Janie hopped out of bed on Halloween morning, eager to go to school in her Olive Oyl costume. Susan and Mrs. Garcia would take the kids around trick-or-treating in the afternoon. Eliza promised her daughter that she would get home as quickly as she possibly could after work so they could give out the candy together to the nighttime trick-or-treaters.
Doris had outdone herself again this year. She had spent hours painstakingly taping long, thin adhesive strips to a black tunic and skirt. Then she had carefully measured and marked boxes along the tape, numbering the corners of some of the boxes with a fine-tipped pen. She had bought a pair of inexpensive black sunglasses and painted sporadic squares on them with Wite-Out. She used her expert skills, coating her face with white pancake and drawing, with the help of a ruler, horizontal and vertical lines. She donned a pair of black opaque tights and pulled her flowing mane of hair up into a ponytail, tying it with a man’s tie—a tie printed in the design of a crossword puzzle. The inspiration for her costume.
She left her apartment early, bound for the ABC studio. The Regis producers loved her costume and wanted her to come inside and be on the show. But she couldn’t win a prize, they warned her, since she had won last year.
Bummer.
Doris headed for the Broadcast Center, eagerly anticipating the reaction she would get there.
Florence Anderson awoke before dawn and lay alone in her bed. It was the day she dreaded all year long.
The first year after Linda’s death, she hadn’t even been able to open her door to the children who came begging. The next year, she had managed to give out packages of M&Ms. Without nuts. Those had been Linda’s favorites.
Now, and every year since, a big bowlful of the chocolate candy packages sat ready on the table in the foyer. Life had to go on.
And maybe, just maybe, Florence allowed herself to hope, the piece that was scheduled to air on tonight’s KEY Evening Headlines might jog someone’s memory and lead to some closure to the pain she had been living with for the past five years.