Free The Time of Her Life by Robb Forman Dew

everything around her. But on the morning of the Halloween party
     she was pleased to see her parents’ enthusiasm because she was so excited herself.
    “But I can’t think of anything to go as,” Claudia was saying when Jane stopped at the door. “Maybe someone out of Greek mythology.
     That would be easy enough to do with sheets. I think we have enough white sheets. And sandals.” She settled back to consider
     this, bracing herself comfortably by putting both hands on the rim of the tub, and the puff of her sleeve slowly settled around
     her wrist perilously close to her burning cigarette.
    Avery had stopped in the middle of shaving and was staring at himself in the mirror. He put his razor down on the counter
     by the sink. “Now, wait,” he said, still looking directly at his own reflection. “I think I know what we can do. Now just
     wait a minute.” He slipped his arms out of the sleeves of his T-shirt so that the body of the shirt hung around his neck.
     He studied himself carefully in the mirror, leaning forward to peer closely at his own face. He took hold of his T-shirt at
     the back of his neck and stretched it up to cover his hairline and ears and circle under his chin.
    “A wimple! See! It’s perfect.” He turned around to face them, and he looked absolutely unlike himself. The shirt was taut
     across the top of his head and the upper part of his lean face, and then it draped in soft folds beneath his chin and onto
     his shoulders. It robbed his face of that sharp charm that he possessed, a quizzical look of irony, and he seemed unusually
     benign and sweet natured in a dim-witted way. Both Claudia and Jane laughed.
    “That’s wonderful! That’s just wonderful!” Claudia said, and even Avery’s smile, which always curved up a little more on one
     side of his face than on the other, was transformed into a simpleminded, beatific beaming. Claudia was entranced and immensely
     pleased. She got up and walked all around him to see how he looked from every angle. “Okay, okay. That’s great. I’ve got to
     see how it’ll work for me,” she said. “I know what we can do. Now stay right here for a minute!” And she left the room and
     came back with one of Avery’s T-shirts for herself, a navy blue scarf, and Avery’s academic robes, which the university had
     bought in his graduate school’s colors for him to wear during processionals inthe years he was teaching. Avery’s robe was a dark blue almost the color of the scarf. The hood was scarlet and gold, but
     Claudia undid the buttons that attached it. “Some nuns dress in blue, don’t they? I think so. They must. There’s that ad on
     television with a nun riding a bicycle, and she’s wearing blue, but it’s brighter than this.” She reached up to fix the scarf
     over Avery’s head as a veil. “I wonder how they keep these things on. I’ll pin it somehow. This blue will be all right, don’t
     you think? I’ll have to borrow an undergraduate robe and go in black. Avery, you’ll have to call the custodian and see if
     he’ll get one out of storage. I think this will be all right. I think this will be exactly right!”
    They spent the day assembling these disguises. Jane went everywhere with Avery; he was such a pleasure to be with when he
     was benevolent with cheer. They picked up the black robe Claudia wanted and went to K mart to buy a black scarf to go with
     it, but they couldn’t find one. All the scarves were printed in brilliant designs, but Avery was undaunted and on the alert
     in every direction. He was delighted when he spotted a revolving rack of sunglasses. He rotated the stand slowly and considered
     the glasses with great concentration, and he finally selected two pairs with plain octagonal wire rims. Standing right in
     the aisle, he twisted the frames gently until he could remove the plastic lenses. “Janie, nuns wear these sorts of glasses,
     don’t they?” he asked her, although he was going to buy them