Dress-Up

“I freaking hate Halloween,” she muttered, shredding another hole in the perfectly good pantyhose she’d bought for the kitty cat costume. She wasn’t sure why holy tights were the thing to wear on Halloween, but then, who was she to argue with what was trendy? She followed fashion religiously, from bell bottoms to skinny jeans and back again. She’d look at pictures of herself from six months ago and wonder what on earth she’d been thinking.

She slipped into the vinyl shoes. Too big. She did a test walk around the room and stepped out of them twice. So she wouldn’t move too much at the night club. No big deal. She’d find some sap to buy her drinks and bring them to her.

She popped on the headband with the black triangular ears and made a kissy face at the mirror, batting the two-inch long fake eyelashes. Yep. Perfectly adorable. The line of the Spanx slimming girdle was just visible under the leotard, so she rummaged through the three-foot by two-foot plastic box under the bed and finally pulled out a rhinestone-spangled belt and wrapped it around her waist. There. Now no one would see her little secret.

The doorbell buzzed, and she waited a minute or two before heading downstairs. She opened the door, and glanced out. “I’m not going!” she exclaimed, seeing her friends’ costumes. She slammed the door. They’d dressed as the Brady Bunch, and hadn’t asked her to be Marcia? And not a bit of skin above the elbow showing on any of them.

Her cheeks burning, she rummaged in the fridge for the leftover pumpkin pie, ignoring the repeated banging on the door.