Stray Love by Kyo Maclear Page A

exchange a typewriter for a carton of cigarettes. They would perform a dance for a bowl of stew. Even though they were broke, they would do crazy things like paint their last few pound notes white.
    It struck me that art was like a secret club and that being an artist earned you a ready-made identity. I wanted to fit in. I told a woman with pencil eyebrows and shiny red lips that I liked the square patterns on her shirt.
    The woman grinned a gap-toothed smile.
    I told a man: “I like the style of your trousers.”
    The man looked down at his trousers, clearly moved.
    The room grew more crowded and Pippa released my hand.
    I began to feel more comfortable. When offered a glass of water I gulped it down. The adults were drinking wine from tumblers, empty mason jars, china cups, anything but wineglasses.
    I imitated the clipped exclamations used by several of the German artists. “Jonas!” I shouted at a filmmaker. “Great name! I like saying that. Your tie! It’s very nice!”
    Adults liked compliments.
    I turned to Pippa and lifted my shoulders:
Am I doing well?
But she had drifted off. I glanced around the huge room, searching for her. Seeing that there was nowhere to hide, I tried not to panic. I waited a few minutes, then made my way aroundthe perimeter of the room. I walked with my hands behind my back in the manner of a man taking a thoughtful promenade, then managed another loop with hands in pockets. When I was done my third loop, I noticed clusters of people forming.
    It turned out that “real party” actually meant major havoc. Everywhere I looked, there was something going on. There was a woman singing only with vowels and a man climbing a ladder while holding a large teapot of water in one hand. There was another man sitting at the top of a tall pillar, printing out cardboards signs that he handed down to people below. The messages said:
Talk to me. Ignore me.
    I found Pippa sitting at a table wearing a headset and listening to a tape recorder. There must have been instructions on the recording, because every now and then she would stand on her chair or lift her leg or do something equally strange. She held out an extra headset for me. I put it on and listened to a woman’s voice saying: stand up and stomp the floor with your right foot twenty times. If your leg gets tired, slow down but continue.
    Pippa soon wandered off and I was in mid-stomp when I noticed a skinny girl with shiny black hair walking across the room. She seemed right at home. She stopped to say something to the man on the ladder, who was now using his teapot to pour drops of water into a metal basin below.
Plink, plink.
It was possible that what she said to the man was
Why not pour it faster?
because suddenly there was a gush of water and the sound of heavy rain hitting a tin roof. He shook the teapot of the last drops. The girl nodded and stepped back. When he climbed back down, people milling around clapped as though he had finished something.
    I set down my headset and when I looked up again, the girlwas standing next to me. I could see now that she was about my age.
    “Enjoying yourself?” she said.
    “It’s not too bad.”
    “I’m Kiyomi.”
    “I’m Marcel.”
    I looked down and noticed she wasn’t wearing shoes. Her toes curled and uncurled.
    “Is your mother doing something too?” she asked.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Is your mother performing tonight?”
    “I don’t have a mother.” I had never come right out and said that before.
    There was a silence while she looked me over. I suddenly worried that I had ruined things by being so open, but she didn’t seem to mind.
    “Who’s that, then?” she asked, pointing at Pippa in the corner.
    I took a look. “That’s Pippa. She’s my guardian.”
    We stood watching for a moment. Pippa was speaking to a rich-looking woman dressed in a beautiful Chinese coat. It was embroidered with golden bridges and rippling river scenes and glowed like metal in the light. Pippa