowy gold. Crushed velvet. V-neck, A-line.

I try it on. It’s a perfect fit. There’s never been a more flattering dress.

There’s a note tucked into the sleeve.

To what’s ahead. Have fun on your date. XO, Sophie

I’m so moved by the gesture I could cry.

The dress reframes the way I look at the date. It could be fun. That’s a possibility. Pascal could be really hot. He could be nice and smart and charming. We could hit it off. He could want the same things that I want. Maybe we’ll get married at the courthouse and have an intimate brunch after. Maybe we’ll honeymoon in Barcelona, hold hands and kiss in the streets, have strangers come up to us to tell us how in love we look. Maybe we’ll buy an old house with character, with good bones, and we’ll fix it up ourselves, then post pictures so people can marvel at the before and after.

Maybe we’ll have a tradition of sleeping in late on Sundays, and we’ll wake up in each other’s arms just shy of noon, spooning so we don’t have to endure morning breath.

What if I get to have one of those great stories? Like how some couples talk about how they met, like how he found her glove and then chased after her and then they kissed in the snow and the rest was history? I could say I was with someone for almost ten years who I thought was my soul mate, but then we broke up and I moved here and got set up on a blind date and found my actual soul mate.

I look at myself in the mirror, in this dress, and it’s hard not to feel a spark of hope. It’s impossible not to consider the chance.

BONE TO PICK

On Friday, I rush home after school to shower, blow-dry my hair, put on makeup, put on the dress, accessorize. I wear my black boots, black stockings and a black faux-leather jacket. I wear my mother’s earrings, black diamond studs. I even wear red lipstick.

But then I change my mind and wipe it off.

On the drive over, I’m too nervous to listen to music. I listen to my phone calmly providing directions and to my own heart anxiously throbbing.

I open my mouth to speak words of affirmation like You can do this! or something along those lines, but what comes out is “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

My hands are so sweaty I can barely grip the steering wheel.

“Get it together,” I snarl at my reflection in the rearview mirror. I take a few deep breaths as I pull into the parking lot. I find a space far away from the restaurant, hoping it’ll give me time to walk off my nerves. I don’t let myself linger in the car. I force myself out into the frigid November night.

Having to slog across the parking lot doesn’t do much for my nerves. My sweat freezes my hair to my temples. I almost twist my ankle in a pothole. By the time I open the door to the restaurant, I’m even more agitated than I was before.

It’s a kitschy place. A lot of wood. Ceiling beams wrapped in colorful lights. There are ambiguous flags on the walls, many of them featuring lions or crests, many of them both. The tables are close together and people are drinking out of beer steins. It might be German themed.

I might be on a blind double date at a German-themed restaurant.

Am I going to have to eat sausage in front of strangers?

“Annie!” Jill is waving at me from the bar, her ponytail going wild.

There are two men next to her. One I recognize from the photos on her desk. He’s pretty standard-looking. Guessing that he watches football on Sundays in his lucky sweatpants and that he enjoys trips to Home Depot. He probably has strong opinions about women in politics. I don’t know what they are. But I bet he has them.

The other guy, the guy behind Jill’s husband, is . . . not bad-looking. He’s got a stubbly half beard and dark hair that he’s obviously put some effort into styling. His nose is substantial, and I like it. I want to touch it. Run my fingers over it. He’s got full lips and big eyes. Almost a unibrow but it works.