by Cathy Quinn
“Yes, this is a big deal. The biggest deal. Lana is one of the two most important things in my world.” He stepped around her. “Let me help.” He crouched down and unfastened the safety pin. The tail didn’t come off, and he absently checked for another pin but that had her slapping his hand away, yelping and leaping away.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
Nick looked down into the snow and sighed at himself. “I’m sorry. The tail is still stuck, I was just trying to find the other pin.”
Her face looked suspicious, cracked paint and all, but she presented her behind to him again, pulling on the fabric so it billowed away from her body. “The other pin is there,” she pointed, “but I can’t get a hold of it.”
Nick nodded and quickly removed her tail, relieved that she didn’t think he’d been groping her on purpose. He stood and handed it to her. “I don’t know what it is, but for some reason you reached Lana. Do you know how long it’s been since she’s said she wanted something? She needs you!”
“She does not need me! I’m not even a real clown, Mr. Falcon.” Her voice had turned pleading. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? “Let alone a therapist-clown! I have no idea how to behave around kids, and absolutely not kids who... kids with... issues.”
“Lana turns seven next week. She hasn’t wanted to hear her birthday or Christmas mentioned. Last year, we had a party for her. We invited a few kids, had a pink cake, she got a huge pile of gifts.” He shrugged. “She didn’t want birthday cake, didn’t even want to open her presents. She just stayed in her room, in her bed, hugging her teddy bear.”
Sylvie’s face looked sympathetic. But not sympathetic enough. “I’m very sorry―“
“I thought it would be the same thing this year. She didn’t want a party. Didn’t want to make a wish list. She hasn’t wanted to hear her birthday even mentioned. So I thought we’d just have a quiet day at home, just the three of us, hoping she’ll at least agree to blow out the candles on her cake. But now Lana suddenly wants a party, and guests, and it’s all because she saw you.” He stared at her, trying to bore the importance of this into her with his eyes. “Don’t you understand how important this is? It’s her future happiness at stake. This could a major turning point for her. You could literally save my little girl’s life, Sylvie.”
She was wavering. He could see it in her eyes. Her mouth opened, and he willed her to say yes.
But no.... “There must be other clowns...” she pleaded.
Nick shook his head. “She wanted you. Name your price.” God knows, he could afford it. He’d pay her a year’s salary for this if he needed to. Anything. Rationally, he knew he was probably taking this out of proportion, but it felt real and urgent.
Sylvie was staring at him. She wasn’t saying no, again a major triumph. She was tiny, he realized. The costume made her look bulky, but the top of her head barely reached his shoulder.
“Please?” he repeated.
Sylvie looked away and yanked the wig off. Her hair tumbled to her shoulders, wavy and shiny brown, perhaps auburn, although it could be a trick of the multi-colored lights. She opened the zipper on her costume and stuffed the wig into it. Sighing, she shoved both hands repeatedly through her hair. “My hair is looking dreadful, isn’t it?” she mumbled.
“It’s looking fine.”
“No it’s not. Any more than the rest of me. I’m a mess.” She shook her head and pushed her hair away from her face. “Anyway, about your situation... again, I’m not a trained clown, Mr. Falcon. I’m not used to children, let alone children with psychological problems.” She shook her head and lowered her voice. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t even like children much. I’m sorry to say that to a parent and you probably think I’m a horrible person, but it’s the truth. Nothing personal. They just make me terribly nervous. I was a total disaster back there.”
“Call me Nick,” he told her again. “You don’t have to like my children. Just be there.”
Sylvie hesitated. He felt like shouting a victory cry, as she was obviously on the verge of saying yes. She took a deep breath. “Well, if this is really so important--” she started.
“Daddy!” came a shout. A bedraggled Emily came running through the snow towards them, Lana tottering after her.
“Oh, no,” he heard Sylvie whisper, confirming his suspicion about the identity of her torturer. When he turned his attention back to her she was taking a step back. She stumbled, and before he could catch her, she’d fallen backwards into a heap of snow. She didn’t seem to notice. She was busy staring at Emily with a look of utter terror. Damn. All his hard work down the drain.
“That one? Yours too?” she asked, not noticing when he held out a hand to help her back on her feet. She pointed at his younger daughter, her hand trembling.
“Yeah. Those are my daughters. Lana is six – seven in a few days. Emily is five.”
“Emily...” Sylvie whispered, her voice a hoarse panicky croak. She scrambled backwards in the snow until her back was against the brick wall. “Emily shoved snow up my nose.”
Chapter 2
Oh, no.
“What?” Nick groaned. Emily was playful, yes, but not aggressive. She wasn’t a bully – or so he’d thought. “I’m sorry. Did she hurt you?”
“No... It was the clown nose,” Sylvie corrected. “Not my real nose, but still... You see, she yanked it off and stuffed snow inside, and then let go, and my nose – my real nose – squashed into the snow... and then I sneezed... so I inhaled... snow up my nose...” She shuddered.
Nick grimaced. He could picture the scene. Emily loved rough-and-tumble play, and the three of them would frequently go outside to play together in the snow. He loved his younger daughter’s exuberance and joy of life – but it did get all of them in trouble regularly.
“I’m really sorry about that. Emily is a good kid, but she’s a bit... spirited. I’ll talk to her. She’ll apologize. I’ll make sure she behaves at Lana’s birthday party.”
“Daddy!” Emily called again. She threw herself at him from a distance and he lifted her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck and stuck her cold nose in his neck. “Daddy! Lana says Iffy the clown is coming for a visit. Is it true?”
Nick hugged Emily hard and kissed her tiny snub nose, currently almost as red as the clown’s nose, even though she was dutifully wearing her snowsuit and mittens. “Hey, where’s your scarf, Em? You need to wear your scarf when playing outside in the snow,” he chided gently. Emily tended to rely too much on big sister to be her wardrobe manager. When she was on her own, it was a miracle if she played for an hour in the backyard without losing something.
Emily glanced at the clown and smiled a mischievous smile that told him quite a bit about what had happened to the scarf. Poor Sylvie. Had the birthday party been completely unsupervised? Too late, he realized he should probably have offered to help out with the kids, especially since he was the father of one of the more energetic ones. “Where is it, Em?” he asked again. “The scarf? Go get it! It’s your favorite one, isn’t it? We don’t want to lose any more of your clothes.”
“It’s still tied to the tree, with the other kids’ scarves,” Emily explained. “I’ll get it.” She squirmed out of his arms and scuttled back around the edge of the house.
“They tied you to a tree?” he asked Sylvie, who was staring after his younger daughter, her expression still pure terror. “Wow. That’s above and beyond the call of duty, even for a clown. Didn’t anyone supervise this?”
Sylvie looked up at him and nodded, looking as miserable as a clown with running make-up could -- extremely miserable. “Yes. The adults thought this was all part of my program. The kids were certainly enjoying themselves. And since I didn’t even have a program, and had no idea what I was doing... not so much as one fake flower to squirt at them, I didn’t really have a choice but to play it by ear. Their ear,” she added darkly.
“Is it true?” Emily demanded as she returned right away, her red and black sca
rf in one hand, dragging through the snow behind her. “Is Iffy coming?”
“Iffy? Is that your professional name?”
Sylvie snorted. “I don’t have a professional name. I’m not a professional clown, remember?”
“Why are they calling you Iffy?”
“The kids asked my name after they had tied a scarf over my mouth,” Sylvie told him, still looking warily at Emily. “Apparently that’s how ‘Sylvie’ sounds from behind a scarf. Learn something new every day.”
“Is it true? Are you coming to our house?” Emily asked, as Nick took her scarf and shook it to get rid of the snow. He knew his daughter’s tricks and there was a familiar wicked glint in her wide brown eyes. It probably wasn’t surprising that Sylvie was in shock. Emily was a handful at the best of times, let alone in the company of her very favorite victim – people who weren’t used to kids. He grabbed his daughter’s collar and pulled her towards him. “Come here, brat. You’ll catch a cold, dressed like that.”
Emily leaned sideward to peer around her father while he wrapped the scarf around her neck and adjusted her parka. She never remembered to zip it all the way up. Her coal black curls escaped her woolen cap, and he pulled it better down around her ears. “Are you really coming to Lana’s birthday party, Iffy?” she asked.
Nick looked at Sylvie, all three of them now silent and expectant, waiting for her reply. The trapped look in her eyes would have been funny if this wasn’t so damned important.
Sylvie looked between the three of them, lastly at Lana, who looked away and started kicking the snow as if she didn’t care what the answer would be. Sylvie met Nick’s eyes, and he ignored her obvious plea of “let me off the hook” and instead tried to impart all the need that his daughter wouldn’t let show. It probably wasn’t fair of him to put her on the spot like this, but he didn’t much care about fair right now.
She wouldn’t have the heart to say no. She couldn’t.
He held out a hand to help her to her feet again. “So, what do you say?” he asked when the silence had dragged on forever.
“I’ll think about it,” she mumbled. “I have to check my schedule,” she added and started to search her pockets. “So many pockets. I really should have business cards here somewhere. Susie said something about handing out business cards at every opportunity.”
“This is opportunity.” Nick said cheerfully and she gave him a look.
“Yeah. Only it should be someone else’s opportunity,” she grumbled, still going through her pockets.
“Daddy?” Em’s voice piped again.
“Yes, brat?”
“Why’s Iffy got just one really big boob in the middle of her chest?”
Nick’s gaze was draw to Sylvie’s chest before he could figure out a way to silence his daughter. He could see Emily’s point, but that wasn’t the issue. Emily and her big mouth. Why didn’t children come with a rewind function? Or better yet, a delayed play-back and a mute button. Maybe it was something he could look into inventing.
“Emily!” he said weakly, knowing there was probably something he should be doing or saying right now to discipline his daughter. He’d just need a minute to figure out precisely the right reaction to comments like these.
Sylvie looked down on herself, bemused. She reached into her suit and removed the wig. “It’s just the wig I stuffed down into my suit, Emily. See.”
Emily craned her neck and stared at Sylvie’s chest. “Now you’ve gots almost no boobs.”
Nick grabbed his younger daughter and covered her mouth with his hand, feeling mortified. Sylvie did have all the essential parts. Despite the bulky costume, he’d noticed, but obviously his daughter had a different taste in cup-sizes.
He carefully removed his hand from his daughter’s mouth, and mercifully she stayed silent. He shook her gently, staring at her with his best stern-father look. The two of them would have to have a serious conversation when they got home. “Emily, you know better than that, don’t you?”
Emily meekly nodded, small white teeth gnawing on her lower lip as she looked between the two adults. She hated to apologize, although she really should be in practice by now.
“Well?” Nick said to his daughter, eyebrows raised.
The child looked at Sylvie and mumbled an apology.
“It’s okay,” Sylvie said. Her smile was brave, all things considering. She even reached out and patted Emily on the head – carefully, like she was petting a semi-wild animal at the zoo. Nick almost felt like chuckling. She really hadn’t been exaggerating her fear of kids.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Sylvie. “Kids... you can never know what they’re going to say. I am trying to raise them better than this. I’ll have a serious talk with her when we get home.”
Emily groaned and pouted. She flopped down in the snow next to where her sister was sitting, quietly creating a small arsenal of snowballs, and started one of her own. Nick kept a close eye on her. Lana would most likely use her snowballs to build a tiny family of snowmen. Emily, on the other hand, was likely to make someone scream.
Sylvie waved off his apology. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. You know what they say - from the mouth of babes...”
“No, it’s not true at all. She must have been brainwashed by Barbie. You’ve got plenty--” Nick squeezed his eyes shut and felt like clamping a hand over his own mouth. He was no better than his daughter. He grinned sheepishly. “Oh boy. I can’t believe I said that. Sorry.”
Sylvie was keeping busy going through more pockets, probably still in search of that elusive business card. He couldn’t see if the bit lip indicated annoyance or if she was trying to keep from laughing. “No problem. I’ll live. And there’s no need to reassure me. A complaint from a five year old won’t have me running to a plastic surgeon. Ah, there they are.”
She’d located a small stack of damp cardboard rectangles and managed to peel one free. “Here is the agency’s card. Hope the print isn’t too smudgy from the snow. Call them, okay? See if they have a clown you and Lana would like.”
“But―“
Sylvie held up a hand to stop him. “If they can’t help you at all, you can call me. Okay?”
He nodded reluctantly. “Your phone number?”
Sylvie looked deflated, so he was glad he’d asked. “Right. Do you have a pen?”
Nick nodded and fished around in an inner pocket until he located a pen. She motioned for him to turn around and used his back as a desk as she scribbled something on the card. “If the agency can’t help you, if nothing works out -- call me.” She looked at Lana, then her gaze slid to Emily and she bit her lip. “If all else fails...”
Nick smiled and tucked the card into a pocket. Mission accomplished. Almost. “Thanks. Now can we give you a ride back to the office? Or home?”
Sylvie looked down at his daughters and Nick narrowed his eyes as he met Emily’s oh-so-innocent gaze. “Em, you’re going to be nice to Sylvie in the car,” he said sternly. “No more tricks. No more clowning around. She’s off-duty now. Understand? You’re in deep enough trouble already, kid.” He leaned down to catch her eye. “One more strike, kiddo, and I’ll have to have a serious talk with Santa.”
His fallen angel nodded. “I’ll be good, Daddy.”
“Thanks...” Sylvie said. “I would appreciate a ride downtown. But only if you’re going there anyway.”
“Yep, that’s where we’re headed,” Nick lied. “No problem.” He herded his daughters down the path and out the gate, where they clambered into the back seat of his SUV. He opened the passenger door for Sylvie, who climbed in and immediately went for the mirror on the visor. He started the car and
“Oh, no,” he heard her mutter as he shut the door. When he got in on his side, she was frantically scraping at the make-up on her face with her fingernails. “What a nightmare. It’s half an inch thick! Do you suppose it will ever come off?”
In the rear view mirror, he saw Lana leaning forwards, peering towards Sylvie with a worried
look. He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure it will. But if you’re worried, I think I’ve got a crowbar in the trunk.”
Sylvie slammed the visor back up and yanked her seat belt in place. “Damn Susie for abandoning me like this,” she muttered between her teeth, rubbing at the paint on her cheeks. “I was just going to observe, she promised me it would be no big deal. I should have told her to go straight to hell the minute she told me to put on this bloody costume...”
Nick cleared his throat and interrupted before the girls got new ammunition for their ongoing Creative Cursing project. “Well... where exactly are we taking you? Home? Or to the clown office?”
Sylvie glanced back at the girls. “The office. Clowns and Clauses. I need to get my stuff and my car. Sorry about the cursing. I’m not used to having to watch my language. I didn’t mean to... I’m just a bit... upset.”
“I don’t blame you. Scary afternoon.”
She rested her head against the window and closed her eyes. “Never mind. I survived. It’s over. Never again.” She opened her eyes and looked at him with alarm. “I mean, never again unless we can’t figure out anything else for you.”
“Of course,” Nick said blandly, wondering if she’d even given him the correct cell phone number. But he couldn’t push more than he’d already done. She’d promised to help him if nothing else worked out. He had to trust her.
The girls were mercifully quiet on the way back, occasionally whispering to each other, the word “Iffy” quite frequently floating towards the front of the car. Sylvie almost seemed to doze off, so there was little conversation. Nick took shortcuts to avoid the holiday traffic, and made it downtown in just twenty minutes. Sylvie guided him to the clown offices.
