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Kids were cute and all, but so flipping loud.
Especially around sugar cookies and an inflatable bounce house.
Two little fairies with purple wings fluttered past me while doing that laugh-scream thing kids did, making a beeline for the bouncy castle that took up so much real estate in the backyard. A dragon, a mermaid, and a robot were hot on the fairies’ heels, chasing them to the plastic deathtrap. The robot’s pipe-cleaner antennas flapped around as the boy hurried along to catch up, his cardboard head bumping with the movement.
I shouldn’t have been judging his costume so much. My costume wasn’t so spectacular, either. In fact, it really, really itched, and I felt really, really stupid. The sheer sleeves didn’t mix well with the October air. Goosebumps freckled my skin, and I had to fight the urge to cross my arms.
“Princesses are supposed to smile, Blaire Beverly.”
Being told to smile made me want to do the opposite, especially when someone used my full name. I turned to find who’d spoken. “Then why aren’t you smiling, Gram?”
My grandmother swatted at me with her free hand, perfectly balancing the tray of orange refreshments in the other. She’d woven her graying dark hair into an intricate braid, tied into a knot at the base of her neck, though a few strands escaped. “I’ve got enough wrinkles for you to know that I smile. Can you try to be cheerier?”
Cheeriness felt a little more than elusive at this point, and she shouldn’t have been talking. She got to wear pants—I had to wear a blue-and-white dress that made me feel more like an imposter than a princess. The corset wrapped around my ribs made it hard to breathe, let alone be cheery.
I forced my lips to stretch to prove my less-than-authentic merriment, but the sticky lip gloss made me cringe. “How can anyone be cheery in these shoes? Did you have to get actual glass slippers, Gram?”
Gram rolled her eyes at me. “It isn’t my fault you picked heels that are too small.”
Fine, I had picked the shoes that were a size too small for my feet. On accident. And maybe they weren’t actually made of glass, but something pretty dang close. Something equally torturous. I’d officially lost feeling in my toes an hour ago.
“Where’s your tray?” Gram finally took note of my empty hands. “You’re supposed to be serving the bacon-wrapped pieces of ham. Mrs. Wilson wanted those passed out for the kids, remember?”
I looked down at my hands, at the lines of black that still edged around my nails. Gram had made me scrub off my polish on the way over here, which had been a feat in the tiny catering truck, but a few traces still remained. “Donnie went to get another one for me.”
Gram raised one of her silvery eyebrows, and though she meant to be scolding, she couldn’t totally eclipse the sliver of amusement. “You gave him your shoe sob story too, didn’t you?”
I feigned indifference. “Does it matter?”
“Princesses are selfless, Blaire.” She readjusted her grip on the tray, careful not to spill a drop of liquid as she walked away.
“I’m not a princess,” I called after her. Quite frankly, I never wanted to hear the word princess again. See, Gram loved this kind of thing—parties, people, mingling. She lived for moments like this and couldn’t wait to fill her day planner with costume parties.
Oh, and Gram loved Halloween. Whereas, me? I hated it. Vehemently. Passionately.
Don’t get me started.
Gram owned a catering business called Costumed Catering. It’d been her baby for nearly three years, and in a tight community like ours, it thrived. Especially in October, because no town loved Halloween more than the Village of Hallow. No, they hadn’t named the village after the holiday, but one might’ve thought so with how insane everyone got around this time of year.
And by insane, I meant crazy. We’d done ten costume parties so far this month, and it was only the seventeenth of October.
And at how many of those parties had I been a princess? Ding, ding, ding—all ten of them.
The sheer veils attached to my sleeves caught in the wind, billowing behind me. One might think after all the times I’d been forced to play this princess role I’d have gotten good at it. Good at faking that smile, at wearing the heels from hell. Honestly, I doubt I’d have much of a problem with dressing up if I got to be something cool, like a witch or a ghost.
But no, I had to be a pretty, pretty princess. Ugh.
“One tray of hors d’oeuvres for the lady,” a light voice said, and a silver platter appeared at my right, full of crescent rolls and mini hot dogs. “Now, don’t eat all of them this time or Gram’s going to figure it out.”
Freckle-faced Donnie and I made up the crew of Gram’s Costume Catering business, or at least we were the face. My step-uncle John manned the food truck parked on the street, making more trays of food whenever we needed them. John had married my dad’s sister, Aunt Aimee, when Donnie and I were in the eighth grade, officially implanting both him and Donnie into this crazy, partially messed up family. Though the messed up side only affected my life.
There used to be one other honorary member of Costume Catering, but I pushed that thought from my head.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the tray from Donnie. He wore a costume too, fully decked out as a pirate. He even had a parrot on his shoulder, one he’d duct-taped to the puffy shoulder pad. He’d gelled his black hair up into wild spikes, and though one would assume he designed it like that for his costume, he actually loved wearing his hair crazy. “I’ll tell her a bunch of the little demons jumped me and devoured them all.”
“Lower your voice,” Donnie murmured quickly, glancing around at whoever stood closest to us. One might’ve thought I’d said a curse word or something. “One of the big demons will hear you and chew you out for it.”
“These moms don’t scare me,” I told him, spotting where the majority of them stood near the “punch” table. Their costumes were almost nicer than their kids’, as if more time had been spent on them than the fairies and the robot. “Besides, they’re already on their fifth round of mimosas—they probably don’t even know which kid is theirs.”
Donnie took a large step away from me as if he could distance himself from my words. “You need a censor. Someone to go around and go ‘beep’ to cut you off. I’m surprised Gram still lets you on the front side of things.”
That made me smile, but I tried to keep it small as I looked down at him. “I think you’re finally starting to uncover my evil plan, Donnie.”
He reached up and pressed his fingers to his lips, something he did frequently when he grew nervous. His parrot wobbled with the movement, almost falling off. “Your plan of, what? Offending the entire population of Hallow? I mean, you’ve already offended about half already, right?”