Page 158 of American Hellhound
Then
Later in life, as a grown woman, comfortably settled in her her marriage, her roles as parent and MC queen, Maggie would wonder if everything would have turned out the same if not for Cody Brewer’s Halloween party. She and Ghost were fated. Soulmates. Some catalyst would have brought them together again at some point. They would have been drawn together on their own like two magnets eventually, party or no. But the party happened before fate could intervene, and for that reason she owed Cody Brewer a debt of thanks; she should probably track him down and buy him a beer sometime.
Because the two weeks between exchanging her autonomy for a bank loan and the party were absolutely miserable. Her teachers and club leaders hit her with a barrage of “you’ll have to make that up,” and “you’re really behind,” and “you need to be totally committed.” None of which bothered her; she steered through each day on autopilot, going through the motions, expressionless, uncaring. If she did anything well it was an accident.
She talked to Ghost twice on the phone, though “talk” was debatable, since Ghost responded to her questions in monosyllables, flat and disinterested. She knew he was angry and hurting, but she didn’t know how to fix it.
The party did that for her. In a way.
Friday morning she happened upon Cody slipping something into one of the narrow ventilation slits in her locker. “What are you doing?” she asked, and he smiled when he turned to face her.
He had a stack of yellow flyers and handed one to her. “Giving you one of these. Here.”
“A party?” she asked, scanning the crude invitation. “At Hamilton House?”
“AHalloweenparty,” he corrected. “It’s a haunted house at a real haunted house. Pretty sweet, huh?”
“Pretty good chance of the cops showing up.”
“Ugh. Come on, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Cody–”
“I thought you were a badass now, biker old lady and all that. You’re gonna puss out over aparty?”
She folded her arms, anger starting to bleed through her routine numbness. “You didn’t hear? I’m back home. With my mother who would blow a gasket if she thought I was headed to a Hamilton House party.” It was Hamilton House, after all, that had kicked off her defection.
“Shit.” His eyes widened. “You went back home? Why?”
“Long story,” she said with a sigh. “But there’s no way I can come.”
He made a considering face. “You could ask.”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
But she did ask. By the time she got home, the thought of a night away, a distraction, had become all-consuming. She would call Ghost and invite him to come with her, she decided. Lost in the crush of teenage bodies and bad Halloween decorations, she could steal away with him, a blissful moment to themselves.
But first she had to contend with her mother.
She found Denise in the dining room, rearranging the Waterford in the china cabinet.
She didn’t think there was any reason to phrase things carefully. They’d dispensed with pleasantries by this point; what was the use in pretending?
Without preamble, she said, “There’s a party tonight. The whole junior class is invited.”
Denisehmmed and stepped back to survey her work. The way the afternoon light fractured off the cut-crystal details of the stemware and tumblers. “Will there be alcohol?”
Maggie blinked in surprise. That wasn’t the question she’d expected. “Probably. But I’ll be driving, so I won’t drink.”
“Will there be chaperones?”
“I doubt it.”
“I honestly wonder how the parents of these children stay so clueless. Teenagers aren’t that clever.”
“No, we’re not,” Maggie said, dryly.
Denise stepped forward and moved a champagne flute over an eighth of an inch with the tip of her pinky finger. “Alright.”
