Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“Plus, the Heart of Gold spaceship ran on the infinite improbability drive,” Lindsey added. “And it is infinitely improbable that this car will ever start.”


Arden smacked her shoulder. “Shh, you’ll hurt its feelings.”

After another fifteen minutes of harrowing New York City driving, Peter said, “Okay, you can park somewhere around here.” They had reached a quiet, run-down part of town, all concrete and trash on the ground, with none of the boutiques or restaurants that had characterized the Last Page’s neighborhood—but fortunately, lots of easy parking spaces. It seemed to Arden like the sort of place where your car would get stolen, your purse would get stolen, and you would be left for dead. If Chris were here, he would have locked all the doors and ordered her to keep driving. So instead, she parked and got out.

They joined a long line of people waiting outside a heavily graffitied door. Some were smoking cigarettes, drinking out of cans in paper bags, or sitting on the dirty sidewalk. Everyone was done up in some kind of costume, adorned with fairy wings or crowns of leaves or gobs of glitter.

“Your dress totally fits in here,” Lindsey said to Arden in wonder.

“It’s like I’d known we were coming,” Arden agreed.

Peter spotted two guys whom he recognized and pulled Arden and Lindsey into line with them. The girl they cut right in front of sighed loudly and said, “Really?”

“Sorry,” Arden said guiltily. She held out her tin. “Can I offer you a brownie?”

“I guess.” The girl adjusted the enormous antlers sticking out of her head, then took two brownies. And said nothing more about their cutting.

Peter introduced the girls to his friends. “Arden, Lindsey, these guys are Trotsky and Hanson.”

“Hey,” Arden and Lindsey said. Arden didn’t ask how they knew Peter, because she was worried they might ask the same of her in return. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to care.

“What’s the theme tonight?” Peter asked. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a quick sip, which seemed daring considering they were outside, and presumably public underage drinking was as illegal here as it was in Maryland. Arden tensed—it was one thing to see strangers drinking on the street, and quite another to see Peter do the same—but nobody else seemed concerned.

“Enchanted forest,” Trotsky said, sounding terribly uninterested.

“Like a Midsummer Night’s Dream kind of thing,” contributed Hanson.

“It’s ironic,” interjected Trotsky, “because it’s only April.”

“That’s why I made this.” Hanson put on a papier-maché donkey’s head and then said something else, but it came out as “Mumble mumble mumble.”

“Ugh,” said Trotsky, sounding somehow even more bored now. “Honey, I told you I can’t hear you when you have that ass-head on.”

“Hey, my … Chris was in Midsummer’s once,” Arden said. My boyfriend. She’d almost said my boyfriend, and she knew she should have said it, because that’s still what Chris was.

But she didn’t say it.

“Do you guys have any extra supplies?” Peter asked. “We didn’t get our act together to make costumes. Clearly.”

Hanson shook his head a number of times. Trotsky said, sounding both bored and doubtful, “You could smear dirt on your face. I guess.”

“I have a couple colored Sharpies,” Lindsey volunteered, pulling them out of her bag. Lindsey never, ever unpacked her bag. It was constantly filled with used tissues and empty Chapstick tubes and magazines that she’d already read. Clutter just didn’t bother Lindsey very much. Generally this drove Arden crazy, but sometimes—like tonight—it paid off.

“Lindsey, my lady, you are resourceful,” Peter said. “I like that in a girl.” He gave her a winning smile. “Let me see them.”