Clown Girl - Monica Drake [107]
“Here she is!” Crack called. “Our clown lady of the evening.”
“I’m not a clown of the evening,” I whispered, maybe only to myself. “I’m an artist,” I said louder, to the open lot, as though to convince the world. Then I tripped on a piece of rebar, snagged my dress, caught myself with a hand to a cinder block, and skinned my burned palm.
“Yes,” Crack said. “Our artiste, star of the show!”
Behind her, a bouquet of pale blond hair cut into the moonlight; a man climbed from the back of the van.
I straightened up, stood and brushed off as Crack came forward, took me by the hand. She passed me the bottle. The bottle was hot at the neck from her clutch. Freixenet.
“Meet your date, Rich Johnson.” She waved a hand. “Rich, meet Juicy Caboosey.” She slapped me on the rear, hard enough to knock me forward and toss champagne from the bottle’s mouth in a moonlit gush.
“Hello there, Juicy!” His voice was low. His suit was nice, well-cut and dark.
“Rich?” I said. “That’s his name, or his tax statement?”
He laughed. “A regular Mae West, just what I ordered.”
Ordered. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“To you, that’s his name,” Crack said back, fast. She gave me a wink, clown sign language for Don’t Ask.
The man had a narrow chin, ruddy cheeks, and eyes that were too vacant. He seemed familiar, like I’d seen his pompadour and ruddy cheeks before. “I know you, don’t I?”
He chuckled again, nervous this time. “Strangers is better,” he said, and tugged on his shirt cuffs.
Of course—coulrophiles always preferred the anonymous thing.
Crack whispered, “Don’t blow it, Sniffers.” She wrapped her arms around my neck, gave me a smooch on the cheek like some kind of staged lesbo clown moment, and it was all an act until she hissed in my ear, “Play it right, in twenty minutes it’s over and you’ll be the richest joke in Baloneytown. No kidding.”
She laughed loud and fake, like our powwow was one big party. One big lie. Rich looked over his shoulder, gave me a profile view of his long nose, sharp chin, and then the flash of teeth, and in that flash I remembered exactly where I’d seen him—the hallway, outside the Chaplin gig. Old Blondie. He’d done his hair differently. And at the street fair, the day I fainted, hanging around with another pompadour altogether. He wore his hair like a costume, but it was the same guy. This was no generic clown date, it was personal. I folded my arms across my chest, held the bottle of grocery-store bubbly against my hip. Crack took my hands, as though to loosen me up.
She whispered, “Plan to be a party pooper or a party trooper? We’ve only got room for troopers around here. I need you on board.” She straightened my dress. Plumped my fake cleavage.
With her face close to mine, I whispered back, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what, Clownster?” She reached for the warm champagne.
“You set me up. We know this guy—he’s practically a stalker.”
“We don’t know him. He’s a date. You’re dating, right?” She turned away. I followed her toward the van. A second, shorter man spilled out the open van door, his hair pressed tightly to his head like a stocking cap, then I saw it was a stocking cap. Crack reached for his hand. She’d take the little guy, and leave me with Mr. Blonde and Blow-dried.
I wasn’t ready to pair off yet. “Can we talk?” I asked her.
Crack looked to Rich, his hair bright and pale as a streetlight. She looked back to me. “You and me,” she asked, “or, like, talk as part of the show?”
A date wasn’t a show in my book. I said, “You and me, alone.”
Blondie shrugged, gave the go-ahead. Crack and I walked into the dark.
I said, “I can’t do it, Crack. It’s too hookerish.”
She said, “It’s a piece of cake. Let him do all the work. All he wants is a brush with fantasy, maybe to cop a feel of your plastic