“No, I—”
“A challenge, then! You’ve come with a challenge.”
Patty was turning toward John when he began to explain. “The professor here is the world’s foremost authority on facts.”
“All facts,” the little man broke in, and tapped his head proudly. “Photographic memory.”
“His booth is my personal favorite. People challenge him with a day in history, and he can always name a noteworthy event that occurred on that day.”
“Or they name the event,” the little man elaborated, “and I name the day. Doesn’t matter either way. I never lose. What have you for me? Perhaps you’ll be the first to stump me.”
“He reads newspapers,” John continued. “Day and night. How many languages, Professor?”
“How many are there?” He looked back at Patty and leaned farther over the table. “A challenge, girl! Try me!”
“The first Superbowl,” Patty managed.
“January fifteenth, 1967. Green Bay versus Kansas City. Final score 33–14 in favor of Green Bay. Try again! A date this time.”
“April twelfth, 1861,” she asked after thinking for a moment.
“Category?”
“History.”
“History! Of course!” The little man barely needed to think. “Southern artillery opens fire on Fort Sumter. The American Civil War begins. More?”
“That’s enough.”
“Another date, then!” The little man drummed the table in eager anticipation.
“October tenth, 1980,” John chimed in.
The professor regarded him playfully. “A dirty trick, my friend. The day I joined the circus.”
“He was a forger,” Lynnford explained. “The best in the business.”
“The best ever!” the little man boasted, but then his expression grew sad. “Until my eyes started to go. They’re still going. A little harder to read my papers every day, it is. I made a mistake with some counterfeit money. Cost a few gentlemen millions and left them most unhappy. Some went to jail. I came here.”
“Passports, Professor,” John coaxed him.
“Simple work. Beneath my degree of expertise.”
“For my pretty friend here.”
“Hmmmmmmmm…You either match her face to a picture or match a picture to her face. The latter means starting from scratch.”
“Can you do it?”
“Check my files. Let you know.” He studied Patty’s face.” Strong features. Difficult to match. Means starting from scratch. Leave me her measurements and specs. But no picture until she’s finished with Teresa. Go now. I’ve got my paper to finish.”
“Who’s Teresa?” Patty wanted to know after they had left the tent.
John just looked at her. “You’ll see.”
John pushed himself up the four steps leading to a rusted metal trailer.
“It’s me, Teresa,” he called after knocking.
The door opened, and Patty caught a glimpse of a woman in a clown suit; no, not a suit, just flour-white facial makeup with red highlighting her cheeks, eyes, and mouth. Her hair was tied in a bun, ready to be swallowed by the clown’s typical dome and wig. She was wearing baggy jeans and a black shirt. Her hands showed traces of white makeup.
“Can we come in, Teresa?”
The woman gazed down the steps toward Patty. The warmth disappeared from her expression. She looked suspicious.
“It’s all right,” John said soothingly. “She’s with me.”
Teresa nodded reluctantly and let John enter, backing away as Patty climbed the steps in his wake.
“The professor’s working on a passport for her. She needs a new appearance. Can you do something?”
The clown regarded Patty closely for the first time. She shrugged, then nodded again. “She’s a friend, Teresa,” John said softly. “You can trust her.”
But far from looking convinced, the clown moved into another section of the trailer.
“Teresa was already here when I took over,” John explained. “No one knows her true story because she hasn’t spoken a word since her arrival. There’s also not a soul on my payroll here who admits to having seen her without her makeup.”
“My God…”
“She just represents the extreme of what all of us are going through. We’re all hiding; Teresa just manifests it more blatantly. But the beautiful thing is that nobody ever pesters her about it, and she’s the best clown we’ve got.”
“But don’t you wonder what happened to make her withdraw like this?”
“Of course I do, except it’s none of my business.” John Lynnford paused. “At any rate, you’ve got to change your appearance before you leave here. The professor will provide you with the means, and Teresa will take care of the face.”
With that Teresa returned, she was carrying a vanity case. She backed a chair against the kitchen sink and signaled Patty to take it. The clown eased her neck gently backward, drenched her blond hair in water, and combed it straight back. She massaged what might have been shampoo into it, rinsed it, then went through the whole process again.
“You’ll be here for a while,” John said. “I’ve got to see how things are going. We open at sundown.”
In all, the transformation process took over two hours. Patty’s hair emerged jet black and tightly curled from the perm process. Makeup gave her face an entirely different hue and tint. Contact lenses made her eyes dark brown. But there was more, enough so that when at last Teresa allowed her to look in the mirror, she didn’t recognize the face that looked back.
She looked ten years older, at least, harder and meaner, with furrows accentuated on the forehead, brow, and under her eyes.
John Lynnford was coming up the steps when Patty stepped through the doorway.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“I’m the new attraction for the spook house. Let me loose inside to scare the little kiddies.”
“It was time you grew up, anyway.”
“Fifteen years in two hours is pushing it a little.”
“Added to how many years in the past month or so?”
“I get the point.”
“I really wasn’t meaning to make one.”
He led her to the professor’s trailer. The little man had no idea who she was until he put on a different pair of glasses.
“Get her some clothes, boss,” he said to John. “Have her picture taken and get it over to me. The passport’s almost finished.”
Back outside, Patty stopped and touched Lynnford’s hand.
“How am I ever going to thank you for all this?”
“Some ticket sales would help. Come back when you’ve got more money.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Look around you. We’re a community here, a family. We’ve all been down, and we all know what it’s like not to have anyone there to pick you back up again. It’s a lousy feeling, and the best way to forget it is to pick up someone else. That’s what we do.”
Patty looked into his eyes. “I wish I could do the same for you.”
“Sorry. Lost cause.”
John started to move away. Patty closed the gap and grasped his arm gently.
“You weren’t the only one injured in that fall,” she said, with sudden understanding. “Your cousin didn’t miss the catch, did he?”
Lynnford’s lips trembled. His cane burrowed its way into the ground. “It was our grand finale. The five-person pyramid swing we were known worldwide for. I was the top rung. Everything depended on me. I tried to be fancy, and I slipped. The bar wobbled, and that was that. The net wasn’t built to handle five people tumbling into it at once. It gave way, and no one came out of it whole. Two broke their necks, another his spine. I got out of it best of all because there were other bodies to cushion my fall. That’s why I’ve never asked Teresa why she doesn’t speak. I figure she’s got her reasons and she deserves them. We’ve all got our reasons and they’ve got to be respected. You’ve got your reason to leave, so we help you. If you had chosen to stay, we would have helped you there, too.”