Heaviness settled over Joey’s shoulders as she got out of the car and walked up to the front door. The sky had turned a menacing shade of gray, and Joey wished she was home in her pinkified room with a good book. Then Adam would text about the houses he’d seen that day, and she’d be warm and safe and flirting with him.
She didn’t know why her mom couldn’t simply put a big bowl of candy on the doorstep, and call it good. Apparently, she’d done that last year, and the candy and the bowl had all been stolen.
Joey didn’t know why she cared. She could just turn out all the lights and not answer the door. How many people would really come trick-or-treating anyway?
The truth, which neither of them ever really spoke, was that Joey’s momma knew she didn’t like visiting. So she came up with reasons to get Joey to the house—something that would keep her busy, something where they didn’t have to talk the whole time, something with a time constraint on it.
Joey could admit that she’d done similar things in the past, agreeing to come for the duration of a movie, or the Fourth of July concert broadcast on TV. She’d come to bring her mother dinner and cake for her birthday, but she hadanother appointment she needed to get to a couple of hours later. Their unspoken agreement had become two or three hours together, and not much more.
Handing out Halloween candy satisfied all of that, and Joey hitched a smile in place as she pushed into her mother’s house.
“Hey, Momma,” she called. “It’s just me.”
“Oh, Joey’s here,” Mom said fondly from the kitchen. Joey closed the door behind her, unsurprised to be greeted by a cat brigade. Her mother ownedfivefelines, and they acted like her bodyguards whenever anyone came over, which, of course, no one but Joey ever did.
She crouched down to say hello to all the kitties, which gave her mother time to shuffle out of the kitchen. Joey straightened, shock running through her. “Wow,” she said. “You cut your hair.”
Her mother had resisted getting her hair cut for years now. She reached up and brushed her hand self-consciously down the back of her head. “Yeah,” she said. “It was time, and I actually don’t hate it.”
“I love it,” Joey said, with every sincere bone in her body. She took the two steps to her mom and took her face in her hands. “It looks so good. Did she color it too?”
She got all of her white-blonde, blue-eyed genes from her mother, who nodded. “You don’t think it’s too brassy?” she asked.
Joey shook her head, still marveling that her mother had made this change. “No,” she said. “I think it looks great.” She hugged her mother tight. “You look so good, Mom. It’ssogood to see you.” And she meant it, when sometimes in the past she hadn’t.
She stepped back, feeling sparkly and springy, and asked, “What did Grandma make for dinner?”
She had inherited her love of cooking from her grandmother, and growing up, she had enjoyed coming here because she always got to make something new and learn family recipes.
“She made your favorite, of course,” Mom said. “Chicken pot pie with no carrots.”
Joey grinned as she moved into the kitchen, where she found her grandmother tenting the tops of the individual chicken pot pies she’d made. “They’re almost done,” she said. “They’re just getting a little bit too brown.”
“They smell amazing,” Joey said. “You didn’t have to take the carrots out.”
“You don’t like the carrots,” she said.
Joey couldn’t deny that. “Whodoeslike cooked carrots?” she asked, because she didn’t think anyone did.
Grandma smiled and scanned Joey down to her puffy boots. “You’re not wearing a costume.”
“I brought it with me,” Joey said. “I just need to change real quick.”
“About fifteen minutes on the pies,” her grandmother said, who also wasn’t wearing a costume. “We’ve got the candy here, but your mother says you like to sort it.”
Joey grinned, because she so did. Sorting things brought her far too much happiness, but she’d decided to embrace it. She hurried down the hall to the bedroom that was stillmade up for her, though she hadn’t stayed here in a few years. She stripped out of her leggings and sweater, which she’d worn to work this morning at Cake Bites, and stepped into the black cotton dress that had angry, triangular fringes along the arms and hem. With a witch’s hat and a little dab of black eyeliner to simulate a mole, Joey was ready to answer the door and hand out candy for the next couple of hours.
Back in the kitchen, she cut open the bags of mini Kit Kats, Snickers, and peanut butter cups. Her mother had bought good candy, and no wonder there would be kids at her doorstep.
Joey loved a Kit Kat as much as almost anything, and she got out a long rectangular serving tray with three compartments. She’d used this at Thanksgivings and Christmases past for cheese and crackers or veggie plates. Tonight, the Kit Kats went on the left, with the peanut butter cups on the right, as they both had orange packaging, and the Snickers went in the middle.
Satisfied with her arrangement of mini candy bars, she smiled over to her mother. “So what’s new with you?” her mom asked.
Joey’s first thought was Adam, but just like Harry, she’d never told her mother much about her love life. “Same old, same old,” she said. “Though I’m catering Kimberly’s wedding this weekend. On Friday.”
Her mom shook her head sadly. “Can you imagine?”
“What?” Joey asked, her smile dissipating. “Getting married?”
