Mine: A Love Story (12 page)

I’ve been in a funk all week. Breaking up is hard. Really hard. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. It just plain sucks.

I don’t know if I was truly in love with Chris—I don’t have nearly enough experience with that stuff to know. There’s only so much you can learn from fairy tales and love songs. And this isn’t a fairy tale, not by a long shot. And I’m surely not a princess.

But even if I wasn’t in love with him, I definitely liked him an awful lot. And I miss him a lot, too. Marissa keeps pointing out—very gently, of course—that Chris and I were only together for a little over a month. God, if it feels like this after barely a month, how does anyone get through a breakup when they’ve been together way longer? I can’t even imagine it.

Maybe I’m lucky I’ve only had two real boyfriends. And back with Brian, things just kind of dissolved, so there wasn’t much pain involved for either of us. I guess being a cautious girl isn’t so bad after all. In fact, maybe it’s smart. Really smart. Why is everyone so eager to look for love, when it always seems to lead to heartbreak? Just ask Gaby. I guess there’s a good reason there are so many broken heart songs.

Despite my grief, I dragged myself to all my classes, except for vampire lit. I’m not ready to run into Chris, so I skipped that one this week. I don’t think missing it one time will affect my grade. I probably could have skipped all my classes, for all the good I got out of them. My concentration just isn’t there. I try to listen, I really do, but my mind seems to have a mind of its own. Hey, that’s pretty funny, right? My mind having a mind of its own? I wonder if that second mind also has a mind of its own. And maybe that third one does, too. This could go on forever, like when you look into a mirror with another mirror behind you.

See? This is why going to class has been such a waste. I can’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes at a time, so most of what my professors say goes in one ear and out the other. My brain keeps taking off on these weird tangents. In my rare lucid moments, I recognize my brain is probably trying to protect me, taking me on these seemingly meaningless trips to keep me from going down more painful avenues. Marissa, Katie and Beth keep telling me it will get easier. They’ve all been through this. They promise me I’ll get over him, that before long he’ll just be another bad memory, just another picture to burn. I want to believe them. I really do. But right now it feels like I’ll never get better.

I don’t have any pictures of Chris to burn, but I’ve deleted every trace of his presence from my cell and from my computer. It hasn’t really helped yet. I wish it were that easy to delete him from my heart.

It’s Friday afternoon. I’m sitting on my bed, my back pressed against the wall, trying to put a little space between me and Marissa, Katie and Beth. They’re taking turns trying to talk me into going to tomorrow night’s big Halloween bash. That I’m even considering going to what is billed as the biggest and wildest party of the year seems a big enough step for me, but apparently they’re not going to let up until I say yes. They can be pretty relentless. Especially when they think it’s in my best interest.

“C’mon, Heather,” Marissa says. “It’ll be fun, I promise. You’ve been moping around for a week now. You need to get out and have some fun.”

Marissa has pulled her desk chair right up close to my bed—the better to pressure me—and Beth is hovering right behind her shoulder. At least Katie is nice enough to sit across the room instead of looming over me.

“Yeah,” Beth says, “don’t be such a wet blanket.”

Wet blanket?
Hey, I’ll be a sopping wet blanket if I want to. Heck, I’ll be a friggin’
drowned
blanket. But I don’t think that’s what my friends want to hear.

“Find me a party with no guys there,” I say, “and I’ll be happy to go.”

“Now what fun would that be?” Beth asks, grinning. “Halloween’s the one night where even good little girls get to dress slutty. But what’s the point if there’re no guys around to see?”

Dress slutty?
Is she kidding? Just thinking about going to the party is almost more than I can handle. No way am I wearing a costume that’s going to make guys think I have even the remotest interest in anyone of their species.

“Is that supposed to make me
want
to go?” I ask. “Look guys, I’m not saying I’m going, but if I do, I am
not
wearing anything sexy or slutty. No way.”

“But then what’s the point?” Beth asks. “I think….”

Marissa interrupts her. “Shush, Beth,” she says, then turns back to me. “You don’t have to wear anything sexy, Heather. Just dress up and have a good time with your friends.”

“Yeah, Heather, c’mon,” Katie says. “Marissa, Beth and me will wear the sexy stuff.” She grins. “No guys will even notice you.”

“Hey, that gives me a great idea,” I say. “I’ll go as the Invisible Woman. That way even you three won’t notice I’m not there.”

Marissa slaps me playfully on the shin. “C’mon, Heather, be serious. We want you to come. And don’t worry about any guys. I promise at least one of us will stay with you every minute.”

They’re wearing me down, and I think they know it. Besides, I’m not really looking forward to sitting home alone in an empty dorm. There’s still one more problem, though—one very big problem.

“What if Chris shows up?” I say. “I don’t think I could handle that.”

“There’s gonna be hundreds of kids there,” Marissa says. “We might not run into him even if he is there. But if he tries to come near you, we’ll keep him away, I promise.”

“Yeah, we’ll keep him away,” Beth says. “Part of my costume is a whip. I’ll use it on him if he gets too close.”

I can’t help smiling. He deserves a good whipping, at the least.

“A whip?” I ask. “Who are you going as, Indiana Jones?”

“She’s going as a dominatrix,” Katie tells me. “You should see her outfit.”

“Yeah,” Marissa says. “Even I wouldn’t be caught in that thing.”

Beth grins. “I told you, Halloween’s the one night we can wear anything we want. A girl’s got to take advantage of it.”

I’ve already seen Marissa’s costume, and it’s pretty sexy. She’s going as a very scantily clad genie. Her lacy pink face veil covers almost as much of her as the rest of her costume. So if she says she wouldn’t wear what Beth is wearing, then it must really be something.

“What about you, Katie?” I ask. “What are you going as?”

“A nurse.”

I’m surprised to hear that. “What’s so sexy about a nurse?” I ask.

“You haven’t seen her nurse’s uniform,” Beth says. “It would probably cause a few heart attacks if she ever wore it to a hospital.”

I look at Katie, who just grins.

Okay, they’re all going to look pretty sexy. So if I do decide to go, what can I wear to make sure I don’t get any unwanted attention? No good ideas come to mind right away, but that’s not a surprise, given the way my brain’s been working—or rather, not working—lately.

“All right,” I say. “I give up. You guys are impossible to say no to. I’ll go, but on one condition. We have to come up with a costume I’m comfortable with.”

“Awesome!” Marissa says. Done pressuring me, she slides her chair back a foot or so from my bed.

“Maybe we can find you a nice gorilla suit or something,” Beth says. “As tall as you are, everyone’ll think you’re a guy.”

Marissa and Beth laugh. I don’t really think we’re going to find a gorilla suit, at least not one I can afford. But I like the way she’s thinking, and I say so.

“A gorilla costume would probably be too hot to wear, even if we could find one,” Marissa says. “The party’s inside. You don’t want to bake in your costume.”

“How about a zombie?” Katie suggests. “We can make you as ugly and disgusting as you want.”

I like the sound of ugly and disgusting. Not only are zombies totally not sexy, but they’re also really popular, so I bet there’ll be lots of them at the party. I’ll blend in with all the rest. Camouflage, safety in numbers, and all that. Maybe this party won’t be so bad after all.

“Okay,” I say. “I think I can probably handle being a zombie. Let’s do it.”

“Great!” Marissa says, smiling. “We’ll go down to Goodwill to get some clothes we can shred, and then pick up some fake blood at the costume store. It’ll be fun, Heather. You’ll see.”

I’m not really convinced it will be fun, but at least it shouldn’t be too bad. And right now, not too bad is about all I really can ask for.

The night air is cool as we head to the party. A stiff breeze out of the north chills our faces, and I wonder if there’s a storm on the way for tomorrow. The forecast for tonight is dry, though, so we don’t have to worry about raincoats or umbrellas, or worse, having the rain ruin our carefully applied Halloween makeup. It’s only four or five blocks to the old facilities warehouse, so we’re walking. We’ve all got hoodies over our costumes, but I’ll bet Marissa and Beth are still chilly in their skimpy outfits. I’m plenty comfortable in mine, though—I just hope I continue feeling comfortable throughout the party. And I don’t mean temperature wise, of course. I’m still not one hundred percent certain of my decision to go to this thing.

Halloween isn’t for another couple days, but Saturday night is always a big party night, so there are a bunch of Halloween bashes on campus tonight. We pass lots of costumed students going in every direction. Some of the groups are pretty loud, so they must have started partying early. Most of the kids are heading in the same direction we are, because by far the biggest of the parties is the one we’re going to. Three fraternities have joined together to host it, and word is they’ve been decorating the place for almost a week.

As we come around the corner, I see a long line of costumed students snaking from the front of the old building, but luckily, we don’t have to wait in that line. A guy Marissa went to high school with gave her passes that allow us to skip the line and go in through a side door open only to fraternity members and their guests.

Two guys at the door check our passes and stamp the back of our hands with a black skull and crossbones design without bothering to ask for any proof of age. You don’t have to be twenty-one to get into the party, but you do have to be stamped to get any booze from the bar inside.

Too bad I don’t drink, I think as I admire the stamp. But Marissa and Beth do, and they’re both grinning happily as we step into a small meeting room reserved for guests with the special passes. There’s no one else in the room right now, so we quickly peel off our hoodies and hang them on top of one another on an empty hook way back in the corner.

I take another look at my friends’ costumes.

Marissa’s genie outfit displays a lot of skin. The costume is really not much more than a shiny gold bra and matching hot pants. In addition to the pink veil partially hiding her face, several colorful, gauzy kerchiefs hang down from her bra and shorts, seductively covering some of her flesh. Sparkly gold heels add several inches to her height.

Beth’s dominatrix outfit is totally over the top. The main piece is a tight black leather corset that shoves her boobs up almost to her chin. Katie said it took her ten minutes to lace Beth into the thing. Beneath the corset, black fishnet stockings extend into a pair of ankle-high black boots with four-inch stiletto heels. Her eyes are dark with gobs of purple shadow, and she’s painted her lips with dark red lipstick. She’s got a small whip hanging from her hip on a metal hoop attached to her corset, and she’s holding a leather riding crop in her right hand. She snaps the crop suggestively into her palm every few minutes, getting into the part.

Compared to Marissa’s dominatrix and Beth’s genie, Katie looks almost virginal. She’s dressed entirely in white, which really contrasts with her dark skin and hair. She’s unbuttoned the shirt of her nurse’s uniform almost to her waist and her white shorts are hemmed way up on her thighs. White tights cover her slender legs, and a pair of white canvas sneakers and a small white cap pinned atop her head complete the outfit. Somehow, she looks both proper and dirty at the same time.

My zombie costume couldn’t be more different in tone from theirs. I’m wearing a ripped pair of jeans—not stylishly ripped, more like shredded—and a similarly decrepit black and white flannel shirt. I got the pants and the shirt from the Goodwill store for only a couple of bucks each, so we really went to town tearing them up. My hair’s tucked up under a white bandana stained thoroughly with fake blood. We emptied the bottle of the stuff onto the shirt and the jeans, so I’m one bloody zombie. There’s no reason to save the blood for another day.

I smeared my face with a layer of beige foundation so light in color it’s almost white, and blackened a couple of teeth with stuff we got from the costume store. Marissa finished my look by painting two streaks of fake blood down from the corners of my mouth. There’s nothing remotely sexy or provocative about my costume—except to another zombie, maybe. And that’s exactly how I want it.

After my friends complete some last minute primping, we leave the room and cross the hallway into the party.

The frat guys have really gone all out decorating the cavernous old warehouse. Skeletons, headless corpses and hairy black spiders dangle from giant cobwebs hanging from the high ceiling, while pictures of huge, garishly painted pumpkins line the walls, looking like things out of a Tim Burton horror movie. A six-person band in the front of the huge room was is pounding out Oingo Boingo’s classic “Dead Man’s Party,” the first of several times they’ll play the popular Halloween anthem tonight. Already, a couple of hundred costumed students are milling about, but there’s room for many more. In front of the band, dozens of kids are dancing wildly to the raucous music. The back of the room, where four long tables serve as a bar, looks almost as crowded. The center is less packed, but there’re still plenty of kids milling about, talking and laughing and checking each other out.

The variety of costumes here tonight is astounding. Just from where I’m standing, I can see at least a half-dozen vampires and zombies, a couple of pirates, and assorted devils, hookers, black cats, French maids, princesses and serving wenches.

As Beth predicted, the majority of girls’ costumes show off their bodies in one way or another. I’m feeling better by the minute—there’s more than enough exposed flesh to keep the guys occupied and away from me.

Before we’re more than a dozen feet into the room, a pair of guys cut us off. One’s dressed as a bearded pirate wielding a plastic cutlass, and the other is a caveman wearing a leopard loin cloth and holding a club. I can’t help noticing he’s got a very muscular body, which is why he chose that skimpy costume, of course. Girls aren’t the only ones flaunting what they’ve got tonight.

The guys make no attempt to hide their appreciative stares. Thankfully, none are directed at me. My outfit is doing exactly as intended—drawing no notice.

The pirate moves closer to Marissa. “Methinks you and me might make a pretty good pair,” he says. “What say you to a turn around the dance floor with me?”

Marissa looks at me and rolls her eyes. “Sorry,” she says to the pirate as she circles her arm around mine. “As you can see, my zombie friend here’s in pretty bad shape. I need to hang with her.”

“What about you?” the caveman asks Katie. “Do you have to take care of her, too? Or can they spare you for a dance or two?”

Katie looks at me and I nod. As long as Marissa stays with me, I’ll be fine.

“Sure,” she says to the caveman. “One dance.” She winks. “Two if I like you.”

“How about you?” pirate guy asks Beth, dropping the whole pirate talk thing. “Wanna dance?”

“Sure, why not?” Beth replies. She slaps her crop emphatically into her palm. “But you’d better behave yourself.”

The pirate laughs. “Or?” he asks teasingly.

“Or I might
not
spank you,” Beth says without missing a beat. “Let’s go.”

As she strides away toward the dance area, she puts an extra wiggle into her walk. The pirate hurries after her.

As our friends disappear, Marissa turns to me. “I’m thirsty. Let’s go get a drink.”

“Sounds good,” I reply.

We pick our way through the crowd toward the bar. The closer we get, the thicker the crowd becomes. We inch our way to the far right end, which is reserved for people with skull stamps and has a line barely a third as long as the others. It turns out our stamps not only mark us as old enough to drink, but also as guests of one of the fraternities. The less fortunate kids have pumpkin stamps and have to wait in the longer lines.

In just a few moments, we reach the front of the line. All the bartenders are in costume. Ours is wearing a vampire getup, complete with fangs.

I ask for a Diet cola and Marissa orders a rum and Coke, which vampire guy mixes quickly in a clear plastic cup. As he drops a wedge of lime into the drink, he asks Marissa if she’ll grant him a wish in exchange for the drink.

“As long as the wish doesn’t involve me,” Marissa replies with a smile.

The guy returns her smile. “Oh, well,” he says. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

I feel almost invisible standing there sipping my soda as the two of them banter back and forth for another moment or do. I don’t mind it at all. This zombie thing is continuing to work perfectly.

Finally, Marissa edges away from the bar to give the people behind us a chance to get a drink.

“You doing okay, Heather?” she asks.

“Yeah, fine,” I say. “This costume was a great idea. Nobody’s paying any attention to me at all. Especially with you around, hot stuff.”

Marissa smiles and thrusts out her chest. “Glad to be of help,” she says.

We stand around for a couple of minutes, chatting and checking out all the other costumes. Some of them are really pretty creative. One guy is dressed up as a bottle of wine, complete with a corkscrew sticking up straight up out of his head!

I spot Katie and Beth heading our way. The caveman and the pirate are nowhere in sight.

“Whatcha drinking?” Beth asks Marissa. Marissa hands her the cup and Beth takes a sip. “Mmmm, rum and Coke. I think I’ll get me one of those.”

We all get back in line, Beth and Katie to get a drink, me and Marissa to keep them company while they wait.

“Where are the guys?” Marissa asks. “You throw them back already?”

“Grant was pretty nice,” Katie says. “And a good dancer, too. I gave him my number, but told him I had to get back to my friends.”

“I threw mine back,” Beth says. “I think he was a little too interested in having me spank him.”

We all laugh.

The line moves pretty quickly, and before long Beth has her rum and cola and Katie is sipping from a cup of orange juice.

“Do you really think pirate guy was kinky?” I ask Beth.

“Yeah, I do,” she replies. “He kept staring at my crop and at my whip.” She puts her hands under her half-exposed breasts and lifts them. “You’d think he want to stare at these, but no. It was all about the toys.”

We all laugh again.

“Let’s go dance,” Katie says. “The four of us—no guys. The band’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, we don’t need any guys to have fun tonight,” Marissa says.

I realize they’re all looking at me, hoping the “wet blanket” has dried out enough to have some fun. I shrug my shoulders and smile.

“Sounds good to me,” I say. Before any of them can move, I’m heading for dance area. “Well, what are you guys waiting for,” I call back over my shoulder. Wet blanket my butt!

We find some open space at the edge of the dance floor, just as the band starts playing “Monster Mash,” by Boris somebody and the Cryptkickers, I think. I first heard this song when I was five or six years old and I’ve loved it ever since. The bouncy rhythm, offbeat lyrics and weird voice of the lead singer make it my favorite Halloween song.

The four of us start bouncing to the beat. I’m not doing any regular steps—I’m just letting my body move loosely to the music. Katie and Beth seem to be doing the same, but Marissa looks like she’s actually following some routine.

“Try this,” she tells us, almost yelling to be heard above the music. “My grandmother taught it to me when I was a kid. It’s the official Monster Mash dance.”

We stop and watch her for a few moments. The arm movements are pretty easy—she’s just kind of flailing them about—but the stuff she’s doing with her feet is more complex. She’s sort of pivoting on the ball of one foot, then raising the other, then reversing the move. It takes me a couple of tries to get it down, but before the song is halfway done, I’ve got it. I’m bouncing and pivoting and flailing like a mirror image of Marissa. Beth and Katie are doing the same on either side of me.

Before long, I notice a bunch of the kids around us are copying our moves. We’ve got a whole packet of Monster Mashers going now.

When the song ends, someone shouts, “Play it again!” More kids take up the chant, so the band obligingly plays an encore. We’re now ringed by kids doing the Monster Mash.

We’re all feeding off one another’s energy, dancing wildly and singing the lyrics out loud. It feels really great to let loose like this.

Okay, I’m officially having a good time. Maybe there is life after Chris.