Clown Girl - Monica Drake [66]
His hand stopped circling. “You can’t be seen with me?”
I looked up at him, past stray strands of the red wig. I said, “It’s not you.”
“What’s wrong with me?” He took his hand away. Where his hand had rested seconds before, I still felt the warmth and weight, and held on to the warmth of it, to keep my heart calm, my bones at ease. Consolation.
“It’s the cop suit. I can’t be seen with a cop.”
“So you’re judging me because I’m an officer. My job. You’re worried what your friends’ll think?”
“It’s not what they’ll think, but what they’ll do. They’ll kick me out of the house.” I said, “You have to understand—it’s like the fear of clowns. Like those families, back at the grocery store. Only it’s a fear of cops. Is there a word for that, fear of cops?”
He took a deep breath, stood and brushed off his pants. “Paranoia, poor socialization, that’s what that is,” he said. “I’m the good guy here. And you don’t need those herbs.” The vials lay in a cluster on the walk. He tapped the bottles with the toe of his shoe. “What you need is to stop hiding, stop being afraid of everybody, and take care of yourself. Stop with the sunglasses and the pistol routine—”
“I’m not the only one carrying a pistol, or the only one in costume. Maybe you’re a little afraid of something yourself, officer?” When I stood, my blood was slow to follow, head dizzy, and for a moment the world narrowed again. In panic, I reached for Jerrod’s hand. He held my hand, and gave it a squeeze. Quieter, I said, “They’ll think we’re on a date.”
Jerrod brushed a strand of my clown wig behind one ear. He ran his palm over the makeup on my face. “Well, that’s one thing I’m not afraid of,” he said. The white dusty powder of dried water-based makeup clung to his skin. When he lifted the sunglasses off my nose the world became a lighter place again, as though he’d bought me a few more evening hours. “Maybe this is a date,” he said. “Would it be so bad?”
In the new light of my evening’s reprieve, his face was soft, earnest as the moon.
I said, “Well, no. Not so bad. Not to me, but really, they’d kick me out of the house. I’m not kidding. You saw my friend the weight lifter, right?” I nodded back toward Hoagies and Stogies. “She’s looking for a way to do me in. Sink my ship. Herman doesn’t want cops around, I mean police, and he thinks I’m a cop magnet now and Italia’s his right hand—”
Jerrod leaned over, and he kissed me.
I kissed him back. I did. I leaned toward him and pressed my lips to Jerrod’s and his mouth was sweet with beer. My pink clown bag slid forward on my arm. Tricks and props and cures spilled onto the sidewalk and rained down around our feet.
Ooo la la! That kiss was fine, and it was full of all the words I didn’t need to say. It was an experiment, empirical, a single moment of unearthing the archaeology of emotion—Jerrod’s were the first lips to touch mine in years other than Rex’s painted smooch. He was the first body, the first smell to surround me besides Rex’s kerosene and sweat. And for the moment of the experiment, in the comfort of Jerrod’s sweet cinnamon spice, the luxury of his skin, the press of his mouth, the kiss was a tincture better than a palliative, soporific, or vice. I was calm. Ta da! Calm.
When Jerrod pulled away, it was with a dash of red clown paint across his mouth, and a dot of white where my nose touched his cheek, the press of my skin on his.
“What’s so funny?” he asked. Then he kissed me again.
13.
Silence Isn’t the Only Thing That’s Golden
FOUR IN THE MORNING. THE DEPRESSION HOUR. THE hour of brain chemistry and despair. My mouth was cotton-mouth-beer-drinking dry. I reached for a cup of cold tea on the floor beside the futon. My fingers grazed the dry skin of Chance’s sharp nose. Sweet, sleeping Chance. I stretched farther, gave a pat, but there was no soft fur, no silky ears. Just the nose. I fumbled