Chapter 12
Felicity and Courtney stood on the widest section of sidewalk at the perimeter of the courtyard.
Local businesses and vendors from all over town were setting up elaborately decorated tables along all the sidewalks of St. Clare Circle.
The Halloween festival would begin soon.
The work that they had already done on the courtyard meant that for the first time in years this event hadn’t needed to be relocated to the nearby school.
Menagerie Books had spread its wares on four large tables already covered with ocean-blue tablecloths.
Courtney was sorting the books for sale in neat stacks according to genre.
Each section was labeled with a sign shaped like an old ship sail.
The longer Felicity stood here the more certain she became that she had missed something.
“What are you?” Courtney asked, lifting her star-shaped sunglasses to get a better look. She was dressed head-to-shoes in orange, with a triangular-shaped hat completing her starfish ensemble.
“I’m a Midsommar cult member?” Felicity had completely forgotten to get a Halloween costume, so she’d paired an old Ren Faire corset with a long flowy skirt and an old dried-flower crown she’d found in a drawer in the apartment and hoped she at least achieved festive.
“I mean, your boobs look good in it, but seems more like—”
“Make way for the great expanse that is me,” Samantha said as she dropped a fishing tackle box full of bookstore swag on a Menagerie Books vendor table.
Felicity started to get offended at her friend’s description of her pregnant self but then realized that Samantha was wearing an oversized great white shark costume. On top of her belly there was a photo of one of the characters who had graphically kicked the bucket in Jaws.
Abbott hardly had to do anything to resemble a hotter, Samoan version of Richard Dreyfuss’s character in Jaws besides don a denim shirt and a navy bucket hat. He had the beard and the round glasses already.
“How do you always find a way to make the neighborhood’s chosen theme as macabre as possible?” Courtney’s nose wrinkled.
“Wait—we had a theme?” Felicity groaned.
Abbott shrugged. “Samantha’s really into horror movies right now. Anyone else want to volunteer to watch all the Alien movies with her, because I’m about to lose my—”
“Hey.” Samantha kissed her boyfriend. “Something about the looming prospect of my body being ripped apart by your parasitic spawn in the spring has made me appreciate gore.”
“You’re going to scare the children,” Courtney said, leaning in to get a closer look at the rather detailed photo of the devoured swimmer.
“Kids love a little blood and guts on Halloween.” Sam shrugged.
“Can we get back to the theme?” Felicity fiddled with her gold bangles.
“All the St. Clare Circle businesses decided at the summer meeting to go with the ocean theme,” Courtney said. “Actually, you might not have been there that day…”
“Right.”
Because Kansas was Kansasing, the weather had been scorching again for the last few days.
The remaining mud had dried out, and everything was dusty, but no one seemed to mind.
The kids of the local business owners and employees were already running around, laughing, and playing tag to pass the time before the event officially began.
“It was Samantha’s year to pick the couples costume,” Abbott said in a somewhat defensive mutter. “Don’t blame me for the MPAA rating.”
“I reminded you about the theme two weeks ago, Felicity.” Samantha had started stacking books.
It had become tradition for the bookstore to auction off a book basket for the annual St. Clare Circle Halloween Festival.
Their booth was as elaborate as ever. This year, it was decorated like the prow of a ship, with a large bowl of candy that had been made to look like a life preserver.
The fifty-cent book baskets looked like old ale barrels, and they’d even set out an old kiddy pool and filled it with sand.
Felicity had been working around the clock to get the courtyard ready for everything she and Nic were planning for the winter. The theme had completely slipped her mind.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Courtney said. “You look great.”
“So who came up with this theme—”
“Well, doesn’t this all look nice,” said a self-important voice from behind Felicity that she would love to not hear again anytime soon.
Bruce was dressed in a pirate costume that somehow still managed to look too neat and fussy.
He lifted his eye patch to inspect everything.
A glance over to the rest of the sidewalk in front of the old parochial school showed Felicity that she was the only one who hadn’t gotten the theme memo.
The pediatricians were wearing Hawaiian shirts over their scrubs, sitting in beach chairs in front of signs that read FIRST AID LIFEGUARD STATION.
The tattoo shop, Squid, didn’t have to do much to be on theme, but the owners were out front in mermaid costumes with face-painting stations set up.
Thea was threading sea creature– and shell-themed beads to make friendship bracelets when she spotted them.
Thea came over and kissed Courtney thoroughly.
“Quite the fete,” Bruce continued, scowling at the progress that had already been made.
He was a blowhard, but he wasn’t the kind of man she worried about coming at her in any way other than through obscure municipal land regulations.
He seemed content to glare and scowl at her while keeping up appearances of banal geniality with everyone else.
Since he was also a business owner on St. Clare Circle, it wouldn’t benefit him to alienate everyone.
“Thanks…” Felicity sighed. It was one of those lingering low-key childhood nightmares to show up at a party dressed the wrong way. Like that scene in Legally Blonde. “Where’s Nic, anyway?”
“Setting up inside.” Courtney pointed to the restaurant. “He’s selling mini cocktails for adults and what was going to be hot cider, but he switched to iced cider and fried macaroni and cheese appetizers. Some other stuff too.” Courtney listed off several more appetizers.
“Okay, good. Just his normal food then. At least there’s someone else around who isn’t going all in on the ocean theme—”
“Um … I wouldn’t count on that.”
Felicity followed Courtney’s gaze across the square to where Nic had finally emerged.
“Sweet Jesus.”