The night of the Halloween dance arrived. Nessa turned on her favorite mix of spooky choir music. When Sophie arrived at her house, Nessa jumped out with a monster mask on.
It didn’t scare Sophie. But it was fun, anyway.
Eve was going to be late because she had to wait until after Shabbat dinner to meet them. Such a nuisance.
So there they were. She and Sophie Kane, alone. Sophie Kane, the girl who had had a million opportunities to speak to her throughout the years they’d gone to school together, but never had until she’d needed something.
Nessa’s mom and dad welcomed Sophie in. Nessa’s mom told them that they’d leave in an hour. Nessa checked Sophie’s face for a response to her mom’s Spanish, but she didn’t catch one. Her mom had lived in the States since she was three and didn’t even remember life in Santa Tecla, but some people in Glisgold treated her like she’d just arrived yesterday when they heard her speak in her native language.
When they got to Nessa’s bedroom, Sophie shocked Nessa by not saying anything stupid like people usually did (“You speak Mexican?” or “I didn’t know you were Mexican.” Oh my God, people. Read a book.). Instead Sophie asked, “Do you speak Spanish, too? Is there any way you could help me with my Spanish homework? I’m bad. And I can’t get a B. I just can’t.”
Nessa couldn’t help but laugh. “Sure,” she said.
“What’s so funny?” Sophie asked.
Nessa understood almost everything in Spanish, but when she spoke it, people in her mom’s family made fun of her accent. At least her dad spoke it as badly as her. Well, way, way painfully worse than her. That helped.
“I speak enough to help you out, let’s just say that.”
Sophie grinned and proceeded to take out an abundance of makeup tools.
“Thanks,” Sophie said as she pulled out a powder brush.
Nessa couldn’t shake the feeling that Sophie was using her again.
“Okay, let’s get to work.” Sophie was there to make Eve look Brody-confession-inducing amazing, but Nessa had insisted on help with her own costume, too. She wasn’t convinced Sophie could pull it off, though.
Nessa showed Sophie a picture of the makeup look she wanted, and Sophie sighed.
“Not my usual specialty, but okay, I’ll give it a shot,” Sophie relented. “Professor McGonagall it is.”
Sophie’s costume appeared to be some kind of … pretty person? Cute girl? What was it exactly? Sophie and her friends dressed in these noncostume costumes every year.
“Okay, so spill it. What are you dressed as?” Nessa didn’t bother hiding the disdain in her voice.
“I’m a dancer,” Sophie answered as if it were obvious.
Nessa looked Sophie up and down. “Don’t dancers wear leotards? Tutus or something?”
Sophie put her hands on her hips. “Wow, the costume police are really strict this year.”
Nessa shrugged. “I’m just saying. Okay, let’s do this.”
After Sophie finished up and put the final bobby pin into Nessa’s bun, she handed Nessa a hand mirror from the bed stand.
Nessa stared at her reflection. She looked incredible. “Thank you!” she said.
Sophie smiled approvingly. “Not bad,” she admitted.
So Sophie got to be the most crushed-on girl in the eighth grade and she had serious makeup talent? What a nice life.
“Hey!” Nessa exclaimed, thinking of a way that Sophie could do something else for her. “You should do makeup for The Music Man! They make us do our own, but most people are really bad at it, and you’d make us all look so much better! We can trade homework help for Music Man makeup magic!”
Sophie grunted. “Yeah, right.”
At that, the doorbell rang.
“Right on time!” Nessa yelled out.
Eve walked in, dressed in the Juliet costume she’d worn two years in a row.
Sophie looked Eve up and down and, without even saying hello, held up a makeup brush and declared, “You have to look perfect tonight.”
As soon as they walked into the gymnasium, Sophie went off to the middle of the room to join her crowd.
“Okay, bye,” Nessa said.
“Do you see him?” Eve asked her, fidgeting all about.
“Not yet.” Nessa took her hand.
Eve squeezed Nessa’s hand and went off to look for Brody.
Would Eve just slow dance with Brody or something and forget their whole plan? Nessa tried to have faith that her friend hadn’t changed that much. Hey, at least her goofy Renaissance Faire costume, despite its newly snug fit, screamed, “I’m still the old Eve.”
Nessa scanned the room for any other fun people. Lara Alexander, Erin O’Brien, and a couple of other kids from the show danced in their own little corner. Lara wore a gown and a crown and looked like actual royalty. Erin O’Brien had a red cardboard airplane around her chair and was dressed as Amelia Earhart. Nessa wove through some skeletons, zombies, and various types of princesses and superheroes as she headed toward that safe zone.
“Hey, is Brody here yet?” Nessa asked the crowd.
Erin rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t think so. I would’ve smelled the cologne and ego.”
Nessa snorted. “True.”
A paper jack-o’-lantern hanging from the ceiling fell, and a couple of teachers scrambled to get its string out of a girl’s hair. Amina, dressed as Catwoman, twirled around the dance floor with Hayley, who wore a costume as vague as Sophie’s. Winston Byrd, that night the Green Hornet, and Caleb Rhines, Han Solo, stood in a corner under an art-class-made papier-mâché monster, arguing. Probably about sports. Caleb pointed a menacing finger at Winston’s chest and shouted something. Okay, maybe not sports. Rose Reed, dressed as Princess Leia, came over and took Caleb’s arm to lead him to dance.
But no Brody. And where had Eve gone?
Everyone looked different this year. Glam-ier. A bunch of the girls wore more makeup than she’d ever seen on them. This was probably the one night their parents allowed them to do that. But Nessa suspected that wasn’t the only reason. Every girl’s outfit screamed “Put me on the list!”
Whatever happened to simply wanting to win the costume contest?
But wait. Sophie was right; Nessa shouldn’t act like the costume police.
She heard a group of voices over the music. They came from somewhere far off. The dancing stopped, and people began to crowd around something. A fistfight?
Wait, could it be Eve? Was Eve okay? Nessa felt her best-friend instinct kick into high gear, and she tried to run toward the action, but the crowd blocked her. She attempted to push her way through, but Nessa still couldn’t see who was yelling or why. She saw Mr. Flynn coming from another side, also trying to get to the center of the noise, as another teacher rushed out of the room.
And then, nudging through the gawking bystanders, she saw what all the commotion was about. Standing right in front of Sophie and Eve, his hand on his hip as he tossed back the hair of his cheap blond wig, stood Brody Dixon dressed in the most horrifying Halloween costume Nessa could imagine.