When all the guests were seated, Jojo met up with his daughter on the side of the church. He had to push aside his worries about Jimmy and Pepper for a while. It was time for him to walk his daughter down the aisle.
Taffy was in her pink wedding dress. In traditional clown fashion, the dress was wide in the hips and back, cut low to expose her marshmallow-white shoulders; blue bows lined each side of her torso, and a bouquet of balloons was pinned to her chest. She was the most beautiful clown bride Jojo had ever seen.
Jojo went to his daughter to tell her how wonderful she looked, but the second she got there her face turned from beautiful to fuming mad.
“What the hell are those!” Taffy cried as she saw some of the staff laying out pies on tables outside the church.
“What’s wrong?” Jojo said as he approached her.
“Those pies,” she said. “What are they for?”
Jojo was confused. He figured she’d already know. “They’re for the pie throwing after the ceremony.”
Taffy panicked. “What! I didn’t want pie throwing!”
It was a tradition at clown weddings to throw pies at the bride and groom after they left the church. By the reception, they would always look like two mounds of cream and pie filling, usually licking the cream off each other’s faces before dinner.
“But you wanted a traditional clown wedding,” Jojo said. “The pie-throwing part is one of the biggest traditions there is.”
“I wanted them to throw popcorn, not pies!” Taffy said. “Popcorn’s just as traditional. I can’t be covered in pie all night. It’ll ruin my dress! And my hair!”
When Jojo saw the panicked look on her face, he couldn’t let it stand. He went to the waiters and told them to take away the pies.
“They’re going to try to get the popcorn ready in time,” Jojo said as he returned to his daughter. “Don’t worry about it. Your dress won’t be ruined.”
His daughter tried to relax. If they didn’t get the popcorn in time, she didn’t care. She just didn’t want to be covered in pie.
Then Jojo called Earl Berryman over. The vet brought a white circus pony to them. It was covered in flowers and balloons, with an elegant pink saddle. The vet gave Jojo the reins and the clown petted the side of the horse’s neck.
“It’s a beautiful horse,” Jojo said.
When she saw the pony, Taffy’s mood changed completely.
“She’s so perfect,” Taffy said, approaching the horse.
“It’s a he, actually,” Earl Berryman said.
When he said that, Jojo gave the vet a grumpy look and waved him away. The clown could’ve punched the guy for ruining the moment. Luckily, Taffy didn’t seem to care that the horse wasn’t female.
“Are you ready?” Jojo asked his daughter.
“I think so…,” Taffy said in a mousy voice, terrified to go out there in front of everyone.
“You look absolutely stunning,” he said.
She smiled at her father. Then they didn’t speak for a few moments. There weren’t words they could say to each other that could convey what they wanted to express in that moment.
His daughter was about to get onto the pony when Jojo stopped her.
“Hold on a minute,” he said.
Taffy turned back to him. “What? We have to go. They’re all waiting for us.”
“Let them wait,” Jojo said. “I have something I want to give you first.”
“What?” Taffy asked.
“It’s your wedding present from me,” Jojo said.
“My wedding present? Just give it to me later.”
“I wanted to give it to you now,” Jojo said. “When it was just the two of us.” He took a small box from his pocket and handed it to her.
“We don’t have time for this,” she said. “What is it?”
Annoyed with her father, Taffy ripped off the wrapping paper and opened the box as fast as she could. But when she saw it, she nearly fell to her knees.
“How did you…”
Her pink nose trembled and her eyes became glossy as she pulled Princess Tutti-Frutti from the box. The lost toy from her childhood was glued together so perfectly that she was practically as good as new. It had been years since she’d thought about her beloved clown princess, but as she held the doll the memories flooded back.
Jojo smiled at his daughter. “It took me almost twenty years, but I finally fixed her for you.”
Taffy looked in her father’s eyes. She had no idea he’d still been working on her doll all these years, trying to accomplish the impossible in order to make her happy, even after she grew up and no longer had any interest in dolls or toys.
“Tutti-Frutti…,” Taffy said, not even caring about ruining her makeup as tears ran down her cheeks.
As his daughter hugged the clown princess to her chest, Jojo no longer saw her as an adult bride about to be married off and start a family of her own. Before his eyes, she transformed into Jojo’s little girl again. She became the sweet seven-year-old who dreamed of one day becoming a clown princess like Tutti-Frutti.
“You always called that doll the prettiest princess in the world,” Jojo said. “But that’s just a hunk of plastic. If you ask me, you’re the real deal.”
Taffy wiped her pink nose against his suit as she hugged him with all her strength. She wouldn’t let go of Tutti-Frutti, even as Jojo helped her onto the horse. She probably would’ve walked down the aisle holding the doll if he hadn’t taken it away from her and put it in the saddlebag.