We trudge up the gravel drive, disheveled and cold in what’s left of our costumes. The green felt hat in my hand is soaked round the edges after being knocked from my head and into a puddle by the witch at my side. Christine giggles about nothing in particular, still holding a beer and a stolen bucket of pretzels, refusing to believe the party has ended before daylight.
As we near the front door she’s overcome with laughter, clutching her sides and dancing in circles. I still don’t see what’s so amusing, but of course I’m nowhere close to her level of inebriation. Perhaps it’s that on the other side of that door my family is asleep, blissfully unaware of the ruckus that’s about to happen, and she’s always rather amused by the discomfort of others.
Darkness and a cold nose greet me at the door. I pat Tank’s head, pausing to listen before I allow her inside. A symphony of heavy snoring, his and hers, creates a welcome cover for the racket of Christine’s entrance, but I’m not sure how long it will last.
I push her to the bathroom first and quickly get into warmer clothing. The bedroom is a disaster – costume packages, tights turned inside-out, jeans and jewelry cover the floor. I start tossing things toward the closet and shoving what I can into corners to clear a path before she comes back and stomps on it all.
We pass each other in the kitchen – one tiptoeing, the other galloping. I spend as much time in the bathroom as possible, hoping that if she wakes them she’ll do it when I’m in another room and clearly not at fault, but all seems quiet when I poke my head out the door and listen. “Maybe she’s already passed out”, I think, crossing my fingers and making my way back.
But of course that isn’t the case because there she is, sprawled on the floor of the dining room, grinning at me like a toddler, shoving pretzels in her mouth and Tank’s mouth, alternately, but with equal enthusiasm.
“What the hell”, I hiss at her, throwing my hands up in exasperation.
“Me and Tank Tank are eating pretzels”, she slurs loudly. “So good...so good!” And the giggling starts again in earnest.
I can’t help but laugh a little. She looks so ridiculous. “Get up from there, you idiot!”
She stumbles up and into my room, launching herself upon the bed so hard that she rolls and hits the wall, scattering pretzels all over my sheets. I sigh, turn out the light and crawl in next to her. Now that she’s stationary, I relax a bit. We laugh, swapping memories from the party, and I shush her when she gets too loud. Parts of my body are still cold, as if there are icy hands pressing against my skin, and no matter how many layers I add they aren’t thawing out. As she chatters away, I try to decide if it’s worth it to find my electric blanket.
“Did you hear that”, she asks.
“What?”
Before she can answer, there’s a loud banging on the window.
“It’s Claire”, Christine shouts. “Hold on, Claire! She’s coming! Quick, go let her in!”
I jump up and run for the front door. Claire charges in clutching a white trash bag full of clanking bottled beer, the tiny cape on her Wonder Woman costume from the children’s section billowing out behind her. She collapses on the floor of my closet, crying.
Christine immediately goes into “comfort mode” which, more or less, sounds like: “this is what’s happened to me in my life and it’s so much worse than what’s happened in yours so suck it up and let’s talk about me some more”. I sit silently on the edge of the bed, watching them, wondering when it’ll be over and I can get some rest. Christine is repetitive when she’s drunk and after locking eyes with an exasperated Claire, I finally say, “It’s not a pissing contest.”
“I know”, Christine replies, though I doubt she has any idea what I mean.
I manage to get Claire out of her costume and into a pair of my pajamas, thinking I’ll put her to bed across the hall. But no, suddenly they’re both filled with good spirits and renewed energy.
“Let’s do something crazy”, Claire says, running over and turning on my bedroom light.
“I’m down”, Christine shouts back.
“It’s freezing and I don’t think it’s a good idea”, I say, inching my way toward the bed. My reluctance is like a red flag and they both turn to me, eyes narrowed. “You guys, I’ve got to pick up my kid in the morning and I’ve already taken off my bra...”
“So have we”, Claire shouts, lifting her shirt and shaking her boob at me. “Look at my nipples!” Christine lifts hers as well and they chase me around the room waving their tits and shouting, “Show us your nipples!”
Twenty minutes later I’m rattling through the woods in a “stolen” Ranger, the trash bag full of beer knocking against my left side. After being tackled and assaulted, dry humped and yelled at, I finally gave in. They decide that we’re going to a high school party around the corner...in our pajamas. As Claire careens around fallen trees and Christine bounces and shouts, I hang on to the rail for dear life and watch each breath as it leaves my body, the mist curling into darkness.
We arrive at the house and I’m relieved to see that the party is already over. The house is dark and only two cars remain in the driveway. Claire pulls right up to the steps and, while the engine idles loudly, they argue about who should beat on the door. I say nothing until they turn around to go back.
“Can we take the road this time, please?”
“Pussy”, Christine shouts.
“Fine”, Claire says, glancing over at me. “You aren’t having fun, are you?”
“Sure”, I reply without conviction. Any other answer would probably lead to Christine attacking me with her chest again, knocking me off the side of the Ranger and onto the blurring asphalt. I’ll most likely end up with pneumonia as it is, so avoiding road rash seems like the smart thing to do.
We park and I walk fast toward home, hoping they don’t think of something else “fun” to do before I make it through the door. I’m going to sleep and I’ll lock them out if I have to. But though they swap ideas back and forth, and taunt me for being a spoilsport, they seem to have lost the majority of their energy.
I crawl in the bed, shivering. I’m done trying to keep them quiet and if they wake up everyone, so be it. It’s on their heads.
Christine giggles next to me and Claire curls up on top of the piles of clothes and shoes in my closet, talking to her ex boyfriend on the phone in hushed tones. I hear my bedroom door creak and clearly the others hear it too, and know what’s coming, because Claire attempts to shut herself in my closet and Christine dives under the comforter.
My mother peers through the crack in the door, glasses reflecting the light she’s just turned on in the kitchen. When she sees that I know she’s there, she opens it all the way and glances around at the mess suspiciously. “What’s going on it here?”
I sigh and give her a look that clearly says, “Help, I’m being tortured”. She smiles at me – always delighted by my misery. Christine pokes her head cautiously out from under the covers and says, “Hey Aunt Karen”, before collapsing into giggles once again.
Mom points her finger at her and says, “Shut up! That’s enough!”
“Yes, ma’am”, Christine shouts, diving back under the covers. She is overcome with glee at finally being caught.
Mom sees Claire, still huddling in the closet on the phone. “What’s it doing in the closet?”
“It’s talking on the phone”, I say, as if that explains it all.
She shakes her head, points another threatening finger at Christine and walks out, closing the door behind her. Moments later I hear the swish of the broom sweeping across the dining room and I know she’s cleaning up pretzels.
I lay still and wait for the giggling to subside, ignoring her until I hear the tell-tale heavy breathing. She’s finally passed out. Claire hears it too and waves goodbye, making her way across the hall to an empty room, still talking on the phone. “Just like in high school”, I think, falling asleep moments later.
*****
“They kept me up until 3:30 and you know it was freezing!”
My new neighbor, Crystal, nods sympathetically. She and her son are going trick-or-treating with me and my daughter. In fact, since they moved in six months ago, we’ve been spending a lot of time together...much to the irritation of my friends.
“It’s not that I don’t want to have fun”, I continue, “It’s just that I was done for the night and I didn’t want to wake up the whole damn household. And then of course she was way more drunk than I was and getting on my last fucking nerve. I had to get up the next day to go get the kid, you know? We’re not 17 anymore.”
“I get it”, she says. “I would’ve been irritated too.”
When we arrive at my friend’s neighborhood, we all climb up on a trailer filled with hay. My cousin Ashley is there with her kids and it’s a full ride. The four-wheeler pulling the group weaves through the thickening crowd of trick-or-treaters.
It’s a gorgeous evening and the kids are having a blast. I’m sitting on bales of hay with other moms, actually enjoying their company – laughing at the kids and watching the leaves go by as we speed on to another street. I realize that I’m having just as much fun on this family friendly hayride as I did at the party the other night...and definitely more fun than I had
after the party.
*****
I didn’t expect to like Crystal when she moved in, simply because I hadn’t met another mother that I enjoy hanging out with. My experiences were limited to being judged by them for being single or being bored by their constant talk about kids and husbands. I found out, though, that we have a lot in common. She’s not obsessed with her child and she still knows how to have fun – we spend as much time hanging out with our kids as we do on our own, going out and cutting up.
I thought that maybe I wasn’t having fun with Claire and Christine because I’m getting too old for that kind of nonsense, but now I don’t believe that’s
entirely the case. When I wanted to quit that night and they wouldn’t let me, it was just like every other time they’ve harassed me for not being able to go out because I’m at home parenting...or talked shit because I’m too tired from working all day and taking care of the kid to entertain them. They never take no for an answer.
It’s been refreshing to meet someone like Crystal – someone who accepts and understands both parts of me, who lets me be the one I need to be at just the right time. And, of course, it also helps that she makes a kick ass batch of Jell-O shooters.
I’m not abandoning the others, far from it. But I think we may be long overdue for that “there’s a time and a place” talk. Maybe they’ll accept the calmer, mom side of me if I stop giving in, and show them that I’ve accepted it too.