“You know? The Spartans? From Saturday Night Live?” I asked, trying not to let the hysteria seep into my voice as Victor (who had never wanted to be a male cheerleader in the first place and still hadn’t forgiven me for picking out the costume) just glared at me. The babysitter stared at me blankly. “COME ON, YOU KNOW THIS!” I may have shrieked a little, and then Victor pulled at my arm to go because we’d lost our first babysitter that way, and so I took a deep, calming breath and said, “It wasn’t that long ago, Dani. Remember? It was in the nineties?” and then she said, “O-o-oh. I was born in the nineties.” And then I kicked her in the stomach. But only in my head, because that’s kind of how we lost our second babysitter.
Still, Dani’s saucy ignorance of shit that was on TV before she was born was still fresh on my mind as we drove to the party. I tried to clear my head by reminding myself to not accidentally show people my vagina. This is not a usual worry for me; however, the cheerleader skirt was made of a clingy polyester material that kept riding up on my underwear whenever I moved, so rather than continually pulling down my skirt all night long, I’d decided it would be wiser to just go commando instead. I was still a little nervous about this decision when we pulled up to Victor’s boss’s house, though, and as we walked up the long driveway toward the large home I quickly whispered to Victor, “By the way? I’m not wearing any underwear.” He stopped in his tracks and furrowed his brow in undisguised panic.
“I’m not trying to seduce you,” I assured him. “I’m just telling you so that you would, ya know, be aware.”
Victor stared at me, horrified. “Be aware of what?”
“You know,” I explained, “in case you decided we needed to do any really physical cheers, you’d be aware of the whole ‘careful around the old vagina’ thing.”
Victor paused at the doorway and stared at me, his mouth slightly agape. A small sheen of sweat was beginning to form over his forehead. “We are NOT going to do any cheers. I didn’t even want to wear this damn costume, for Christ sake, and WHY THE HELL ARE YOU NOT WEARING UNDERWEAR?!” Then I told him to be quiet or his boss would hear him, and that’s when Victor started shaking a little bit. It worried me, because only one of us was allowed to have a panic attack at a time, and I’d already called dibs. I wondered internally whether I should explain why I wasn’t wearing underwear or just stay quiet, because at this point he seemed so irrational I didn’t even think that I could get him to understand the science of panty lines. Then I looked through the beveled-glass door of Victor’s boss’s house and noticed four people on the couch watching TV.
And exactly none of them were in costume.
This was when I considered running away, because forcing your husband to wear a cheerleader costume for Halloween is grounds for divorce, but dressing him as a male cheerleader at his boss’s party where everyone else is in Dockers will totally get you stabbed. Then I realized that if I ran back to our car now, Victor would probably notice that no one inside the house was in costume, and then he’d quietly follow me back out to the car and stab me in private, and the last thing I wanted was to be stabbed anywhere. I quickly decided I was probably safer with witnesses, so I rang the doorbell before Victor could realize the severity of the situation. Then he pulled his (still aghast) face from mine to turn toward the door, and that’s when he noticed that no one in the house was wearing costumes.
“What. The. Fuck?” was all he managed to get out before a man in his late fifties opened the door. The man looked at us strangely, which I thought was rather rude for a host, and I thought I’d just get it out of the way, so I blurted out, “You know . . . the Spartans? From Saturday Night Live?” He just kept staring, with his brow furrowed like he was still trying to place us, and I shrugged in defeat and said, “Meh. Don’t worry about it. The babysitter didn’t get it either.”
Victor cleared his throat and gave me the “Please shut up” look, while the man at the door said, “I’m sorry. Can I help you?” Then Victor explained that we were here for the party and that apparently we’d read the invitation wrong (insert unnecessary glare at me), because we’d thought it was a costume party, and that’s when the guy stopped us and said, “There’s no party here.” I assumed he was just trying to get rid of us, but then Victor pulled out the invitation and the man helpfully pointed out that we were on North Cleveland Street and we wanted South Cleveland Street. He seemed very relieved to clear this up until I suddenly blurted out, “Oh, thank Christ!” Then he looked at me oddly again. Probably because he’s an atheist who doesn’t understand how thankful I was to God that I wasn’t going to get stabbed for forcing my husband to wear a cheerleader outfit to a business-casual affair. Atheists never understand that sort of thing.
A few minutes later, Victor and I arrived at the proper address to find a house covered in Halloween decorations and several people milling around outside in costume. I said a quiet prayer, except I guess it wasn’t quiet enough, because Victor gave me the stink-eye and asked whether I could please try to be on my best behavior tonight. He gave me a list of things to not talk about in front of mixed company. “Divorce, death, politics, heroin, sex, cancer, swallowing needles,” he droned on. “These are all things not to talk about.”