15. Spooky Season #2
Audre and Cordelia stand at their posts by the door with clipboards.
Students must arrive at the party between eight and eight thirty, otherwise they can’t enter.
Audre is delighted to see how many kids have stuck to the theme.
Benj and his offensive linemen have dressed up as the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, wearing dark suits and bowl-cut brown wigs.
Royce Stringfellow and Willow Levy have come as astronauts—Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (they’re carrying Moon Pies—cute!).
Davi’s wearing a Pan Am stewardess uniform—adorable!
Hakeem and Taylor show up as John and Jackie Kennedy: Taylor is in a pink suit and pillbox hat, and Hakeem has a large white bandage affixed around his head.
Clever or tasteless? Audre wonders. Well, at least they’re learning history.
Dub Austin shows up dressed as a retro California surfer, and behind him is—Audre squints—someone in a very convincing Andy Warhol costume.
The girl with him is decked out in a micromini, black turtleneck, and lots of black eyeliner.
Edie Sedgwick, Audre thinks. When the couple approaches, Audre realizes it’s East and Charley. They’re barely recognizable.
Audre turns to Cordelia. “You’ll finish up here? I want to do a lap inside.”
“Of course,” Cordelia says. “We’re only missing a few sixth-formers. Liam Donovan, Olivia H-T, Tilly Benbow… and Pippa.”
“Let’s hope Pippa wears something less revealing than she did at First Dance,” Audre says.
“She could hardly wear something more revealing,” Cordelia says.
When Audre enters the Egg, she sees kids crowding around the buffet—Audre wants to snag a meat loaf sandwich before they’re gone—but that will have to wait until she finds…
oh, there he is. Coop is in a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, and horn-rimmed glasses.
The kids might not know who he’s supposed to be, but Audre does.
“Malcolm X?” she says with a wink.
“Too controversial?”
“You’re on theme,” Audre says. The song changes to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.
” The kids are only going to tolerate this old-person music for a few more minutes.
Already the fourth-form girls—who have come as some version of Beach Blanket Bingo—are crowding the DJ booth, no doubt asking for Disco Lines.
“I considered asking you to dress as Betty Shabazz,” Coop says. “But I didn’t want to be presumptuous. And you look so beautiful in that dress, I can’t imagine you in anything else.”
Audre sucks in her breath. Coop was going to ask her to do a couples costume? He thinks she looks beautiful? She’s both electrified and terrified. He’s leaving no room for misinterpretation.
“Would you like to dance?” Coop asks.
They would be the only ones on the dance floor. Audre can’t handle that kind of scrutiny.
She leans in. “Now isn’t the time, but I promise you a dance before the night is over.”
“Deal,” Coop says. “Shall we get ourselves a meat loaf sandwich?”
Olivia H-T and Tilly Benbow approach the Egg with Liam and Pippa at eight thirty on the dot. Mrs. Spooner is still outside with her clipboard.
Thank god they haven’t closed the doors yet, Olivia thinks. She told Pippa that they were super strict about the timing, and Pippa assured Olivia that they’d made an exception for her at First Dance, and they would do it again.
Olivia studies Mrs. Spooner in her low-cut white dress and blond wig and thinks how Halloween brings out the freak in everyone. Olivia and Tilly did multiple shots of Tito’s back in the dorm, and Olivia wants to get inside before the buzz hits.
Mrs. Spooner looks beyond Olivia and Tilly to Liam and Pippa. “Well, Princess Leia and the stormtrooper I recognize. You two look incredible, though I’m pretty sure Star Wars came out in the 1970s, not the 1960s.”
“It did,” Pippa says with the smile she saves for teachers. “But Liam is a Star Wars geek. I wanted to make this special for him.”
Mrs. Spooner puts a hand to her chest. “Oh, Pippa,” she said. “How lovely.”
Olivia wants to puke. Not only are Liam and Pippa doing a couples costume, but Pippa made Liam’s childhood dream come true. The stormtrooper costume is so high quality, it might have come from George Lucas himself.
When Mrs. Spooner turns her attention back to Olivia and Tilly, her brow creases. “And you girls are…?”
Tilly glares at Olivia. “I knew we should have worn the signs.”
They probably should have for clarity, Olivia thinks.
But she didn’t want to call any more attention to their costumes than necessary.
It was Pippa’s idea for Tilly and Olivia to dress up as Olivia’s In and Out list. Tilly is In: She’s ready for a rave in a fringed, beaded Missoni dress (it’s Pippa’s) over which she wears a real fur stole (that belongs to Tilly’s grandmother, the one who owns the house in Newport); she got lightly sunburned at a tanning salon called Electric Beach in Capulet Falls, she had her lashes lifted and tinted, and thanks to her mysterious heartbreak, Tilly personifies “being skinny.” Tonight, Tilly looks happy—and by happy, Olivia means that she’s back to being that bitch.
Olivia is dressed as Out. (She can’t believe she got stuck with Out when it was her list to begin with, but Pippa was their stylist and she felt Tilly would make a better In.) Olivia wears a white T-shirt that says COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS in neon-green script and a pair of Out of Office skinny jeans (Olivia is both horrified to be wearing skinny jeans in public and gratified that they fit).
She’s carrying Davi’s exact mocha suede hobo bag from The Row.
(Initially, Olivia feared Pippa had stolen Davi’s bag, but it turned out Pippa’s mother, Sondra, had the same bag in her closet, so how Out could it really be?) In the bag is a copy of The Fall of Rome by Martha Southgate, which is the novel they’re presently discussing in Boarding School Lit.
Olivia is supposed to hold the book to illustrate “doing the reading,” but fuck that, she already feels like a bot.
“They’re dressed as Olivia’s In and Out list!” Pippa tells Mrs. Spooner. Pippa sounds suspiciously animated, though she didn’t want to do shots with Tilly and Olivia. She’d taken something, she said. “Tilly is In and Olivia is Out.”
Mrs. Spooner lays a hand on Olivia’s arm. “You look very pretty, dear.”
Olivia would like to vaporize. Thank god she didn’t wear the sign.
Olivia expects their entrance will be a big deal, but when they walk into the Egg, everyone is on the dance floor and nobody seems to notice her and Tilly in their high-concept costumes, or Liam and Pippa in all their Millennium Falcon glory.
Well, that’s not true. A Pan Am stewardess—Davi, Olivia realizes—is giving Pippa and Liam the stink eye. Olivia might have found this gratifying before, but now she just agrees.
A kid in a curly dark-haired wig and a brightly tie-dyed T-shirt, holding a microphone, approaches her.
“Hey, Olivia,” he says.
Olivia stares for a second, then realizes it’s Grady Tish, who does layout for the paper.
“Who are you supposed to be?” she asks. “Bob Dylan?”
“No,” Grady says. “Jim Morrison.”
Olivia’s got nothing. “Jim Morrison” sounds like a person who works in accounts payable.
“The lead singer of the Doors?” Grady says. “And you came as your Out list, that’s cool.”
Olivia rears back. “You knew that’s what I was? Did someone tell you?”
“No,” Grady says. “It’s just obvious from, like, your T-shirt? And Davi’s bag. You should win best costume.”
“Oh,” Olivia says. She has always preferred costumes that don’t have to be explained, but okay. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to dance?” Grady asks.
Dance… with a fourth-former? Hell no, Olivia thinks, although a moment later she reconsiders. Grady gets her costume, and it feels nice to be asked. If she’s Out, she might as well act like it.
“Fine,” she says.
“Is there something going on with you and Coop?” Ruth Wully asks Audre.
They’re in the ladies’ room, washing their hands. Audre locks eyes with Ruth in the mirror. Kent and Ruth dressed as Sonny and Cher—Ruth has a long black wig on, fake eyelashes, lots of green eye shadow, and she’s wearing a formfitting dress with bell sleeves. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ruth says. “Maybe that he hasn’t left your side all night? Or taken his eyes off you?”
Audre is beginning to see the appeal of Halloween: It’s liberating to become someone else.
Coop has been doting on Audre all night—bringing her treats from the food table (the butter-baked saltines are surprisingly delicious), checking to see that she has a fresh box of water, asking her questions about her parents’ move.
They’ve been talking nonstop as they watch the kids dance.
DJ Radio started playing the kids’ requests—Dom Dolla, Fred again..
, Calvin Harris, and, surprisingly, “Rich Girl” by Hall & Oates, which Cassie Lee and her squad of fourth-form girls danced to with Dub Austin in their center.
Audre gives Ruth what she hopes is an enigmatic smile. Then, for a second, she lets her guard down. “What would you think if…?” She’s not even sure how to finish the sentence, and also, she’s afraid. There’s nobody else in the bathroom, but the walls at this school have ears.
Ruth squeezes Audre’s shoulder. “I would think it was wonderful. We all would. Everyone wants you to be happy. Coop is such a gentleman. He’s worthy of you.” Ruth winks at Audre in the mirror. “And I’m living proof that you can find the love of your life here at Tiffin.”
With that, Ruth exits, leaving Audre to contemplate her reflection alone.
She likes Coop. She’s attracted to him. She finds him erudite and interesting, he has proved to be a good listener, an excellent conversationalist.
But the fact remains: There’s a power differential at play. Audre is his boss. There is no explicit rule in the school’s bylaws prohibiting the Head from dating a teacher, but Audre can’t help feeling it’s not stated because it’s so obvious.