It was the first Halloween in the new house, the first Halloween in which I, the eldest of three and nearly four years old, would go out Trick-or-Treating, and it was the first Halloween for which I would select my own costume—right there in Woolworth’s. I strode down the aisle, passed the candy, and stood between shelves stacked with, what looked like, identical cake-boxes, each with a folded costume and a thin, stiff, mask staring out through a cellophane window. I paced and spun and examined and then… I saw her, her peach complexion, her blonde bouffant and golden tiara, her empty eye sockets and the jelly bean opening in her butterfly lips just waiting for me to enliven.
I slid her off the shelf and headed back the way I came. She looked up at me through the cellophane. My heart pounded in my throat. I set her in the shopping cart. “I want this one, Mommy,” I said.
The day was at last upon us. My mother helped me into the gold-spangled, blue gown. I put my face into the face of my beloved and walked over to the mirror. There she stood, looking back at me with unabashed devotion. With my father as man-at-arms, my love and I headed into the cool October night.
At the first few stops — the Underhill’s, the Grudzinski’s, the Morvec’s — it all went according to protocol. I offered the standard choice and the prudent householders forked over the standard appeasement, but it all went wrong at the Hauenstein’s.
“Trick or treat!” My child’s soprano buzzed the thin edge of the mouth opening like a kazoo.
“And who’s this pretty little girl?” Mrs. Hauenstein just had to know.
My face, already soaked with sweat from the mask, grew hot with rage. I growled with furious indignation, “I’M NOT A GIRL!”
This scenario played out several more times (there were also some tense words between my mother and my paternal grandparents—I was, after all, the eldest grandchild and the third in line to bear “the Name”), so that, by the end of the night, I was all too certain that the world would never accept our love.
Back home that night, I put the mask away, but I don’t suppose I’ve ever stopped searching for another such pair of eyes as would match my devotion.
