Casually Cursed (35 page)

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LIKE A LOT
of things about our family, our home is more than it seems to be. From the street, it’s a Victorian cottage that yuppie couples find quaint and offer us lots of money for. But that’s because they can’t see over the big wooden fence. The backyard hides a darkly shaded Gothic alcove with a collection of brooding gargoyle statues and a garden of poisonous plants and plenty of stuff for potion-making. It’s the kind of place where Edgar Allan Poe would have felt right at home but that I try to avoid except for an occasional round of fertilizing. You’d be surprised how well witch’s herbs respond to Miracle-Gro.

I was relieved to find a package on the front step. My friend Georgia Sue had remembered to drop off my Halloween costume for me. I was going to be Robin Hood this year, and had already been practicing getting my long red hair squished down under a short brown wig. I scooped up the box and went inside, only to remember I had left the cake in the car.

I zipped back out and retrieved the cake. As I set it on the countertop, I noticed that the light on the answering machine was flashing and pressed the message button.

“Tammy Jo, it’s me. I dropped off your costume. I thought you were going to be Robin Hood, honey? Well, at least it’s blue and green, and those are good colors for you with your hair. But hoo-yah, I don’t know what Momma’s going to say. And Miss Cookie. Tongues will be wagging. You know how the ladies of First Methodist are. Katie Dousselberg still hasn’t lived down singing that Britney Spears song on Talent Night . . .”

I scrunched my eyebrows together, advancing on the box suspiciously. Georgia Sue’s voice kept going. I love her dearly, but she’s the sort of person who can’t see why anyone would say in one sentence what could be said just as well in three.

“Did you hear about the sheriff’s house? There was a crazy traffic jam on Main, Tommy Hilliard said. If Zach told you anything, you better call me up. I want to have the best gossip tonight. I am the hostess, after all. Don’t hold out, sugar. Call me up.”

I peeled the wide cellophane plastic tape off the box and peeked inside, blinded for a moment by the reflection of a million little sequins.

I pulled out the gown, which had some sort of stiff-spined train and a plunging neckline that would embarrass a Vegas showgirl.

“What in the Sam Houston?”

I shook out the dress and realized that the back was a plume. In this costume I would be something of a pornographic peacock. I tilted my head and wondered how I’d gone from a sprightly Robin Hood to this. Then I remembered Edie’s comment from the car. She’d sent me a present.

Our town, Duvall, Texas, prides itself on having all the things that the big cities have (on a slightly smaller, but still significant scale), and one of our residents, Johnny Nguyen Ho, had created diversity for Duvall in several ways. He was our Vietnamese resident, our community theater director, and our not-so-secretly gay hair salon owner. Recognizing his talent for costume-making during his early play productions, most people in town sent him orders starting in February for their Halloween costumes.

Johnny Nguyen, in addition to his other considerable talents, fancied himself a psychic. And crazily enough, Edie had found a way to be partially channeled into his séance room, a spare bedroom he intermittently converted for this purpose by using a lot of midnight blue velvet and a bunch of scented candles from Bath & Body Works.

As I looked at the dress, I clenched my fists. There was no time to get a new costume, and I could not skip my best friend’s Halloween party.

“Edie!” I called, wanting to give the little poltergucci a piece of my mind. But Edie is not the sort of ghost to come when called.

“Edie!” I snapped, as a new thought occurred to me: Liberace had had less beadwork on some of his costumes—how much would this upgrade cost me? I didn’t need to be psychic to have a premonition of myself living on peanut butter and Ramen noodles.

If Edie could hear me, she ignored me. “Typical,” I grumbled. One of these days all the people and poltergeists who didn’t take me seriously were going to need me for something, and I just wasn’t going to be there—or at least I wasn’t going to be there right away.

Of course, my day of vindication would likely be sometime after Sheriff Hobbs, a serious churchgoing man, arrested me for indecent exposure. He’d probably give me a stern lecture on how short the path could be from poultry to prostitution.

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