“I don’t know, Cheryl. Why’d we rent this other costume at all?”

“I told you why and what might work,” Cheryl said in that low, breathy voice of hers.

I was standing at the mirror, a costume in each arm, holding them in front of me, one after the other, trying to decide. It was going to be back to “that” topic then. “You’ve been mooning over that Tim for months now. Something has to give.”

I heard the catch in her voice and looked at her through the mirror. She was standing behind me, taller than I am, her cheek against mine and her hands on my waist. She looked so wistful—at least until she saw that I was looking at her in the mirror and then she smiled wanly and lifted a hand to my head and patted a couple of strands of my blonde hair back into place.

“I’m sorry, Cheryl,” I said. “I know you hate this—that this isn’t what you wanted. But I told you from the beginning I wasn’t sure.”

“I didn’t mean to crowd you, to pin you in, Liz,” Cheryl said with that sad voice of hers that I’d heard increasingly as I’d revealed I had feelings for Tim, the new division deputy manager in my office. “It was all new to me too,” she added.

Falling in with Cheryl had been a fluke. I hadn’t thought of that at all until the night, having just been dumped by Pete in accounting, that I found myself on the town with Cheryl, each of us with a broken romance to mourn, and we’d both gotten three sheets to the wind and wound up between the sheets together here in Cheryl’s apartment—now my apartment as well.

“It seems like just too wild an idea,” I said at last. “So, I think it has to be this Marilyn Monroe costume.”

“That’s fine, honey. You’ll knock ‘em dead in this. It shows off your blonde hair perfectly. That’s what everyone notices about you—that gorgeous hair.” Cheryl took several strands of my hair and pressed them against her lips and then, with a little sigh, she said, “I’ll hang this French court costume up in the closet. Maybe they’ll give us a discount on the rental if we say you didn’t wear it. We got both costumes for you there.”

“Three costumes,” I answered back. “And you look terrific in that little devil’s helper costume, Cheryl. That was a good choice.”

I had to admit that Cheryl was right about the Monroe costume from “The Seven-Year Itch” when we hit the landing before descending into the basement of Nick’s on the Beach that evening. The place was decked out in crazily carved pumpkins, orange and black crepe paper streamers, and plastic skeletons for the bar’s Halloween costume party. The landing was spotlighted and was about the only point of light in the room. The floor below was swathed in shadows and smoke and a swirl of garishly costumed partygoers.

But when Cheryl and I appeared on the landing under the spotlight, I could see faces turned to me and the buzz in the room increase. Cheryl quickly descended four steps into the room as if to give me the spotlight all to myself. I smiled and swished my billowy skirt in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe—and, I admit, searched the faces turned to me for signs of Tim.

As we waded into the room, I lost contact with Cheryl. I was searching, and I was admitting to myself that it wasn’t Cheryl I was searching for. I was trying to find Tim.

Luckily, I saw him before I came upon them and he noticed me. The two of them were leaning into bar stools at the very end of the bar, almost entirely in the shadows and partially hidden by the combination of cigarette and fog machine smoke. He hadn’t looked up at all when I entered the room, because I remember seeing the back of his head—I could hardly not have noticed him; he was in a werewolf suit. Somehow on him, however, the hair just made him sexier, more desirable.

He was talking with Sondra, Jack Forester’s secretary, from the office. She, dressed in a gypsy costume with a plunging neckline, was acting coy, and Tim was eating it up.

I wanted to vomit. Sondra was the office slut; she’d been had by any of the men executives who wanted her, if the rumors were true. Tim would just be another notch on her victory paddle.

Well, that’s not what he would be for me. I could one and only with Tim. I was sure I could. Cheryl was nice—and could make me feel really, really special—but Tim was almost all I could think of since he’d come to the office. I knew this was upsetting Cheryl. I did what I could to find out where Tim was going to be, and I had been dragging Cheryl out to be near him—the two of us together so it wouldn’t seem strange that I was always there alone.

And I talked of Tim incessantly. I knew Cheryl must be sick of it, but she had never complained. She had listened to all of what I fantasized about and went with me to where Tim was in the evenings. And she watched Tim with me and commiserated with me on what a perfect man he was—and how sexy and desirable. I had conditioned her to speak of him much as I did.

And now he was talking to Shonda. Shonda had been who Pete had dropped me for—and she’d only spun him a couple of times before she dropped him. He’d wanted to come back to me, but no chance of that.

They weren’t too much into it yet, but I had heard Shonda talk about Tim in the office, and I knew she’d be after him.

I was panicked. I had to do something. Not just because I wanted Tim, either. Of course I wanted Tim. But mostly I didn’t want Shonda to have him. She’d taken Pete and had made it so easy that I’d felt inferior for weeks. God, I still felt inferior. It didn’t help that Shonda was gorgeous and naturally sexy.

It was just a matter of time before she’d have Tim too. There she was with those big chocolate tits almost falling out of the front of the gypsy blouse.

What could I do? I thought about what Cheryl had suggested that I do if we came here and I found Tim with another woman. I’d laughed at the time. I’d said it was a Hail Mary pass sort of scheme. And it was. But maybe it was time for a Hail Mary pass.

I turned and headed for the door.

Trembling, because I was in a hurry to get back, I sat at my dressing table and adjusted the white powdered wig of the French court dandy that went with the costume I’d initially rejected. For the first time since I’d decided to try it I thought that I might have a chance. Cheryl was right. My memorable feature was my long, blonde curls. With those tucked up inside this wig, and without my usual makeup—and with a black fake mole applied right here under the eye to attract one’s attention—I decided that I just might pull it off. The silky foppery of the costume was so well recognized and brought the one wearing it close enough to the androgynous zone without evoking the effeminate that it was the perfect male disguise for a slim woman like me.

I looked at myself hard in the mirror. I looked good. Better than that, I looked handsome. Not beautiful. Handsome. And that’s the difference I was after.

The low light and smoke in Nick’s downstairs room helped a lot.