by Kaira Rouda
“We can talk about all of this later, not during the party. You’re going to be fine, and so is Dane. Let’s enjoy this party,” Sarah said, trying to convince herself as much as Melanie. “Come on. Stand up. Walk over to the picnic table and sit down. I know someone stashed a few bottles of wine over there in the ivy behind the fence. I’ll go pour you a glass. Be right back. Just breathe.”
Sarah hurried to the corner of the festivities, behind the haunted house that had been erected by a party company, thank goodness, and spotted her next-door neighbors chatting with another couple new to the community. She pasted on her smile and maneuvered around the couples, leaned over the black plastic temporary fencing and grabbed two orange plastic cups and an open bottle of wine. She poured what must be the equivalent of two glasses into each cup, tossed the empty wine bottle back into the bushes, and hurried back to Melanie now sitting at the picnic table alone.
“Here, drink this,” Sarah said.
“Cheers,” Melanie said, swallowing a big gulp of the wine.
“God, give me some,” said their friend Alison, dressed as Wonder Woman, who sat down on the bench next to Melanie. Sarah handed over her glass.
“I just can’t take this holiday. It’s insane. Parade and party at school, come home, party and contest at the park, and then trick-or-treating. I don’t think I’ll survive,” Alison said. Sarah liked Alison, her drama, her lack of pretense, although her whining about certain duties of motherhood could be draining. She should be happy she has younger children, Sarah thought, but realized how hard it was to live in the moment when there was so much to do for everybody else.
“Embrace it. Soon enough, you’re here alone on the bench, getting drunk,” Melanie said. Sarah felt the pit of sadness opening up inside her, threatening to leave her in tears. She stood up quickly. “Alison, could you check on the haunted house for me?” Sarah asked.
Alison looked at Sarah and then at Melanie. Sarah wondered if she was noticing both women’s moist eyes and forced smiles. “Sure, glad to do it,” she said and hurried away.
“Hello, ladies,” Jud said, joining them beside the picnic table. Sarah was shocked. Jud had never been to a Halloween party at the park, except for the Big Bad Wolf year. She wondered what was wrong, but as she stared at her husband, he smiled in return. “What a lovely day for a Halloween picnic. Thought I’d come down and see if you needed any help, hon.”
Sarah thought she heard her husband offer to help with the party, but dismissed that notion. He’d been home almost every night since their steak dinner, but they’d both been on edge. He was trying too hard, trying to convince her they had a life together, but it didn’t feel right. She needed to talk to Laura about this, but in the meantime, she needed to get him out of her space.
“We’ve got it under control,” Melanie said.
“Clearly,” Jud said, turning to Sarah and rolling his eyes with distaste.
Sarah knew what Jud could do to help. She gave him a nod and he stepped away from the picnic table with her.
“Could you find Keith? Call him and have him come get Melanie? I think she’s ill,” Sarah said.
“I think she’s getting drunk,” Jud said. “But sure, I’ll call him. Would you like to go to dinner tonight, just the two of us?”
“Of course not. We will have trick-or-treaters until nine or so,” Sarah said, wondering what had gotten into her husband. She’d planned on him being gone tonight. “I thought you were out of town?”
“Plans changed. I’ve decided I’m going to spend more time at home, with you and Ashley,” Jud said, smiling his white-toothed smile.
“Well, great. There’s a roast in the oven, and I’ll be home as soon as the contest judging begins. Thanks,” she added as he kissed her on the cheek.
“You don’t want me to help out down here?” Jud asked.
“No, just call Keith and that should do it,” Sarah said. She was so accustomed to his absence that his presence in a normal day had thrown her off. She wondered if this was unusual, this coexistence they’d created. But then she decided it must be normal, otherwise long-married couples would kill each other. She couldn’t stand too much togetherness, she’d convinced herself of that long ago. Just maybe, there was an underlying reason why, she thought, but instead of thinking about it too much, she busied herself refilling supplies at the candy station.
WILL
Will was convinced his oldest daughter hated him more than usual, and was spying on him.
He’d smiled at Marni over the breakfast table and she’d rolled her eyes at him. Earlier in the week, he’d caught her with his cell phone. She’d snagged it when he had fallen asleep in the family room during a television show. He woke up, felt the armrest of his favorite chair for his phone, and it was gone. He had jumped up, searched the floor beside his chair, and sprinted into the kitchen in a panic. Marni sat at the kitchen table, holding his phone in her hands.
“What’s your password? I couldn’t guess it,” she had said.
“Why? Give me my phone,” Will had said, mad that she held his private property, the connection to his secret world. He marched across the room and grabbed it from her hands. The movement had been too aggressive, he realized too late.
“What is wrong with you?” Marni had screamed at him, causing her sister to run into the room in a panic.
“Marni, calm down. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that you need to respect other people’s property, that’s all,” he had said.
“Respect? Right,” Marni had said, grabbing her sister’s hand and pulling her out of the room. He had heard the door slam to her bedroom a few moments later. When Carol pulled into the driveway half an hour later, Will pretended to be asleep in his chair.
But Will was getting tired of pretending, he thought, as he stood in his foyer dressed as Woody from Toy Story. He was especially over Marni’s stares and Carol’s insinuations. Just tonight, as his wife left the house to join the mayor and other important city representatives at the Safe Halloween Night for All down in the quaint village area of Crystal Beach with Piper reluctantly in tow (Piper: “Mom, nobody goes there anymore. It’s for little kids.” Carol: “You are still a little kid, and I won’t have you drinking and doing drugs like the rest of the kids do on Halloween.”), Carol had paid little attention to Will aside from candy duty instructions. Before her latest hostility, Marni would have looked at Will and shaken her head over her mom’s irritating generalizations. But on this night, this Halloween, Marni had simply walked out the door, presumably too disgusted by all of them to make a snide remark. Somehow, he missed the snide Marni. He didn’t, however, enjoy the condescending and judgmental creature that had taken her place.
As he pulled a peanut butter cup from the Halloween candy bowl and unwrapped it, he considered the possibility that Marni knew about his affair with Lauren. Lauren told him Kiley was under control, that she’d bribed her silent and convinced her that they broke up. And if Marni did know, why wouldn’t she confront him or, more damning, go to her mom who would likely confirm the child’s suspicions?
Will was now certain Carol knew, and knew whom. Even though Lauren had blocked her on Facebook and on Instagram, Carol was popping up and making comments on her extended family’s pages. Lauren’s sister had received a friend request from her, as had her sister’s daughter who was Piper’s age but attended a different middle school. Lauren’s sister had remarked about how odd it was that the principal from the other middle school had friended her daughter on Facebook. Lauren had called him in a panic, yelling at him, calling him a coward.
“Everybody in town is going to know soon anyway. I’m moving out and asking David for a divorce. I’m moving on and I’m not waiting for you, not a minute longer,” she had said, the anger stabbing him in the heart. He hated to disappoint her, even as he knew she was right. “You can’t have it both ways, both of us. You have to let one of us go. And I’ll make it easy for you.”
“No, that’s
not what I want,” he had mumbled, rolling his bicycle to a quiet corner on a street downtown. He had leaned his head against the brick building in front of him, scratching his forehead. “I’m ready. I’ll do it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lauren had said, but she had calmed down, he could tell. He had relaxed a little bit.
“Just let me get through Halloween, and Marni applying to college. That’s important, as you know, babe,” he had said calmly. She’d hung up on him then, but he had bought some more time. Until now.
The doorbell rang and Will jumped. Then he remembered trick-or-treat and flung the door open, bending at the waist so the little kids on his doorstep could reach for a piece of candy from the bowl.
“Trick-or-treat,” said a little guy dressed as a robot. A classic costume, Will thought, smiling at the kid. “How many?”
“What?” Will asked.
“Pieces. How many pieces do I take?”
“You take one, you greedy little robot,” Will said, keeping a smile on his face as he glanced at the robot’s parents waiting on the sidewalk. “One is plenty. What do you say?”
“You’re mean,” said the robot.
“You have no idea,” Will said, still smiling at the kid. “You say thank you. And I say you’re welcome. That’s how it works. Why can’t anyone just do things the right way?”
“Jackson, come on,” called one of the robot’s parents, and the little guy hurried away.
Will pushed the front door shut, leaning against it. He just behaved badly in front of a six-year-old robot. What else was he capable of doing? Who else would he hurt before he settled things? he thought. His cell phone rang in his back pocket and he pulled it out, smiling down at the screen, expecting it to read Butch. But it was Carol.
“Will, you are at the house handing out candy, correct?” she asked.
“Of course. It was on the calendar, in green, and you checked with me during work. You saw me before you left. I’m here. I can’t believe you’re calling, too.” God she was controlling, he realized. He felt like throwing the candy bowl against the hall mirror, but stopped himself. It was his fault. He’d given Carol all the power, but he was going to take it back.
Lauren had been helping him understand that all the order Carol had imposed on his life wasn’t helping him. Instead, it was limiting him. He was a grown man. He was the head of his household. He should be in charge of who went where and when. He should control all of the marker colors or, as Lauren suggested, throw the fucking markers away. Somewhere in the middle of his fear of losing Lauren, and his realization that his life was being micromanaged, he’d found himself again. And this self, he wasn’t going to take it anymore. He had dreams, he had a future far away from the stupid blocks on the calendar and this beige depressing home. Lauren had told him about how much money she would receive from her divorce settlement, more money than Will had ever imagined. And she wanted to share it with him. They’d start over, somewhere far away from Crystal Beach. Far away from the voice on the other end of the phone constantly telling him what to do, where to be, who to be with.
“Good. Okay, well Piper and I will be home by nine. I don’t know where Marni is. She isn’t answering. She said she was going to meet some friends, but it was vague,” Carol said, her impatient tone both familiar and grating at the same time. Will’s stomach rolled.
“She’s fine. She’s a senior in high school, a smart girl,” Will said. His daughter was a creature of habit, even if she habitually hated him now. She’d looked great as Harry Potter when she’d left. He’d said so, but she’d ignored him. He hoped she was at a fun party, letting her hair down. She seemed to never have any fun.
“Whatever, I’ll find her. You just focus on answering the door, okay? I have a lot of my middle school kids coming by for candy. Don’t disappoint me.”
Will heard the words “as usual,” even if Carol didn’t say them. “Yes, Ma’am, whatever you say, Commander,” Will said, ending the call as the doorbell rang again.
“Trick-or-treat,” said a girl about Marni’s age, who had teased blonde hair, a push-up bra, and a checkered shirt. She was wearing a Scream mask, which sort of freaked him out. And she was much too overweight to be wearing cutoff jean shorts. It just wasn’t a good look for her, Will decided.
Will pushed the platter of candy toward the girl.
“Hi again, Mr. Parker,” she said. There was an edge to her voice.
“Hello. And yes, my wife is the middle school principal,” Will said, accustomed to kids reminiscing with him about their middle school memories of his wife.
“Stay away from my mom, you tool,” the girl said as she pushed her mask up and revealed her face. It was Lauren’s daughter, Will realized. It was Kiley. He hadn’t recognized her with the freaky mask and blonde hair.
Will blinked. Most of him wanted to take the candy platter and hurl it at the girl’s head. But some more humane part of him won. “Kiley,” he said, pulling out his calmest voice. “You are very much mistaken here. There is nothing going on between me and your mother.”
“You’re a liar, just like she is,” she said. “And you’re a creepy, slimy bastard.”
Will backed up and slammed the front door, leaving her on the doorstep in a sort of standoff. She had managed to cause his heart to race, and his palms were sweating. He wondered what effect he had on her, and he wondered if she’d still be on his doorstep when his wife and youngest daughter arrived home. That, he decided, would be a very bad thing. He peered through the peephole in the front door. The step was empty.
He took a deep breath and unwrapped another peanut butter cup, chewing it quickly, the chocolate coating his throat, the sugar coursing through his system. It was time. He knew it. He’d done all the research, and he knew the risks. But it was the only way.
He dialed Lauren’s phone number. “Your daughter just came to my house.”
“Oh my God, what did she do? Was Carol there? Your girls?” Lauren asked. In the background it sounded like a party. Lauren was at a party while her daughter stalked him like an animal.
“Are you at a party?” he asked, anger building up in his veins. He felt like he should punch something.
“Yes, it’s the block party, I told you that,” she said. “Where is Kiley now?”
“She dressed up like a hooker with a freakish mask on her face,” Will said, his distaste oozing through the phone.
“She is Jessica Simpson in that movie, you know, The Dukes of Hazzard. I didn’t see the mask. You should calm down.”
Charming, Will thought, another woman telling him what he should do. He said, “I don’t care who she is, she’s threatening me and you need to get her under control. I said I’d handle things but not like this.”
“I can’t help what she saw on the beach. I don’t know why she came to your house but I will tell her not to bother you. I’ll handle it,” she said. “Look, I’ve got to go.”
Will needed her to talk to him; it was the only thing that would calm him down, get him out of this state. “Are you in a costume?” Will asked, suddenly getting hard, imagining Lauren in a sexy costume like her daughter, all the men at the party looking at her. Next year, they’d dress up as something sexy together. He pulled off his cowboy hat and tossed it on the couch.
“Of course. I’m a French maid,” Lauren said, laughing quietly into the phone before hanging up.
Will moaned and tore open another piece of candy.
SARAH
Ashley and Blake had offered to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters, so Sarah and Jud were going to go to the Potts’s Halloween party together.
This was a strange development in her life. She was going to a costume party with her husband. Ever since their dinner out together, Jud had been home almost every night. She kept her list of all the traits of narcissists in her bedside table, and read them over at least once a day. Dr. Laura had explained she needed to train her brain and her heart to see him for what he was to help herself out
of the denial she’d shrouded herself in like a cozy blanket. No more enabling, she’d written on her notepad in bold letters. But his constant presence was stifling her progress, and it was really beginning to bother Sarah more than she could have imagined. The very thing she’d wished for since they were married, his presence, was driving her crazy.
Laura had told her she needed to prepare for the worst, even if she wasn’t ready to take action. She’d told her about the herpes, but not about Melanie’s desert-home discovery. She’d mentioned the text message meant for someone else, and that had been enough for Laura to force her to take action to protect herself. “You have to know what you’re dealing with,” she had said. “Hire someone to investigate your husband. You deserve to know the truth.”
Finally, reluctantly, Sarah had listened. As she waited for the private investigator’s discoveries, she realized she wasn’t ready for a divorce. She just wanted the truth. If Jud wouldn’t tell her, she’d find out on her own. The first report was due in a week, and she was a nervous wreck.
“Well, don’t you look beautiful, my little angel,” Jud said, walking into her section of the bathroom and handing her a glass of red wine. He kissed her lightly on the cheek as they continued to lock eyes in the mirror.
“Thank you,” Sarah said. “Are you sure you want to go to the Potts’s block party? You hated it the year that you went, and you haven’t been in years. I just don’t want you to ruin it for me.”
He smiled in the mirror. “I won’t. In fact, I have missed seeing all of our old friends, catching up on all the gossip. I mean, it seems that you know so much more about my life than I do about yours.”
Sarah felt a chill down her spine. What was he implying? Her life had been all about making him happy, building their life together. That was, until she had finally realized it may have all been a lie. “There’s nothing to know,” she said, applying blush to her suddenly pale cheeks.
