was something different altogether. I wanted another look, but focused on my own undressing. She handed me a shopping bag.
Inside was a bundle of metallic fabric. “What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
I stepped into the jumpsuit and zipped it up. She handed me a headband with two fuzzy brown triangles glued to the top. Looking in the mirror, I started laughing.
“Wait!” she said, and reached into her bag. “The finishing touch.” She carefully pinned a red CCCP patch over my heart.
“I wanted to use a fishbowl as the helmet, but I couldn’t figure out how to drill holes in it so we wouldn’t suffocate.”
“You made this yourself?”
“I’m pretty handy.” She joined me at the mirror, pulling a compact out of her purse and dabbing the shine off her nose. “You can be Laika if you want. I’ll be one of the nameless dogs who perished among the stars.”
* * *
—
Music spilled from the four-story Victorian row house off Logan Square. It was one of those grand D.C. homes I’d walked by a thousand times but had never been inside—with its iron-railed steps and front-facing bay window, its red bricks and sage-green witch’s hat turret. The windows were open but the curtains drawn, and I could see the silhouettes of people dancing: people I didn’t know and who didn’t know me, people who might think me a bore or not notice me at all. The palms of my hands tingled. Sally must’ve sensed my apprehension. She straightened my fuzzy ears and told me what a gas the party would be now that I was arriving.
A ripple of confidence bolstered me as she reached for the doorbell and buzzed it three times, paused, then buzzed it again. A tall man in a black mask covering half his face opened the door partway.
“Trick or treat!” Sally said.
“Which do you prefer?”
“Neither. I prefer broccoli.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” The man opened the door and ushered us in, locking the door behind us before disappearing back into the crowd.
“Was that a password? Is this a work party?” I asked.
“Quite the opposite.”
Instead of jack-o’-lanterns and apple bobbing, the house was decorated more like a gothic masquerade ball. Antique candelabra with flaming black candles were perched on every available surface. Black velvet drapes covered the built-in bookshelves. The dining room table featured an array of elaborate sequined masks for the taking. A large Siamese cat clad in a collar made from lavender ostrich feathers slunk through the legs of party guests. The first floor was packed with people dancing, smoking, picking at hors d’oeuvres, dipping bread cubes into pots of fondue.
“What’s that green stuff?” I asked.
“Guacamole.”
“What’s that?”
She laughed. “Leonard goes all out, doesn’t he?”
“The man who answered the door?”
“No.” She pointed to a woman wearing a lacy-necked Southern debutante ball gown with a red belt. “Scarlett O’Hara over there.” Scarlett, or Leonard, saw Sally and waved her over.
“You know me.” She pulled me closer. “This is Irina.”
“Enchanted,” he said, and kissed my hand. “Welcome. Now, I need to see about this appalling music.” He went to the record player and lifted the needle. The crowd groaned. “Patience, my children!” He slipped a new record out of its sleeve and moments later “Sh-Boom” was playing. The crowd groaned again. Undeterred, Leonard led a man dressed as Frankenstein’s monster with two empty thread spools painted black and stuck to his neck to the middle of the floor. Several other couples joined in, and soon the dance floor was going again.
Sally wove her way through the crowd toward the kitchen, and a woman dressed as Annie Oakley caught her hand and spun her once around. Dog ears askew, Sally returned with two glasses of red punch topped with lime sherbet. “How ’bout we get some air?” she asked, handing me a glass.
Except for two women sitting on the porch swing—one dressed as Lucille Ball and the other as Ricky Ricardo—Sally and I were alone in the expansive backyard. We walked out into the grass, the ankles of our jumpsuits soaking through with dew. The yard was decorated with tiny white lights strung up in the towering oak trees and red paper lanterns hanging like ripened fruit from the lower branches. The sky was orange, the moon an almond sliver, and somewhere, someone was burning leaves.