Authors: Kim Amos
“I’m fine,” she managed. Except she wasn’t fine. She was reeling. From fear. From excitement. From too many emotions to even label.
“What’s the ma—” He stopped, his eye catching the white stick next to the sink. His face paled. The bathroom was silent, except for the occasional plink of drops from the faucet. Betty had meant to get the leaky thing fixed. She just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
Randall cupped her face in his hands. He turned her so she had full view of his straight, fine nose, his sharp gray eyes, and his strong chin. The air caught in her throat. Even now, he was handsome enough to take her breath away.
“Are you…” His Adam’s apple worked. He was struggling for words. “Darling, are we pregnant?”
The ache in her chest was almost too much. She tried to steady her ragged breathing. As she fought her lungs, she could suddenly picture the reason they were here to begin with, standing together in this bathroom under the too-bright fluorescent lights.
She could picture the banner. The fall sun sparkling down. And the fiasco that had started it all.
If she wasn’t struggling for breath, she would have begun laughing.
One year and two months earlier
B
etty Lindholm stared at the sign hanging above the entrance to her fabric store and wondered whether to laugh or cry.
She blinked, hoping she was imagining what she was seeing. Hoping she’d wake up back in her bed, buried under her comfy duvet, and laugh to herself as she poured coffee and relived the crazy dream she’d had.
A cluster of bright leaves swirled at her feet and geese honked on the nearby Birch River. The details were too vivid. The scene was too real.
Which meant this was
totally
happening. It wasn’t a dream at all.
She took a breath to keep her panic at bay. Her mind raced.
Do something
, her brain commanded. But what? Should she go find a ladder and rip the thing down? Or try to fix it herself?
Her heart pounded. Her throat was dry.
I got this
, she thought. Even though she didn’t feel like she had this at all.
As the shiny vinyl glinted in the light, she caught sight of orange wedges of pumpkin scattered along Main Street. Smashed from the night before, no doubt. She held back a groan, thinking this wasn’t going to look good at all.
Grabbing her cell phone, she called the sign company, hoping they could turn around and come straight back. They’d installed the banner early that morning—“It’ll be up by the time you open your doors for business,” the manager, Louie, had told her—and surely they could come back quickly and make things right.
She paced in front of her store, glancing around as the other shop owners began to unlock their doors and sweep their front sidewalks. Some pulled out trash bags to throw away the hunks of broken pumpkin and scattered seeds. She could hear the notes of dismayed muttering; no doubt they were thinking about the pumpkins in conjunction with the recent rash of graffiti around town, the creepy dolls’ heads left on park benches and storefronts, and the tipped-over tombstones in the local cemetery.
The warm sugary scents from the Rolling Pin bakery reached her and she knew it would only be a matter of time before customers began to swarm the little café. And when they did, they’d see her sign—and maybe wonder whether it had a connection to all the other Halloween mischief going on around White Pine these days.
Good heavens, she hoped not.
Pick up
, she pleaded silently. Finally, there was a brisk “Hello.”
“Yes, this is Betty Lindholm down at Knots and Bolts, and there’s been a mistake with my banner. Your crew just put it up this morning, and they need to come back right away and replace it.”
There was a sound like papers shuffling. “What kind of mistake?”
She stared at the letters until they blurred. Maybe no one would notice.
Only this was White Pine. So it was more like
everyone
would notice. “A typo,” she said finally.
There was more paper shuffling, “It was supposed to say…
Satin is here
, is that correct?”
“Yes, that’s what it’s
supposed
to say.” Betty took in the display in her front window, which she’d worked so hard on the day before, rearranging and hauling and trimming until she was sweating and couldn’t see straight. There were leering pumpkins and buckets overflowing with candy. There was twisted crepe paper and twinkling lights and haystacks. And all around were vampires and werewolves and
Friday the 13th
masks and all the monstrous, creepy things she loved about Halloween.
“What’s it say instead?” Louie asked. Betty took in the ghoulish scene she’d spent all day creating, and sighed at the banner now hanging above it all.
“Satan,” she said. “It says,
Satan
is here
.”
There was a brief pause. “Well, that’s no good.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, thinking that it gave her display an association with darkness she didn’t much care for, especially in light of all the Halloween pranks these days—which plenty of folks didn’t find funny at all. “So you have to get your crew back here right now and make this right. People are going to think I’m welcoming the lord of the underworld to Main Street.”
Louie cleared his throat. “It’s an unfortunate mistake, but our crew is up in Burnsville right now hanging signs for the grand opening of a gym and a fifty-percent-off furniture sale. So it’s going to have to be tomorrow.”
Betty stiffened. “Tomorrow is no good. It has to be today.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but you’re either going to have to take it down yourself, or wait. There’s no way we’re getting over there anytime soon.”
Her fingers tightened around the cell phone and it was all she could do to hold back a scream of frustration.
“Please,” she said, trying to sound sweet. “If you could just reconsider—”
“Can’t,” he said briskly. “My hands are tied.”
“Look, I don’t know if I have a ladder that’s tall enough, and it looks like they used some kind of complex grommet to fasten it whe—”
“Standard Phillips head will take care of it,” he said, interrupting her again. “You know what that is?”
His condescending tone made her ears itch. “Yes, I know what a Phillips head is.”
“That’s good. Most ladies don’t know their way around a toolbox.” He chuckled. “Maybe because it’s hard on their more delicate brains.”
Betty clenched her jaw. “I know what a Phillips head is. And a flathead. I also know what a
dickhead
is.”
The words were out before she could take them back. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. Could she ever shut her mouth,
ever
?
“Yeah, well. Have fun with that banner. We’ll see if we can get there tomorrow.”
“Wait, are you saying now you might not make it tomorrow?”
“I said we’ll see,” he said dryly.
Betty stamped her foot. “I’m giving you a terrible online review for this,” she said.
She waited for his retort, but Louie had hung up the phone.
Betty held out her phone at arm’s length. A thousand smart remarks were right there on her tongue, ready to be lashed out, even though the connection was dead.
Just stay quiet
, she told herself. Raising her voice would just draw more attention to her store and her catastrophe of a sign. But then she felt the uneasy prickle of eyes watching her, and knew it was already too late.
She turned around slowly to see Valerie Lofgren standing on the other side of the street—Rolling Pin coffee in hand—staring at her, openmouthed. Betty forced a smile, even though she was sure it came out looking like a leer. Betty held a hand up in a greeting.
“Morning, Valerie,” she said, wishing that anyone else was crossing the street right now to chat with her.
Valerie’s kitten heels clicked delicately on the sidewalk. Her aquamarine eyes were wide as she stared at the banner. “Goodness, Betty,” she said, taking in the sign and the monster-laden Halloween display underneath it, “that’s quite a statement you’re making there.”
“I’m not making a statement,” she said, wishing Valerie would just go away already so she could find a ladder. “It’s a big misunderstanding. It’s supposed to say satin.
Satin is here.
I got in a new shipment of the stuff, and it’s great for making Halloween costumes. Pirate shirts and princess dresses and—” She stopped, shook her head. “Never mind.”
Valerie poked her tongue into her cheek like maybe she wasn’t so sure she believed what Betty was saying. Like maybe Betty had planned all this.
“I need to find a ladder,” Betty said, not feeling up to the task of justifying herself to Valerie. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Wait,” Valerie said, “before you go.” She tilted her head, studying Betty’s storefront. The pearls around her neck flashed in the fall sunshine.
“I wonder,” Valerie said carefully, “if this might be a good time for you to think about more than just the banner. If perhaps your stock could use some consideration as well.”
Betty felt the hairs on her neck stand up in warning. “Consideration meaning what exactly?”
Valerie gave Betty that tight smile of hers, and it took Betty straight back to high school, when Valerie would do the same exact thing when she was talking to Cole Anderson, Betty’s boyfriend. She was always talking to Cole, it seemed, always fixing him with a look that might have been friendly except that Betty always got the impression she was trying to steal Cole away.
Cole denied it, of course—denied it right up to the day when Betty caught him with his tongue down Valerie’s throat and his hand up her perfectly ironed shirt, creating a whole set of creases and wrinkles that Valerie normally wouldn’t have tolerated.
Cole had apologized, had told her that Valerie didn’t mean anything and that it had all been a terrible mistake. That could have been true, Betty acknowledged, or it could have been a pack of lies. Either way, it was probably just as well. They were seniors, and Cole was heading off to the University of Michigan after graduation. It’s not like they were going to stay together across the miles—they’d agreed to seeing other people in college. Nevertheless, deep down Betty had thought they might stick together for a while. She’d hoped they might try anyway.
But once he cheated, Betty found her heart hardening with a cold metallic feeling like anger and hurt welded together. For a time, Cole dutifully sent her e-mails saying that he missed her, that he’d talk to her when he was home for break, that he regretted how he’d behaved with Valerie. In spite of the apologies, Betty didn’t want much to do with him. She found herself too busy to hang out when he was back in town, and his correspondence slowly tapered off, month after month, until it ended entirely. It was almost a relief when the e-mails finally stopped.
Of course, that was all a long time ago. It was water under the bridge. She hardly ever let herself think about what might have happened with Cole if Valerie hadn’t been in the picture. It was rare that she let herself imagine a future with him—
what could have been
—if he hadn’t messed it all up with the woman standing in front of her right this very moment. Betty squared her shoulders and pushed the memories out of her mind. It was all ancient history.
Valerie tapped a lacquered nail against her paper coffee cup. “I was just wondering if you might want to pare back some of the darkness in your window. You know, mix in some Captain Americas and firefighters with all the vampires and mummies.”
Betty stared at the display, which she’d worked so hard on the day before. There were no severed heads, no bloody body parts, no screaming animatronics. It was ghoulish, sure, but then so again was Halloween. Even in light of all the recent town pranks, she wasn’t sure what adding a firefighter would do.
“I think the display is fine,” she said, “apart from that banner, of course.” You could have the most edifying display in the world, but the minute you put
Satan is here
next to it, it would take on a completely different context.
Betty turned to head down White Pine Hardware for a ladder, but Valerie apparently wasn’t done. “It’s just that some of the other board members of the Lutheran church have been talking, and we all agree that Halloween is maybe getting a little out of control. Getting too scary, perhaps. Too violent. Too many pranks. It might be better to take it to a more…wholesome place. Don’t you agree?”
There was that smile again, and Betty felt her face heat with frustration.
She understood if folks didn’t want the pranks around town to escalate into something dangerous. But was policing the holiday the answer?
Halloween was her favorite time of year. She adored the rustling corn stalks propped up against streetlights along Main Street. She could stare for hours at candles flickering inside carved pumpkins on porches, or the way the bright leaves of the trees whispered secrets along the banks of the Birch River.
She’d adored Halloween since she was a kid because it meant she could be anything she wanted. She didn’t have to be “Bucky Lindholm” and get teased about her jutting front teeth at school or worry that her oversized incisors were why she’d lost Cole Anderson to Valerie.
You could be anything you wanted on Halloween, and that was the whole point. It was the one night where no matter how freaky you were, it didn’t matter. She took in Valerie’s trim wool pantsuit and her lovely raven hair pulled into a classic knot and figured Valerie never had to rely on costumes to make herself feel accepted, to feel part of the pack.
She was about to tell Valerie that the church board should keep their opinions to themselves when Valerie took a step forward, and Betty glimpsed that the other woman’s shiny patent leather heel was millimeters away from a grimy blob of bubblegum.
It would serve Valerie right getting her expensive shoes all gunked up while she stood there and gave Betty a hard time. Betty was all but ready for the satisfying squish of the bubblegum as it tacked onto the delicate sole when her stomach pinched with something like guilt.