Halloween at the Club

It had arrived the old-fashioned way, in the mail. So quaint. An ecru card embossed in stark characters, with the message: You are invited to a Halloween party at The Chesterton Club. 9 pm. Come as you really are.

Hannah had scrutinized the invitation a dozen times over the past week. She hadn’t accepted, but she also hadn’t thrown it out. She’d never been to the Chesterton Club, and it was such a tony establishment.  

Now, yet again, she held the invitation up to the light. Heavy stock. Expensive, elegant—definitely not for the likes of her. She hadn’t sucked up to her boss or boondoggled with any of the other corporate bigwigs. And, although she’d asked everyone she knew about the party, not one friend or office colleague had heard about it. At least, no one owned up to it.

The party wasn’t a gag. She’d phoned The Chesterton and had been informed by a man with a lofty kind of voice that there was indeed to be a function and that if Hannah had received an invitation then it was legit. Only, the snooty person hadn’t said “legit.” 

What he’d said was, “Indeed, your invitation is perfectly valid, and The Chesterton Club looks forward to welcoming you on Halloween.”

Hannah sighed and wandered over to her mirror, fanning herself with the invitation. She tilted her head back and looked down her nose at herself. She was attractive in a moderately overweight, pale-skinned, wavy brown-haired kind of way. With full makeup spackled on, she might be able to walk through a party turning a male head, or, on a very good night, possibly two. 

Looks were one thing, but her accomplishments were modest, too. The diploma on her wall, framed by her proud parents, proved she had graduated from university, but only Hannah knew what a close thing it had been. Unfortunately, her biweekly pay stub proved her Arts degree hadn’t qualified her for anything more than a starter job. It was going to take decades to pay back her loans, unless she zipped up the corporate ladder. To date, though, she hadn’t shown much initiative at work.  

Hannah would admit it herself: she was an average young woman, in an average job, with average potential. 

Dreams, though. She had those. And although Hannah would not share this with her friends, her most cherished one was to find Mr. Right. Yes, in this modern, liberated age, Hannah was looking for a man. Someone to lift her from her humdrum, workaday existence into a world of romance, someone so exceptional that her lack of accomplishments wouldn’t matter. A man who would love her without reservation, forever. 

Hannah sighed an average kind of sigh. She was a long way from realizing this dream. She looked down again at the invitation in her hands. Maybe this party at The Chesterton Club was the key to a golden future. So she didn’t know anyone else who had received an invitation— so what? Destiny was calling, and she intended to answer.

What to wear? Come as you really are. That was easy. She’d go as a tidied-up edition of herself. She opened her wardrobe, which was stuffed with clothes in a depressing spectrum of grey to black. For less than a minute, she flipped through hangers until she found her best dress: a form-fitting black knit, and then foraged through her jumbled shoe collection for some black flats. Maybe she wouldn’t stand out in the crowd, but at least she’d be presentable.

The evening of the party was windy and cold. Rain was in the air, and the street was deserted. All the treat-or-treaters had long since gone home to sort their candy, and the only noise was the crackling of dead leaves skittering along the pavement. As she hovered on her front stoop, Hannah pulled the collar of her coat tighter and shivered.

From down the block, the lights of the city bus glared. Hannah started down the steps to the bus stop in front of her building, but before the bus arrived, a gleaming black limousine drew up. The driver’s window glided down. Hannah took a nervous step backward.

“Miss Hannah, for the Chesterton party?” the driver asked in a professional tone. The features of his face were obscured by the shadow of his peaked chauffeur’s cap.   

 “Erm, yes.  I guess,” Hannah said, pleased by the offer of swanky transportation.  

Immediately, the man stepped out of the car and bowed, before handing her into the passenger compartment of the immaculate vehicle. Champagne was chilling in a side compartment and there was a single crystal flute on a tray. Hannah shrugged and filled the glass, casting a guilty glance at the smoky partition that separated her from the driver. She took a sip—pure heaven. Guilt forgotten, she enjoyed every swallow, and it seemed like no time had elapsed at all when they drew up to The Chesterton Club.

The double doors of the old Victorian manor stood open, and bright light and strains of music spilled out into the street. Hannah found herself being swept out of the limousine and up a shallow flight of steps into the middle of a party already in full swing. No one asked her to show her invitation, but she waved it vaguely at a security guard, who made a point of drawing himself up to his fullest height and looking down at the top of her head.

Well, if he could have attitude, so could she. She made a beeline for the closest bar, which was in the first room she entered. Sassy Latin music was playing. A crowd of costumed people undulated in time to the sultry beat, and the place was mobbed. Without conscious thought, Hannah felt her hips begin to move in rhythm with the beat.

While she waited for a drink, she scanned the crowd. The standard Halloween assortment of sexy witches and manly superheroes paraded past. Many other costumes, though, puzzled her— like what was that guy thinking, wearing a football helmet and a tutu? Or, the woman carrying a briefcase and dressed as a gorilla. She rubbed her forehead. Come as you really are.

Hannah tossed back her starter cocktail, just as a tall, classic Count Dracula sauntered up to her. His skin was glow-in-the-dark white, and his jet-black hair was slicked straight back from his high forehead. He wore a tuxedo that flattered his long-limbed, athletic frame.

“Well,” Hannah thought, “even as Dracula, he looks pretty hot. “ 

Fleetingly, she wondered what this costume was supposed to convey about his character. Was he in the medical field where the sight of blood was commonplace? A surgeon? Or, was he someone who extracted things from people? Maybe deeply buried secrets—perhaps a psychologist?

He opened his mouth, revealing elongated incisors. 

“Care to tango?” His voice was deep and melodic.  He had an alluring accent.

 “Sure, I guess.” Hannah put her empty glass on the bar and smiled at him. “I’ll try not to step on your feet.” 

His shoes did look expensive, as did everything about this mysterious man. He smelled vaguely antiseptic, in a pleasant but impersonal way. Perhaps he really was a surgeon. Maybe Hannah had lucked into meeting Dr. Right. 

With uncanny ease, Dracula steered Hannah into the crowd of dancers, which parted before them like the Red Sea, and led her in a basic dance step. He pulled her close, hips to hips, with authority. Hannah blushed to be held against a stranger’s body, but was elated when she discovered that she could tango as if she had been doing it for years. 

“You’re amazing. Where did you learn to dance like this?” she asked.

“Transylvania, of course.” His sonorous voice held overtones of mystery and danger and sex. “I teach all of my helpless victims to tango, so that they will dance to my bidding throughout eternity.”

Such an absurd answer. Hannah laughed. But then, her partner lowered his head toward her in a swan-like swoop. He buried his face into her neck, nuzzling, making Hannah giggle in nervous reaction. Not for long, though. She stopped feeling any kind of amusement when she felt a sharp pain on the side of her neck.

The asshole was trying to bite her.

Hannah shrieked and tried to break free, but Dracula pinioned her in a fierce grip. Costumed dancers continued to glide past, oblivious to her distress. The pulsating beat of the tango was remorseless. She tried to call out again, but her panic level had stifled her lungs to the point where she couldn’t produce more than the tiniest squeak. 

 “Well, now, little lady, may I be of assistance?” a new, oh-so-welcome voice said in Hannah’s ear.

Instantaneously, Dracula disappeared. Poof—just like magic. Or so it seemed to a shaken Hannah.

She staggered, but was caught by a rangy, sandy-haired fellow in full cowboy regalia. He offered her a red cotton handkerchief.

“Feel free to make use of this,” he said. His voice was kind. His drawl was apple-pie comforting and his eyes were the blue of big western skies.

Hannah accepted his hankie. She still couldn’t speak. Her hands shook as she held the bandana to her eyes, mopping up free-flowing tears.

“Looks like your neck is bruised. Now ain’t that the strangest thing?”

Hannah touched the cloth to her neck and then held it out to examine it. Good. No blood. She took a deep breath and smiled a shy thank-you at her new friend.

“Missy, you can thank me properly by accepting this dance.” Without waiting for an answer, the cowboy reclaimed his slightly soggy kerchief, took Hannah by the arm, and escorted her out of The Chesterton’s dimly lit tango parlour and into an adjoining, much cheerier room.

A downhome trio was ye-hawing and fiddle scraping. Costumed revelers two-stepped around the room. Hannah and her rescuer merged with the ongoing stream of dancers and adjusted their steps to match its brisk pace. As shaken as she was by Dracula’s weird attack, she felt herself beginning to relax in the chaste embrace of her rescuer. 

He seemed to be a perfect cowboy. Come as you really are. Maybe in real life he was a construction expert who enjoyed the outdoors. Or possibly a vet who loved animals. He grinned at her, his prairie eyes crinkling at the corners. A good-looking country boy. Open, trustworthy, uncomplicated.

“I haven’t two-stepped in a long time,” Hannah said, “but with you it’s easy. And it’s the same sequence of steps over and over, which really helps.”

“Why, thank you, doll.” His drawl made each one-syllable word seem longer. “I like all my cowgirls to dance two-step. They need to accept that, with me, their lives will be full of the same old thing, over and over.”

Hannah’s jaw dropped. “What . . .?” Hannah began to ask, but the cowboy, with a renewed grip on her waist, began to march her with increasing determination around the room.

Slow, slow, fast, fast.  Slow, slow, fast, fast.  He held on to her tightly, so tightly. Hannah could hardly breathe. Slow, slow, fast, fast.  She wriggled, then jerked her body, but he wouldn’t let go. Hannah looked up into the cowboy’s face, which had changed from a pleasant, aw-shucks country boy’s to that of a closed, cruel stranger. 

“Let me go! This instant!”

Slow, slow, fast, fast. The two-step pattern was terrifying in its sheer repetitiveness. Hannah was revolted by the clasp of this man. She had to break free.

“Help me! Please! Somebody!” she gasped.

“Allow me,” a new male voice said.

Hannah felt herself whisked out of the cowboy’s clutches and into a different room, where a DJ was spinning current dance tunes. It felt safer here, but she was in no mood to stay. Her head was pounding, and she felt as if she might faint as she glanced wildly around for the closest exit.

“I have to leave! Now!”

“Really? I’m so sorry. I haven’t even met you yet,” the man said.  His voice was a buttery baritone, reassuring and mellow.

But Hannah was ready to dash. It had been such a terrible night. It was time to go.  

Still, as she looked at her new rescuer, she had second thoughts.

He was gorgeous. His even-featured face was perfect in its symmetry, and his brown eyes beamed at her with humour and intelligence. He had St. Tropez-kissed skin and he was an ideal height and weight. Best of all, he appeared to be sane.

Like Hannah, he was dressed in regular clothes—only his were obviously very expensive and brand new, too. Come as you really are. Could he be a rising young executive or a budding lawyer? At last, this might be Mr. Right!

“I believe they’re playing our song,” he said, and they joined the gyrating crowd dancing to the beat of a popular tune.

Hannah, who had been new to the tango. and who had never been a big fan of country music, was in her element at last. Having been manhandled in the first two rooms, she was happy to be hands-free in this one. And, with such a handsome guy. Normal, too.

Hannah yelled over the music, “God, I love this song!”

“Great! Me, too.”

Hannah smiled and looked into Regular Guy’s eyes. Oh, no. Hadn’t they been a warm brown colour just a moment ago? Was she mistaken, or were his irises starting to glow in a freakishly weird manner? 

She tried to look away. But, she couldn’t. Panic once again began to well up inside her.

“Dance with me into a future where I will have success, fun and all the women I want and you will stay home and pretend to be happy and fulfilled.”

His irises glowed brighter. It was like looking into oncoming headlights. And, it felt at least as dangerous.

“Dance with me into a life of polite lies and crushing loneliness,” he said. 

His irises were now not only glowing, but actually beginning to spin. Hannah could not look away. She was attached as firmly to this man as if she had been tethered to him by a rope. He had absolute control.

“No!” she screamed. “I won’t!” 

With a tremendous effort borne of desperation, Hannah wrenched her gaze away and fled toward the exit. She pushed through the jostling dancers and ran as quickly as she could, retracing her steps through the three rooms—top hits, country, tango. She ignored the grasping male hands that tried to delay her and the suggestive words that were uttered as she passed. She rushed by the bar, out the double doors and into the street. And, when a limo pulled up smoothly beside her, she ran right past it, all the way home.

#

Hannah never regretted her Halloween experience at The Chesterton Club. Yes, she’d been terrified by it. But, she’d learned so much.

Hannah learned she didn’t need a husband who would make her dance to his own tune. She didn’t need one who would force her into a life of routine and tedium. And, she certainly didn’t need one who would seize all the glory and leave her to a life of crushing loneliness.

She didn’t need anyone to complete her at all. She was the answer to her own dreams. Most important, there was no such thing as Mr. Right. 

In the years ahead, Hannah forged her own path and became a successful business woman. It didn’t happen overnight; she worked her tail off, volunteered for projects no one else wanted to tackle, and took calculated risks.  

She didn’t end up alone, either. In time, she married a faithful, imperfect man who made her laugh out loud at least once a day. They had a pack of unruly, annoying children who kept their parents filled with frustration, leavened with occasional glimpses of joy. She wouldn’t have traded her family for anything on earth.

 And they all lived, more or less happily, in contented chaos ever after.