The Wishing Thread (25 page)

Meggie was, she liked to brag, kind of an expert at Halloween. The awesomeness of Halloween was like the awesomeness of all the other holidays all rolled into one, except without the stress and drama. No matter what city she was in, she always found something to do and people to be with on Halloween. Her costumes were epic—no slutty vampire dresses or Renaissance princess corsets for her. A good Halloween costume was bigger than one person alone; it was zeitgeist. One year, when she was just a little kid, she was a Chia Pet. Another year, she was the gorilla from Donkey Kong. She’d once found herself a pretty empire-waist gown, which she’d embellished with enough blood and gore to tell people that she was Jane Austen’s zombie, and she was sure that the rash of funny zombie books that followed were because some writer must have seen her in a bar. And—okay
—once
she was a slutty vampire. It seemed to be the thing to do at the time.

She took Carson to the bus stop, where they boarded a bus that took them to a shopping plaza. Meggie hoped for inspiration,
maybe one of those Halloween stores that popped up in September and vanished six weeks later. But all she got was a drugstore, brightly lit and crawling with equally well-lit frat kids looking for energy drinks. She held Carson close to her as they found the Halloween aisle.

“What do you think?” she asked. “Let’s get you some gear!”

He looked with professorial scrutiny over the rows of cheap polyester tunics made to look like superhero chests, flattened wigs in plastic pouches, and uncomfortable-looking rubber masks. She watched his optimism fade to dismay.

“Okay—so—” She tried to sound cheery; she wanted so badly for him to be happy. Not only later when they found his costume, but right now. “So here’s an idea. What if you pick out
my
costume for Halloween?”

“Really?”

“Sure. Anything you pick, I’ll wear it.”

“Swear it, declare it?”

“Swear it, declare it,” she said. And she ignored the completely juvenile little frisson of worry that Carson might pick out a costume that was beneath her standards. Carson made another, closer survey of the Halloween junk—because it was junk—that lined the store shelves. He touched a French maid costume and Meggie had to bite her tongue to keep from suggesting that she should be allowed one veto. “Keep an eye out for a getup for you, too,” she suggested hopefully. “In case you see something you like.”

Carson took an extraordinary amount of time. He went up the aisle, then down, then up again. He teased her: “What about this one for you?” and pointed to a girl in footie pajamas with pigtails and a pacifier. Meggie gave a histrionic groan. “Oh, I know,” he said. “
This!
” And Meggie shrieked in true horror when he gripped the corner of a package to show her an old-lady costume, complete with muumuu and gray wig.

She didn’t speak again until they were done laughing. “Look, it doesn’t have to be a costume from this store. I mean, we could … like … think of something. And make it. I’ve made my own costumes plenty of times before. And I could make yours, too.”

He came to stand beside her again. And though he’d been cheerful a moment ago, now his face was full of somber intention. “Aunt Meg? Maybe this year you could be yourself for Halloween. Because that would be the best costume of all.”

Meggie was speechless. She would have sworn on her life that the floor tipped.
Be yourself
 … She saw the long parade of her Halloweens past, costumed versions of herself walking down the street and waving. And more: There was her hippie phase, her punk-rock phase, her goth phase, her nerdy girl-in-pink-cardigan phase, her glam phase, and her current phase, which was an amalgamation of eighties chic and things she happened to have lying around. If she’d had a gun to her head and had to answer the question
Which are you
? she wouldn’t have been able to say. She was all. She was none. She’d had more Halloweens than she had years. And here was Carson, who had taken her hand and was looking at her with his soulful, beatific eyes, telling her she was perfect just how she was.

“Are you serious?” she managed.

And to her further shock, Carson laughed—a big bellyful of laughing. Reluctantly, Meggie joined him, though she didn’t yet see the joke.

“Fake out!” he cried. “You totally got had!” And he laughed for a while more, then gave her a stinging high five.

Gradually, Meggie got her feet back underneath her. She didn’t know what to think, so she thought nothing. “Seriously, though. Do you see anything here that will work?”

His cheeks were bright from cold and laughing. But he sobered
before he spoke. “I think we shall end up being ourselves for Halloween.”

“Is that … the royal we?”

He nodded.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Your Majesty. We’ll find something for you better than a dalmatian. We’ll make something. We still have time.”

Vic had not brought flowers. Instead, he’d brought exactly three paper roses, folded neatly from pages of a novel that he’d picked up at a thrift store. Aubrey had been incredulous. Lines of black text crisscrossed delicate paper petals. She brought them to her nose: they smelled like old books and rose oil.

“You made these?”

In the soft light of the front hall in the Stitchery, his eyes had glinted with pride. She didn’t hide how much the gift had touched her, even though she suspected it might be gauche to gush over the flowers the way she did. The roses had no practical function—Bitty would probably call them dust collectors—but they had a purpose. They whispered a message that had no words.

Vic did not immediately tell her where they were going, but when they parked, she guessed. He’d circled the block a few times, passing the Tarrytown Music Hall repeatedly, before finally settling on a spot far from the old theater, where the road sloped down toward the lip of the river. They walked up the hill to the hall, beneath spotty streetlights that cast umbrellas of light beneath the darkening sky, passing a colorful candy shop and a bright ice cream parlor and a svelte, sexy bar.

“Is this okay?” Vic asked. “You said a few weeks ago when we were talking at the library that you’d never seen
House of Dark Shadows
, even though they filmed it right down the road.”

“That’s right!” She remembered talking to him about the vampire tours they’d started giving at Tarrytown’s gothic mansion—which led to talk of the vampire movie. She’d thought he was just making mundane, forgettable small talk to be friendly; apparently, he’d been listening to everything she said. “I totally want to see it. But do you think it will be too scary for me?”

“The only thing that might scare you is the dialogue,” he said. “Or the acting. Or the plotline. Actually, there’s a lot to be scared of—in a so-funny-it’s-scary kind of way.”

“Sounds perfect for Halloween,” she said.

They walked into the foyer, which had probably seen better days. The theater had opened in 1885 to a Gilbert and Sullivan show; now Aubrey and Vic settled into folding chairs in front of a movie screen just as the reels started to turn. The crowd was lively, reacting with exaggeration to each new plot twist or meaningful stare. All the clichés of vampire horror were unleashed: A platinum vampire seductress in a white nightgown thrashed at the men who held her down, while another approached her with miserable bravery and a wooden stake in hand. Aubrey laughed aloud.

After the movie, they drove out of Tarrytown, out to the voluptuous pastures and acres of sweet fields that silvered under a high, bright autumn moon. Aubrey couldn’t get her fill of Vic. He told her he was the oldest child, and he talked about taking care of his younger brothers and sister after his father died—about his mother crying when certain songs came on the radio, and about his sister getting pregnant and
then moving in with him. He talked about how much he loved cities—any cities—for the bonds that came of people living so close to one another, but he also confessed that he was not as interested in traveling as he was in getting his feet under him, strong and solid, to settle down. By the time they parked, Aubrey knew she was half in love.

Slowly, arms linked, they walked across a wide piazza surrounded by the fieldstone walls and steep roofs of a grand, Normandy-style farm, with buildings and walkways made of dark stone. Aubrey had been to the busy farm many times to watch the pigs rooting in and tilling up the dirt fields, to sit and have a rustic lunch on a picnic table, to watch the hooded beekeepers pump smoke at drowsy honeybees. Now the moonlight touched the hillsides, the looming silo, and steep slate roofs, and Aubrey’s heart was in her throat.

“Too much?” he asked.

She shifted her eyes from the moon above the stone silo down to his face. “Do you want to sweep me off my feet?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not too much,” she said.

Inside, the restaurant was beautiful, simple, dimly lit. Tiny orange pumpkins and green-and-yellow squash were laid out on sideboards. Real candles flickered. At their table, Vic folded his hands; they were hands that spoke of hard work, dirt and grease that had dug in so deep no amount of soap would get it out, and it was a shock to see them against the bleached white of the tablecloth. And yet he didn’t seem uncomfortable, so neither was she.

They talked—not about Tappan Square, about eminent domain laws, about the possibility that they might lose their homes. Instead, they talked about the little things, childhood pets and favorite books and preferences for coffee or
tea. And they ate. She got an egg that she swore was made of sunshine. Turnips that, if she closed her eyes, tasted of grass and rain. Vic had ordered a bottle of champagne: She drank until her thoughts began to effervesce and burst cheerily in her mind.

For the first time in her life, she was on a date that was going perfectly. Just a week ago, her understanding of Vic was incomplete and not fully formed—and yet it had been enough to make her heady with curiosity and wishes. But now, as each moment passed and her date with him become more romantic, more intimate, she saw that the promise being fulfilled in him was even better than she might have imagined. She did not allow dark thoughts to creep into her mind; she didn’t think about the Stitchery—which had always had a way of making itself the exclusive and singular priority of guardians past. Nor did she think about her previous romantic failures. The evening felt enchanted, seamless, infinite, and full of a thousand possibilities—all of them good. She wondered if it was too soon to be thinking of what she’d been missing in her life before this evening with him.

Vic might have felt the same way. He leaned his cheek on his fist and gazed at her, a faint smile playing around his lips. “When are you going to knit something for me?”

“Oh,” Aubrey said. “You need a spell?”

“I don’t want a spell. I want something from you. You can knit things that don’t have spells in them, right?”

“That’s always a little bit of a question. A knitter always leaves something of herself in everything she makes.”

“Nobody’s ever knit me anything,” he said.

“Never?”

“Not since I was a kid, and I didn’t know enough to appreciate it.”

“Aren’t you worried that I’ll knit some kind of spell into it without telling you? Maybe a spell that will make you have a sudden impulse to repaint the Stitchery? Or a love spell  …?” She blushed; apparently, she’d had too much champagne.

“I trust you,” he said. “If you need the Stitchery painted, all you have to do is ask. And if you want to knit a love spell, then … I guess I’ll just have to enjoy the ride.”

She smiled to herself and looked down at her plate, emotions warring. She must have been quiet for too long, because when he spoke again, he was apologetic and embarrassed.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess it’s a really personal thing to knit a gift for someone, and I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s not that!” she said. “It’s just that there’s a rumor. Like, a curse. Well, not a real curse. Not one that’s associated with the Stitchery. But there’s this thing that happens; it’s called ‘the curse of the boyfriend sweater.’ ”

He laughed. “Sounds like a B horror movie.”

“The theory is that as soon as you make a new, um, boyfriend, a sweater, or something, you get on the fast track to splitsville. It’s like the Murphy’s Law of knitting.”

“So I should be glad you don’t want to knit for me.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you stuck around.”

“What a ringing endorsement.” He chuckled. “How long will I have to wait?”

She felt her throat tighten. “I don’t know. I’ve never knit a boyfriend sweater before.”

“You haven’t?” he said, and then he caught himself. “Oh—I’m sorry. I know you just said you haven’t, obviously. I was just surprised.”

“It’s okay,” she said, and she kept the rest of her thoughts to herself.

“Have you been with anyone, seriously?”

She let the waitress refill her glass of water. The ice tinkled. “I’m not sure what constitutes serious.”

“Someone you loved,” he said.

She forced a smile that she hoped looked mysterious and flirty. “Why would it matter?”

He edged away, leaning against the back of his seat. “Maybe I want to know what I have to contend with. If there’s anybody I should be worried about.”

“There isn’t.”

“No?”

“No.” And she almost added,
How could there be? How could there be anyone but you?

He was looking at her. She had taken off her sunglasses when they’d sat down—not because she’d wanted to, but because the layers of candlelight and shadow in the restaurant were so dim that she could not read the menu or see her glass of water if she kept her glasses on. And yet, across the table, Vic regarded her steadily, directly, and without the skin-tightening around his eyes that suggested he was uncomfortable looking at her.

Aubrey could see, in that moment, that whatever he felt for her was serious. He gave her a thing she had been missing for most of her life: He looked at her eye-to-eye, without judgment. He—of all the men she’d ever met—confirmed what she’d sometimes suspected about herself: that she was beautiful in her way, in spite of her eyes.