The Lost Saint(77)

And what if he didn’t plan on coming back?





HALLOWEEN




The rest of Friday passed with no word from Daniel, and I would have spent all of Saturday curled up in my bed if it hadn’t been for the Halloween festival that evening. It was the last thing in the world I felt like going to, but Mom didn’t even blink when I told her I wasn’t feeling well.

“Grab that basket of caramel apples and put it in the Corolla,” she said. “I’m going over now to supervise the decorating committee. Find a costume, and then I need you to bring over the refreshments for the booth.”

“A costume? Seriously, I have to wear a costume?”

“Everybody is dressing up. You’ll look silly if you don’t.” Mom was in a kimono that Grandpa Kramer had brought back from their trip to Japan two summers ago. She even had her hair swept up in a perfect Japanese-style bun. She picked up Baby James, who was already dressed in his Max’s wolf-suit costume from the Where the Wild Things Are book. It was made of white fleece with a bushy brown tail and a hood with long pointed ears. He clapped his hands and crooned, “Wet the Wild Wumpus stawt!”

I laughed, feeling a hint of happiness for the first time in days. It was pretty much the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

“I taught him that,” Charity said as she passed me with a box of orange-and-black tablecloths. She wore an angel costume with glittery wings and a white toga. The whole family dressing up for Halloween had always been kind of a Divine family tradition. One I had apparently been left out of the loop on this year.

“But I don’t have a costume,” I said as they walked out the door.

“Find something,” Mom said. “And don’t be late with those refreshments.”

After she was gone, I tried to find our costumes, but then I remembered that all of the Halloween boxes had been sent to Katie Summers for the festival. After about twenty minutes of digging through the storage room, I gave up and called April for help.

“I am so glad you called,” April said when she walked into my bedroom a little while later, with her makeup bag, a small duffel, and a jewelry box. “This is exactly why you need me.”

My dad was down in his study working on who knew what, and I figured he couldn’t protest my having a friend over if it was technically to help Mom out with the festival.

“I’m at a loss,” I said. “I’m thinking of just safety pinning a couple pairs of socks to my sweats and going as ‘static cling.’ ”

April rolled her eyes. She put one hand on her vinyl-clad hip. Her sequined tank sparkled under the light in my room, and her blonde locks were twisted into some weird sort of hair sculpture à la Lady Gaga. I couldn’t imagine how many cans of hairspray she’d used to make it stay that way. “Halloween is about releasing your inner she-wolf,” she pronounced.

I cringed at her terrible word choice. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“Then at least a little bit of a sex kitten.” She unzipped her duffel. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.” She pulled out a bundle of red-and-blue fabric. “I’ve been working on this design for the last few days, but when you said you weren’t going to do the superhero thing anymore, I thought I’d never get a chance to see you wear it.” She handed me the bundle and then went to her bag for something else.

I held the clothes out in front of me: a tiny blue gingham sheath dress and a solid red hooded cloak. I’d seen these clothes before. In a picture on April’s dresser from a daddy-daughter costume party at her elementary school. It was the only picture of her dad in her entire house.

“I’d planned on bedazzling your superhero initials on the back of the cloak, but we hadn’t decided on anything, so I left it blank.”

“Is this your Little Red Riding Hood costume?” I asked. “And weren’t you like ten years old when you wore this? Don’t you think it’s going to be way too small?”

“Exactly,” April said, and grinned like the Cheshire cat.

Seriously, I don’t know how April gets me to do these things. I mean, in the picture I’d seen of her wearing this dress, it had hit her midcalf. But as I pulled it over my shoulders, the fabric clung to my chest and hips and barely reached my midthighs. The red hooded cloak that went with it skimmed just above the small of my back. If it weren’t for the flesh-colored tights I insisted on wearing with the outfit, I would have felt practically naked.

April pulled a curling iron out of her duffel bag and gave my already naturally curly hair a little more “pow,” as she called it. Then she coated all my nails in bright blue polish to match the dress. But the things that almost put the outfit over the top were the tall red-leather high-heeled boots she pulled out of her bag of supplies. The ones I had barely been able to walk in at the club.

I stood in front of the mirror in utter disbelief. “I so can’t leave the house in this.”

“Yes, you can,” April said, standing next to me at the mirror while applying an insane amount of liner around her eyes. “You totally rock that outfit.” She flitted over to my desk and dropped her eye pencil in her makeup bag and then picked up two bracelets from her jewelry box. “Do you think Gaga would wear white or yellow gold?” She held up the two bracelets of different colors. One was a gold-beaded bangle, and the other I recognized as the bracelet she’d lost at the club. The image of Talbot holding it out to me in his hand flashed through my mind.