Frankenstein's Girlfriend

3: Halloween Forever

“Aaaaaayyyyyyeeeeeee!”

Dana jumped at the blood-curdling sound of a woman’s scream!

She couldn’t escape, the darkness engulfed her!

Two bats dropped down into her hair! She grabbed the squirming beasts, one in each fist, and threw them to the floor. She squashed them repeatedly with her pointy beige heels.

Finally, the screaming stopped and Dana composed herself. She took a few more steps, past the novelty door buzzer, past the black curtain, and past the rubber bats which she tore off the ceiling and ruined with her sharp shoes, and into Halloween Forever, the year-round Halloween costume shop where her date Frank worked. Actually, the name was misleading, because in mid- November the store transformed into Santa’s Scream Factory.

Dana normally didn’t scare so easily. However, she got a little shell-shocked earlier, after batting a giant rat off an oozing nectarine that got lodged behind the Juiceroo refrigerator. That anxiety, combined with the nervous energy that accompanies a potentially noteworthy second date – it’s no wonder she made a frantic, though quiet and efficient, scene.

A week ago, Dana and Frank met for coffee during their lunch breaks. They didn’t say much, because she had to bring a stack of inventory forms to triple check, and he was preoccupied staring at his own thumbs wrestling each other. At the end of their distracted conversation, Frank asked if he could take her to dinner sometime, and she said yes. Her answer surprised them both.

Luckily, no one in the store noticed Dana’s freak out; Halloween stores are usually pretty quiet in June, and the slick-haired manager’s steel blue eyes never looked up from his Sports Monthly “Swimsuit Bonanza.” Finally, she thought, something good in my life that can be attributed to Sports Monthly.

She spotted Frank’s tall, lanky frame clinging to a wooden ladder across the store. He wore a forest green, button-down shirt, tucked neatly into pressed khakis that showed a hint of dress sock, which excited her. Dana’s mind raced with conclusions about Frank: Unlike boys her own age, Frank looked responsible enough to not throw produce during an exit interview. He was clearly an adult, albeit an adult who didn’t know how to comb his messy black hair. That, she reasoned, could be fixed.

She walked through a fake-cobwebbed hall of masks and wigs on Styrofoam heads. Many of them were covered in a thick layer of dust, which made the frightening, vacant latex smiles of Evil Zombie, Evil Clown and Evil Santa Claus even scarier.

Dana planted her feet near the base of the ladder, wiped her still moist palms against her sensible black skirt, and spoke.

“Frank?”

Frank stared like a Neanderthal at a Wolfman mask, as if they were soul mates.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Dana sighed. “There was an emergency situation at work. Clean-up on aisle me.” She looked around as she chuckled nervously, hoping the words she just spouted resembled a joke. “Seriously, I pride myself on punctuality and take all my commitments seriously, but I do have a career to think about. I’m the second youngest Assistant Manager in our Juiceroo’s history and there’s a responsibility...”

Dana stopped monologuing to look up at Frank, who was still staring at the Wolfman. He picked off the loose hairs along the sides.

“FRANK,” Dana screamed!

Frank widened his eyes and slowly tilted his head to the side. Dana stood impatiently by the ladder, absent- mindedly tapping her foot like a cartoon rabbit.

“Oh. Hello Dana,” Frank drawled with a semi-smile. “Have you been standing there long? Remember, I have a hearing aid.”

“Yes, I remember you telling me that,” Dana lied. She didn’t remember much of anything he said from their last date. Did he say anything?

Frank plopped down the creaky ladder steps. When he finally landed on the surface of the Earth, he turned his head to the side and showed Dana his dark green earpiece. “My mom wanted me to get a clear one,” he chortled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Maybe she assumed you’d prefer not to draw attention to your abnormalities.”

They walked together down the hallway of masks. Dana crossed her arms. Frank’s arms dangled like limp noodles.

“I wish I had more abnormalities,” Frank stated sincerely.

When they finally reached the front door, the manager looked up from photos of hot girls wearing body paint on the beach made to look like bikinis (a fashion choice Dana would deem nonsensical, impractical, and a few other -icals) to shout at his employee:

“Hey Frankenstein, did you move the werewolf mask to classic monsters?”

“Oh,” Frank blurted, realizing that’s why he climbed up there in the first place. Wordlessly, he turned around and plodded back over to the other side of the store. Poor short-term memory plagued his 26 years of performing menial tasks on this planet.

Dana decided to take advantage of this time. She pulled her smart phone out of her bulky black purse to play a game. Dana wouldn’t describe herself as a “gamer.” One time at a party, she asked a group of guys playing a video game why Princess Powderpuff entrusts Plumber Man with her safety, when she’s been kidnapped so many times by King Lizard. They rebutted that maybe the princess secretly wants to be kidnapped, to which an insulted Dana asked, “Isn’t that blaming the victim?” This set-off an hour long debate about feminism, psychology and discrimination which culminated in one of the guys suggesting they play God of Guns instead.

In Dana’s phone game, Happy Happy Town, players constructed happy happy houses next to happy happy towers with happy happy coffee shops in them to keep their happy happy citizens 100% happy happy. Despite all the time and work Dana put into the game, the citizens never seemed... well, happy enough for her.