The Keurig fizzed and popped, then hissed to silence. Paul took his mug and stirred in some cream. “You look like you just came off your shift at Chuck E. Cheese,” he said, smirking at the giant hood with black pointed ears and the huge tail.

I had the urge to smack the bottom of the mug and send the hot coffee spraying all over him. I was trying to suppress it, but I was still on edge after last night. Though the conversation seemed to go our way with Theresa, my anxiety was at a peak, hovering at the corners of my mind, along with a million questions. Jackie, Theresa, Maggie. Whoever sent those notes, would they expose us tonight? Or were they just taunting us simply to watch us squirm? I couldn’t get excited about my own party, because when I did, the thought of the threats dragged me back down.

“I’m joking,” Paul tossed over his shoulder. I smelled the pumpkin coffee I’d bought from the store as soon as the fall stuff had hit the shelves. “So, are all of you going to be foxes?”

“Woodland creatures,” I said. Like I’d already told him.

I imagined the other neighborhood moms getting a look at me. The jealousy would seep through them like syrup. Sweet and sticky. It had been worth all the sit-ups and morning runs with Bettina. The annual photo would be epic this year—I’d make Paul snap us down by the water, in front of the trees, in our natural habitat.

Would our anonymous friend be watching us?

“You want any breakfast?” Paul asked.

I shook my head, lowered my knee. “You know I can’t eat anything the day of the party.”

Especially one where the whole world might come crashing down.

“Did you find a costume for tonight?” I asked him as I checked my day-of to-do list affixed to the front of the refrigerator.

“Not yet. Maybe I’ll run out to Party City or something.”

Paul was last-minute about everything. Shopped the weekend before Christmas. Preferred to stand in an hour-long line for whatever stupid shit was left in the Halloween aisle rather than plan ahead. It irritated me to no end, but there was no use trying to change him after twenty years of marriage.

“Fine, but while you’re out, I need you to run an errand for me,” I said. “Someone smashed the pumpkins last night.”

He looked up. “Bettina’s Autumn Golds?”

I nodded. “All of them. They went around from porch to porch.”

He whistled. “She must be pissed.”

“She is.” Pissed wasn’t the right word. Enraged was more like it. I could still see her face when we’d left Alice’s the night before and found the pieces scattered in the middle of the street. Fucking teenagers.