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Foggy had always loved Halloween. It was the one day of the year where anyone could be someone else, could completely change who they were, if only for a day. Back in grade school, he and the other kids would never call each other by their names on Halloween. Instead, they became whoever they wanted to be. Batman was a favorite of so many of the boys in his third grade class that they had a Batman, a Bruce, a Wayne, and a Mr. Millionaire-Superhero-Man. Granted, the last one wasn’t the most creative, but they only had a few minutes before class started, and they weren’t exactly the most creative bunch early in the morning.
Therefore, it was strange that Foggy approached this Halloween unlike the others previously: this year, Foggy Nelson was dreading Halloween. It wasn’t that he had been at Columbia for a few months and people said that he was ‘too old’ for Halloween, or that he didn’t have a costume picked out. No, he never cared much for what other people thought of him, as was proven by the fact that he kept his hair long, despite the fact that had nearly gotten him expelled from his high school after he had grown it out one summer.
Foggy’s dread came from one source: Marci Stahl.
Somehow, in the short time that they had known each other, Marci had found out that Foggy loved Halloween. Being Marci, she had immediately decided that she was going to pick out his costume that year. If it had only been his costume that Marci was picking out, Foggy would have been able to deal with it. However, she had also demanded that Matt, Foggy’s roommate, dress up, and that the three of them have a group costume along with a few other law students. Apparently she had decided the first week of classes that she was going to get a group together to dress up as Mario Kart characters. The only downside to this was that there were many more guys that wanted to dress up as Mario characters than girls, and thus Marci had decided that Foggy and Matt were going to dress up as two of the females in the franchise.
Normally, Foggy wouldn’t have a problem with dressing up as a girl. In fact, he had done it before, in undergrad. However, the difficulty lay in the fact that Marci hadn’t asked Matt about dressing up, or even spoken to him outside of the Torts class which the three of them shared. Instead, she had told Foggy that he would have to convince Matt to dress up, and that if the two of them didn’t show up at the party, she was going to ensure that they got a bad grade on the group project that was coming up. Foggy wasn’t sure how she was going to do that, given that Matt was currently at the top of their class, with Marci narrowly behind him, but he wasn’t willing to risk a bad grade with a professor that already seemed to dislike him.
It was now only three days from Halloween, and Marci had cornered him after his Contracts class and handed him two garment bags, saying, “You’re Peach, Matt is Daisy. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
Foggy wasn’t sure who Marci was going to be, since he was almost certain that she would have gone for Peach, but he wasn’t about to argue with her, not when he was about to have to tell Matt about Marci’s demands.
He walked up to the door of their dorm room, swung it open and said in a tone that attempted to be cheerful, but had nervousness leaking through, “Hey, buddy! Guess what I have!”
Matt, sitting at his desk, looked in the direction of the door, and guessed, “A grade for that paper you were stressing about?”
“No, well, yes. I did get that paper back. Got a B+, so no complaints here. But that’s not what I’m talking about.” Foggy threw the garment bags on his bed and took off his backpack as he spoke.
Matt’s head tilted as though he were listening intently to something, then he asked, “What did you just throw on your bed?”
Foggy took a breath, preparing himself for the Matt v. Marci argument that he was sure would follow. “Funny you should ask… Those are Halloween costumes. For us. Marci picked them out.”
“I don’t know, Fog. Halloween isn’t really my thing.” A small frown appeared on Matt’s face, and Foggy knew that he needed to convince Matt quickly, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to change his mind.
“Look, I know all the noise and stuff probably isn’t your favorite thing in the world, but it’ll be fun! There’s going to be a party on campus, and a bunch of the first year law students are going to be dressed up as Mario Kart characters, and Marci said that if we don’t go to the party dressed up she’s going to make sure we fail that group project we have coming up in Torts.” As he started to explain, his brain-to-mouth filter seemed to disappear, as often did around his roommate.
Matt simply stared at Foggy for a moment, biting his lip, then smiled and said, “Well, we can’t let Queen Marci down, now can we?”
Foggy sighed a breath of relief, saying, “Thank you so much. I know you can’t see her, but she is seriously scary, man. I keep thinking she’s going to pull a praying mantis and eat me, and I haven’t even slept with her.”
This startled a laugh out of his dark haired friend, who then asked, “So which characters are we going as? Since I can only picture Marci putting together a group costume.”
“Uh, we’re actually going as Princess Peach and Princess Daisy. I’m Peach, you’re Daisy.” Foggy held his breath once more, certain that this would change Matt’s mind on agreeing to Marci’s plans.
Matt, however, shocked Foggy and said with a completely straight face, “Do you think I’ll need to shave my legs for that?”