Chapter Six

Roman

The sun was streaming into the window, poking my eyelids and waking me up. I groaned and reached my hand toward the nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out the remote for the drapes. The heavy curtains slid into place, blocking the sunlight and casting the bedroom into blissful darkness. I rolled over and settled back into the pillow, wanting to go back to sleep, not caring what time it was. I had never been one to like to wake up early. When I needed to be at work I was forced out of bed sometimes before the sun even rose, but on the weekends and when I was taking time off, there were times when if I managed to drag myself into the world of the conscious before the cafes started serving lunch it was impressive.

I was drifting away again when a sudden flash of the night before crossed my mind and the image of the incredibly sexy woman I had whisked away from the party became the only thing I could think about. Maybe a little morning romp with her could get my day started and make this visit home a bit more worth it. I rolled over and reached through the darkness toward the other side of the bed where she had fallen asleep. Instead of feeling her soft, velvety naked skin, though, I only felt blankets. I ran my hand up and down the bed and realized that the covers were cold, telling me that she had been gone for some time. Turning on the light, I sat up and looked around the room. I almost didn’t notice the piece of paper sitting on the pillow. When I did, I picked it up and read it.

Thank you for giving me the best trick-or-treat of my life.

Let’s meet next year. Same place.

That was it. No name. No phone number. No way of contacting her at all. I thought about this for a moment, getting a strange feeling when I realized that it actually bothered me that she was gone. Usually it wouldn’t have mattered to me at all if I woke up and the woman I’d slept with the night before wasn’t there, or I walked away from a hotel or apartment in the wee hours of the morning without knowing my nightly playmate’s name. I had had my fair share of one-night stands, and rarely did they end with us waking up together and sharing breakfast before going our separate ways. When we did part before morning, however, it usually wasn’t the woman who did the dip-and-dash. This put me in a somewhat odd position.

I tried to tell myself that this was actually a good thing. I’d be leaving at the end of the day to go back to my usual life and the last thing I needed was a clingy souvenir from my visit. Besides, even though I hadn’t been able to see the woman’s entire face, I could tell that she was young. Very young. Younger even than Nia. And her body felt tight and inexperienced. I hadn’t let that stop me or even cause me to hesitate. In fact, the sexy mystery of her mask and the willingness of her sweetly untried body seemed to turn me on even more. Knowing that she would be waiting for me the next Halloween was enough. It meant that I had something to look forward to for the rest of the year until I could go back and see just how much more I could discover about her.

I climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom for a shower, lingering in the hot water for more than half an hour before getting out and dressing. The breakfast I had requested from the plane was waiting for me when I emerged and I sat down to eat, enjoying the boost that I got from my night spent with the beautiful young woman, and thinking that despite everything that had happened at the reunion, maybe this time away had been exactly what I needed.

As I picked up the phone to call Nia, though, I couldn’t get the woman, or the piercing green eyes that stared out at me from behind her mask, out of my mind.

****

Beatrice

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

The house looked like a bomb had gone off on it and sent black, purple, and orange shrapnel flying among the corpses. Nia was walking around with a huge black trash bag that very likely could have accommodated at least one, possibly two, of the guests that were still passed out in the backyard, trying to clean up what remained of the previous night’s festivities.

“No, I’m fine,” she said.

She sounded tired and dejected, and I could only assume that meant she hadn’t found her Mr. Well-You’ll-Do-If-The-Lights-Stay-Dark-Enough.

“What’s wrong?” I asked anyway, not wanting her to think that I wasn’t interested in what was going on with her, and hoping to distract her from talking about my night.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Come on, Nia,” I said. “What happened.”

“Nothing. Like I said. Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. After all the freaking drama with Alice and Cheryl and Gregory and you –”

“Hey – what did I do?”

Nia sighed.

“Also nothing. But the others did and after all of that and trying to get everybody put back together, I didn’t even get a chance to hook up with a single person. Not one. No boning a skeleton. No sucking a vampire. No wrapping myself around a mummy. No howling at the moon with a werewolf. I didn’t even get to flop around with a merman. Nothing.”

Well that was unnecessarily graphic.

“I’m sorry. It was still a great party. I mean, before everything kind of went to hell.”

“I’m glad you had a good time at least. Hey, wait a minute. What happened to you? I came back to check on you after I got Cheryl back home and I couldn’t find you.”

I felt heat creep across my cheeks and my mind spun trying to come up with something to say that would answer her without giving away what I had actually been doing. I wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her. I didn’t even know if I was ready to have that conversation with myself.

“I went for a walk,” I said. “I just needed to clear my head a little. That whole situation was actually a bit much for me.”

That’s right. Diversion.

“You didn’t have your phone with you,” she pointed out. “That’s not safe. You shouldn’t go anywhere without your phone and someone knowing where you are.”

Someone definitely knew where I was. No worries on that one.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

Her phone rang and Nia reached for it.

“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t want you to become some sort of statistic and to have to do an interview about you for a true crime show. That’s not on my bucket list.”

She held the phone to her ear.

“Oh, hi. No, that’s not how I usually answer my phone. I was talking to my roommate. No, she is not on my bucket list. We were talking about her getting – never mind. Hi. What happened to you last night? You didn’t even say goodnight.” She paused for a few seconds, listening. “Yeah, there was a bit of a guest exodus there. I’m sorry all that happened. I promised you a fun night and you got to witness your second party disaster in the course of two days.” She paused again. “Sure. Lunch sounds great.” Her eyes slid over to me. “Would it be OK if my roommate came? I don’t want her to be alone.”

“No,” I said, waving my hands. “No, no don’t do that. I’m fine.”

I assumed she was talking to her cousin, and after what she had told me about what happened at the reunion, I knew that it would be better for them to spend some time alone together. Who knew how long it would be until they got to see each other again.

“Are you sure?” Nia asked.

I nodded.

“Definitely.”

“Alright. Well, she doesn’t want to go, so I’ll meet you somewhere in about an hour. Where do you want to go?” Nia smiled. “See you then.”

She hung up.

“He’s going to bring me to New York for dinner so we can spend some more time catching up, so we’re going to have lunch on his plane.”

“His plane?”

“I told you, billionaire. With a B.”

**

Three weeks later…

I leaned down and peered through the oven door at the pie inside. It was starting to brown and I grabbed a pot holder to reach in and pull it out. I set in on a cooling rack beside the pumpkin, sweet potato, and cherry versions and opened the back door to let in some cool air.

“It sure smells good in here, Bitsy.”

I grimaced and dropped my forehead to the door. Nia giggled behind me and I turned to look at her.

“That’s even worse than Bea,” I told her.

“Oh, why?” she asked. “Bitsy is adorable.”

“Exactly. How would you like to go through life with a name that most people sandwich between ‘itsy’ and ‘spider’?”

“Well, I think it suits you. Far more than Beatrice.”

“I can’t believe that I told you that name,” I said. “I’ve been going to great extents to hide that from you ever since I met you.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t just tell me,” she said.

I winced, remembering the final showdown that I had had with Gregory in which I had screamed at him for several minutes, including spewing out this particular little gem from my younger years in front of a good portion of the guests at the party.

“Thanks for the reminder. I’ll treasure that memory.”

“You have some mail. Looks like someone else knows your dirty little secret.”

She held a large envelope out to me and I immediately knew who it was from. I turned it around and saw that it was addressed just to “Bitsy”. The postmark noted it was from Whiskey Hollow. I got a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart, thinking of my granddaddy taking the trek to the Whiskey Hollow post office to mail this to me like he did every few weeks. I knew I might as well get used to it. I was stuck with it now. Nothing was going to convince Nia not to use that name any more than I had ever been able to get Granddaddy not to. Somehow, though, that felt like a relief. No matter how hard I had tried to get away from it, that’s who I was.

“Yes,” I said. “Hiding these from you was a major part of my clandestine mission.”

I carried the envelope into the living room and settled into the overstuffed recliner to open it. I felt lonely for my grandfather and Whiskey Hollow, especially since the next day was Thanksgiving. It had been some time since I had been home and the only connection that I had had with him or the Hollow was the little packages that he sent to me. I opened the envelope and slipped the papers out. Just like always, he had included the most recent edition of the Holler Holler, the little local newspaper from the Hollow that was printed as frequently as there was news, advertisements, or recipes to share. How often they released the newspaper often determined how often I got letters from Granddaddy and I hadn’t gotten one since the edition that included a letter demanding to know who had carved the inappropriate images into jack o’ lanterns and displayed them out on the main road Halloween night. I read through this edition, which included a few recipes, reminders to visit Sue Ellen Berry to get some of her famous homemade butter, and a brief review of the local crimes for the last month, which was limited to the theft of a pair of bloomers from a clothesline that was currently taking up all of the attention of the Hollow’s two-person law enforcement squad.

When I was finished with the paper, I picked up the letter. I wished that I was at home with him, but he had told me that he already had plans for Thanksgiving and not to make the trip. Despite that, part of me felt like I should have gone. At least I could have been in the house for the holiday.

Dear Bitsy,

I’m missing you a lot these days, Ladybug. I know you’ll be having a real nice Thanksgiving with your friends and I’ll be seeing you soon. There’s something important I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. We’ll catch up over it at Christmas. I love you to the moon and back.

Granddaddy

I had tears stinging in my eyes and worry weighing heavily in my chest when I finished reading the letter. There was something wrong. I jumped to my feet and rushed into my room to pack. I would spend Thanksgiving with my roommates, a couple of their friends, and Adam like I had planned, but then I was going to head to the Hollow and find out what was going on.

What if Granddaddy was sick?