Cinnamon // Sally Face

E i g h t e e n

"You could be a cat—ooh! You could be Gizmo!" Sal exclaimed, shoving a pair of cat ears in Violet's face. The weekend following the costume party decision, he, Violet, and Ash decided to head to the mall to look for costumes. They found a small shop with huge Halloween posters plastered outside of it and made that their first stop.

Ash giggled. "If you're a cat, you have to speak in meows all night. Otherwise, you're disqualified."

"I'm not being Gizmo for Halloween," Violet protested with a laugh, snatching the cat ears out of Sal's hand. "You do it, Sally. He's your cat."

"Sal can't be his own cat. That just doesn't work."

"Yeah, Vi. I can't be my own cat."

Violet turned away from him with a huff and flipped through a rack of costumes. It was witches, nurses, and zombies galore, but nothing unique. The teen couldn't even find anything cool enough to spark an idea or two. Although the party was 2 weeks away, she was becoming increasingly stressed about her costume. Some unoriginal get-up wasn't going to get her anywhere. She needed to think outside the box. 

"Well, Violet, if you're really serious about winning, you could wear this," Ash said, holding up what looked like a bunch of strings and ripped fabric in a bag.

"What is that?"

"Some sexy fighter chick or something. The boys would love it, that's for sure."

"She can't go as a hooker, Ash," Sal intervened. "That in a crowd of drunk teenage boys is just asking for trouble."

"Yeah, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Plus, I wanna win for my creativity, not how much skin I show."

"Fair point."

Violet turned to Sal. "What are your ideas for your costume?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe like an axe-murderer or something. It would work well with my prosthetic."

"Sally, we need to put our uncreative minds together and come up with something cool for both of us."

"Axe-murderers are cool."

"Eh, too common."

"Excuse me," an employee approached the pair with a bitter expression on his face, "we ask that you don't wear the Halloween masks around the store. You'll scare the other customers."

Sal opened his mouth to speak, but Violet beat him to it. "It's a prosthetic, I'll have you know."

"Either remove your mask or leave the store, sir."

"Sorry," Sal mumbled, turning toward the exit. "Come on, Vi."

"No, Sal! This is against the law!"

Ash emerged from behind a rack of costumes. "What's going on?"

"He's trying to kick Sally out because of his prosthetic."

The brunette's expression hardened, as did Violet's. Sal quietly urged them not to make a fuss and just leave, but neither of the girls were having any of it. This grumpy employee wasn't going to make their friend feel unwelcome because of his face. 

"He wasn't doing anything wrong," Ash snapped.

"I'm gonna have to ask all of you to le—"

"We've been shopping for nearly 45 minutes and haven't seen a single mask that looks like Sal's. Don't you work here? You should know what your store sells."

"Removing someone from your store because they wear a prosthetic is illegal in the court of law. You can get shut down for this!" Violet seered. 

That was when the man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "I'm gonna need security in the Halloween section, pronto."