"Mrs. White called me today," Mrs. Quinzel said, biting into a green bean. "She said you haven't invited Kristen to the party yet so I invited her."
Harleen Quinzel pushed her own food around her plate, slumping slightly. She didn't even want a party, especially one with Kristen White involved.
"I told you to invite her," her mother said. "Don't you remember that her mother is the head of the PTA?"
She sipped at her wine, scoffing slightly, and then took a few long, thirsty gulps.
"God knows we could use all the light on this family we can," she said. "People still talk, you know. About Lydia."
Lydia the nanny that had been found stabbed fourteen times in the Quinzel's garage. Harleen said nothing. For the past seven years, she'd told law officials and psychiatrists over and over that a grown man with dark hair had broke in and murdered her. The man in her story that she was very careful not to change had no name.
"I know it's not your fault," her mother said quickly. "I can't imagine what kind of trauma you went through. I'm so glad you don't remember."
"I was asleep," Her daughter lied. "I only woke up when Lydia screamed."
"I know, Dear," Mrs. Quinzel said, and sighed deeply. "It's just...people talk about you."
Harleen pushed her plate away. She knew where this conversation was going. Her parents had taken her to numerous therapists thinking her shyness and lack of friends was due to Lydia's murder, but Harleen just wasn't into boys and makeup and pop stars the way her middle school peers were.
"This party will finally turn things around," her mother continued, pouring herself another glass of wine. "You and Kristen White will be best friends, and you'll just shoot up the popularity ladder with her!"
"Mom-"
"It's not up for discussion!" Her mother said sharply, and then looked at the clock. "I wonder where your father is."
It was obvious that Mr. Quinzel was having an affair-his escape from all of the whispers about their family. He would come home and sit on his phone texting, usually alone in his study, and have random 'meetings' at different times throughout the week that seemed to follow no particular pattern. Mrs. Quinzel knew this-she'd already found a pair of panties in the glove compartment of his car, but she liked to pretend her husband was faithful just like she pretended her daughter had potential to be the kind of girl she was when she was young.
"Your mother invited me to your dumb party," Kristen White said the next morning as Harleen was walking to one of her classes. "She actually rented out an ice cream shop? Does she think we're eight?"
Some of Kristen's friends smiled and exchanged looks behind her.
"You don't have to go," Harleen said nervously, wishing she was confident enough to sound casual or even uninterested. She felt her cheeks growing hot, however, and she stared at the toes of her sneakers.
"My mom is making me go," Kristen said. "Everyone feels sorry for you because your nanny was murdered and I'm still not so sure you didn't do it, but that's besides point. You're a freak, Harleen. You draw creepy clown pictures on the back of your papers and you weird everyone out."
"Your name should be Whoreleen," one of her cronies spoke up and all three of them laughed.
"I have to go to class," Harleen said, moving past them, her voice small and scratchy.
"Give me this!" Kristen said, ripping her folder right out of her arms.
"Give that back!" Harleen all but shrieked.
Kristen held it away from her and opened it up. It was filled with sketches of scary looking clowns doing terrible things. Stabbing people, beating them with baseball bats.
"What the hell is this?" Kristen demanded, throwing it at the ground like it was hot. "You're a freak, Quinzel!"
Harleen took her folded and scurried off to the sanctuary of her classroom. Her heart was racing and her cheeks were flaming. If only she could explain her art to others. The victims in her sketches weren't entirely victims. In her head, they had wronged others in some way. They had cheated on their spouses, ignored their children, tried to murder little girls they were supposed to care about when the parents were away.
The party was held at Compton's Ice Cream-which Mrs. Quinzel had rented out for three hours. Out of the twenty some-odd girls that were invited, only twelve showed up, and Harleen knew their mothers had forced them. They clustered together, sipping ice cream sodas and looking at their phones while the player piano chimed loudly.
Harleen was wearing a party dress her mother had bought just for the occasion, and a headband. She missed her plain jean jacket with the hole in the pocket and jeans and sneakers. She missed her ponytail. Harleen liked to hide. In this dress, she felt so colorful and open.
Some boys showed up too, and the parents had vanished. Like Mrs. Quinzel, Harleen guessed, a lot of them liked to think of themselves as 'cool' and giving their tweens privacy made that possible.
"I invited some guys to make your party a little more interesting," Kristen said, approaching Harleen. "Aren't they cute? Wyatt is on the football team."
Harleen tried her best to smile, her ice cream dripping out of its cone and down her fist like she was a little kid. She hurried to throw it away in the trash can.
"I'm going to the bathroom," she told Kristen. "I'll be right back."
As she washed her hands in the one-toilet stall, she heard the door open.
"Oh, I'm in here!" She called in a small voice, but that did not stop whoever was coming in.
Kristen walked in, followed by her friends, two of the boys, and most of the party guests stood in the doorway. They all had Cheshire Cat-esque smiles on their faces.
Harleen dried her hands off with a paper towel, staring at them.
"We have a game we want to play for the birthday girl," Kristen said with fake cheerfulness.
"What game?" Harleen asked.
"It's called Whoreleen Quinzel's a freak and we're going to show the boys her underwear," Kristen said, and with the snap of her fingers, two of her friends grabbed Harleen by the arms.
"Wait? What? Stop!" Harleen demanded. "What are you doing? Let me go!"
"Your creepy artwork," Kristen said, getting in her face. "Proves that you're a freak."
Harleen started to cry, her face heating as a third girl picked up her dress and started to fan it like a parachute.
"Whoreleen!" They chanted.
"I would say let's pull down her top to see if she stuffs," Kristen said. "But she doesn't have any boobs to begin with."
"Tell us why you draw such morbid pictures, Whoreleen," She continued. "Why you've been obsessed with clowns since the second grade! Don't you think this is funny? Clowns show their underwear all the time!"
"Eww, her nose is running!" One of the other girls laughed. "Get her a Kleenex!"
Another girl ran one of the brown, scratchy paper towels across her face and pinched her nose.
"Honk honk!" She said, and everyone roared with laughter.
Harleen sobbed miserably-the eye makeup her mother had insisted on to bring out her 'blue' starting to run.
"Leave me alone," she begged.
Suddenly, everyone stopped when gunfire sounded. A couple of the girls screamed. The two holding onto Harleen immediately let go. A path of sorts cleared as the party-goers scattered to hide under tables and behind the service counter. Mr. Compton lay across the ice cream selection case-dead. Lines of red dripped down the case and onto the floor.
"Happy birthday to you," someone sang slowly, and Harleen could see as everyone moved away from her that it was a man in a green suit without a jacket-the sleeve rolled up, purple dress vest, and bow tie. His face was painted white and his eyes were ridden by black rings. He was wearing bright red lipstick-the kind her mother wore, only more exaggerated into a smile. His hair was sprayed green with cheap costume dye.
"Happy birthday to you," he continued. "Happy birthday, dear..." he fired his gun a second time, making everyone shriek. "Who's the birthday girl?"
He had some men with him-their faces painted black and white. One of the girls pointed shakily towards the open restroom.
"Thanks, Doll," The man said, and then shot the girl-hitting her in the arm. "By the way, snitches get stitches."
Harleen was still on the floor, tear-stained and trembling when he approached her and motioned with his gun for her to stand. She stood.
"Happy birthday, dear..." he said in a sing-song voice, raising his eyebrows indicating for her to tell him.
She stared at him, frightened for a moment, and then she stopped shaking.
"What's your name, Tinkerbell?" He asked again, pointing the barrel of his weapon against her forehead.
Somebody made a break for the door and he fired in that direction. He was startled slightly when he felt the girl's pinky and ring finger brush against his gloved hand. He looked at her, and she was staring right into his face, completely unafraid, but there was some kind of emotion there.
"Jerome?" She asked in a half-whisper.
His heart fell into his stomach and his memory dived into those big blue eyes. She was the little girl from the night...
"Cops!" One of his henchmen interrupted.
"Change of plans!" The lead clown said, grabbing Harleen against him. "We're taking a hostage!"
They went out the back, and loaded into a stolen van, the lead clown laughing maniacally as he threw random explosives out of the van as police cars chased them. He still had a hold on Harleen.
Harleen sat on the bed in the elaborately decorated suite-she assumed they were in a hotel- and watched as Jerome washed off his clown makeup at the sink that connected the bedroom and washroom. Inside the washroom was another sink and large tub. He stared back at her in the mirror, half of the clown mask washed away.
"I'll be damned," he chuckled, shaking his head as he ducked back down to wash off the rest. "Little Harleen Qunizel. How old are you now, Kid?"
"I just turned fourteen," she said. "What were you doing at Compton's?"
"They forgot to hire a clown for your party," he said, toweling his face dry.
"Why did you take me?" She asked, lying on her stomach, propping her head up in her hands.
"Don't you wanna catch up?" Jerome asked, shrugging his shoulder. "Besides, your parents are loaded, right? Good ransom."
"They don't want me," Harleen told him. "That's why I'm wearing this dumb dress and had that dumb party. My mom thinks if I'm somebody else she can actually like me."
"That is a dumb dress," Jerome agreed. "But I'm sure your mother loves you enough to fork over some kind of cash."
"What have you been doing?" Harleen wanted to know. "I...I missed you, Jerome."
"I'm the Joker now," he replied. "Trying to get my name out there. I want to be a household name. Something kids get scared of on Halloween."
He sat down on the bed beside her to take off his shoes. He stopped in mid-shoe removal and said, "I missed you too, Kid."
He turned on the television to create some noise and told Harleen, "I'm gonna hit the shower. You good there?"
"Yeah." Harleen nodded.
As he showered, Harleen stared at the random cartoons he'd put on, but her mind was a million miles away. She kept replaying the afternoon's events in her head, and even though she'd seen one of her classmates get shot and a man's corpse dripping with blood, it was what Kristen did that ate at her. Her cheeks burned at the thought of everyone laughing at her, the girls flapping her dress up and down.
A few unexpected tears fell down her cheeks and like a dam, the rest burst through and she was crying again.
Jerome came out of the bathroom in a t-shirt, sweats, and red hair. Just like the last time she saw him, only these clothes fit him properly because they did not belong to her husky father.
"You alright, Kiddo?" He asked, sounding almost awkward.
Harleen nodded furiously, refusing to look at him.
"You miss your family or-"
"I'm a freak!" Harleen blurted out. "Nobody likes me! My own parents don't like me! And Kristen and all those other girls are so horrible to me. I hate them!"
She buried her face in her hands and sobbed, embarrassed for crying around Jerome like that. He would probably ditch the hostage idea and throw her out for being a nuisance. When she uncovered her face, Jerome was standing a few feet away, cleaning his pistol with a cloth.
"It's not all bad being a freak," he said with a shrug. "And parents? Psh. Who needs 'em? Bossy, nagging trilobites. That's why I got rid of mine. Out with the old, in with the new."
"Can I use your shower?" Harleen asked.
After she showered, Harleen realized the only clothes she had was the party dress-speckled in blood. She opened the door a crack and it didn't want to budge. At the door on the floor was a folded tshirt and pair of cotton boxer shorts.
"They should fit you," Jerome said from the bed casually.
They did fit, even if they were too big, but Harleen felt much better wearing them. She exited the bathroom and asked, "Where are we?"
"The swankiest hotel in Gotham," Jerome said, smiling. "Used a dead guy's credit card to get in. As far as the no-brainers at the GCPD know, he's traveling the world."
He pointed to a cart with food from room service that had been delivered while she was washing up. Sandwiches, pasta, meat, fruit, desserts...it must had cost a fortune. There were already a few used plates sitting around. Harleen ate on the nearby loveseat and it made her feel better. She fell asleep on the same loveseat, and awoke to the sound of the television being turned off. It was dark and Jerome was rolling over in the bed.
Jerome wasn't sure what to think when he felt Harleen dip into the space next to him, her small frame warm against his larger one. He didn't know if she knew about sex yet, or if she was already having sex or what girls thought about sex in general, but he wondered if he should go ahead and let her know that sex did not interest him in any way. His blood heated when he spilled it out of others.
"Kid..." he said quietly.
"Mmhmm?"
"You, uh, sleepin' here?"
"Is that okay?"
Jerome shrugged and yawned. "Yeah, that's okay."
"Jerome?"
"Mm."
"I don't want to go home."