by Gina LaManna
I jumped as Meg slammed the door shut.
“We trap them,” she cackled crazily. “We tell them, ‘Time to go now,’ but before they head out, the door locks. They’re trapped.”
“And then we let them out,” I clarify.
“Maybe. I haven’t decided on that part,” Meg said. “Otherwise, maybe we just keep them trapped here all night. That’d be kinda funny, too.”
“Probably also illegal.”
“We’re not charging these people to come in, right?” Meg shook her head. “I don’t get those people who complain when we give them something for free.”
“Well, it’s sort of like kidnapping.”
“But they want to be scared.”
“And they also want to be let go,” I said, walking towards the door.
Besides the ambiance created by a real life jail cell – barred windows and all – the room was perfect, due to its prime location next to the safe. Anthony and I would be hiding out in the inner chamber all night, waiting for someone to slip inside. If we led the Haunted House tour right past the entryway, hopefully we’d tempt the traitor into acting sooner rather than later. After all, we were running out of time.
And by giving the thief the ability to slip away unseen, hopefully he’d waltz right into our waiting arms. Well, more like my waiting arms, and Anthony’s waiting gun.
“I’ve got a great idea of what to do with that fan.” Meg stared up at the ceiling. “Shall we get decorating?”
Over eight hours later, we’d eaten two dinners, watched the sun set through barred windows, and waded through piles upon piles of decorations, rubbish, and costumes. But I had to say, the house looked quite spooky.
From the front door all the way to Oleg’s former holding cell, skeletons danced in the hallways, spiders the size of my head hung from the ceiling, and cauldrons steaming with witch’s brew lined the way. Hands down, it was one of the creepiest homemade haunted houses I’d ever seen.
Throughout the afternoon, Nora had ducked her head in and out of the hallways while, not surprisingly, Anthony and Carlos had made themselves scarce, along with the rest of the guards.
“Looks good, girls,” she murmured, always disappearing back to her piles and piles of papers. She was knee deep in the soul mate analysis portion of the personality test. “Keep up the good work.”
We finally finished the setup after a grueling day of bending over, climbing on chairs, and crawling into small spaces. Most of the time it was me doing the crawling, bending, and climbing, which led me to believe that Meg was using my non-argumentative state to boss me around a bit more than usual.
But it all paid off as we examined the final product. Walking through the hallways and surveying our handiwork, a shudder slithered across my spine, the creepy crawlies already prickling over my skin. And this didn’t even include the live portion with masked human monsters.
“Hi everyone,” Meg announced to the small gathering of guards we’d managed to round up at the last minute.
Meg had decided she’d hand out costume assignments for the guards tonight, giving everyone a little extra time to prep for the real deal tomorrow evening. But as the hour was late, many of the guards had gone home already, so the only ones in attendance were the night crew and a few unlucky stragglers.
“I called this emergency meeting to hand out your monster duties for tomorrow.” She glanced at the unresponsive crowd. “We’re here to make this the best Haunted House the Twin Cities have ever seen. You – you’re gonna be Frankenstein.” She pointed to a guard with a particularly long face. Then she swiveled her finger to the palest man in the room. “You? A ghost.”
“How long is this going to go on for?” Anthony asked, slipping into the room behind me.
“Oh, fancy seeing you here,” I said. He’d disappeared for most of the afternoon, surfacing only for dinner. Even then, he’d taken it to go, avoiding any chance of our roping him in to help decorate.
“I’ve missed you.” Anthony kissed my forehead, his arm nestling my body against his side as Meg handed out one assignment after the next. “Are you free to leave yet? It’s getting late, and I had hopes we might hang out…”
I fanned myself just thinking about it. “I’m going to stay until Meg’s ready to leave. But if you’d like, you can come by my place after.”
Anthony nodded. Pressing his lips to my ear, he spoke in a low voice. “Kill two birds with one stone. Spend the night with you…and give the rumor time to travel through the walls of this place.”
“You’ve got it started?” I peeked over my shoulder. To an outsider, it probably looked like we were just a couple cuddling. Little would they know, it was also a front for exchanging secrets.
“Yes. I told our little birdie all about your task to deliver a high ticket item to the safe tomorrow night. I left him with explicit instructions not to say a word.” Anthony shook his head with a wry smile. “I’m positive everyone will know by noon tomorrow.”
“Why do you keep this guy around if he’s so chatty?”
“Chatty can be useful,” Anthony said. “As long as I’m aware of his downfalls. Everyone’s quirks can be used for an advantage, you just have to understand them.”
“Do you use my quirks against me?” I leaned into Anthony’s firm chest.
“The same way you use mine to take advantage of me.” Anthony kissed my neck in a way that caused my entire body to shiver.
Unfortunately, the movement drew Meg’s eyes to our cuddle session in the back corner.
“You,” she pointed at Anthony. “You’re a zombie.”
“Nope,” Anthony said.
“Yep,” Meg said. “The ugliest zombie there is. Real gross looking.”
“Don’t argue,” I whispered. “Plus, you’ll make a very cute zombie. She’s just cranky.”
“I’m getting a little fed up with her attitude,” Anthony said. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
I turned to him. “What would you say?”
“Talk to her about us, Lacey.” Anthony shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious?”
I remained silent.
“Ever since we’ve started dating, she’s been snippy to you. It comes and goes, but she never used to fly off the handle like this.” Anthony paused. “I have no problem explaining to her, in no uncertain terms, that I’m here to stay as your boyfriend.”
I scoffed. “Meg? She has always flown off the handle. That’s the name of her game. It’s one of the reasons I love her.”
“But not at you. I’ve never seen her actually mad at you, personally. Until now.”
I looked away.
“Am I right?” Anthony asked softly.
“I suppose.” I hated to admit it, but he’d unearthed a valid point. Meg and I rarely argued. We’d always just…survived together. Gotten along. A no-drama friendship, which is what made our relationship so special.
“Can you guess why she’s doing it?” Anthony glanced at Meg.
“I suppose she’s – I dunno, looking for attention?”
Anthony nodded.
“But—” I hesitated, as Meg explained the best techniques for scaring the poor trick-or-treaters tomorrow. “But I don’t think that’s fair on her part.”
Anthony tilted his head to the side.
“I mean, it was wrong of me to show up late to the bar. I admit that. And I also apologized. Normally, Meg would just say something about it and move on. But this has lingered now for…” I glanced around at the Halloween decorations. “Days.”
“Maybe you just need to have a talk with her,” Anthony said. “Actually, I’m putting my foot down. If you don’t have a talk with her, I will. I’m not planning on giving you up anytime soon, Lacey, and I don’t want to see the longest friendship you’ve had ruined, just because we’re dating.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?” I gave a shy smile. “I suppose that’s sweet of you, in a way.”
“Well,” Anthony’s expression turned sheepish, “that
and the fact that if you and Meg just made up, it’d take a lot of pressure off of Clay and me to do the girly things.”
“You think I do girly things?” I put a hand on my hip. “Like what?”
“Like, the other night when I stayed over, you asked for my opinion on your painted nails. That’s something well within Meg’s territory as your girlfriend.”
“You said you liked them!”
“What was I supposed to say?” Anthony looked exasperated. “You colored in the lines as far as I could tell, so it looked fine to me.”
“What else?” I demanded.
“Meg dressed up Clay today – in costumes. For hours. Then she asked us to decorate the house. Now you’re asking me to dress up for Halloween with you. These are all things that normally you and Meg would bond over, and Clay and I would be…uh, free of these duties.”
“Hey, your Halloween costume has nothing to do with me and Meg arguing,” I said, pointing a finger towards his chest, keeping my voice low so not everyone could hear. “I just wanted to do a couples’ costume.”
“A loofah?” Anthony asked. “And soap? What kind of costume is that?”
“A cute one?”
“Do I look cute to you?” Anthony asked, just as the room fell deadly silent.
Every single guard in the room turned to look at Anthony. Many of them tried – and failed – to hide a smirk.
“Well yeah, kinda,” Fede said. “I think you pull off cute quite well, Antonio. Sei bellissimo.”
“Shut up.” Anthony turned and stormed out of the room.
“And there goes our cute little zombie,” Meg said, clapping her hands at the front of the room and drawing the attention back to herself. “That concludes our meeting for the day. I will leave you with this piece of good news.” She smiled, glancing at the crowd. “Since we’re on private property, we’re not under any of those stupid regulations that say you can’t touch the Halloweeners as they come through. So give it your all! Grab their arms, snatch their legs…destroy them.”
I strode towards the front of the room as the guards began nodding with newly interested expressions. Waving my hands, I shouted above the noise of chairs moving, people standing, gossip resuming.
“Everyone, that is not true,” I said. “We are under the same regulations as the rest of the state! That means no touching guests! Got it?”
“Party pooper,” Meg growled.
I turned to her. “Can we talk for a minute?”
I thought I saw something flash in her eyes – uncertainty, maybe. But it disappeared just as quickly, replaced by a skeptical squint. “Talk about what?”
“About us. This. You and me.”
Meg crossed her arms. “What’s there to discuss?”
“Just come with me.” Dragging her into the hallway, I pulled her towards the kitchen despite her rolling commentary, stopping just outside the heavy mahogany door. I pinned her against the wall with a hand to the shoulder.
Meg looked up, down, left, and then right, before finally letting her gaze land on me. “What?”
“I’m apologizing, just give me a second. Patience.”
“Don’t bother. I overheard your conversation with Clay,” Meg said. “I know you only promised to apologize as a bribe to get me over here so he could leave the closet in peace.”
“That’s not true. First of all, I already apologized.”
“But you didn’t mean it.”
“Of course I did!” I took a deep breath. “Why would you say I didn’t mean it?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you meant it or not. The moral of the story is that you’d rather spend time with Anthony than me.”
My jaw fell open. “That is not true at all!”
“That’s why you were late, wasn’t it?” Meg’s lower lip began to turn downwards. “And your average number of appearances at my bar has gone from seven times a week down to five. And you don’t tell me every single one of your secrets anymore. Don’t you see the pattern? I’m not good at math, but I’m also not a moron.”
I remained silent. Judging by her trembling lip, she wasn’t done talking.
“We’re falling apart, Lacey! Almost thirty years of friendship. Down the drain, thanks to…to your…your stupid, cute zombie boyfriend!”
“It’s not going down the drain, Meg.” I reached out and put my other hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged them both off and looked at the ground.
“Everything’s changing.”
I lowered my gaze. “Not everything.”
“Everything!”
“Not everything,” I repeated. “But some things, yes.”
Meg shook her head so hard I worried it might bobble right off her neck.
“We’re growing up,” I said. “I’m almost thirty. It’s natural for some things to change. I don’t want to be stuck in the past, Meg. Change can be good.”
“Not this sort of change. You showing up late to girl dates, ignoring me.”
“I apologized!” I couldn’t help the volume in my voice increasing a few notches. “How many times can I say I’m sorry?”
“You’ve got about a zillion to go.”
I crossed my arms. “Meg, everyone has to cancel on their friends sometimes. I had to work. I had something come up for an assignment, and we hadn’t even planned a time, anyway. Yes, I should have texted you. But I didn’t just blow you off.”
“You were hanging out with Anthony. I know what ‘working’ means.” Meg made air quotes and a kissy face.
“I was staking out a mechanic’s shop for an assignment Carlos gave me. If you’ve already forgotten, let me remind you that he gave me the job at your bar, earlier this week.” I shook my head. “Even accountants and people with normal nine-to-fives have last minute meetings or surprise happy hours or whatever, and they have to cancel dinner on their friends every now and again.”
“Accountant shmountant,” Meg grumbled.
“I’m sure their friends don’t go nutso on them if they have to bug out for a last minute client meeting. I’m not talking all the time, but this was once, Meg. I apologized, and I’m not gonna make a habit of it.” I tilted my head sideways. “Just because I happen to work with Anthony doesn’t mean we’re…we’re, uh…”
“Just say it,” Meg said. “Own up, woman.”
“No! That’s not what I was getting at.” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “ Never mind. Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you. Never, in the almost thirty years I’ve known you, have you freaked out over me showing up late. Late is my middle name.”
“Well, I’m sick of it.”
“No, I think something else is bothering you, and I’m not sure what it is.” I stepped backwards. “I’m going to tell you this once. You’re my best friend. I love you. I want us to stay best friends until you’re hot-wiring my wheelchair and unplugging my oxygen tank as a practical joke.”
Meg tilted her chin upwards, her eyes focused on the kitchen door. But the angle of her head, the shift of her hips told me she was paying attention.
“But I like Anthony, too. A lot. And that might mean I’m stopping by your bar five days a week instead of seven.” I gave a sad smile. “Carlos is keeping me busy with work, and I’m trying really hard to do a good job for him. That might mean I show up late for drinks once in a while.”
Meg tapped her toe against the ground, and I took a deep breath.
“I hope you can understand. None of this changes how I feel about you. Or how much I value our friendship. I’ll try not to show up late, and next time I promise to call you. But things come up, changes happen – I’ll try to be flexible, but it’s a two-way street, Meg, and if you’re not interested, then…” I trailed off. “I can’t force you to be my friend.”
“No, you can’t.” Meg shook her head back and forth. “And I don’t particularly want our friendship to change.”
We stood in silence, waiting, thinking, feeling. I couldn’t decipher all the thoughts flickering throug
h my mind, but I knew that the ball of dread in the pit of my stomach didn’t feel very nice. I knew that our friendship was teetering along a dangerous edge – a friendship thirty years in the making. Could it really, truly be brought down by one night of miscommunication?
I stubbed my toe against the ground. I’d said my piece, and now I needed to hear Meg’s side. When she remained silent, I looked up and gave it one more shot.
“Change can be good,” I offered. “And it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. Maybe Anthony can swing by the bar with me, and we can all be friends.”
“Are you dressing up as Aladdin for Halloween?”
Her question came out of left field, catching me by surprise. “Oh, uh. I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought—”
“Never mind, Lacey.” Meg glanced at me with eyes so large, so full of emotion they could star in a Sarah McLachlan style, rip-your-heart-out sad type of commercial with a cast of adorable puppies. “Your costume won’t fit anyone else, so I’ll just put it away. Give me a call if anything changes. Changes back. To how things used to be.”
“Meg, wait!” I called as my single oldest friend walked away down the hall, her back to me.
She glanced over her shoulder. “’Bye, Lacey.”
I raised a hand in a helpless stop gesture, but Meg shook her head and continued walking. I stood stock still in the hallway, not even registering Meg’s absence for a long, long time.
“Are you okay, dear?” Nora asked, sometime later.
I couldn’t say how many minutes had passed while I’d been standing there, staring down the empty Hallway of Infamy. Even the sight of my spelling bee championship certificate couldn’t cheer me up.
“I’m not sure.” My shoulders suddenly became too heavy to hold up by myself, so I let my knees buckle, my back press against the wall, and my body sink to the floor. I cradled my knees like a child, tucking my chin between them.
Nora didn’t waste a second before she slid right down next to me, her arm reaching over my shoulders, rubbing my back, her fingers dancing through my hair and massaging my neck in a soothing motion that must come with the parenting manual.
“Did you hear everything?” I murmured.
