by Nancy Warren
“Hey!” the female voice stopped him, and eagerly he swung around.
A hand shielded her eyes against the sun as she called, “Thanks for trying to rescue me.”
“I—” If it were this time last year he’d take a chance and ask her out, even if she did laugh in his face. But he had new responsibilities. Even if the lady was willing, he couldn’t get involved with a woman right now. Not with Emily to worry about.
The woman was standing not twenty feet away, waiting for him to finish what he had to say, a slight breeze teasing him as it molded the flimsy dress fabric to her body then puffed it away again. So strong was the urge to close the distance between them that he felt like he was a magnet and she was true north.
“I, uh… Drive safely.” He raised a hand in farewell then turned and walked the way he’d come. All the way to the restaurant where the bizarre situation had started.
And there was Brodie, sitting at a table, already halfway through a beer, his sunglasses reflecting the busy scene.
Beneath the reflective lenses, the mustache spread and tilted in a smile. “Did you get your man?” Brodie lifted the beer in Mark’s direction.
Mark chuckled. His old buddies on the force liked to tease him that he was like the cartoon Mountie who always saved the damsel in distress and always got his man. He was zero for two today. He hadn’t got his man, and he sure as hell hadn’t helped the damsel in distress. Good thing he’d handed in his badge last year. “Not today.”
“First time since I’ve known you, you’re late.”
Mark gestured to a waitress, who was unloading a tray at a nearby table, and sat across from his friend. He needed a beer.
“So,” Brodie pressed, “What’s up?”
Mark pulled the postcard out of his pocket and pushed it across the table.
Brodie leaned forward to read the card and then went absolutely still. He stared at the words for a few moments, then turned the postcard over and back again before glancing at Mark. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Mark blew out his breath in a big huff. “I just made a complete jackass of myself.” The waitress approached, and he ordered a beer.
“You ready for another one?” The perky redhead with the Australian accent gestured to Brodie’s half-empty glass.
“Yeah,” he replied, relaxing once more in his chair.
“Right.” She smiled at Brodie, and Mark knew his old buddy hadn’t wasted any time missing him. He’d been flirting with the waitress.
“Got her phone number yet?”
“I’m working on it.” He pointed to the postcard. “You gonna tell me what’s happening? Or do I read about it in tomorrow’s paper?”
Mark told him, reliving the entire incident as he did so.
The sun was gleaming off Brodie’s white teeth when Mark finished. He could see the physical effort it cost his old friend not to laugh aloud.
“Let it out, man,” he said testily.
Brodie laughed, long and rich, stopping once to wipe streaming eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry, Mark. I know how you must feel, but God, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.”
“I just don’t get it. Why would a woman write a postcard to a friend and put help and life and death and stuff on it? Whatever happened to weather great, wish you were here?”
“When you figure out what women mean, you let me know. They got no perspective. They break a fingernail and it’s like the end of the world. Then they phone you and say, all casual, ‘Hi, honey, can you fix my car this weekend?’ You ask her what’s wrong with it and she says, ‘Oh, honey, I don’t know. I think the engine fell out.”’
Mark grunted agreement.
“I’ll never figure women.” Brodie sighed. “But it’s fun trying.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Mark picked up the frosty mug that had been delivered and drank deeply.
“What did she look like?” Brodie asked.
Mark closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Caucasian, five-seven, about one-thirty, eyes green, hair brown, age…” He wrinkled his brow. This was always the toughest one. “I’d say twenty-five to thirty.”
“Looker?”
“Oh, yeah.” He snorted; he was beginning to see the funny side himself. “She must think I’m one terrific guy….”
“You acted just like you were trained to. If she’d been in trouble you might have saved her life.”
“You’re
not
helping.”
“Maybe this’ll help. Two tickets to the Grizzlies game Saturday.” He pulled tickets from his shirt pocket and waved them in front of Mark’s nose. “Basketball’s not like women. There are rules in basketball. The same ones for both teams. And there’s no talking about it.”
Mark grinned. “You’re still steamed at Shelley, huh?”
“Don’t get me started. She wanted me to see a relationship counselor. Says I’m shallow and can’t commit to one woman. This from a gal who makes her living taking her clothes off in front of hundreds of men.”
Saturday afternoon at a basketball game. He didn’t even let himself think about how much he wanted to go. He shook his head. “I can’t. Emily.”
“Can’t
your
black-belt-in-judo nanny watch her?”
“It’s her birthday party. The first one since…”
“Sure.” Brodie stuck the tickets in his pocket. “Did you call that clown friend of Shelley’s?”
“She’s an ex-stripper. That’s how Shelley knew her.”
Brodie’s eyes widened. “No. How’d you find out?”
“Standard background check.”
His friend choked on his beer. “You did a security check on a birthday-party clown?”
“Good thing, too. Another family recommended a clown who checked out. I got her instead.”
“Her? Is she good-looking?”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Did you ever see a good-looking clown?”
“No. But then I didn’t catch the stripping clown. That could be interesting. Do you still have her number?”
“I don’t know where you find the energy.”
Brodie shrugged. “My motto is never pass on a pretty woman. You don’t know when the next one’s coming along.”
Immediately, an image of the woman with the postcard rose in Mark’s mind. Damn. He hadn’t even asked her name. “I wish you’d told me that an hour ago.”
“What? The life-and-death babe?”
“Yeah.”
His buddy shook his head. “Uh-uh. You made a total ass of yourself in front of that one. My other motto is, if you fall flat on your face in front of a pretty woman, stay facedown until she’s long gone. The good news about Ms. Life and Death is, you’ll never see her again!”
2
ANNIE TUCKED a stray purple and yellow curl behind her ear, but it promptly boinged out to poke into her ear canal where it would tickle every time she moved. She grimaced with annoyance in the rearview mirror, making her huge red smile look like a burst sausage.
The hottest day of the year, and she was stuck in the tiniest car ever invented—
you couldn’t fit air-conditioning in it even if you could afford it—and the biggest wig.
“Gertrude, honey,” she told her clown reflection, “we need a vacation.”
The little car crawled up the hill to an address high on the slopes of North Vancouver, just as she’d been told. Told over the phone, which was standard procedure when she took a clown booking for a birthday party, then told again in a follow-up letter containing detailed instructions on how to get to the house where the party was to be held and how to gain entry.
Gain entry? Annie read that part again. More than a simple knock on the door was required. First there was a key code she would have to punch into a security gate to get past the fence. This changed daily, the letter informed her. So they thought she might be a part-time clown, part-time jewel thief?
Okay, ahead of her the gate appeare
d. She drew her little Smurf-blue putt-mobile up to an alcove that looked like a banking machine. She pushed in her number, waited a moment, and the gates swung open reluctantly.
After all the rigmarole, Annie expected a castle with a moat, at least, but the house was a family-size, modern-looking stone-and-cedar affair. Hardly looked like the Pentagon.
As the gates closed behind her, she started to get a claustrophobic feeling. For a second, she wished she’d turned back when she’d had the chance. The curse of an active imagination and a love of old movies was that she found herself picturing ridiculous scenarios. She was Philip Marlowe approaching the mansion where the two-timing dame was holed up, cynically wondering if he’d get out with his life.
The truth was even more ridiculous. She was a grown woman in a clown costume, wearing polka dots the size of asteroids.
She parked at the end of the drive and exited her vehicle as instructed. She swapped her trainers for Gertrude’s huge floppy clown shoes and shuffled to the door, the plastic rose in her lapel bobbing to hit her in the nose with each step. She dragged her battered suitcase past perfectly manicured lawns, sterile-looking flower beds containing mostly small evergreen bushes, and up three swept steps. By the time Annie got to the intercom buzzer at the front door she was feeling wilted—not only by the heat. She noticed a small camera in the corner above the door and poked her tongue out as far as she could.
The door opened.
And so did her mouth, tongue only partly retracted.
Cool blue eyes, stubborn jaw, brick-wall chest. The guy from Granville Island. Of all the joints in all Vancouver, I have to walk into to this one…. She nearly giggled hysterically. Brick wall was looking her up and down, noting the suitcase in her hand. He glanced behind her warily and only then opened the door fully.
“Mark Saunders.” He extended his hand.
He doesn’t recognize me. Relief shot through Annie. She went into her clown routine in high gear, suddenly thankful for the hot wig, hot suit, hot shoes, heavy greasepaint.
Behind the human wall, a gaggle of young girls gathered, gawking at Annie.
“Gertrude Smell-So-Good,” she shrieked in her Gertrude voice. If that voice was a little more manic than usual, she was the only one who’d know. “Here’s my card!” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a big plastic rectangle with her name emblazoned on it. As Mark Saunders reached for it, she squeezed the side, and a jet of water shot into his face. The girls shrieked with laughter—they always did. Nothing made them laugh harder than watching their parents get made fools of.
“Ha, ha.” He wiped his face with his hand, still standing in front of Annie, preventing her from entering. “That’s not the name I was given,” he whispered fiercely.
“It’s my stage name,” Annie whispered back. “Anne Parker is my real name.”
He looked a little foolish and backed away. Here we go again, Annie thought as she waddled past him and gave her attention to the girls.
“I hear there’s a birthday going on,” she shrieked. “Now don’t tell me, let me use my magic divining wand to guess who the party girl is.” She fumbled in her oversize pockets, watching while the girls snickered and kept glancing toward one slight, darkhaired girl who hung back, blushing. Bingo.
Annie pulled out a long plastic rod and made a performance of running it in the air around each of the girls before approaching the shy one. She squeezed the bottom of the rod when she waved her wand over the blushing girl’s head, and it lit up and played
“Happy Birthday.”
Gertrude jumped in the air. “The birthday girl, and don’t tell me your name, let me guess….” She waved the wand around, hitting it on her head to make the music stop, then pretended to listen to it. “Ethel!” she cried.
The girls shouted with laughter.
“Oh, dear, that’s not it. Wait a minute.” She banged the wand against her head again and listened. “Amelia!” she yelled.
Another storm of laughter.
Again she hit her head with the wand and listened. “Ah, Emily.”
The girl blushed more rosily and nodded in a totally adorable way. All the girls were talking at once. Annie turned to ask Emily’s father to lead her to where he wanted the performance.
She surprised him watching the shy girl with a smile on his face. It lit him up, that smile.
“Where do you want the show?” she whispered.
When he saw she was staring at him, the smile disappeared. “Right this way,” he said, and led the way down the hall, through a space-age kitchen and into a family room complete with bookshelves, TV, fireplace and masses of balloons and streamers. The maple furniture had been pushed to the edges of the room to leave Annie space for her performance, which was a magic show where she pretended to botch most of the tricks.
She had a great audience. The girls loved it, and there was lots of loud participation. When she said she was going to pull a red scarf out of her hat and instead came up with an egg, she knew, when she turned around looking puzzled, most of the girls would yell at once that the red scarf was hanging down the back of her pants.
Annie was surprised that Emily’s father stayed in the room to watch the show. She wondered briefly where the mother was. She’d assumed the guy on Granville Island was single, maybe because of the brief tingle of excitement she’d felt when she bumped into him. It was strange and oddly disappointing to think of him with a family.
From in front of the group, she watched both father and daughter. Emily smiled a lot, giggled occasionally but never laughed outright. The father watched his daughter more than the clown. Annie sensed both pride and something almost like sadness when he gazed at his child.
“Now, girls, for my grand finale, I’ll need help from everyone.” She was handing out balloons as she spoke. “I want each of you to blow up your balloon, nice and big, and tie on a piece of ribbon. Emily and I will be back in a moment with a big surprise.”
Annie held out her hand to a stunned Emily, who glanced nervously at her father before accepting Annie’s hand. In the other hand, Annie carried her suitcase. “We need to go somewhere where no one will see us change. A bedroom or bathroom?”
“We can go to my room.”
“Great, lead on.” Annie still held the girl’s hand in her own. It was a small hand, fine-boned and fragile.
Emily’s room was predictably pink and white. Neat as a pin, with a violin case in the corner. Annie hefted her suitcase onto the frilly bedspread and snapped it open. She pulled out a child’s wig and one-size-fits-all child’s clown suit. “Put these on as quick as you can,” she called over her shoulder, tossing the things behind her. She grabbed false glasses and nose, then two silver and gold capes.
“What’s
the
matter?”
Emily stood stalk still, holding the wig in trembling hands. “I can’t!” she whispered.
“Can’t what?” Annie asked.
“I’m scared. At school, when the teacher made me stand up and introduce myself…I threw up,” she admitted with the air of one making a grievous confession.
Annie smiled. “Emily may fall apart in front of people,” she said heartily, “but Guinevere Get-Out-of-Here isn’t afraid of anything or anybody. You put that costume on and you will be a different person.”
Annie took the orange-and-green wig out of the child’s hands, pulled it over her ponytail and eased it over her ears while she talked. “See, each clown has her own personality. Once you’re all dressed up, you look in the mirror, and it’s not you anymore. It’s Guinevere. And you become Guinevere. That’s what’s so great about being a clown.”
The girl’s big eyes were fixed on Annie’s while she pulled on the clown suit and fastened the cape. Annie didn’t usually bother with makeup for the birthday child, but she sensed Emily needed all the help she could get. She dug in the suitcase for her makeup kit and painted a huge red smile and a few thick black lashes around the child’s eyes. “Now the fake
nose and glasses,” she said, holding them out.
The girl stood motionless for a moment, biting her lip, but finally reached out and put them on. Annie turned her to the mirror, and Emily gasped, then giggled.
“See, everybody laughs at a clown. When your friends see you they’ll laugh so hard their sides will hurt. You and I, we’ll take advantage of that. We’ll make them do something real silly, then they’ll laugh some more. Trust me, you won’t be shy, you’ll be Guinevere. Here.” She handed Emily a pair of huge polka-dot gloves.
“AND NOW, my assistant, Guinevere Get-Out-of-Here.” With a flourish, Annie ushered the shrinking Guinevere into the family room. Out of the corner of her eye she watched Mark Saunders lean forward and surreptitiously grab a wastepaper basket from the corner. He, too, must have heard the throwing-up story.
