7. Carter
CHAPTER 7
CARTER
E ven though I was the one to organize the party, I was impressed by it. Enchanted. Details on paper never match up to the shapes they form in reality.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of guests filled the warehouse, an ocean of vivid costumes beneath the moody purple and orange lighting. Projectors plastered scowling ghouls and bats over the walls. Cobwebs draped in filmy clouds from the high ceiling, like vines, and trailed from every conceivable surface. Fog machines blanketed every inch of the floor in a blanket, drifts rising into the air to obscure faces, identities. Tables of party foods and drinks lined a section of wall, all of them with some sort of macabre twist. Cupcakes with gummy eyeballs, blood-red punch with crimson ice cubes, finger foods made to resemble actual fingers, brownies with white strings of cotton candy and edible candy spiders.
Attendants, dressed as vampires, faces painted white, wearing red contacts, drifted through the crowds, replacing trays of food and tidying up as they went.
It looked as if I had thrown a party for the undead. Ghouls, zombies, goblins, vampires, witches, and werewolves of different varieties made up the vast majority of the guests, though there were a fair amount of princesses and cat girls and characters from video games and movies thrown in.
The air had a thick smell, a nigh undetectable vapor from the fog machines layered over cheap rubber and body odor. Time and time again, I found myself straying back closer to the food, where the scents of sugar could replace the fouler ones of the crowd.
It wasn’t as if I wasn’t having fun, though. To be honest, I was having a blast, more fun than I could remember having in the past couple of years. No one knew who I was. No one rushed up to me and demand to talk to me, and no one tried to usher me away to introduce me to someone they thought I might consider important for one reason or another.
For tonight, I was just a handsome man.
I mingled with the crowd for hours, talking to the other guests as if I was one of them. Though everyone was fantastic, I didn’t really find anyone who stirred a spark in me. The special one I searched for continued to be elusive.
“Hey! Masked prince.”
I turned at the shout. A rather broad and clearly drunk guy a few years younger than me came stumbling over.
“What’s up?” I asked, suddenly nervous. He might have recognized me, somehow. The commotion had caught the attention of a few party-goers near us and the last thing I wanted was for this to start a wave of realization about my identity.
The guy drew up in front of me and fixed his blonde wig. He also dressed like a prince, though was more of Prince Charming type, while I was more nondescript, unable to be assigned to any story in particular. “There can only be one prince at this party,” he slurred. “I been challenging all the other princes to duels. I’m undefeated. You’re next.”
I started to smile.
“What’re you laughing at?”
I bit my tongue to stop my smile from spreading. This guy wanted to play, then fine. I would play. “It amuses me that you think you’ll be the one true prince. Your opponents must not have been very talented.”
Someone in the audience let out a murmur, an “ooh,” at the challenge.
Prince Charming grunted at me. Maybe it was supposed to be more of a scoff. “You’re going to regret this. I challenge you to a duel.”
“I don’t exactly have a sword.”
“Are you a man or aren’t you?”
I jerked back, startled. “You don’t mean…”
What on earth has my party turned into?
Prince Charming burst out laughing. “I’m just fucking with you. Here. A sword.” He held out a toothpick to me, one in the shape of a wooden stake. A spot of grease smudged the tip. I knew exactly where he’d gotten the toothpick from—the pepperoni vampire hearts on the buffet table.
I accepted my so-called sword. It was too small to hold firmly. I grasped it with my thumb and index finger. “Okay. Now what?”
Prince Charming produced his own “sword” and pointed the greasy tip at me. “Now we duel. The best prince wins.”
Before I could react, Prince Charming lurched forward and poked me in the meat of my hand. I yelped and jerked my hand back, almost dropping my own toothpick. People around us laughed and started cheering, chanting encouragement mostly for Prince Charming. He’d struck the first blow, so he had the best chance of winning.
Well, I wasn’t about to be outdone at my own party.
I stabbed out with my toothpick, deliberately missing his hand. He jerked. Quickly, like plucking out a bee stinger, I pulled his toothpick out of his hand.
Prince Charming opened his palm, staring in comical surprise at his lack of a weapon. “Well,” he said. “This is an unexpected turn.”
I laughed, and so did he. He threw his heavy arm around my shoulders and squeezed so tight my laughter turned breathless, constricted.
Releasing me, he grinned at my eyes. “That was awesome, man.”
“Do I win?”
“Shit yeah, you win!” he exclaimed. “That was awesome.”
“Want your sword back?”
“Nah. I’m gonna go drown my sorrows in some punch. See you later, Masked Prince.”
The big guy went trundling off, some people who I assumed to be his friends following right after.
A woman dressed like Wonder Woman patted me on the back. “That was cool!”
“Yeah,” added a man in a big full-body dog costume, voice muffled through the headpiece. “You really showed that jock what’s up.”
I blushed a bit from their compliments, glad for the protective shield of my mask. “It was all just in good fun. I just got lucky.”
“Kinda suck if you got a toothpick stabbed through your hand at Carter Bryant’s party,” said a person of indeterminate gender through the face plate of a knight’s helmet. “You did get lucky. But it was cool,” they added.
After a few more compliments and side comments, the conversation faded out. No one had any real interest in the event now that it was over; there was plenty more to see and do.
I looked around for Brian, to tell him of my triumph, quickly picking out his bright red-and-blue suit in the dull mood lighting. I headed over, smiling a little while imagining his reaction. I opened my mouth to call out for him and get his attention.
The crowd cleared a little bit in front of me, a gap opening in the dance floor. I slowed to a stop.
Brian wasn’t alone.
He had pulled off his mask and was speaking very enthusiastically to a young woman dressed as Mary Jane, Spider-Man’s constant love interest throughout his character’s many iterations. Brian leaned over her, though not too much, since she was almost his height. Their heads were close together and though I couldn’t hear them, the rapid motions of their lips left me with no illusions. They were deep, deep in conversation and my advance would be little more than an unwelcome intrusion as a third wheel.
I turned away, meaning to get a drink since the fog in the air had me a bit thirsty. My eyes landed upon a young woman standing by herself a short distance away from Brian and his Mary Jane. I drew to a halt as soon as I spotted her, my jaw dropping a little bit from surprise. How had I missed her?
She was stunning.
She was dressed as a princess, though her costume was unlike anything I had ever seen before. No way she had picked that up at a store, though I was equally unable to believe she’d made such a thing herself. It was almost too good for words, too good to exist anywhere outside of a movie set after a team of professionals created it. And she certainly fit the same category. She seemed somehow familiar in a way I couldn’t quite place, like I had seen her before somewhere. Perhaps in a dream. Perhaps in a fantasy. Or maybe she was just so amazing to look at that I could feel her becoming a fantasy.
No. Screw that.
I wanted to know her. I had to talk to her. I hadn’t organized this whole thing just to fantasize, after all.
I made my way over to the princess and held out my hand to her. “Hi, princess.”
The princess raised her shapely eyebrows at me. She hesitated before taking my hand, though was too polite to deny me, I could tell. “Hi. Have we met?”
I started off too strong.
I dialed my behavior back a little bit and released her hand. “I thought you looked a little familiar.”
She tilted her head and gave a tiny smile. “Maybe I could say the same about you if you didn’t have that mask on.”
I chuckled. “A secret identity is a secret identity, princess. I’m not going to reveal myself that easily.”
“Well, then I won’t reveal myself either,” she replied. That same smile played over her lips, alluring and a bit distant. I wanted to see more of it.
“That’s fair enough. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I think your costume is amazing.”
She blushed and tilted her head down. A few stray strands of brown hair escaped her bun and fell across her forehead. I reached out and brushed them back into place. She hastily reached up and fiddled with her headband, more of her hair escaping in the process, spilling free onto her shoulders. “Oh, this silly thing. I knew I should have used bobby pins.”
“Need help?” I offered.
The princess hesitated, surveying me with a skeptical glance. I did my best not to look like a creep, just a nice guy wanting to lend a hand to a lady in need. She relented and nodded. “Could you hold my hair in place while I put this headband back on?”
“Of course.” I moved closer. She smelled good, like lavender and vanilla, a scent so soft it couldn’t have been perfume. It had to have been soap, exuding from her soft, creamy-white skin.
“Thanks,” she murmured. She pulled off her headband and gathered all her hair up on top of her hand. “Just hold it up here.”
I placed my hand on top of her head, holding her hair—and my breath. Her hair was so damn soft, like silk between my fingers.
The princess secured her headband and, with extreme reluctance, I let go. She tilted her head around a little and gave a slight, satisfied smile. “Fixed. Thanks for your help.”
“My pleasure,” I said. “So, anyway, I love your dress.”
“Thank you. I made some modifications to it after buying it.”
“Are you a tailor when you aren’t a princess?”
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “I’m a… Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a hobby of mine, being crafty, though I’d like to make money from it someday.”
Even knowing she had done work on the dress herself, I couldn’t tell. It could have rolled off the assembly line so crisp and stylish. “In my opinion, I think you could do it.”
“Oh, that’s so nice of you!” She smiled more and scrunched up her shoulders, self-conscious, though not really nervous any longer. “It’s a lot harder than it sounds like, though.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “I happen to be a bit knowledgeable about the art world, enough to know it’s touch. I think what anyone needs to make it is a way to stand out and a good bit of luck. I can’t speak on your luckiness, but you have definitely made that dress stand out.”
The princess turned her head away from me to hide her mounting embarrassment. “What do you do for work?”
Nice deflection.
“A bit of everything,” I said truthfully. “I host galleries and promote artworks I think are deserving of attention. I critique, and collect.”
“My friend does critiques, too.” The princess brightened. “For the paper. She’s a columnist who writes reviews. Books, movies, art, you name it.”
Something clicked for me. “Would this friend of yours happen to be the Mary Jane over there?”
“You saw her?”
“That red wig is a bit…much. It was hard to miss her.” We both laughed. “She picked a costume that was a bit on the nose, then.”
“I’d say so. On purpose, too. Maggie is acutely self-aware.”
I was amused. “That is the strangest compliment I have ever heard one person give another. Not ‘she’s nice’ or ‘funny’ but that she’s self-aware.”
“You don’t know her. She’s unlike anyone you’ve ever known.”
“I don’t need to know her.” I lowered my voice. “I’m talking to someone who is also unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”
The princess licked her dark red lips and swallowed. “You mean me?”
“I do.”
She did that thing again where she turned away, and then she tried to deflect. “Maggie came here to try and find Brian Holt, because she’s very interested in him. I think the costume was more so she could roleplay. Not a lot of investigative journalism going on when you’re critiquing the latest Hollywood film.”
She wasn’t going to let me in if I kept on like this. I couldn’t keep playing it so safely. Sooner rather than later, she would wriggle her way away from me and that would be it. I couldn’t let her go without at least trying.
“Do you want to dance with me?” I asked.
The princess swallowed nervously again, didn’t answer.
“Your friend is busy with that Brian guy. And the friend I came with is also occupied.” I wasn’t going to tell her that friend was Brian. I didn’t want to give her even the slightest hint about who I was. “We’re both alone and available right now, so why not dance? Just one dance. I swear I’m not terrible at it.”
“Well,” she shrugged. “Okay, sure, why not? I’m here and you’re right. Maggie’s busy. I came to support her, but it’s not like she needs me anymore at this point.”
Not exactly the most enthusiastic acceptance I had ever heard, but I’d take it. I held out my hand to her.
The princess looked at my hand, hesitating. I knew what she was doing, questioning her decision, calculating whether she had enough reasonable doubt to make a last minute declination. She didn’t know me, my name, and hadn’t seen my face. Surely it would be wiser to turn me down and stick by her friend, just in case.
I waited, my hand in front of her. If she decided this wasn’t what she wanted to do, then I’d accept it. I wasn’t going to push her.
In the end, my lack of pushiness seemed to win me over. She nodded and placed her hand in mine. I noted that her fingers, particularly the pads of thumb and index finger, were callused, and her palm was rough; for some reason, I liked the subversion of expectations. Though she looked like a dainty princess, she clearly was no stranger to hard work. I imagined that sewing as a hobby, holding needles and scissors all the time, would create such calluses.
I didn’t mention my surprise. I was beginning to understand enough to know she would take it the wrong way, even if I meant it as a compliment.
I held her hand gently in mine and led her onto the dance floor. The live band had a haunting melody going, long and slow high notes that wavered against the warehouse ceiling. I turned back to face the princess and lifted my arms, smiling.
She rubbed her arms, and I saw ripples of goosebumps. “This band is… amazing. It’s like a horror movie soundtrack.”
I tilted my head. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The princess lifted her head, eyes suddenly flashing. “I’m not afraid,” she declared.
And who are you trying to convince? Me? Or yourself?
She stepped forward, into my arms. I wrapped one arm around her waist and caught her hand in mine, keeping a respectable distance between us even though she was so warm and I ached to hold her body tight to mine.
She held my hand tight, our fingers tangling together.
I started a slow sway, my eyes locked on hers, drinking in their color, like liquid gold, a sunset caught forever at its brightest moment. “Your eyes are very beautiful.”
She had nowhere to turn, now I had her in my arms. “Thank you. Your eyes are… very shadowy.”
I laughed, and she smiled. Her lips were like cherries, plump and shiny. Had I been a little less in control of myself, I would have kissed her right then.
Our sway turned to a rotation, a wavering spin as we rotated each other, planetary bodies caught in an orbit that wouldn’t let them touch. The warehouse spiraled around us, a blur of background characters, rather insignificant. Mere stage dressing.
The princess lifted her arms, wrapped them around my neck.
It occurred to me that I didn’t know her name. “Hey—”
I stepped on something.
“Ow,” she said, with a little wince.
“Shit,” I exclaimed. “Was that your foot? God, I’m sorry.”
She stopped dancing, but instead of becoming angry like I thought she might, she started laughing. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. You just looked so worried, like you thought I’d call guards and have you thrown in the dungeon. It really didn’t hurt. I was more surprised, is all.”
“Still, I must weigh twice what you do.”
“I guess I can show you one of my secrets,” the princess said. She leaned in, conspiratorial. “But don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” I whispered back, a bit mystified.
She gathered up the skirt of her dress in her hands and lifted, just an inch or two. Enough for me to realize she wore ordinary shoes under such a pretty garment. Not heels, not sandals. No wonder I hadn’t hurt her.
I laughed. “Hey, that is a pretty neat secret.”
I straightened up from checking out her shoes. A point of my mask caught on part of my costume, an eventuality Sir John hadn’t seen coming, yanking it down to my beard. The top half of my face was left exposed, showing who I was to anyone who might be looking, and showing who I was to her.
Damn, I swore, grabbing my mask and putting it back where I belonged. So much for being in incognito mode when I went and blew my cover like that.
Now I was the nervous one, my pulse jumping up several notches.
She looked at me and tilted her head and frowned a little. The look in her eyes said she recognized me. There was more, but not close enough to the surface for me to decipher. I lifted my eyebrows, confused and a bit hopeful in a treacherous way. Could it be that even knowing who I was, she didn’t really care?
I reached for her again, holding on my hand. “Want to dance some more?”
She smiled, lighting up.
“I would love to,” someone else exclaimed, rushing over and barreling between us, snatching my hand out of the air. Her hand was smooth, her fingers long and tipped with pointed nails, like claws.
“Suzie,” the princess exclaimed.
Suzie. I knew that name, and I knew this blonde bombshell with the cat ears and whiskers painted on her face. She’d been at that coffee shop, that new one I’d gone to with Brian. I grimaced, knowing a fatal error had been made. She’d come to the party on a mission to be my wife and she had found me. No one stood a chance against her.
But dammit, I had to try. The princess—my princess—shrank away even as the seconds passed, fading into the crowd.
“I’m sorry,” I told Suzie. “I was speaking to someone else.”
“Sure, you were ,” Suzie purred. Rather, she tried to purr, but it came out more like she had something stuck in the back of her throat. “But she’s gone. And anyway, she doesn’t know who you are. She can’t appreciate you. I can.”
I looked around, trying to pull away. Suzie dug her claws in. Try as I might, I couldn’t see the princess anymore.
“Hey!” Suzie demanded, tugging on my hand. “I’m trying to talk to you. Forget about her.”
I yanked my hand away. One of her nails scratched me, raised a thin line of blood on my skin. “You’re being very rude,” I snapped. “I’m not sure why I’d want to spend any time with a person like you, so presumptuous you can’t even wait and ask for a dance of your own. You had to steal the rest of hers.”
“If I see something I want, I go for it.” Suzie snatched at my costume.
I ducked away from her, almost knocking into someone standing behind me. “An admirable trait, but you should consider there’s a time and place. Or do you think thieves are right to do what they do?”
“Robin Hood was a thief.”
“Robin Hood served a greater cause. All you’re doing is serving yourself.” I shook my head in disgust and turned my back on her. “I’d appreciate if you would leave me alone.”
“Carter Bryant!” she yelled after me. “There goes Carter Bryant, everybody!”
I swore under my breath. Denied getting things her own way, she would sabotage me. I made a snap decision and, rather than run and draw attention to myself, I faded back into the rest of the crowd while people stopped and looked around for the elusive party host. Too bad for Suzie that my face was still covered.
I left her and the mess she had caused, putting plenty of people between her and myself. I looked all around, trying to catch some glimpse of my princess, my heart thundering in my throat. She was gone. Gone away, chased off by that desperate cat-girl.
Too many people here to find her on my own.
I headed over to where I had last seen Brian and his Mary Jane, a girl I now knew to be called Maggie. “Sorry to interrupt,” I said.
Brian did a doubletake at me and pushed away from the wall. “Hey, what’s going on? You look really upset.”
I shook my head and thrust my fingers through my hair. “I was dancing with a girl and got interrupted.” Suzie didn’t even deserve a proper mention in my retelling. “The girl went off. I can’t find her.”
Brian looked at Mary Jane—Maggie—and then at me. “I can help you look for her, I think. What was she dressed as?”
“Some kind of princess. I’m not sure.” I glanced at Maggie, thinking that it wouldn’t hurt to have another pair of eyes during the search, if she was willing to help. And hadn’t the princess said Maggie liked investigating, or something?
Maggie hardly seemed to notice I was there, all her attention focused upon Brian. She didn’t really appear to be listening either.
Brian gave her another look, his throat constricting as he withheld a sigh. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I need to help my friend for a bit. Want to stick around? I’ll come find you as soon as I can.”
Maggie gave a smirk and tipped her head. “As fun as it would be to stand around and fend off the dozen other Spider-Men while you’re gone, maybe I shouldn’t linger too much longer. It’s getting late.”
Brian nodded. “I understand. But I hope you understand I can’t just let you go like this. Can I have your number?”
I suddenly realized how he was looking at her, his expression very similar to the one he wore when I presented him with a problem needing solved. She had his attention as much as he had hers.
Could it be that Brian finds his wife at this party instead of me?
Maggie reached into her breast pocket, producing a notepad and a miniature pen. She scrawled a series of digits down on one of the pieces of paper, tore it out and then folded it, and tucked it inside the collar of Brian’s costume. “Since Spider-Man doesn’t have pockets,” she explained.
Brian put his hand over the folded note, its edges poking against the stretchy fabric. “I’ll call you.”
“You’d better.”
Brian turned to me. “Let’s go, bud. What’d she look like, again?”
I paced around the perimeter of the party with him at my side. “A princess. Think brunette Cinderella.”
“What’s her name?”
“I didn’t get it.”
“Damn, that sucks.”
“Yeah,” I growled, shoving past a couple to inspect the lines at the food tables. “I didn’t have nearly the luck you did.”
“In my defense,” he grunted, “you disguised yourself so crazy fan girls wouldn’t come running to see you. That’s exactly what happened with me and Maggie. Though it’s more like she accosted me.”
“Spare me the details for later.”
We performed nearly a full circuit around the party before I finally admitted it was a lost cause. Not only had we not seen the princess, we hadn’t even had any false alarms where we encountered someone in a blue dress.
Brian snagged a cup of bloody-red fruit punch and sipped at it. “If only she’d left a glass slipper.”
“What?”
“You said she was Cinderella. Cinderella lost one of her shoes and the prince used it to find her.” He shrugged and swigged down the rest of his punch. “Just saying that if she’d left some way for you to find her…”
“It’s a lost cause.” I sighed.
“Hey, did you say something about Cinderella?” My dueling partner from earlier approached, looking drunker than ever. At least he was a happy drunk. He had acquired quite the pack of followers, all of them shuffling up behind him. Much to my amusement, I saw they were nearly all princes or kings of some sort or other.
“Hey, bud,” I said, and held out my fist. We bumped knuckles, like we were old pals. “Have you seen a Cinderella wandering around?”
“Yeah.” He scratched his head. “Like… fifteen minutes ago.”
“Half an hour,” interjected one of his friends.
“Yeah, sure,” the drunk prince agreed. “She was headed for the exit. I think she’s gone.”
My heart plummeted to the bottom of my stomach. If she had gone, I truly had no way to get in touch with her. Whatever might have been between us, friendship or romance or enmity, would never even have a chance to form.
“That’s rough,” the drunk prince sympathized, somehow managing to pick up on what I felt. Then again, it wasn’t as if I was trying to hide my emotions. “Why don’t you come get drunk with us?”
“Just one drink.”
One turned into four, and then Brian stopped me. I spent the rest of the party in a sort of buzzed daze, alternating between making casual conversation and avoiding Suzie. That crazy girl clearly wasn’t going to give up on her pursuit of me. If she kept this up outside of the party, I’d need to get a restraining order. I had no interest in her.
And no interest in anyone else.
By the time party ended, long after dawn broke over the horizon, I had met no one else who stirred such longing in me as that Cinderella had.