Their juggling act progressed quickly, they worked naturally together. Their friendship, too. It was as if she had accepted that they should be friends before she had even met him.
She would say the oddest things on occasion. When he asked "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" expecting a reply of "curry," instead he would get one about wheels on shoes.
In between juggling and the work he did manning the ticket booth or sweeping the remains of a show from the aisles, they would lie on the floor of her trailer, and he would hand her pencils while she drew. She was dedicated to the drawing. It spanned her walls and in corners even the floor. Out of costume there were always graphite smudges on her cheeks and her fingers were black as pitch.
She tried to explain it to him once. "I've got to make it interesting for them, of course"
At the time he was too busy smirking at a particularly bad smudge on the side of her nose.