The Alfred Hitchcock Party

"Knock, knock," Aubrey sang.

"Who's there?" I sang back.

"It's just me, your shadow, your best friend, the Mutt to your Jeff."

"The Laurel to my Hardy? The Jan to my Marsha? The Wilma to my Betty?"

"Ugh. Yes. You know who it is. Open the door."

She entered my apartment, the door closing with a thud behind her. "You ready for tonight's adventure?" she asked. Her eyes were bright, lively, full of mischief.

"I am." We were both dressed in black. Her hair was back in a ponytail. Mine was in a bun. I didn't want to take any chances of leaving any evidence behind.

"Aubs, do you want me to put your hair in a bun?"

"No, thanks. You pull my hair too tight. If I didn't think you were trying to give me a facelift, then I'd say yes, but…you know."

"Okay. Geez. Rough crowd. Balaclava or beanie?" I asked, holding out one of each.

"Beanie," she said. "You want people to be able to see your face."

"Right. Duh," I answered.

"Randall has the best parties," she said. "I don't think our outfits are going to knock it out of the park, but we really do look like burglars."

And we did. We wore utility belts with rope, carabiners, small compartments in the belt with duct tape, box cutters, chalk, wire cutters. I threw in a few suction cups, and for good measure, a stethoscope—for safecracking. The goal was to be as realistic as possible but to fit into the theme for the night: Alfred Hitchcock films. We were burglars a la To Catch a Thief.

Randall's parties always involved some kind of prize, and his prizes were legendary. We were dying to win. The last party he had sent the winners to Cancun for a week. Aubrey and I both needed breaks from the daily grind, and if we won even a weekend in New England, we'd take it. Of course, last year, someone won a microwave oven, which was a huge disappointment to everyone in attendance, and relief to me because I had no desire to win a microwave, and my outfit sucked.

Everyone invited would receive the location via text approximately one hour before the party was scheduled to begin. Aubrey's phone chimed.

"You have the address?" I asked.

"Chill, Di. I'm entering it into my maps app. Give me just a second."

"Am I driving?" I asked.

"Yes, and I'm navigating."

We left. My car was perfect for our costumes. It was non-descript, perfectly forgettable. We were fairly conspicuous, but we were going to a party—a party where we could win a super-bitchin' prize—and we decided no half-measures. We were committing to our costumes 100%.

"Diana, you don't think Randall would send us on a wild goose chase, do you?"

"No. He's more committed to partying than having people potentially miss the whole thing because they can't find the venue," I answered. "Why?"

"Well, has he had parties in industrial office parks before?"

"Nope. This is a new one on me." There were warehouses in the office park, and it was dark. "Do you think we're the first to arrive?" I asked.

"Maybe?" Aubrey responded softly. We got out of the car and put on our beanies. I had night vision goggles and sunglasses snapped onto my hat. I'd sewn velcro onto the sides of my hat and attached the adhesive to the sides of the glasses and goggles. I'd seen enough movies where the lights were turned on, rendering the guys with the night vision goggles blind. If anything like that was going to happen, I was going to pivot as quickly as possible. Even if it was a stupid theme party, I was the butt of no one's joke.

"This is really realistic," I whispered into the dark, feeling Aubrey's presence next to me. "Did you see some of the windows were broken on some of the buildings?"

She nodded.

"Do you think we're supposed to enter the building through the windows?"

She shrugged and pointed to the right. "I think it's that building there." It was a four story building, and I didn't see any broken windows, which was good because I didn't want to start the evening having worked up a sweat by pretending I was Spiderman. "Do you think we should walk in the front door?" Aubrey sounded as nervous as I felt.

"Yeah, let's do that," I whispered. "If the door's locked, we can pick it." I patted my utility belt. "Or you can pick it. It doesn't matter to me."

Aubrey answered with a nervous smile. We reached the door, and I pointed at the latch. Aubs nodded and shook out her limbs. I knew exactly how she felt and shook out my limbs, too. Maybe some of the anxiety would be left on the ground behind us. "I'm scared," Aubrey whispered. "This seems really real."

I nodded in the affirmative and made eye contact with her before trying the door. Unlocked. We entered the building, finding it very dark, quiet, and empty.

"Oh, Jesus," I muttered, partly in exclamation, and partly in prayer. "I think we're going to have to find the party." We snuck around the corners and stayed in cat burglar mode because Randall was known to have cameras mounted in the party venues to watch how carefully his guests were in character. He was legit weird. We crept through the warehouse, and eventually came across a wedge of light coming through an office door. Too small to be the site of a party, but we thought it might be where we were supposed to check-in or something. I looked into the room and saw a lady, and she wasn't checking people in. She looked like she was weighing white powder. I glanced around the room a bit more, and saw five other women weighing white powder. I motioned us to the side of the office doorway, away from the women and the light, and I hoped, away from anyone else who might be in this warehouse. I pulled my phone out of my utility belt.

"Hey," I said to Aubrey. "Get your phone out and open your maps." She gave me a look. "Please."

I pulled up the text from Randall, and compared the two addresses. Aubrey compared the two addresses. She mouthed, "Uh-oh." We were in the wrong place. She had entered the beginning of the street name, and her phone autocompleted it. We were on the wrong side of town, to boot. We were going to be so late for the party.

"We have to get out of here," Aubrey whispered. "I am so sorry we're in the wrong place." We started doubling back, and after around 90 seconds of trying to be as stealthy as we could, I was seized by the absurdity of what we were doing. I was doubled over, one hand over my mouth, the other clutching my stomach. Aubrey looked at me, taking in a good view of my face, and then she was doing the same thing. I just kept thinking of the sound effects from Scooby-Doo when Scooby and Shaggy were skulking around on tiptoe, and they were never stealthy.

I stopped suddenly, and fell back into the shadows, grabbing Aubrey by the arm. "I hear footsteps." Sure enough, there were a couple of what I've never uttered before but I could only describe as 'goons.' I whispered to Aubrey, "We have to wait until they're way out of sight. Cool?" She nodded. We kept going, and once we made it outside, we sprinted to the car, I called 9-1-1 to leave an anonymous tip with the bad address from Aubrey's phone.

"We left that place like Paris Hilton leaving a thrift store," I said, laughing and talking out loud for the first time since getting out of the car.

"Can we swing by my house?" Aubrey asked.

"Sure. Why?"

"Well, once you started laughing, and then I started laughing, I think I may have let my bladder go."

We made our second attempt to go to the party, this time with Aubrey wearing a crazy black dress with feathers and a matching boa. "I'm from The Birds. Get it? All the feathers and stuff?"

"Got it," I said, and this time, we were very careful entering the address for the party. We arrived an hour late, and Randall marveled at our inability to use technology correctly.

"Yeah, but we think we may have stopped a crime," I said.

"Okay, Sherlock. You guys could have ended up dead, too," he said looking pointedly at Aubrey, looking like a tall, willowy, goddess of ravens.

"Yeah," she said. "Sorry about that, Diana. My bad. I'm not trusting autocomplete anymore."

"Hey, uh, Randall," I said. "Do you think we win tonight?"

"Sure, but I don't think you want to win tonight's prize. It's a Vitamix, not a trip."

My face fell. "A Vitamix?"

Aubrey's face registered Randall's answer a moment later, "A Vitamix?"