Emmett drank from his almost-empty beer bottle and didn’t even mind the small talk with Tallie’s family. She was so happy, talking to everyone. He told Gus and Glory where he was from and that Tallie was the reason he was in Louisville, the same thing he’d told Judith that morning. Although it was a lie, it didn’t feel like one anymore. Now he couldn’t imagine Louisville without Tallie and didn’t want to. Gus and Glory talked about being born and raised in Louisville and how much they loved to travel. They’d recently returned from Greece and had plans to visit again the following spring.
“Where’s my son?” Gus asked, looking around.
“He was upstairs in a Bigfoot costume, but don’t tell him I told you,” Tallie said.
“Deal. We’ll find him and scoot. You know I’m an early bird,” Glory said, before touching Tallie’s face and saying, “You look so pretty. And it was nice to meet you, Emmett.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Emmett said before they walked away.
*
He and Tallie finished their plump little beers. Zora and some women were dancing nearby on the patio to a Tears for Fears song blaring from the outside speakers, and Tallie stepped out to join them. Donnie Darko had ended and restarted, playing silently on the projection screen by the pool. Emmett had seen the movie many times before, oddly comforted by how it was funny, unsettling, and so like a comic book all at once. He walked closer to the doors, leaned over to see the screen. Straight ahead, Tallie was talking to three women dressed in sequined frocks—the Supremes. Their dresses caught the light, sent it scattering onto the other costumes and flashing across the window glass.
He spotted Bigfoot in the distance, shadowing across the leaves, walking alone with smooth, long strides before disappearing into the trees. Having lost sight of Lionel, Emmett refocused on Tallie talking to her friends. His Scully, delighted and popping glossy olives from her plate. He adjusted his tie, his FBI badge, took another bite of his food. Watched the projection screen—Jake Gyllenhaal and Jena Malone in a darkened theater next to the metal-faced rabbit. He glanced inside the house at the couch in the living room and saw a woman in an intense red dress with her eyes closed, slack as a dying rose. He stared to make sure she was breathing. She wasn’t. Emmett’s adrenaline flared hot, and he walked toward her. As soon as he got there, her eyes opened. She shot up, laughing loudly and pointing at someone across the room, never giving Emmett a thought. A balloon pop went off like a gunshot in the kitchen, startling him again.
“Shit,” Emmett said to himself. He finished his last bite of food and put his plate in the kitchen before walking outside and standing against the door.
“Hey, man,” Lionel said, stepping next to Emmett and putting his Bigfoot mask on the ground. Zora had spun across the patio and was dancing with a group of women, all of them dressed like Greek goddesses. Emmett saw Gandalf and the hobbits Tallie had told him about in the grass. Gandalf was tromping through the leaves, holding his staff to the sky, pretending to cast a spell. A couple of the hobbits cartwheeled.
“Your house is truly out of this world,” Emmett said. Tallie looked over, and he gave her an I’m okay smile.
“Thank you. It’s extra, I know. But I couldn’t help myself.” Lionel laughed lightly. Emmett’s own laugh caught him by surprise, and he leaned into it. “So you and Lulah…how’s that going? My mom said you make delicious eggs…biscuits, too,” Lionel said, playfully leaning, knocking Emmett’s shoulder with his own.
“Your sister is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. She outshines everything,” Emmett said to Lionel, looking right at him.
Lionel was finishing up a piece of the pumpkin spice cake Tallie had brought for him. He was only a couple of inches taller than Emmett but seemed to tower over him in his Bigfoot costume.
“Where’d you two meet?”
“At the coffee shop on Rose,” Emmett said. He’d fill Tallie in later. In all her talking, that was a question Judith hadn’t asked over breakfast.
“Gotcha. That’s her favorite one.”
Tallie flashed past them like a butterfly, holding on to the hand of a woman dressed as a unicorn. The two of them stopped not far from Emmett and Lionel. Tallie and the unicorn wiggled their hips, dancing to the New Wave sound track piping up and out into the October night sky with its half-full moon. That moon Emmett thought he’d never see again, whether it was blocked by concrete or clouds or rain or his life, ending.