three halloweens

queen of hearts
eat a toaster strudel and wonder if anyone else will be dressed up. ask mom again if i look dumb or weird, my face blushing everytime i catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. be brave, be brave. be fabulous, like mom says. stick my tongue out at a group of tenth graders in the hall who laugh cruelly as i pass, who laugh like if no one ever found out, they would push me into the handicapped bathroom and draw blood. smile at a girl in the grade below me in the cafeteria, who is dressed up like elvira. she has thick coke bottle glasses and plays volleyball, is good at it but is the last one picked for the team. she sits at a table where people who have no table sit, and even though it makes me want to call mom and go home just so i can cry, i make fun of her to my friends. at least your costume is original, they say, even though they havent been acting normal all day.
eat taco salad. wish i hadnt worn the stupid costume. its hot and is starting to itch, and its only 11:20.
go trick or treating with jane, allison, lana, maureen. try too hard. why doesnt it feel like it used to, like no matter what i say theyll still want to come over. like things i say are funny, not dumb. go back to allison's house. two boys from john carroll come over, dressed as ghosts, and we go up to allison's attic. sit on the bed and it breaks, and even though allison says "it does this all the time," no one hears her. she said it too quietly and everyone was already hysterical. after i leave, alone, i promise to never wear a costume again. they are supposed to protect you, to guard you, but all they do is make you more afraid. mom smooths my bangs back as i cry myself to sleep.

margot tennenbaum
go to john's halloween party at his house on 23rd street with daniel, the boy i've been dating for a year. i'm margot tennenbaum and he's richie. smoke cigarettes all night and pull my dress down constantly, knowing that everyone is thinking, if she were thinner she'd be a good margot. two days before the party, as we're driving on jefferson to look for a fur coat, daniel says he doesnt want to be richie anymore, that he really wants to be charlie bucket. cry and say, but you promised. if we dont go as margot and richie, people will think we arent in love. i think that, i believe it, but would never say it to daniel. he ends up saying ok, because he wants me to trust him.
wear the fake finger that daniel made for me, the prosthesis that margot wears because when she went to visit her biological family, her real father chopped off her ring finger with an axe. he made it with clay, baked it in the oven. it is the sweetest thing a boy has ever done for me, but that night i sit up in bed next to his sleeping body, eyeliner still on, and smoke the last cigarette in the pack, even though smoking makes me queasy. he snores and i wonder if this is it.

david bowie
my friend taylor, from home, is in LA for halloween. taylor tried to kiss me once, on his parent's bed, after we drank two bottles of baileys irish creme and talked about stanley kubrick for hours. it was over christmas break, when i was dating daniel. he leaned in like a cat fascinated by something moving, like it was the first time he ever kissed anyone. i shook my head and said, you know i cant, and he put his head and his hands and whispered, i wish i were dead.
now we're both dressed as david bowie, the ziggy stardust years, at a nearly empty halloween party. its awkward and i am embarassed that he came so far, unsure of what he wanted, what he was expecting. i just want to sleep in the same bed with him, be near him and watch him become absorbed with me. i dont want to kiss him, to see his body naked. i dont want to be a girlfriend, because they go away, and i want to be there forever, untainted and still interesting.
as the night progresses the party fills out and soon my other friends have arrived, benjamin as a homeless person chugging charcoal filtered vodka straight from the bottle. we're drunk and dancing, and taylor is getting closer and closer to sarah. it doesnt make me jealous but i am aware enough to realize that its because of her- if it were anyone else, someone less sweet, less good, less real, i know that it would be enough to drive me to sleep with him, just to bring him back. or maybe i could sense it then, sense that the rest of the weekend would turn into this warm collaboration between me, taylor, benjamin, sarah and lily -- all of us sleeping in my bed, waking up and eating hamburgers at in n out, going to malibu and drinking champagne on the rocks, reading letters from penthouses aloud and laughing until its unbearable, making fortresses out of pillows and blankets in my expansive living room, taking dozens of polaroids and crying about war.
benjamin falls down the porch stairs and breaks out three of his front teeth but none of us realize it until the morning. dance with a set of twins, never knowing which is which, kiss one of their necks and vomit in a trashcan. wake up in bed next to taylor, watch an episode of the wonder years and see that the pillowcases are stained with blue face paint.
ask him if its his best halloween yet, and smile into the pillow when he says, duh.