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“Well, I had an idea, but if Halloween really is dead to you, you probably won’t like it.”
“If it’s with you, I’ll like it,” I said. “Besides, I can’t stay mad at Halloween for very long. It’s just…orange cream cheese, you know? It could sour anyone.”
“Is it just orange food coloring in regular cream cheese?”
“Oh yeah. Which people were not pleased about because they thought it was gonna be pumpkin flavored, I guess? I wanted to be like ‘What part of businesses capitalizing on holiday consumerism in the absolute cheapest way possible do you not understand?’ Besides, we already have pumpkin-flavored bagels. Which are exactly as disgusting as you’d imagine. Anyway, what did you want to do?”
He ran his fingers through my hair and I hoped there wasn’t cream cheese actually in it.
“Hear you talk forever.”
He said it without thinking, so I knew it was true. For just a moment, he froze, but at the smile I couldn’t help, he smiled back. We stood there grinning at each other, his hand in my coffee-streaked hair, until I forgot what we had been talking about.
* * *
—
Dane refused to tell me what his plan was, but he allowed me to shower off the orange cream cheese, so I wasn’t complaining.
We left through the side entrance and he led me to the street the bar opened onto. It was closed off to cars and swarming with children in costume. Some were in group costumes with their parents or siblings; some even had dogs dressed up. Everywhere, people were pointing at costumes, taking pictures, and waving to neighbors.
“Oh my God,” I said, gripping Dane’s hand. “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Children’s costume parade and trick-or-treating,” Dane said. “They close the streets off. See it from the bar every year, but I never came outside. Thought you might like it.”
Typical Dane Hughes understatement. I shoved him and then kissed him.
The feeling in the air was gleeful, the kids high on sugar and the parents excited for an activity they didn’t have to plan themselves. We walked hand-in-hand, pointing out costumes that caught our eyes. There was a group dressed as the kids from Stranger Things, a shockingly detailed alien from Alien, the twins from The Shining, which I imagined was parent-inspired, a father dressed as a lumberjack holding a baby dressed as an axe, and dozens of what must have been characters from children’s movies and TV shows that I didn’t recognize.
Some residents sat on the stoops of their buildings with bowls of candy, and many of the local businesses were handing out candy as the kids passed by too.
“So you’ve never given out candy at the bar,” I said. “Are you allowed to, or is a bar a no-kids zone?”
“I’m allowed. Get a flyer every year.”
I squeezed his hand.
After half a block, Dane said, “Maybe next year.”
I looped my arm through his and pulled him close to my side. I loved hearing him talk about the future.
“So, speaking of next year,” I said slowly. I wanted to say this out loud so I felt like it was real. “I want to quit Buggy’s. I mean, duh. But actually quit. Find something else. I was thinking maybe I’d set myself a time limit that I have to quit by and then stick to it.”
Dane nodded.
“I’ll help any way I can. What kind of timeline are you thinking?”
“It has to be long enough to actually find something but not so long that I don’t do it. Maybe…three months? No, four months?”
“Sounds reasonable. Know what you wanna look for?”
I shook my head slowly. I knew what I wanted to do. But it felt so far in the realm of dreams that I couldn’t quite say it. And I had some poking around to do first.
“If you wanted,” Dane said slowly, “you could be a business partner in the bar. You have great ideas, and I know you work hard.”
I stopped walking and looked up at him. A kid dressed as a fire hydrant bumped into me and ricocheted off.
The idea of being a part of something Dane was building appealed to me. But a bar wasn’t what I wanted to build with him.
“I appreciate you offering, baby. But…I need to figure out what I really want to do.”
He put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me close.
“You will.”
Somehow, things did seem more possible with children dressed as every conceivable thing rioting around us. Maybe that was how it began: you acted out your dreams and if you did it at the right moment, a whole parade was there to make them a reality.
At the culmination of the parade, tables were laden with doughnuts, cider, and cupcakes from a local bakery. Piñatas, bobbing for apples, and pin-the-bandage-on-the-mummy stations were set up behind the tables. At one table adults were handing out glow-in-the-dark stickers of ghosts and skeletons, pencils with vampires on them, and bouncy balls painted with eyeballs. The sun was setting, and eyeballs glowed cheerily in the growing dark.
