Ryan found the costume shop tucked between a closed pawn shop and a vape store, though he was sure there had been a laundromat there the week before. He was a thin, clean-shaven guy in wire-frame glasses, the kind of man who owned three nearly identical cardigans and had been invited to a costume party only because his friend Andrew felt bad and in the condition that he doesn’t come dressed as a spreadsheet again…
Inside, the shop smelled like cedar, dust, and old cologne. Cowboy hats hung from the ceiling. Leather jackets slouched on headless mannequins. Near the back, Ryan found a rack labeled LOCAL COLOR, and laughed when he pulled out a sleeveless plaid work shirt with pearl snaps, a faded trucker cap, and a belt buckle shaped like a bass. The shirt looked ridiculous—broad in the shoulders, wide in the middle, like it had been made for a man who leaned against pickup trucks and called everyone “buddy.” Ryan held it up to himself in the cracked mirror. “Perfect,” he said. “Ironically perfect / the opposite of a spreadsheet.”
The moment he snapped the last button, the mirror fogged from the inside. Heat rolled through him, thick and heavy. His narrow chest pushed outward, then softened as his stomach swelled into a broad, heavy belly that strained the plaid fabric. Dark hair prickled across his chest, crawled down his arms, and spread over the backs of his hands. His smooth jaw roughened with stubble, but his upper lip burned hottest of all as a thick, bristling mustache pushed out, dark and heavy, completely changing his face. Ryan grabbed at his scalp as his neat hairline crept backward, thinning at the crown until the top of his head shone through, leaving him with unmistakable male-pattern baldness.
His cheeks looked fuller, his neck thicker, his posture heavier and more relaxed. The cardigan-wearing office nerd in the mirror was gone. In his place stood a big-bellied, hairy redneck with a powerful gut, a dense mustache, a receding hairline, and an expression that somehow looked like it had always belonged to him. Ryan opened his mouth to panic, but what came out was a low chuckle. “Well, hell,” he said, the accent rolling naturally off his tongue “I reckon I look pretty good like this!”
By the time he reached the party, he had stopped tugging at the shirt and started enjoying the way it fit him. Andrew opened the door, stared for a while, blinked, and said, “Ryan? Where the hell did you get that costume? The bald cap and fake belly look insane!”
The big man grinned under his thick mustache, adjusted the trucker cap over his balding head, and patted his belly like it was part of the costume. “Course it’s me,” he said, stepping inside with a confidence Ryan had never once possessed. “Told you I wasn’t comin’ as a spreadsheet.”
