Donovan's Desire

Costume Karma

Waiting for the tow truck was like peeling the little pieces of skin around her cuticles down past her knuckles. Slow. Excruciatingly slow. Each brush of a skeleton leaf clattering against its neighbor was like the pendulum of a clock swinging its tik-tok, tik-toc. 

The two had started off in Addy's car, but after forty-five minutes of what little time Addy had left and that amount worth of gas, they had turned the engine off and taken their chances with their thick Carhart coats. Creeping winter chill was snaking its way further into town each passing day, or Zira would say, it was "cold as a witch's tit." It was probably why she liked to hang around Florida, Cancun, and the toasty Caribbean beaches. Metal nipple piercings tended to be lower than room temperature. 

Shuffling around in the crumbling leaf layer stiffened by frost, the girls waited and waited for gruff and balding Chuck Pughy to show up in his giant hauler. 

"You said that Charles didn't get a letter?" Melanie scrubbed her toe beneath the litter, looking for something that might be there.

Addy watched the white of her breath curl up toward the light blue sky, but it did not reach the first branch above her. "He said that he was certain it got lost in the mail, but he did not have it as of this morning."

Melanie's soft blue eyes slid toward her before darting away. "So what will happen, do you think, if he actually was not invited?'

The harsh laugh that came out of Addy's throat was cruel and vengeful. "With any luck, he will be thrown out and his pants will fall to his ankles so that everyone can laugh at the little prick that he is."

She did not reply for a while. "Could you forgive Stacia?"

Addy turned to her and huffed out another cloud. "I don't know Melanie. It's not like she was some Jane Doe that stumbled into Charles' man whore arms. I've been- I was friends with her since middle school. I didn't start dating Charles until after high school. That means they fell in love with each other while Charles was supposedly in love with me. I told her everything. My dreams, my fears, my... passions, and in turn she was fucking my boyfriend. So, no, I really doubt that I could ever forgive her whether it is the moral high ground or not."

"I see."

"Do you think I'm wrong for that, Mel?" The question asked, Addy stared down the road, angry that she could not even feel nervousness about her friend's answer. She just didn't care about anything today. Not like it would matter in a few hours. 

Melanie shook her head. "No, I don't. Honestly, I would feel the same way. But, I think I would want to retaliate. I don't know how or what I would do, but that kind of intentional harm will come back to her."

"You believe in karma?"

A sweet laugh and shrug was the only answer she got before the clattering roar of Mr. Pugh began in the distance, Melanie hurrying to unlock her car for him. Mr. Pugh was not a talker in town, at home, or even a room full of puppies. He pulled his hauler in front of Melanie's car and she put it in neutral without having to be told once. 

Stepping down from his grease-stained, discolored throne, his bulky frame hidden behind a brown, zip up man onesie with motor oil down his front, he tilted the back of the bed down until it touched the ground. With a few grunts and irritated huffing, he had the car hooked up and winched it onto his hauler. 

"I'll take it to Harold's. That's all. It'll be fifty fer the trip," he mumbled. 

Melanie handed him a wad of tens, fives, and ones, which made his face turn red in either anger that he had to do math to count it or embarrassment because he might have thought she was a stripper. That's what everyone thought when you paid out in tips. He didn't count it and got back in his truck.