Page 17 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

The camera turns off and George hands off his microphone to a nearby production assistant.

“You have a couple of hours until you go live,” Amy, one of the producers, tells him. “The camera crew is going to go around and take some B-roll to insert into the segment and then get it to editing. Remember, when we go live, you’ll only have one camera operator with you. It’s going to be far less produced than this segment. Make it exciting.”

George grunts. “Amy, I have been on the ground in war zones and stood outside to report on hundred-mile-an-hour winds during a hurricane. I think I’m capable of creating live footage of girls trying to find the right bra to make their boobs look good in their Halloween costumes.”

Amy grimaces. “Charming.”

“As always,” George says. “I’m going out to my trailer.”

“Just be ready when we are.”

George walks out of the mall, past the straggling guests who are still just getting inside. There’s a golf cart waiting off to the side, the production assistant sitting behind the wheel flipping through a magazine as he waits. George climbs into the back.

“How’s it going?” Daniel asks as he starts up the cart and makes his way around the side of the mall to the parking lot where George’s trailer and other news vehicles are stationed.

“About as I expected,” George says. “What do you think of malls, Daniel?”

“Seems fun,” Daniel says.

George nods. He doesn’t really have a response.

They get to the parking lot and he gets out, thanking the PA before going into his trailer to take a break before having to go live. There’s food sitting on the table and several glass bottles of his favorite soda to the side. He grabs one and uses a bottle opener to pop the top. Sitting on the couch against one wall of the trailer, he opens the blinds on the wide, rectangular window and stares at the towering mall across the lot. From this vantage point, he can see other sections he hasn’t yet ventured into. Large stretches of windows allow him to look inside, seeing different lighting in some sections and what looks like games and other activity stations positioned strategically near stores that appear closed, as if the planners wanted to make sure the entire mall was a part of the celebration and the unavailable venues don’t make a negative impact.

Shoppers scurry up and down the corridors and appear on the indoor balcony around the second floor that looks down into the center of the first floor. He isn’t looking forward to the live coverage. He doesn’t know how much he can stand of just walking around interviewing people about what they bought and if they’ve gotten their nails painted at the complimentary manicure station yet.

With a sigh, he closes the blinds and takes a deep swig of his drink as he rests his head back and stares up at the ceiling.

Gloria drapes the clothes she chose off the racks over her arm and ducks into one of the dressing rooms to try them on.

“Glo?” Mindy calls from somewhere still out in the store.

“Down here. I found some super cute outfits, but I want to try them on. You never know with these mall sizes,” Gloria replies.

Out among the racks of fall dresses, Mindy rolls her eyes. Of all her friends, Gloria is somehow simultaneously the most insecure and the most self-centered. She is tiny and gorgeous, and most people would assume she just knows that. But she is constantly questioning her appearance, worrying that the clothes she picks make her look fat, and criticizing everything about herself from the way her thick golden blonde hair falls to the size of her waist to how she applied her makeup that day.

Mindy knows a lot of that comes from a true sense of not feeling good enough. Unlike a lot of people at school, she still remembers when Gloria went by Beth, her first name, and was nowhere near the dynamic, bubbly bombshell who rules the hallways of Robert Carver High. That was when the two of them were still shy, awkward outcasts in middle school, clinging to each other and the years of friendship since their parents met in a Mommy and Me class when the two were barely old enough to hold their own heads up during tummy time.

They were on the outside of everything. Never included in the popular social circles. Never invited to parties. Never selected for leadership roles in their after-school clubs and always chosen last for teams during gym class. But they had each other and they made it through. Mindy wasn’t as bothered by her position in life as Gloria. She figured there was a hierarchy in the world and it just so happened she was at the bottom. She didn’t feel the need to be popular or to be out in front of everything. She was what she was, and that was okay with her.

Glo was the total opposite. She looked at the popular girls with a mix of disdain and intense envy. She made fun of them and acted like it didn’t bother her that they didn’t include her, but then emulated them and thought of every way she could to get in with them. Every one of their slumber parties ended up in the same conversation. Gloria planning and scheming to impress the popular kids and become one of them.

For most of junior high school, it felt like a joke. She was just being silly with her plans to convince the popular kids that she was one of them and “infiltrate” their circle so she could learn the secrets of their universe. Mindy still remembers how funny that sounded. Even then, she knew people their age didn’t say things like that.

But then it got more serious. By the time they were getting ready to graduate from junior high, Glo, still Beth then, was looking ahead to the transformation that was going to get her the life she wanted. She spent the whole summer making herself everything she thought she needed to be in order for those girls to accept her, those guys to want her, and everyone to see her for what she thought she deserved to be.

And on the first day of freshman year, Beth was nowhere to be seen. In her place was Gloria. Straightened hair and contact lenses, a short skirt and tight blouse accentuating three months of weight loss. She was wearing far more makeup than her mother would have let her, applied hastily on the school bus from a stash stored in the bottom of her backpack. She was everything she’d wanted to be, and everyone noticed. Especially Mindy.

She worried that marked the end of their friendship. If Beth was now Gloria and Gloria was popular, where did Mindy stand?

It turned out, she stood right beside her. Gloria was determined not just to give herself a new life in high school, but to make one for her best friend as well. She did a makeover, introduced her to all the popular kids, convinced them to see in her what she always had. And now they are at the top of the pyramid. Glo higher than Mindy without a doubt, but still together.

Some of it has gone to Gloria’s head. She puts far more attention into her clothes, hair, and makeup than she should, and is constantly worried about her weight when she is thinner than she ever has been. She criticizes herself and voices all her insecurities when she is just with Mindy, but in public, she’s supreme above all others, the school’s Queen Bee.

Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago when they would snuggle up together in the same bed, whispering late into the night so that her parents couldn’t hear them, imagining what it must be like to have a party to go to every weekend and boys calling you on the phone. In truth, it has only been a few years, but with only one more semester left until graduation, life is completely different.

Everything is going to change again. They aren’t going to be the same people once they’ve tossed their hats up into the air and walked out of the school with their diplomas in hand. They have one more summer left. One more collection of weeks they can fill with digging their toes in the sand and showing off far too many bathing suits. One more set of nights spent camping out by the lake and days hanging out at the local theme park, soaking up the sun and the admiration of all the local boys going through their own last summers.

Then it’s college. Different states, different classes, different worlds.

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