Chapter 12
Halloween Disguises
The week of Halloween arrived in Renton with the particular enthusiasm of a college town that took the holiday seriously.
Campus transformed overnight — carved pumpkins appearing on every department building's front step, fake cobwebs stretched across the hedges along the main path, strings of orange lights that someone had put up over the quad with an ambition that probably violated at least two facilities policies.
The storefronts on the square joined in with painted windows, hay bales, and the kind of decorative skeletons that showed up every October and managed to look festive rather than grim through some alchemy Gary couldn't entirely explain.
He walked Marv through it Monday morning with the low-grade pleasure of a man who has no particular attachment to Halloween but enjoys a town that commits to something.
Students passed him talking about ghost stories on campus — there were several, apparently, each one connected to a specific building or stretch of path, delivered with the practiced casualness of people who'd been told these stories enough times to half-believe them.
He listened without contributing, let Marv investigate a carved pumpkin outside the science building with the solemn attention it deserved, and went to the gym.
The week settled into the rhythm he'd been building.
Marv in the morning, gym, classes, office hours with students who were starting to come in more regularly now that mid-semester was approaching and papers were looming.
He graded what needed grading, did the reading ahead of what needed reading, and found in the repetition of it the particular satisfaction of a structure that was starting to feel like his own rather than something borrowed.
Thursday he went back to the Steeles.
Lou met him at the distillery door with the same work gloves and the same direct, purposeful energy as the week before, and they spent the afternoon moving product with the easy wordless efficiency of two people who had already established a working rhythm.
Gary paid attention to the inventory the way he'd been paying attention since Tuesday's conversation with Sue — quietly, without drawing anything to it, noting the spaces in the rack system that felt wrong for what the logs said should be there.
He said nothing. He filed it.
Nancy came by at some point with food. The week felt, on balance, like a man keeping his head down successfully, which Gary recognized as a temporary condition and tried not to take for granted.
? ? ?
He wasn't going to Dove Cove. This was officially decided, he had told Belle as much — texted her Thursday evening with an apology and a line about getting too old for that kind of thing, which was both true and a convenient way of saying I know enough about your situation now that being at your party feels like a decision I can't unknow.
Belle had responded with a single emoji that he chose not to interpret too carefully.
He had agreed, under some duress, to the faculty party — partly because Jenkins had made it clear that attendance constituted a professional expectation, and partly because Sue had confirmed she'd be there and had made it equally clear that his presence was expected in terms that did not leave room for negotiation.
He went to the campus store Thursday afternoon and found, after approximately four minutes of consideration, a black masquerade mask and a dark cape. He put them on in front of the bathroom mirror, decided this was as far as he was willing to go, and called the matter resolved.
? ? ?
The party occupied the largest of the campus event rooms, which the events staff had decorated with a thoroughness that suggested either genuine enthusiasm or the kind of departmental budget that comes with a long-standing tradition.
Dim lighting, orange and black throughout, fake fog from machines in the corners that gave everything a slightly cinematic quality.
Music from a speaker somewhere that rotated between Halloween standards and things that just had a good beat, which the crowd seemed to appreciate.
The costumes were a spectrum.
Near the entrance, two junior faculty members had arrived as a matched set — Frankenstein's monster and the bride thereof, constructed with a level of prosthetics and detail that suggested weeks of preparation and a genuine commitment to the bit.
Beside them, a group from the communications department had coordinated a decade theme — seventies, by the look of the bell-bottoms and the feathered hair, with varying degrees of commitment across the group.
A man Gary vaguely recognized from the building across from Jenkins' office had come as a pirate, the full version, tricorn hat, frock coat, prop cutlass, worn with the particular ease of a man who had been waiting for an occasion to justify this outfit for several years.
There was a ghost — full sheet, eye holes cut with some precision — who turned out to be, when Gary finally established the identity around ten o'clock, the department chair, which explained why everyone was treating the ghost with slightly more deference than the costume warranted.
A vampire couple near the bar with matching capes that put Gary's effort entirely to shame.
Three graduate students who had apparently coordinated as the three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, which Gary found more impressive as a concept than he expected to.
One person in a full astronaut suit that could not have been comfortable but was unquestionably committed.
Jenkins had arrived as a classic Sherlock Holmes — pipe, deerstalker, the whole arrangement — and wore it with the relaxed confidence of a man who had chosen something recognizable over something clever and felt at peace with that decision.
Sue found Gary within two minutes of his arrival, which suggested she'd been watching the door.
She had gone full witch — not the minimalist version, but a proper construction: tall pointed hat, dark layered robes, and a miniature cauldron attached to her belt on a small hook that clinked faintly when she moved, apparently functioning as a purse.
It should have looked ridiculous and instead looked exactly right, which was, Gary was learning, how Sue generally operated.
Beside her was a man in a tuxedo so precise it looked tailored, which it probably was, holding a glass of something clear with a single olive and wearing the expression of a man who had dressed as James Bond and was now simply being himself, which was close enough.
"Gary," Sue said. "My husband, David."
David extended his hand with the firm, unhurried confidence of a man accustomed to introductions that carried more weight than they appeared to.
"I've heard a significant amount about you," he said, in a tone that was perfectly pleasant and told Gary nothing about how much of Sue's Tuesday morning conversation had made it home.
"Hopefully balanced," Gary said.
"Mostly," David said, and smiled, and Gary decided he liked him.
Sue procured drinks. They moved into the room and found a position that had a reasonable sightline to the whole space without being in the middle of it, which was exactly the position Gary would have chosen, which suggested Sue had thought about this.
The conversation moved easily — genuinely, not the performed ease of people trying to seem relaxed.
David had opinions about Texas football that were specific and informed, which won Gary's interest immediately.
Sue had opinions about the department's upcoming curriculum review that were pointed and delivered with the comic precision of a woman who found institutional bureaucracy both maddening and entertaining.
Gary contributed where he had something to add and listened where he didn't, which he'd learned over the course of the week was approximately the right ratio.
Shots arrived at some point through Sue's management of the bar — good tequila, lime, proper glasses — and the three of them took them down together with the ease of people who have already decided to enjoy the evening.
The clock moved in the way it does at good parties — faster than expected, in larger increments than the conversation suggested.
Around ten-thirty Gary checked in briefly with Jenkins, who was in animated conversation near the food table and waved him off with the satisfied expression of a man whose departmental obligations were going well.
Gary excused himself toward the restroom with the preliminary intention of shortly after that excusing himself toward home, since the tequila had confirmed what he'd suspected, which was that he was more tired than he'd admitted and a quiet apartment and an early Saturday morning were the right answer to the evening.
He was coming back through the main room, recalibrating his route toward the door and mentally composing his farewells, when a hand found his arm.
He turned.
She was tall, in a dress that committed fully to the Halloween brief, with small iridescent wings attached at the back that caught the light when she moved.
Fairy godmother, or something adjacent to it — the wings were the kind that sparkled, the dress was the kind that sparkled differently, and the overall effect was of a woman who had decided that if you were going to dress up you might as well make the point clearly.
"I've been trying to figure out who the mysterious man in the cape is all night," she said.
Her name was Sami — Samantha, she said, though the way she said it suggested Sami was how she thought of herself.
She had the easy confidence of a woman who didn't approach strangers at parties very often because she didn't usually need to.