CHAPTER TWENTY

IS THIS FREAK TAKEN?

“Okay, one more picture!” Bekka’s father hurried out of the red Cadillac SRX. He was dressed in a burgundy fleece, Dockers, and blue slippers.

“Dad!” Bekka stomped her satin stilettos. She pointed at the school’s front steps, which were spotted with giant green footprints and flecked with costumed kids acting too cool to enter the dance. Fog seeped from the blacked-out double doors, dragging thumping bass beats with it. “Brett’s waiting for me inside.”

“It’s okay.” Melody put her arms around Bekka and Haylee. “One more picture won’t kill us.”

“No,” Bekka mumbled as a cluster of senior cheerleader zombies skipped by. “But the embarrassment will.”

“Smile!” Mr. Madden insisted, lifting his glasses onto his bald head.

Bekka and Haylee complied. Melody tried. Recovering from facial surgery had been easier. Yes, she was healthy, almost asthma-free, and part of a loving family. But was it so much to ask for a relationship that lasted longer than a kiss?

All week Jackson had avoided her. Blaming homework or headaches, he had thwarted every one of Melody’s requests for hang time. And like a respectful friend-slash-eavesdropper, she had said she understood. But Melody wanted to help. She wanted to be his shoulder to cry on. To share his burden. To tell him she had felt like a “monster” her whole life. To tell him that she understood. But obviously he didn’t want her shoulder, or any of her other body parts. Which crushed her chest more than asthma ever had.

Alone in her box-filled room each night, Melody resisted the urge to confide in Candace. Jackson’s secret was too damaging to share. Instead, she tried to convince herself that his distance had nothing to do with his Melody feelings and everything to do with the promise he’d made to his mother. But there was only so much self-love she could administer to the wound. After a while it just felt pathetic, like sending herself flowers on Valentine’s Day.

Melody couldn’t really shake off her mood, but she had managed to get herself dressed for the dance. She didn’t want to let down her two new friends: the Bride of Frankenstein and her Flower Ghoul.

“You girls look great!” Mr. Madden gushed, shuffling back to his open car door. “I’ll pick you up at ten, sharp,” he announced, then drove away.

His taillights faded in the distance, taking away any hope Melody had of leaving early. Why had she agreed to leave her purse in the car? Bekka had said it would “free them up.” Ha! It would do the opposite, by trapping her for two and a half hours with the wrong guy.

“Can you please try to have fun?” Bekka pleaded, as if reading her mind.

Melody promised she would. “You look great.”

“I’d better.” She sighed shakily, lifted her train, and began wobble-mounting the steps in her four-inch heels.

Bekka treated her role as Frankenstein’s bride more like an audition to be Brett’s bride. Every part of her body had been colored bright kelly green—even the parts that her mother had stressed were “not to be seen by anyone except God and the inside of a toilet bowl.” Instead of wearing a wig, Bekka had teased and then shellacked her own hair into a windblown cone, and she’d used female-mustache bleach to create white streaks. Her seams, made of real suture thread, had been attached to her neck and wrists with clear double-sided costume tape because drawing them with kohl would not have been “honoring the character.” Her Costume Castle dress had been exchanged for something more “authentic” from the Bridal Barn. If Brett didn’t see his future in her heavily black-shadowed eyes tonight, he never would. Or so she believed.

“You look great too, Hayl,” Melody added.

“Thanks.” Haylee grinned, looking like a possessed child beauty pageant contestant. The Flower Ghoul wore a shiny yellow dress, white tights, and a face full of white, black, and red makeup. She carried a basket full of rubber insects.

No one complimented Melody on her costume. And if they did, she’d know they were lying. Dressed in black leggings, her mother’s black Chanel blazer, black ballet flats, a beret, and a face full of red and black horror makeup, she was Freak Chic. Everyone agreed it was better than her Killer Wave idea.

The instant Bekka opened the school doors, Melody’s chest constricted. “I can’t go in there!”

A skeleton and a Cyclops entered instead.

“Melly, get over it, okay?” Bekka snapped.

“No,” she said, wheezing. “The fog machine. My asthma. Puffer’s in your dad’s…”

“Just go!” Bekka pushed Melody through the thick layer of gray smoke and guided her toward the gym. She leaned on the silver pump-handle, and the door hissed open.

Darkness. Black lights. A Rihanna remix. Trash bags taped to the walls. Gigantic cocoons filled with fake dead people dangling from the ceiling pipes. The smell of rubber soles and duct tape. Snack tables divided into allergy zones and marked by gravestones. Round tables littered with fake body parts. Chairs wrapped in white sheets that were splattered in red paint. Costumed girls dancing on the dance floor. Costumed boys working up the courage to join them. As she struggled to breathe, these details rushed her senses, as if begging to be appreciated before she collapsed.

“Here.” Bekka handed her an inhaler.

Melody took a big puff. “Ahhhhhhh…” She delighted in the steady exhale. “Where did you get that?”

“I took it from your purse before we left the car.” She handed it to Melody. “Principal Weeks loves that machine. He even uses it on Thanksgiving. He says it was foggy the day the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.”

“Thank you.” Melody smiled and knit her brows at the same time. “If Brett doesn’t propose to you tonight, I will.”

“Forget the proposal. Just promise me you’ll try to have a good time.”

“I promise.” Melody raised her palm. It was the least she could do.

Deuce approached them with a confident swagger.

“Here comes the Mad Hatter,” Haylee announced.

Wearing a tall red velvet hat, a matching tuxedo, and his signature sunglasses, Deuce looked mad hot. Melody decided that if she had to be stuck at a dance with someone else’s boyfriend while missing her wish-he’d-be-my-boyfriend, Deuce was the guy.

“Hey… crazy beret girl,” he said, trying not to insult her ambiguous costume.

“I’m Freak Chic.” She flicked her cap and then rolled her eyes at her own patheticness.

“Oh yeah, I kinda see that now.” He smile-nodded.

“We’re going to look for Brett and Heath,” Bekka announced, then quickly took off with Haylee before Melody could stop them.

Suddenly left alone, they couldn’t help but notice the fun all around them.

Monsters of every imaginable sort mingled, greeting one another with compliments and yanking reluctant partners toward the dance floor.

“So, what’s with the shades?” Melody asked, trying to make conversation. “It’s so dark in here. How do you see?” In the spirit of flirty party banter, she pulled them off.

“Give those back!” he shouted. He was so angry, he couldn’t even look at her. Instead, he looked past her shoulder, quickly shut his eyes, and then felt for his Oakleys as a blind man might.

“Here.” Melody placed them in his tanned hands. He put them on with urgency. “Sorry, I was just—” She cut herself off. What was she doing, anyway?

“That’s okay,” Deuce said sweetly. “I should probably check in with Cleo. She’s home alone and everything, so… you cool here for a minute?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Great,” Deuce said, accidentally knocking over a lone stone statue of a witch, and then sprinted for the exit.

After steadying the toppling witch (who looked a lot like a girl from her English class), Melody set out in search of Candace and, more important, cab fare. So what if she lived only three blocks away? Walking home alone from a dance was just as lame as couching it with Ben & Jerry’s. If the feeling were an ice-cream flavor, it would be Sour Grapes.

Now that it was pushing eight o’clock, the too-cool-for-punctuality crowd ambled into the gym. With swaggers implying that they had other, more happening places to be, they examined the decorations like prospective buyers. Clinging to one another in clusters, they resisted the urge to bombard the dance floor when Jay-Z’s “On to the Next One” began playing, making it next to impossible for Melody to spot Candace, who was dressed as a Scary Fairy. Most brunettes used costume parties as an opportunity to go blond, and blonds never went brunette, so this was a needle-in-a-haystack situation, at best.

While searching the Vegan Zone for her sister, Melody found an elaborate meat-free spread that included baby carrots labeled GOBLIN FINGERS and tofu chunks called BEAST TEETH.

“Blood punch?” offered someone behind her.

His voice was soft but far from weak. Similar to a tone she recognized, but infused with an added kick of confidence. It was as though improvements had been made to the original model, and she was about to meet version 2.0.

D.J.?

Melody quickly turned. Red liquid splattered all over her face.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry!” D.J. (or was it Jackson?) grabbed the stack of black cocktail napkins beside the bowl of Fritos marked DEMON FINGERNAILS.

“It’s okay.” Melody wiped her face. “I needed a good excuse to take this makeup off my face.”

He instantly became a human tissue box, presenting a steady stream of napkins with the utmost reliability. Once the liquid had been absorbed and the napkins tossed into the bin marked MASH TRASH, they exchanged a warm smile that felt like returning home after a long trip.

“Jackson?”

He nodded sweetly.

“What are you doing here?” Melody asked, relieved. “Not that you don’t have a right to be here or anything. I just… you know… you’ve been so busy lately.”

“I thought you might wanna hump.” He pointed to the pillow stuffed up under the back of his sweater like a hunchback.

“Oh.” Melody’s elevated spirits nose-dived. Grabbing his wrist, she led him to an empty table and whispered, “D.J.? Is that you?”

“No.” Jackson reddened. “It was a joke. I thought you could use some cheering up, that’s all.”

“Me? Why me?”

“I kind of saw Deuce take off, and I know he was your date and everything.”

Melody gasped, trying to seem offended. But he was struggling to look concerned about her date leaving, and failing as a smile kept tugging on his lips. He seemed adorably pleased with his discovery that she was now available. And, truth be told, Melody was too. “You were spying on me?”

He lifted a green plastic doll arm off the table and shook it in front of her face. “I learned it from you!”

“Me?”

“So, you weren’t spying on me that night I found you in Candace’s room?”

Melody opened her mouth to defend herself but burst out laughing instead. He laughed with her and then grabbed her hand. A warm current passed from his body into hers, and from hers to his, like electrical sockets that were joined.

“So, did you come here to tear me and Deuce apart?” Melody teased.

He ran a hand through his long layers and looked out at the whirling monsters on the dance floor. “I wanted to make sure he was treating you properly, that’s all.”

She squeezed her appreciation into his hand. He squeezed back “anytime.”

Surrounded by the giddy din of party noise, Melody felt like a water balloon at a helium party. Bogged down by the burden of knowing his secret. And bothered by his unwillingness to share it. With each day that passed, it would become harder and harder to connect with him. Their secrets would eventually come between them, forcing them apart like magnets of the same pole.

He ran his finger over the fake blood on the chair.

She smiled awkwardly.

He smiled back.

Now what? There was so much to say, but no good way to bring it up. No natural segue. No transition sentence. No way to justify a cutesy opener like, “Speaking of eavesdropping…”

“Speaking of eavesdropping…” she tried anyway.

“Huh?” He snickered in his usual way—a mix of fascination and bewilderment. The way one might watch millipedes mate.

“So, you know how you caught me spying? And now I caught you spying?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly catch me spying. I came forward and—”

“Okay, even better.” Melody closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Because I am coming forward to tell you that…” She took a quick puff of her inhaler. “You know how you walked into my house a few times without calling?”

He nodded.

“Well, I kind of did that to you.”

She waited, hoping he’d react. Or maybe even figure out what she was trying to say, and finish the story for her. But he stared at her expectantly. Offering no easy way out.

“I know everything. IheardyouandyourmomtalkingandIcouldhaveleftbutIdidn’tbecauseIwantedtoknow.” She sucked in a breath. “I wanted to understand.”

Melody’s heart thumped with the bass from the speakers. Say something!

Jackson looked at the gym floor and stood slowly. He was leaving.

“I have one thing to say.” He reached inside the front pocket of his jeans.

Melody’s chest began to tighten. She took another hit from her inhaler. It didn’t help.

“What? Just tell me.”

He pulled out a battery-operated mini-fan and flicked the switch. The white plastic blade began spinning around the blue base. It sounded like a bee. “This thing is the best!”

“Huh?” Melody half-laughed. “Did you even hear what I said?”

Nodding, he leaned back and closed his eyes, luxuriating in the paltry breeze.

“Jackson, I know your secret,” she insisted. “I eavesdropped.”

“What do you want me to do?” He leaned forward. “Send you to your room?”

“No, but—”

“It’s okay.” He grinned. “I already know.”

“You do?”

“I left the door open for a reason,” he said coolly. “And I saw you running back to your house.”

“You did! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay with it. I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything. It’s kind of a heavy secret to carry around, you know?”

“Is that how you got that hump on your back?”

He laughed.

She laughed.

And then they waited for a slow song and danced.

Cheek to cheek, they swayed to Taylor Swift, a true Monster Mash in a gym of imposters. The invisible repellent force was gone. The only thing between them now was the soft breeze of Jackson’s mini-fan.