The Ironic Costume Gone Wrong

The PTA Halloween bash was my kingdom. As the president, I’d transformed the high school gym into a tacky wonderland of orange streamers and dry ice. Every other mom—clad in her sensible witch hat or cat ears—looked to me, Claire, the queen bee. I had it all: the perfect house, the successful husband, Mark, and the body that still turned heads at thirty-eight.

Which is why my costume was a masterpiece of irony.

I’d found it online for twenty bucks: a “Sexy MILF” costume. The name tag, pinned to a ridiculously tight, low-cut top, read “Hello, Boys!” The skirt was barely more than a wide belt. I wore it as a joke, a wink to the other women who secretly hated me. Mark had laughed when I put it on. “You’re asking for it tonight,” he’d whispered, slapping my ass.

 

I spent the first hour holding court, my D-cups practically spilling out of the cheap top, sipping a vodka cranberry. I felt powerful. Untouchable.

Then, a strange, tingling warmth spread through my chest, right where the name tag was. I frowned, reaching up to adjust it. The warmth intensified, becoming a deep, pulling ache. I gasped, setting my drink down. The room started to spin.

I looked down. The fabric of my top, which had been stretched taut, was suddenly… loose. The full, heavy weight of my breasts was vanishing. It was like watching a balloon slowly deflate, my curves melting away into nothing. My hips, once a proud, womanly swell, were narrowing, the skirt of my costume now hanging awkwardly on my new, boyish frame.

Panic, cold and sharp, cut through the vodka haze. I stumbled toward the restrooms, my heels suddenly too high, my balance off. My face felt wrong, too. I ran my tongue over my teeth and felt the cold, metallic shock of braces. My reflection in the bathroom mirror was a stranger—a gawky, flat-chested teenager with a pimply chin and a look of pure, unadulterated terror.

“No,” I tried to scream, but it came out as a reedy, adolescent squeak.

My mind was a war zone. Twenty years of confidence, of board meetings and mortgage payments and seducing my husband, were being overwritten by a tidal wave of teenage angst. I was suddenly worried about my GPA, about whether that boy in my math class liked me, about the huge zit on my chin.

I had to find Mark.

I pushed my way back through the party, but no one recognized me. I was just another kid who’d crashed the party. My heart hammered against my ribs. Then I saw him.

He was leaning against the bleachers, laughing. And he was with her.

Brenda, my vice-president and bitter rival. She was wearing a genuine, expensive vampire costume, her own impressive MILF cleavage on full display. Mark’s hand was resting possessively on her lower back, his thumb stroking the curve of her ass.

 

“Mark!” I tried to shout, but my voice was lost in the party noise.

I pushed closer, finally reaching them. “Mark, it’s me! It’s Claire!”

He glanced down at me, his eyes flickering with annoyance, like I was a mosquito. “Do I know you?”

“It’s the costume! Something happened—” I babbled, my words tripping over the metal in my mouth.

He rolled his eyes and turned back to Brenda. “Kids today,” he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Brenda said, giving me a sickly sweet smile. “We’re busy.”

Mark didn’t even look at me again. He just put his arm around Brenda’s shoulders and led her toward the darkened exit of the gym. “Come on,” I heard him say. “Let’s find somewhere more… private.”

I stood frozen in the middle of the party, a ghost in my own life. The thumping bass of the monster mash felt like a funeral drum. I watched the door swing shut behind them, my husband and my rival, disappearing into the dark together.

I was 18 again. Flat-chested, brace-faced, and utterly alone. The queen was dead, and all that was left was an awkward, crying girl in a cheap costume that no longer made any sense at all.