The Costume Party

The fox head sat on the passenger seat like a dead thing. Arthur peeled it off, sweat running down his face, and checked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Fifty-two years old, dressed like a mascot at a college party his daughter had dragged him to. She'd called it networking. He called it Tuesday.

"You're still here?"

Arthur flinched. A woman leaned against his car door, clutching a half-empty champagne flute. She was wearing a bear costume—ears, nose, fur collar over a black dress that said more about the night than anything else. "I'm Ellen," she said. "The HR bear. My husband's inside somewhere, probably wearing my fox hat and pretending he's single."

"Arthur." He clicked the car unlocked. "I was just leaving."

"Stay." Her eyes were sharp, bloodshot. "Let me sit in your car for five minutes. Just five. I need to not be here."

She didn't wait for an answer. The passenger door opened and she slid in, still holding her champagne, the fox head on her lap like an artifact from a tragedy she hadn't finished narrating.

"He's been having an affair with his assistant," she said quietly. "I found the emails yesterday. And today, he suggests a costume party. Like masks will fix anything."

Arthur's throat tightened. "My wife left two months ago. She said I'd become someone she didn't recognize."

"And did you?"

"I think I'm just now finding out who that is."

The silence stretched between them, thick and electric. Outside, muffled bass thudded from the house. Ellen reached out, her hand hovering over the fox mask's plastic snout.

"You know what the worst part is?" she whispered. "I still love him. I look at him in that stupid hat she bought him, and I still—" Her voice cracked. "I still want him to choose me."

Arthur covered her hand with his. Her palm was warm, trembling. "Maybe tonight," he said, "we don't have to be anyone at all."

She looked at him, really looked at him, and something shifted. "Five minutes," she said, but her fingers laced through his, tight as a promise. "Just five."

They sat there until the party ended, the fox between them, the bear costume soft against the leather seat, the parking lot emptying around them. In the morning, Arthur would delete her number. In the morning, Ellen would go back to her husband. But for five hours in a parked car, they were just two people who had forgotten how to be alone.