Warpaint - The Fool -deluxe Edition- -2011- Page

The Fool pulled a crumpled set list from her jacket pocket. It was handwritten on the back of a receipt:

June stood at the end of the driveway as the first car of the morning rolled past. Her mother’s car was still wet, still clean, still waiting for someone who wasn’t coming.

It was a stupid chore to assign at 10 p.m., but her mother had been crying again—the soft, gulping kind that didn’t ask for help—and June needed to disappear. So she took the sponge and the hose into the damp California night, and she scrubbed the ghost of her father out of the paintwork. Warpaint - The Fool -Deluxe Edition- -2011-

They didn’t speak again until the sky turned the color of a faded bruise. The cassette deck clicked off. The Fool stood, brushed the dirt from her slip, and kissed June on the forehead—cold lips, warm breath.

The first time June saw the Fool, she was washing her mother’s car in the dark. The Fool pulled a crumpled set list from her jacket pocket

The Fool smiled—not a happy smile, but a true one. “Because love is a battle. And the bravest thing you can do is go into it looking exactly like yourself, even when yourself is a mess.”

“Why do you paint your face?” June asked. It was a stupid chore to assign at 10 p

June thought of her mother crying in the kitchen, pretending to chop onions. She thought of herself in the school parking lot last week, watching her ex-best friend get into another girl’s car without looking back.