Page 44 of Barefoot Lake

Next thing I know, I’m in my driveway surrounded by open boxes, with decorations from various holidays spilled everywhere, and I swear a string of orange lights is trying to strangle me. I may be a clean freak, but I’m not organized. I’m tying a skeleton to the outside of my staircase in an attempt to get him to stand up when I hear Alice’s door open and close. I whip around so quickly that my abandoned knot pulls free, and the skeleton’s skull smacks against my own.

Smooth.

I rub the sore spot as my eyes find Alice coming toward me. She laughs at my lack of coordination, and she’s stunning. She’s in an oversized burnt orange sweater, boots, and another pair of those goddamn black leggings, so she looks like a walking Halloween decoration herself. It takes me a second to figure out what she’s carrying, but when I recognize it as a couple of slices of Mark’s everything pizza on a plate, I grin.

“Breakfast?” Alice says, holding out the plate when she reaches me.

“That’s for you, Ace.”

“One each, then?” She takes one slice off the plate and nudges the other toward me again. I have half a pizza in my fridge right now, but I can’t turn down her generosity a second time, so I accept the offer. I’m surprised when it’s warm. I figured she’d be a cold-pizza-for-breakfast kind of girl.

“Sorry I didn’t bring enough for your friend.” She gestures to the skeleton crumpled on the ground behind me. “If I had, maybe he wouldn’t have assaulted you.”

“So, my potential concussion is your fault?”

“Oh, you’ll be fine. You’ve got a hard head.” We both polish off the pizza and she sets the plate on my bottom step. “I’ll help before you hurt yourself.”

After we finish with the skeleton, she wordlessly wraps the banister with lights I’d left coiled on the porch.

As we work, I eagerly wait for her to bring up last night, but she just keeps going from project to project, only speaking to ask if I’d mind if she started playing music from her phone. I guess the silence bothers her as much as it bothers me.

The music doesn’t help.

I thought her coming over this morning was a good sign, like she didn’t want to wait for me to come knock on her door again, but now I’m not so sure.

Does she regret the kiss? Is that why she’s not saying anything? I settle in for a full internal spiraling session.

I feel like I should say something, but I want to follow her lead, and it feels a lot like she wants to pretend like the kiss never happened. The nervous energy I woke up with transforms into plain old nervousness, and I feel like the longer I go without speaking, the worse it gets.

We hammer gravestones into the lawn, secure wooden bats hanging off the roof, and prop plastic jack-o-lanterns up on the sides of my steps. We even move around to the back of the house and deck out the back patio. All without talking. It’s horrible.

I can’t take the quiet anymore. It’s so uncomfortable that I feel like I want to crawl out of my own skin. I’m working to pluck up the courage to ask if she’d like to have dinner with me when she slaps her hands on her thighs.

“There! Now it looks almost as good as my house!” Her excitement is fake, and the loud statement bounces awkwardly around in the uncomfortable yard.

I look over at her house, finally taking in her decorations. It feels like defeat after I went out of my way not to look last night and all morning so she could give me the grand tour. I’d pictured her smile while she explained each piece, not this terrible plastered-on grin. Since I’ve seen the real thing, this fake joy is just painful.

The space is cozy, with far more pumpkins than the small yard needs, but also spooky, with fake webbing stretching around both banisters leading up to her door. Several witches are around the yard, some around a cauldron, two more playing a board game, and another that looks like it face-planted into her home while flying on a broomstick. She also strung purple and orange twinkle lights wherever she could reach. It was clearly a labor of love.

“I’m happy to take second place. Yours looks fantastic.” The compliment feels like sand in my mouth. This is not how the morning was supposed to go.

“Thank you!”

She’s so chipper that I find myself wishing for the awkward silence again. Thankfully — miserably — it returns. We just stare at one another. I take a deep breath.

“I was wonder⁠—”

“Well, I’d better get going!”

We speak at the same time.

More awkward silence.

“Thanks for your help,” I say.

“You’re very welcome.” She collects her plate. “Um… bye.”

She basically flees back to her house.