Peg'n' Elvis
"You're back for another drink
already
, Mr. Presley?" The bartender, wiping the counter in front of him, winked at Harry McComber. "You realize this is the third time I've served you in the last fifteen minutes? At this rate, I'm going to have to cut you off soon."
Harry glanced around the room. "Really, two other guys came as Elvis?" He turned back to the bartender. "Surely I'm the only Vegas Elvis."
"Actually, you're the second rhinestone Elvis I've seen this evening. The other one looked like he came out of
Jailhouse Rock
."
"Damn! So much for my idea for an original costume," he shook his head. "I'll drown my sorrows in a Heineken, please."
As the bartender filled a glass from the tap, he observed philosophically, "I'm surprised I haven't seen more of you tonight. When you restrict the costumes at a Halloween party to 'Media Stars—Past and Present,' you kinda narrow the range of options. After all, I haven't seen the usual ghosts and ghouls, unless you count the guy doing Bela Lugosi as Dracula."
Just as Harry tipped the bartender and turned to leave, someone goosed him. He nearly dropped his drink. He whirled to see who possessed such audacity, nearly sloshing his beer out of its glass for the second time in as many seconds. He confronted a woman a head shorter than himself. She grinned mischievously beneath the broad brim of a red fedora sporting a yellow band and cocked at a jaunty angle. A matching yellow scarf disappeared into the collar of her red trench coat, which coordinated with her hat.
"Why, Elvis, you look all shook up," she laughed. "Are you in love?"
"Peg, you took quite a risk there," Harry sighed, relieved. "How'd you know you were grabbing
me
? After all, there are at least two other Elvises here."
"Aw, come on, Harry," she tittered, unrepentant. "You don't think that, after being married to you for twenty years, I couldn't pick your ass out in a crowd?"
"Who do you think you are?" he demanded.
She stepped back and made a stately 360-degree turn to display her costume to full effect. "Guess!" she insisted.
Harry glanced up at the gaudy chandeliers hanging from the hotel ballroom ceiling as he struggled to remember the character. "Some kinda detective?" he speculated.
"Close, but no cigar," Peggy shook her head. "So, Elvis, are you gonna get a girl a drink or what?"
When Harry got the bartender's attention, he responded to the man's "not again" arched eyebrow by pointing to Peggy. "This wine's for her," he explained.
"Oh, you mean Carmen Sandiego over there?" the bartender asked. "Now,
that's
an original costume. It's the first of her I've seen this evening."
Harry decided to overlook the bartender's smartass sarcasm. "So that's who she is? Carmen Sandiego?"
"Yeah, Netflix is rebooting that series. My niece loves it."
"Here's your pinot grigio, Carmen," Harry observed with a slight swagger as he handed her her wine.
"You recognized my costume!" Peggy cheered. "A toast to our memories—long may they last!" They clinked glasses and drank deeply.
"Isn't this great?" Peggy asked, throwing her free left hand wide to encompass the entire ballroom. "No kids, no trick-or-treaters at the door, and we have a room for the night here so neither one of us has to worry about staying sober enough to drive home!"
"Yeah, and it took only twenty years and two college tuitions," Harry observed ruefully as he sipped again.
"So let's toast college, then, the best—most expensive—babysitter ever!"
Harry finished drinking first and changed the subject. "Last I saw you, Carmen, you were planning to go to the hairdresser to get a special do for your costume. I imagined you getting some retro look like Farah Fawcett or something, but your hair doesn't look any different than usual. Maybe if you took your hat off ..."
"No," Peggy sipped her wine.
Harry sipped his beer. "So why did you make such a big deal about going to the hair salon if you won't take your hat off?"
"Carmen never takes her hat off," Peggy shook her head.
That sounded wrong to Harry, but he didn't remember enough about the character to argue with Peggy, and he refused to ask the resident costume critic behind the bar about it.
"So did you grab us a seat at one of those?" Peggy waved in the general direction of the walls, where some tables sat in a neat line.
"No, they all seemed to be taken."
"Look," Peggy gestured with her glass. "Aren't President Trump and Melania getting up over there?"
They hurried over and sank into the recently vacated chairs. "Well, I'm grateful for the President's timely exit," Peggy smirked. "I doubt he'll be so accommodating at next year's election."