My Name Is Venus Black(42)

“Ouch,” he says, and I immediately regret the brush-off.

After we say goodbye, Piper scolds me all the way home. “I don’t think he thinks you like him now. He looked sad when we said goodbye.”

“Don’t worry, Piper. I’ll see him again.” I grab her hand and start to swing it between us, forcing myself to seem happy.

When I guide Piper toward bed at nine o’clock, she still has chocolate smears around her lips. “Go wash your face,” I tell her.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got chocolate on it.”



“So?”

“So. You don’t want to get chocolate on your sheets.”

She hesitates. She is wearing the same pink nightgown for the umpteenth night in a row now, and I realize it must be only one of two she owns.

“Fine,” I say. “Go to bed with ice cream on your face.”

She wipes her arm on her mouth and climbs in bed. I shut off her light on my way out. “Good night,” I say.

“Good night, John-Boy,” she says. She does this every night and for some reason thinks it’s funny. Clearly she’s seen too many reruns of The Waltons.

She begs me to answer, “Good night, Mary Ellen,” but I won’t.

“You’re a weird little girl,” I tell her. And I shut the door.

Once I climb into bed, I can’t sleep, because I keep thinking about cops, about being arrested, about people knowing who I am. I remember the distinct feeling of metal around my wrists. The way I split myself off from myself. How I started orbiting my life instead of living it.



* * *



—

I’M TIRED OF seeing Piper in rags, so I ask Mike if she ever got new school clothes. Clearly he doesn’t understand the concept, but he offers to give me twenty-five dollars to take her shopping. On Sunday, I tell Piper our plan. But I don’t quite know how to tell her that twenty-five dollars won’t go far.

Then genius strikes. “Would you rather shop at used-clothes stores and get lots of cool stuff,” I ask her, “or would you like to shop for new clothes at regular stores like Sears but get a lot less—and everyone will be wearing the same thing?”

Piper thinks about this. “What do you think?”

“Well…” I hesitate. “I like thrift-store clothes a lot. You can be more creative. Here’s what I would do,” I explain. “I know where there’s a pretty decent Goodwill store we can walk to. If we don’t like what we find, we can take a bus to the mall.”

She nods. “Okay.” Today she has put her hair in pigtails using green rubber bands—an idea of mine that I now regret. She looks silly. Her face is too serious for pigtails. The hair pulled tight makes her chin look sharp.



We spend the afternoon in the same Goodwill I visited on my first day of freedom. Piper is not exactly a picky shopper. In fact, she doesn’t seem to know where to start or to have a clue about what she likes. I flip through the racks, growing uneasy. Fourth grade. Doesn’t it start to get important right about then, what you wear? I rack my brain. I have no idea what is in style these days. I randomly flip through the racks in her size. She says she’s a girls’ size 12. I find a couple pairs of stone-washed jeans that are the right size. Piper nods approval. Slowly I begin to fill my right arm with clothes. Among them, a plaid shirt that has pink and green. A blue crew-neck sweater. A green V-neck sweater vest. A pair of brown corduroy pants. We also find her a couple of pairs of shoes, one of them suede Hush Puppies that don’t seem practical but Piper loves. I steer her away from the neon colors she repeatedly gravitates toward. After an hour of looking, Piper steps into a curtained dressing room and tries everything on.

Most of it fits. Piper is too tall for all the pants besides the jeans. They look cute on her. All the shirts fit, and a couple of jumpers I grabbed last minute also work. As we head to the counter, I spot a bin of bandannas, barrettes, and hair scrunchies. I remember how I was going to buy a bandanna back when I was even more paranoid about being recognized.

I spot a bright-green one with white and black. “Try this on, Piper,” I tell her, shaking it open.

“How?”

“Let me do it.” I fold it into a triangle shape and turn her around. I lay the longest straight side over her forehead and tie the two ends behind her neck beneath the pigtails.

“Turn around,” I tell her.

She wheels around. “What do you think?”



The green in the bandanna brings out the green of her eyes. “It’s perfect, Piper!”

But she’s skeptical. “Do you think other girls will have bandannas?”

“Well, if they don’t, I bet once they see you, everyone will want one.”

“Okay,” she says.

“If you decide you don’t like it, I’ll buy it from you,” I say with a wink.

I add up the purchases in my mind before we get to the counter. We’re spending more than twenty-five dollars. I have the envelope of money from Mike. When the cashier starts to ring up our stuff, I tell Piper, “Honey, go out front of the store and see if there’s a newspaper machine, okay?”

“Why?”

“Just do it.” After she’s gone I take the extra money we’ll need from my wallet. It’s only ten bucks, I reason. Maybe Mike will let me take it off this month’s rent. Then I also remember that Piper’s birthday is coming right up. I already know what I want to get her, but I need to talk to Mike.