Page 73 of The Blue Moon Café & 24-Hour Occult Emporium

“Let’s bring it up at the town meeting,” Talula suggested wryly, and Dahlia tipped her head back and let out one of her big, beautiful Dahlia laughs. Dahlia turned to her, a towel in hand, her eyes bright. “Respectfully, take off your clothes.”

Talula, at the mercy of Dahlia’s dimples, took the towel. She swallowed.

“As we are genteel ladies, I shall leave you to don your garb unchaperoned.” Dahlia bowed.

“Keep an eye out for loose uteruses!” Talula called as Dahlia closed the door.

Loose uteruses? Talula thought to herself, mortified. Then she heard Dahlia’s chuckle echoing through the hall and let out a relieved breath. She changed into the clothes Dahlia had thrown at her—fuzzy socks, comfy joggers, an oversized shirt, and a crewneck sweatshirt. She took a steadying breath, trying not to get dizzy from the closeness of Dahlia’s smell, then padded downstairs to the living room. Dahlia had lit a few candles and set out an armada of take-out containers on the coffee table. She stood at its edge, pouring red wine into two mason jars. “I totally forgot to ask you what you liked, so I got two of everything. Is that okay? Too much?”

“It’s perfect.” Talula sat down on the couch, mouth watering. The heady aroma of curry, noodles, fried rice, and sauteed meat flooded her senses. “This is always how much Thai food I want.”

“Same.” Dahlia offered Talula a jar. “I’d try to impress you with my mom’s fancy glassware, but wineglasses make me nervous. They should make wine sippy cups for grown-ups.”

“I’d buy ten.” Talula took the jar with a shy smile. She wants to impress me? “Thank you for doing this. This spread looks amazing.”

“It’s my secret weapon. Whenever I had a really tough client or needed a little inspiration for a new ad campaign, Thai food and wine in a jar would usually do the trick,” Dahlia explained. When their plates were loaded up, Dahlia turned to Talula with a shy smile of her own. “What do you always say? Noosh something?”

“Noosh-eh joon,” Talula replied, moved that Dahlia remembered. “It’s like bon appétit. It kind of means, ‘may this nourish your soul.’ ”

“I love that.” Dahlia held up her chicken satay. “Noosh-eh joon.”

“Perfect.” Talula beamed at Dahlia. “Then I say, ‘khasteh nahbahshee,’ which I think of as, ‘Thank you, I hope you’re not tired from the hard work of doing this lovely thing for me.’ ”

“That’s beautiful,” Dahlia said. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

“Anytime.” Blushing, Talula turned her attention to her food, scooting rice into a green curry puddle, then taking a bite. She tasted rich coconut and bright spices, bits of vegetables soaked in flavor and heat.

“Good, right?” Dahlia watched her face.

“Hot. But really good.” Talula’s voice was a little husky from the spice and Dahlia’s gaze. She took a big swallow of wine.

“Spiciness makes your brain work in weird ways.” Dahlia took a few more bites. “The more you can take, the better your ideas.”

Talula raised an eyebrow, feeling a little cocky. “Is this all you got?”

With a wicked grin, Dahlia proceeded to explain the spice level of each curry. “This one’s a two, this one’s a four, this one’s a six, and this one I had to sign a waiver to order.”

The two women synchronized bites, chewing while studying each other’s faces for signs of distress. Talula discovered, quite quickly, that Dahlia’s ideas must be very good.

“How do you do that?” Talula gasped. She gulped down some wine to cool her mouth, which only sort of worked.

“Lots of practice.” Dahlia, victorious, sipped from her jar daintily. When they had eaten their fill, Dahlia handed Talula a legal pad and pen. She broadcasted her presentation’s title slide on the living room TV—“50 Sensational Strategies to Save Samhain.”

“Fifty?” Talula asked, agog.

“Most of them aren’t good. But sometimes a bad idea leads to a great idea.” Dahlia shrugged.

Some ideas were too time-intensive, like Idea #14: Hire artisanal carvers to craft a personalized jack-o’-lantern for everyone in town. Some were simply unrealistic, like Idea #29: Dress drones up like flying monkeys to drop candy from the sky.

“Flying monkeys might send the wrong message,” Talula pointed out, gesturing at Dahlia with a crab rangoon. Dahlia cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West herself.

Eventually, they concocted some solid ideas. They planned to go over the pictures Talula had of past festivals. They’d find ones of smiling townspeople, and Dahlia would post some every day on the café’s social media platforms, tagging everyone. They’d also post polls and infographics, and Dahlia knew a woman who could whip up a whimsical Samhain selfie filter in no time at all. But none of the ideas were game changers, so they kept eating spicy food and drinking wine for inspiration.

“We should play to Samhain’s strengths. Festiveness. Spookiness,” Dahlia said, refilling their wine jars for the third time.

Talula scribbled Dahlia’s words down on her legal pad. She squinted. How many o’s were in “spookiness”? Three seemed like a lot. But maybe not enough? Wine wasn’t helping her spelling. Talula paused. “Do you think I’m spooky?”

“I think you’re witchy.” Dahlia said the word like she was relishing a particularly tasty curry bite.