“Who knows?” I say back, mouth full of candy corn. “My only chance of winning might be as a naked French maid?!?!”
Braxton’s laughing so hard I’m afraid he’s going to choke, so I look left and right for Topher, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Mr. No Costume?” I ask when we’ve both swallowed.
“He had to take a leak,” Braxton says subtly.
“But he’ll miss the Costume Contest,” I whine, watching from across the room as the Mayor of Cedar Cove, North Carolina takes to the stage and starts fiddling with the microphone stand.
“What’s he gonna miss?” Braxton asks, turning to join me as we face the stage. “Worst Costume of the Last Century?”
We chuckle but I gaze nervously toward the restrooms as the crowd kind of surges us helplessly along toward the stage.
I try to hold back, waiting for Topher, but it’s either move forward or be trampled and how will I ever seduce Topher from inside an iron lung, so… onward I go.
I watch anxiously as Mayor Murphy makes a big speech about how “proud” he is of the night’s huge attendance, or everyone’s “holiday spirit” and “creative energy.”
We all kind of gold clap each time he pauses because he seems to expect it, but really we all just want to know: who won?
As I secretly cross my fingers behind my frilly lace skirt, the Mayor starts calling folks up to the stage.
My fingers cross tighter and tighter as one by one ketchup bottles and whoopee cushions and gladiators and sexy Snow Whites slink to the stage, not a single French maid asked to join them, least of all me.
At last, five contestants stand nervously behind the Mayor as he announces, “And now, back by popular demand, I’m going to open the floor up to one final contestant who you get to vote on collectively, gang. So look around, folks, is there anyone you see standing next to you, perhaps, or even across the room who deserves to win this contest more than these brave folks already standing on stage?”
As if on cue, a giant roar rips through the Community Center.
Chicks, children and Baxter scream as the crowd parts to make room for the thundering presence that has suddenly announced itself.
The roaring grows louder and louder as I spot giant, hairy shoulders and a growling, sneering, gnashing head rotates from side to side.
“Dang,” wheezes Baxter, impressed enough to pull the giant orange lollipop he’s been sucking on away from his face for a better look. “That is one convincing werewolf costume.”
“Werewolf?” I blurt, adrenaline pumping. “I thought it was a black bear on steroids!”
“No,” Baxter argues, as if I was really serious. “Check out the teeth and is that… dang, dude even sprung for the lifelike drool hanging off his fangs. That had to set him back at least two bills, Rain!”
The howling grows more ferocious as, without asking, the werewolf grinds and gnashes and claws and paws and generally menaces his way to the stage.
His giant, massive, muscular fingers grip the two metal rails on either side of the rough wooden steps as he clomps and chomps his way up to the stage.
Mr. Ketchup bottle faints.
Mrs. Mustard bottle swoons.
Whoopee Cushion guy, no lie, messes himself (I think).
And sexy Snow White literally stage dives into the crowd, the only problem being… no more crowd.
She lands on the suddenly empty dance floor with a sickening thud, something maybe, possibly snaps but then she groans and begins crawling out of the way so at least we know she’s okay.
You know; sort of.
That leaves only Mayor Murphy and Werewolf Guy still on stage, expensive – according to Baxter – fake drool drizzling down his fake fangs, although I have to say they look pretty darn real to me.
In fact, the whole dang costume looks pretty much Grade-A, A-list Hollywood Movie Monster Makeup good.
We’re talking muscles moving in his feet, kneecaps bulging and about as big as most bowling balls, shoulders as broad and hairy as Viking defensive lineman – the actual race of Nordic warriors, not the football team (not that those dudes are too shabby, but… seriously, dude is cut).
And that hair.
It is some kind of authentic.
“Where would you get hair like that?” I ask Baxter, who’s busy cramming his mouth with popcorn balls as if he’s front and center at a double creature feature.
Where is Topher?
I cannot believe a monster movie fan of his proportions is missing all this!
“It’s gotta be real,” Baxter says clinically, admiring the seven foot tall creature’s glistening black hair, which covers his bulging muscles and most of his wicked looking face.
Wolfie’s eyes glow a fierce, brownish yellow to match his giant, six-inch fangs.
His snout is gleaming and leathery, the dark brown color of my Dad’s favorite deck shoes.
His chest heaves in and out with the effort of breathing and growling and snorting; it’s amazing Mayor Murphy hasn’t bolted with the rest of the contestants.
“Well,” he chuckles nervously, signaling to someone off stage. “I guess that just about seals it. Due to the fainting, fleeing and jumping offstage of the rest of the contestants, this year’s winner of the grand prize of $300 is, well, The Wolfman!”
Suddenly a timid bank clerk-ish type woman, complete with a mint green business suit and crooked bifocals trembles her way onstage, bearing the biggest check I’ve ever seen.
Mayor Murphy grabs it, poses for a few photos with some clown from the local newspaper, waving the Wolfman over as he hands off the check.
The Wolfman’s paws are so authentic, so real, they actually kind of pierce the check where he grabs it in the top two corners.
“Uh oh,” says the Mayor, noticing. “I hope the bank takes that. You know, damaged check and all.”
He’s chuckling but the Wolfman growls, silencing the Mayor and piercing the crowd – the timid, cringing, half-empty-now crowd – with those blazing yellow eyes.
The drool drips, the teeth gleam beneath snarling lips as that massive werewolf head scans the crowd, slowly, slowly until it stops to find Baxter and I literally clinging to each other.
There is a deafening howl, then a snort and a sniff, as the werewolf keens and bounds offstage, four paws tearing up the steps as he holds the check by one corner in his drooling, giant teeth, the way a dog will drag an empty food bowl to his master.
With that, silence reins, except for the occasional snort and snuffle as the werewolf beats a hasty retreat toward the Fire Exit down the hall offstage left.
“Dang,” admires Baxter, finally unclenching his giant, massive mitt from my bare forearm. “I could have sworn he was howling at you, Rain!”
“Me?” I blurt, inching toward the stage. “You were right there with me.”
“Yeah, but he was looking at you.”
I turn, only to find Baxter back to grazing through the now empty buffet line.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Nervous eating,” he explains, mouth already full. “Besides, half the town left when the Wolfman showed up. Now’s my chance for some of Mrs. Sherman’s famous candy corn bark!”
I ignore him, food the last thing on my mind now as I inch closer to the stage.
Snow White is gone, Mr. Ketchup Bottle is finally coming to but there’s something shiny and glistening at the foot of the stage that I want to check out before things get back to normal.
It looks so familiar, I can’t take my eyes off it.
Then, a few steps closer, I realize why; it’s Topher’s necklace, snapped in the back.
No, not snapped; more like torn off, totally.
I pocket it, knowing he’s never without it and will want it back, ASAP, once he finds out it’s gone.
The thing is… where’d it come from?
I can’t remember seeing it before the Wolfman showed up, but… if Topher’s been in the bathroom this whole time
then… who dropped it?
And why?
Suddenly, I hear his familiar voice saying, “Hey, where’d everybody go?”
“What?” I blurt, seeing his handsome face smirking as he emerges, at last, from the restroom, still zipping his black jeans up, his hair a little messy and his face flushed. “Are you kidding me, dude? You totally missed THE most authentic werewolf costume you’re ever going to see in your ENTIRE lifetime. I swear, you and your disappearing acts. I’m really starting to wonder about you—”
“What’s that?” he asks, reaching out to gently clasp my hand.
I open my fingers to reveal his necklace.
“You must have dropped it in your haste to use the little boy’s room,” I joke, handing it back.
“Thanks,” he says, looking me in the eyes.
For just a moment there, a flash of yellow merges with the brown.
But by the time I blink twice to make sure I’m not seeing things, it’s gone.
It’s gone and so are we.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask as he drags me back toward the restrooms.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” he says, pulling me close so Baxter won’t hear. Although, good luck; dude’s on Round 3 – or is it 4 – at the buffet line. “But, as I was coming out of the bathroom, this dude in a werewolf costume handed me… this.”
As we round the corner there, leaning against the vending machine in the back of the Community Hall, is the giant check for $300!
“Well, where’d the dude go?” I ask, standing next to the check. It basically comes up to my shoulders, it’s so big.
“I dunno,” Topher shrugs, looking at me funny. “Last I looked, he was heading out the emergency exit toward Old Man Grossman’s farm. Before he left, he told me to keep it. When I asked him why, he just growled ‘Happy Halloween’ and bolted out the back door. Weird, huh?”
His face is slightly flushed, a sure sign he’s lying; or high, or nervous, or sad, or scared or any of the 101 emotions that pass across Topher’s face twelve times a day.
I can never read the dude. It must be one of the 101 reasons I’m crushing on him so hard lately.
“Should… should we really keep it?” I ask.
“Why not?” he huffs, grabbing it and sticking his hand right in the puddle of werewolf drool at the top corner. “Gross!”
“Look at those bite marks,” I crow, marveling at the two inch-wide holes in the opposite corner of the check.
“I guess you were right,” he chuckles, carrying the check out to Baxter. “That was one authentic costume.”
Folks along the way – the dozen or two who didn’t flee for the main exit the minute the Wolfman showed up, that is – pat Topher on the back, assuming it was him beneath the scary werewolf suit all along.
He tries to explain but everybody’s happy or buzzed or has their mouth full and aren’t buying it anyway.
Finally he shrugs as I grab Baxter away from the food line.
With a candy apple in one hand and a complimentary barf bag in the other, he follows dutifully.
Only when we’re outside, trying to fit the giant check into my pint-size Datsun, does a questioning glance cross his face.
But the first question out of his mouth is the last one I’d expect.
“What happened to your necklace, dude?” Baxter asks as Topher holds it in his hand instead of wearing it around his neck.
My heart pounds as he explains, “These cheap thongs, you know, they’re always breaking.”
Baxter shrugs and says, “Yeah, well, now that you’ve got an extra hundred bucks, you can buy all the cheap crystal necklaces you want!”
“Naw,” Topher blushes, handing over the giant check. “The werewolf dude said you should have it. All of it.”
He looks at me with those questioning brown eyes, as if to ask if it’s okay.
I make that crumpled “of course” face and roll my eyes, as if he ever had to ask in the first place.
“What?” Baxter asks, sweat suddenly popping out on his broad, red forehead. “What for? Why? How did werewolf guy know… me?”
Topher looks at Baxter admiring the check, then looks over at me and winks.
“You got me,” he groans, voice suddenly hoarse and all kinds of sexy. “Maybe he works at that computer repair shop you’ve been hounding for the last three weeks!”
“Yeah, right,” Baxter chuckles, wedging into the backseat with the check resting happily on his lap.
He looks so contented and cheerful, you’d think it was Christmas morning and not Halloween night.
After we drop him off a few minutes later, Topher and I ride in silence for a mile or two.
As we near downtown, or what passes for it in tiny Cedar Cove, anyway, Topher clears his throat and says, “You hungry, Rain?”
I think of all those candy corns I’d downed at the buffet table but it’s not every day Mr. Strong and Silent opens the door for a dinner date.
Before he can think twice and back out I blurt, “Starved!”
“Me too,” he says, patting his slim, empty belly. “I know I gave away all the prize money but… what if I treat you to a nice, rare steak at Delmonico’s anyway?”
“Delmonico’s?” I ask, picturing the ritzy four-star restaurant on the nice side of town.
“Have you seen how I’m dressed?”
“You look beautiful,” he says, with that low voice of his and those brown eyes stuck on where the short skirt stalls at my upper thigh. “I’d be proud to take you anywhere, Rain.”
I see the twinkling lights in the trees and the fancy restaurant’s parking lot looming into view.
“Screw it,” I say, yanking the car into the half-empty parking lot. “Maybe they’ll give me half off for showing some Halloween spirit.”
As I park the car and prepare to get out, he stands slowly.
“You all right?” I ask as he unfolds himself from the car like my grandpa on visiting day at the nursing home.
“Sure, why?”
“Nothing,” I smirk, winking at him.
He seems in no hurry to race inside, so after I lock the car I kind of lean my arms on the roof and stare over at him.
He does the same, his arms so long our fingers almost touch.
“How come you asked me out to dinner all of a sudden?” I ask.
“I… I… kind of have something to tell you,” he croaks, giving me the shivers with that sexy new voice of his.
I wink and walk around to his side of the car, grabbing him by the hand.
“Topher, if you wanted to tell me you were a werewolf, Burger Barn would’ve done just fine.”
“W-w-what?” he asks, incredulous. “H-h-how did you know?”
I stand next to my car, looking up at him.
“The necklace, for one thing,” I remind him, soft Italian music wafting from inside as a couple walks through the front door and hurries to their car. The only time it could have fallen off was when you were doing your little act on the stage.”
He shakes his head, looking almost… relieved.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” he bluffs.
“Okay, well, how about this…?”
I pull him slightly down, so that he’s facing the passenger side mirror.
There he sees his right ear, still giant sized and hairy; just like it was on stage that whole time.
Just like it’s been ever since he ran out of the men’s room, shoving his black V-neck T-shirt back into his snug black jeans.
“Oh my God!” he blurts, standing back up and covering his mouth. (Come to think of it, his knuckles are still pretty hairy as well. Or, wait… are they always like that?)
“D-d-do you think Baxter saw?”
“I think once he saw that check, dude, that was all he saw. Come on, let’s eat.”
“B-b-but, my ear,” he says, feeling it gingerly; yup, it’s still there.
“Who cares?” I huff, yanking him toward the doorway of Delmonico’s. “If
anybody says anything, we’ll say it’s part of your costume!”
* * * * *
Who Vampires Eat for Thanksgiving:
A Vampire Thanksgiving Story
She appears out of nowhere.
Just, one minute I’m driving, trying to find something – anything – other than Christmas music on the radio and, the next, POOF… she’s there.
I swerve to avoid her but, then I think, “She’s sitting there. Right there. How do I avoid that?”
“Eyes on the road,” she says in a deep voice.
Not masculine, exactly, but not quite seductive either.