Clown Girl - Monica Drake [104]
I found a red sequined clown dress, pure wrinkles, three sizes too big, with sequins missing in a patch on the ass, and an orange ruffle around the neckline, but at least the dress was somewhere on the road to sexy. I slid the dress on and tied the straps together in back with a scarf to make it fit.
I gave myself a hit of powder, a dash of eyeliner, and just as I drew the makeup brush along the curve in my lower lip, almost ready, there was a knock on the ambulance’s metal hull in three hard, echoing raps: Ka-chung, ka-chung, ka-chung.
The walls reverberated. I jumped! My hand drew a red line across my cheek. Shit.
The knocking started again, Ka-chung, ka-chung, ka-chung. I rubbed my cheek with the butt of my palm. The back door swung open. Sunlight cut in, and against the sun was the silhouette of Crack in her bowler.
“Yoo-hoo!” the silhouette said. “My little blessing in disguise. All gussied up?”
“It’d be a whole lot better, next time, if you knock on the glass.” I tapped a knuckle against the window to show her how delicate a sound that glass made: ting, ting, ting. “Like a door chime.”
She slapped the side of the van door again. Ka-chung. I wiped red makeup off the side of my face. She said, “You look great, but a day late and a dollar short. Where’ve you been?”
“Me?” Since when did Crack care where I’d been? I said, “Well, I was at Hoagies and Stogies, and then I ran into Rex…and we were here—”
She cut me off. “One job. A piece of cake.” Slowly, annunciating as though I had to read her lips, she said, “All I asked you to do was show up. Is that so hard?”
“One job? Ah, crapsters! I forgot.” After the photo shoot, she’d thrown the job at me. Ages ago. “I never wrote it down.”
“And whose fault is that? I promised ’em three girls, they got nothing. Except me. I count for, like, maybe half a girl. But I did my best, put on something pretty.”
“Matey didn’t show?”
“Matey’s off the scene for a while. A broken arm. Clown-bashing, she says, if you believe that for a minute.”
I said, “I’m sorry, Crack, really.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it in a small town.” She shook her head. “The clown business runs on reputation. That’s one word-of-mouth job that won’t come our way again.”
“So it’s one job…” There was a time, before I met Crack, when one job could be my whole month’s income.
“Right, and they tell two people, and let’s say those people hire somebody else for their next bash and we lose how many more contacts by not being at that gig? It’s about face time, Sniff. Business.”
I said, “Look, I’m sorry—”
She cut me off. “Personally, I don’t care how you feel. I care how you work. In my circus I need all fools on board, especially until Matey’s up and running again. But look, see? I’m done lecturing, ready to deal: here’s a way to make it up to me, and make it up to yourself cash-wise at the same time. Two guys, they want a clown date. You and me.”
She knew exactly what I’d say. “Crack, I’m not a hooker.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” She tugged on my orange dress. “Finish your lips, girl, you’re good to go.”
I leaned into the mirror to finish my lips, but not for Crack. A quick glance out the side window showed me Rex had gone inside. I said, “I’m an artist, a clown artist. It’s about art, not sex.”
“It’s about money, and ego. Don’t kid yourself.”
It was about Rex at the moment and, yes, Rex and me, we needed money. I gave my burnt hair a fluff.
“Listen, I’m not asking you to blow the guy, just spend a little time. He’s a fetishist, and there’s cash in it, no joke.”
“No sex?” I said. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“No sex and big cash.” Crack drew an X across the front of her striped tank top. “Cross my heart, or whatever God gave me in place of a heart.” Her voice boomed. She blocked my exit. I was a rabbit in a pen, a raccoon in a trap. “For the guy, it’s the same