Special topics in calamity physics - By Marisha Pessl Page 0,77

dell'arte—but the sick thing, the thing that made the rest of the beasts at the party shiver out of focus, was not that the mask was demonic, that it turned eyes to bullet holes, but the fact that it was Dad's costume. In Erie, Louisiana, June Bug Karen Sawyer had coerced him into participating in her Junior League Halloween Fashion Show and she'd brought the outfit back for him from her trip to New Orleans. ("Is it me or do I look robustly absurd?" Dad had asked when he'd first tried on the velvet robe.) And the figure opposite me, far across the patio, as tall as Dad so he rose out of the crowd like a crucifix, what he wore was identical, down to the bronze color of the mask, the blistered nose, the satin trim around the hood, the tiny fish-eye buttons down the front. The man didn't move. He seemed to watch me. I could see cigarette cinders in his eyes.

"Retch?"

"I see—my dad—" I managed to say. My heart rolling in my chest, I pushed through the Flintstones, red-faced Rapunzel, squeezing past shoulders and tinseled backs and elbows and stuffed tails stabbing me in the stomach. The wire edge of an angel wing knifed my cheek. "I —excuse me." I pushed a caterpillar. "Screw you!" it shouted, its bloodshot eyes infected with glitter. I was shoved hard and fell onto the brick, snaring in sneakers and fishnet stockings and plastic cups.

Seconds later, Nigel was crouching next to me. "What a beaatch. I'd shout 'catfight,' but I don't think you want to go there."

"The man," I said.

"Hmm?"

"Standing on the wall. A tall man. I-is he there?"

"Who?"

"He's wearing a mask with a long nose."

Nigel looked at me, puzzled, but stood up, and I watched his red Adidas sneakers turn in a circle. He bent down again. "I don't see anyone."

My head felt if it were unstitching from my neck. I blinked and he helped me up. "Come on, old girl. Easy does it." Holding onto his shoulder, I craned my neck around the orange wig, the halo, to catch another glimpse of that face, to be sure, to realize I was only intoxicated, imagining impossible, highly dramatic things—but there were only Cleopatras on the brick wall now, their wide faces sweaty and rainbowed like oil puddles in parking lots: "Haaaaarveeeeey!" one screamed, shrilly, pointing at someone in the crowd.

"We have to get the fuck out of here or we might be trampled," Nigel said. He tightened his grip on my wrist. I assumed he was going to lead me out into the yard, but instead he was pulling me back inside.

"I have an idea," he said with a smile.

As a rule, Hannah's bedroom door remained closed.

Charles once told me she was peculiar about it—she hated people in her "private space"—and, rather incredibly, none of them, in the three years they'd known her, had ever been inside or seen it, except at a passing glance.

I wouldn't have intruded in a million Ming Dynasties if I hadn't been tipsy and marginally catatonic after conjuring Dad as Brighella, or if Nigel hadn't been there, hauling me up the stairs past the hippies and the cavemen, knocking three times on the closed door at the end of the hall. And though I certainly knew it was wrong to take refuge in her bedroom, I also felt, as I removed my shoes—"We don't want heavy footprints on the carpet," Nigel said, as he closed and locked the door behind us—that perhaps Hannah herself wouldn't mind so much, if it was only this once, and besides, it was her fault everyone was so curious about her, so spellbound. If she hadn't cultivated her own aire de mystère, always being reluctant to answer even the most humdrum of questions, maybe we wouldn't have gone into her bedroom in the first place —maybe we'd have gone back to the car or even home. (Dad said all criminals have complicated means of rationalizing their aberrant behavior. This twisty logic was mine.)

"I'll fix you right up," Nigel said, planting me on the bed and switching on the bedside lamp. He disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water. Away from the music and ferocious crowd, I realized, with a little wonder, I was much more lucid than I'd thought, and after only a few sips of water, some deep breaths, staring at the starkness of Hannah's bedroom, I began to come around, feel twinges of what