Page 13 of Four Weekends and a Funeral

“Do you need anything before I go?”

“Nope. I don’t need anything from you,” he says quietly, and though his tone doesn’t precisely convey an insult, I simply can’t rule it out.

“Okay. When will you be here next?”

“All day tomorrow. I’m staying at my sister’s tonight.”

“That makes sense. I wouldn’t expect you to drive back to Duluth tonight.”

He finally turns to face me. With a sheet of bubble wrap still in his hands, he folds his arms across his chest in challenge. His eyes look me up and down—clinically, impersonally, like an MRI machine scanning for anomalies—until he returns his gaze to the mass-produced modern art print on the wall. “I’m glad you approve.”

This conversation feels like a game I’m losing, but I double down on friendliness. I can’t help it. “See you tomorrow?” I despise the cheery eagerness in my voice.

He releases a long exhale, drained by one day with me. “I’ll be here.”

Then so will I. Unfortunately.

—

Halloween revelers are meandering along the sidewalk, already several hours into their debauchery. It’s warmer than the weather forecast predicted, so every painted face and sexy cat eye is a bit drippy. When I board the light rail back to Saint Paul, a steampunk zombie argues with Frank N. Furter in that loud, lazy way only drunk people do.

“It’s like, it’s like, you don’t even care! You don’t even care!” the zombie yells over Frank, who’s slurring back, “You didn’t even ask! You never ask!”

More costumed twenty-somethings hop on, and I get off early. Despite the weather apps predicting the first snowstorm of the year tonight, the breeze is warm on my skin, and I’d rather walk five extra minutes if it means escaping an intoxicated Addams Family.

When I turned thirty, a switch flipped, and holidays that once felt shiny and limitless started to look sweaty and claustrophobic. I fight the throngs of face paint and latex masks—which will undoubtedly end up in the street at one a.m., when their owners realize just how little those things breathe—all the way to my apartment, where I change into my low-effort costume before heading back into the mess.

“Tell me we have a table!” I beg the blond milkmaid braids I hope belong to Chelsea when I step into the crowded pizza place that hosts Halloween-themed trivia.

Chelsea spins on her stool away from the bar and gives me a delighted, if slightly demented, grin. “Ahh! You’re here!” She pulls me into a suffocating hug and knocks me into the red laminate bar counter. My forehead bumps her cat ears askew as she rocks us back and forth, alternating between screaming across the room and loudly whispering in my ear over the blaring alt-rock, “MarsBars! Al is HERE! Al is here. I was so worried.”

When she releases me, I spot Patrick Finley—our reliable fourth in trivia—hovering next to her in a navy sweater vest emblazoned with a giant gold R.

“Archie for Halloween? Again?” I point at his red hair and overall lack of creativity.

Chelsea sways into his chest. “I told him he should upgrade to Riverdale Archie next year. The youths don’t know about the comic book. Ooh! Does Mara have cheese bread?” Chelsea gallops off to the table Mara’s guarding.

I plop into her abandoned stool next to Patrick’s, the splitting vinyl scraping my pants. “So…Chelsea’s drunk.”

He grimaces. “It happened slowly and then all at once. Two hours of food, water, and Mara should do the trick.” Patrick’s eyes examine Chelsea across the room as she struggles momentarily with her straw. “I’m grabbing another pitcher of water, just in case. Can you watch her?” I give him a nod before weaving through the bodies.

Mara, in a blue striped button-up with a tie and suspenders, looks me up and down as I slide into the booth. “What’s this? We all have to be in costume for the extra point.”

I gesture to my hiking boots and olive cargo pants. “I’m Cheryl Strayed. She wrote Wild. Reese Witherspoon was in the movie.”

“I know who Cheryl Strayed is. What I don’t know is in what world you think a reference to a memoir from the early 2010s is an appropriate Halloween costume.”

“She’s from Minnesota.”

“Don’t insult me by pretending you put effort into this.” Mara poises her pen over our team’s trivia sheet. “I’m writing down Laura Dern from Jurassic Park. Any objections?”

“I would never object to being Laura Dern. Who are you supposed to be?”

“Gordon Gekko.” She tsks, disappointed I even had to ask.

I bob my head in agreement. Her outfit and red-brown slicked-back lob definitely resemble a vamped-up version of the famous Michael Douglas look.

“See how you immediately got it, and I didn’t need to summarize a nonfiction book from ten years ago?”

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