Ash stepped into my entryway wearing a black tux, white waistcoat, white shirt, and white bow tie. His tawny eyes sparkled, and his brown hair, which was normally messy, tonight had been gelled, parted, and slicked back into the perfect twenties style.
“Wow,” I said.
“You look pretty wow yourself.” Ash’s eyes wandered up and down the length of me. “That dress…”
I had on my mother’s ivory beaded dress and had layered on strands of pearls and draped a feather boa around my neck. I’d tied my hair back into a lose bun, letting strands of hair fall out from under the headband. It was a look I’d tried to copy off Pinterest, with some success if Ash’s wide-eyed stare was any indication. I’d put on way more makeup than my usual mascara-and-lip gloss combo and had—after considerable effort—affixed the faux lashes to my own. It was definitely more of a va-va-voom look than my usual attire. “You like?” I posed, jutting my hip out.
“Uh…yeah.”
“Good.” I turned toward the kitchen, my beaded dress making a deliciously sophisticated swishing sound as I walked. “Drink?”
Before Ash got there, I’d dimmed the lights, put on a Spotify playlist called “Jazzy Nights,” and lit several candles around the room. My parents had given me a bottle of champagne when I’d gotten my first front-page story at the Times, and I’d stuck it in a salad bowl full of ice (I didn’t own an ice bucket) and set out some wine glasses (I didn’t own any champagne flutes) along with a small bowl of strawberries. It was not exactly Instagram-worthy, but I thought it had a certain charm.
Ash let out a low whistle. “Champagne? Strawberries? Candlelight? You better be careful, Miss Ellison, or we might not make it to the party…”
“Calm down, Romeo.” I laughed. “Holman and Lindsey are meeting us here. I thought it’d be fun to have a drink together before we go.”
That was partially true. The other part was that it had been a long time since I’d been to a party, let alone a costume party, and I was a little nervous. I wasn’t the most socially gifted person who ever walked the Earth, so I thought a pre-event drink would help me feel more comfortable in a room full of costumed strangers. I nodded to the bottle in the bowl. “Do you mind opening? I’m not sure I know how.”
Ash twisted the bottle until it made the obligatory pop and poured us each a glass. “To a year full of new experiences, new friendships, and new possibilities.”
“Cheers!”
We took a sip and then set our glasses down. The moment was artificial but sweet, and I had to fight the impulse to say something sarcastic to counterbalance it. One of my flaws had always been that I had trouble being serious in a serious moment. It was a product of immaturity, no doubt, and something I was determined to change. So as the silence between us stretched on, I took another sip of my champagne to swallow my urge to say something stupid.
Finally, Ash broke the tension. “Look at us in our fancy clothes drinking champagne by candlelight. Who are we?”
I almost spit out my drink with relief. “I know, right? I feel like a total imposter.”
“Imposter? Nah, I feel like I should be on a red carpet somewhere. I look good in this tux.”
“My, but someone has a high opinion of oneself,” I teased.
“What? You don’t think I could give Tobey Maguire a run for his money in this?” He spun around to give me the full view.
“You watched the movie!” I said, clapping my hands together. “What’d you think?”
“It was kinda sad,” he said. “But it looked like they had one hell of a party before things all went to shit.”
“Maybe we should drink to that: one hell of a party before everything goes to shit.” I raised my glass into the air.
“I’d rather drink to having a date with the prettiest girl in town.”
I rolled my eyes. “That tux is turning you into a cheese ball.”
“I’m dead serious.” Ash was looking at me the way a lion might look at a gazelle. Or Holman might look at a doughnut. He said, “I can’t remember the last time I was as proud to go anywhere with anyone as I am to go to this party with you tonight.”
“Ash—” That was maybe the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, and I didn’t know how to respond. Luckily, the doorbell rang and I didn’t have to finish my sentence. And, double-luckily, there could not have been a more effective antidote to the intimate moment than what I saw when I opened my front door.
Holman and Lindsey stood before me, both wearing pants that I think were called knickers, drab-colored button-down shirts under even drabber vests, and flat newsboy caps. Holman had a parchment bag slung across his chest filled with newspapers. Lindsey’s accessory appeared to be dirt she’d that smudged onto her cheeks to perfect the “street urchin” look. I was both horrified and impressed.
“Whadaya know, Riley!” Holman said in that nasal tone familiar to old movies.
“Jeepers! You look swell!” Lindsey chimed in.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
Ash walked over to the entry. “Man, you guys look… wow…you really went all out, didn’t you?” he said.
Holman beamed at what he perceived as a compliment, and Lindsey patted at the base of her hat where she’d tucked up her beautiful hair. “Thanks, daddy-o,” they said in unison, and then looked at each other and laughed.
I led them in and offered them champagne. Lindsey accepted and Holman declined, as he was our driver for the evening. Earlier in the day I told him we’d be happy to take Uber to and from the party so he could have a drink, but he’d insisted on taking his car. “What kind of gentleman takes a woman out and does not see to her safe return home?”
“Uber is ‘seeing to her safe return home,’” I’d told him.
“It’s outsourcing the job,” he’d said with more than a hint of judgment in his voice. “Besides, wouldn’t it likely be your mother driving the Uber?”
“Good point,” I said. I mean, I love my mom and everything, but having her drive me and my friends to a party was way too high school flashback for me.
We spent the next thirty minutes or so making excited chitchat, all of us careful not to bring up anything having to do with work. This was a night for celebration, and we were all determined not to let the weightier issues of the day spoil it. When it was time to leave for Toad’s party, we piled into Holman’s Dodge Neon. After a lengthy process of him putting the party address into his navigation system while Ash kept repeating, “Dude, I can just tell you where to go,” we were off.
Toad lived in a subdivision about two miles outside of Tuttle Corner. The narrow road was still snow covered from yesterday’s storm, but it was a well-traveled route, so the snow was packed down, making for an easy drive. The night was cold and clear, and the bright moon reflected off the snow, bathing everything around us in dark periwinkle. As Ash and I sat in the cramped back seat, our knees touching, he reached over and threaded his fingers through mine. An old song from Holman’s weird but oddly perfect “Roaring 20s” playlist drifted through the small car, and for a brief moment I actually felt transported to another time, or at the very least to another age.
People had often told me I was an old soul—Granddaddy, when I’d devour his old Agatha Christie novels, and Ryan, when I’d suggest we blow off a party in college to stay home and watch a movie. Granddad had meant it as a compliment, and I’m pretty sure Ryan did not—but either way the epithet had been okay with me. There’s a certain peace that comes with knowing who you are, and while I was far from Miss Confidence, USA, I’d always been comfortable with that part of myself. I dipped my head onto Ash’s shoulder as we rode in silence, enjoying the closeness as he gave my hand a meaningful squeeze.
“I think this is it,” Lindsey said as we pulled onto a street lined with cars.
“I’ll drop you ladies at the driveway,” Holman said, “so you won’t have to walk in the snow.”
For a guy who didn’t date much and didn’t often dwell on the subtleties of human interaction, Holman was being quite the gentleman tonight. I knew that must have been a testament to how much he wanted to impress Lindsey. I hoped it was working.
We pulled up to the house, and I couldn’t help but smile. White twinkle lights filled multiple trees out front, the path to the front door was lined with white-paper-bag luminaries, and music spilled out onto the street. You could also hear a roar of lively conversation all the way from the driveway, and I’ll admit I felt a flutter of nervous excitement ripple through my belly.
“You know anyone who’s coming?” Lindsey said to me as we stood on the driveway waiting for our dates.
“Ryan and Ridley,” I said, my breath visible. “And I’ll probably recognize some people from high school—but other than that, no.” I noticed she looked a little nervous. I wanted to ask how it was going with Holman, but I knew he’d be along at any moment. “Your costume looks great, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Truthfully, I’d probably rather have worn a cute dress like yours, but Will was so excited about the newsies idea, I just had to go along with it.”
“That was really sweet of you.”
She smiled, an unspoken answer to my unspoken question of how things were going between them. Just then Ash and Holman walked up, their cheeks red from the cold. Ash leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Um, he keeps calling me ‘old sport.’”
I stifled a laugh.
“You gals ready to bust into this gin joint and sip on some giggle water?” Holman said, reviving his old-timey voice from before.
I was about to tell Holman that he didn’t have to talk like that all night, but then Lindsey said, “That’d be the bee’s knees!” and I felt like I’d be a total wench to try to tame their enthusiasm. Lindsey was clearly trying to get into the spirit and so should I.
“Sure thing, daddy-o,” I said.
Holman’s face lit up with excitement. “Nice use of Prohibition-era slang, Riley!”
Ash, on the other hand, looked at me like I was speaking Russian.
“When in West Egg…” I trilled as I took his arm to walk inside.