Halloween

Halloween is the hinge between Henry Page’s anxious anticipation and a night that brings him and Grace Town closer. The day begins amid cemetery-themed decorations and pumpkin carving, passes through a noisy party, and ends with the two walking home together and approaching an intimacy Henry has been anticipating.

The Day and Its Anticipation

As All Hallows’ Eve arrives, Henry’s street becomes, in his description, an annex of a cemetery: tombstones, cobwebs, and skeletons cover the neighborhood, and the decorations in his front yard look like a kitsch apocalypse. By midday Saturday, Sadie has brought Ryan over to carve pumpkins on the lawn. Henry’s own carving goes badly, which he defends as a surrealist interpretation of a jack-o’-lantern. His attention, though, is already fixed on the party that night—and especially on what he expects might happen afterward.

The Party

The first part of the party recalls Heslin’s Party, but the gathering begins at a football field, where the group drinks from an industrial rainwater tank rather than a bathtub. The red, frothy mixture contains cheap wine; Henry and Grace each drink enough to become intoxicated. They leave the group for a basement party at the house of someone connected through several acquaintances. Grace chooses a dark, secluded corner where they are less likely to be seen kissing, while Henry keeps drinking as he anticipates the intimacy he thinks will follow.

As the basement fills, its Halloween costumes give the gathering a deliberately outlandish cast. The crowd includes zombies, witches, and pirates, alongside comic versions of familiar figures and objects: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a papier-mâché Pluto in a bikini, and Madison Carlson dressed as a corncob. The costumes and the party’s improvised setting make the evening both raucous and self-consciously absurd.

The Walk Home

Afterward, Henry and Grace walk home together in the dark, both still somewhat intoxicated. Henry’s confidence grows, and he kisses Grace more boldly than before; she responds affectionately and playfully, including by biting his neck through her fake vampire teeth. She asks him to take her home, and they continue together. The movement from a public party to a private journey marks the evening’s clearest shift: the anticipated closeness is no longer merely something Henry imagines might happen later.

The Threshold of Intimacy

At home, they reach Henry’s bedroom without waking his parents and pause to remove their Halloween makeup. Henry cleans the fake blood from his chest and wonders whether it brings the accident to Grace’s mind, and whether she is thinking about him or about the accident. Their silence makes the moment uncertain rather than triumphant: although the night has brought them together, Henry is still conscious of the past that shadows their intimacy. The evidence ends as they sit together on his bed, at the threshold of the sexual encounter Henry has anticipated.