The girl I named Janice

I got off my motorbike and there was a woman standing with the homeless newspaper, like you often see at Dutch supermarkets, but I was too occupied by getting a shopping cart to notice her any further.
I was just doing some shopping and would do the same thing as I often do when I see a homeless person, a six-pack of bottles of mineral water and a large package of chocolate bars or whatever was lying around.
After paying and packing the groceries, the intention was to give this to the homeless woman before I would load the groceries bag on my motorbike, but I couldn't find her right away among the people.
Oh well, I still had to go to a few other shops and with the bag in my hand I walked there when I saw her standing there again.

She was wearing the usual clothes that you often see homeless people, but she wore them differently than others, with some flair
This t brought up something of recognition that I couldn't immediately place.
She had short, fading to gray, red hair, a face full of freckles and two lively bright blue eyes, I only noticed after my gaze was drawn to a scar that ran from her ear a little way down her cheek to her neck.
So I handed her the bag with things I bought her, and got a look of recognition: "Ned? Is that you?"
I was momentarily taken aback when I suddenly recognized her: "Janice?"

Towards the end of the eighties of the last century, I was a single struggling musician and had taken the job of sound engineer for a now long forgotten Dutch band that was about to make a European tour.

There were still a few things to arrange and while looking for the tour manager I "caught" the singer Tony, a guy of just twenty, in the tour bus, and he was with full dedication doing "the dirty"  with one of those groupie girls That often hang around at those kinds of events.
Now that was not the first time that I noticed this,  and with an "oops" I closed the curtain and with the thought, "nice ass" I looked further for the tour manager.
Later that afternoon, I had a chat with the singer and saw the girl walking across the parking lot and asked: "Who is that? Do you have a new girlfriend?"
He pointed at the girl, "You mean her? Nah, she was waiting for me when I came in, I've never seen her before, and I thought why not. "
"And now?" I asked. "Nothing, I told her to leave the bus after we finished" was the answer, "for all I care you can have her".
What happened was not unusual in the music scene and I had seen it often in my own time as a singer and guitarist, but I never had the pleasure that a groupie was waiting in my room.

I saw her again that day hanging around with the roadies who were checking the equipment, and then the moment came that I mustered up some courage and walked up to her.
"What are you doing here?" I asked her, "can I help you?"
She looked at me: "I would like to come along, is that okay?" As I saw her, she couldn't be older than 19 at most and I asked her: "Where do you live, how old are you actually and can you just leave?"
"I don't live anywhere, I'm traveling around, and I'm 18 so an adult" 
She showed me a passport with letters that I couldn't read but in the English part it turned out that she was from Greece, which in itself was remarkable because she had orange/red hair, was covered in freckles and spoke Dutch almost without an accent.
If there was any kind of accent it sounded more like English, but it absolutely was her photo on the passport, there was no doubt about it.
I took the plunge and said: "If I let you come along, will you be my girlfriend on the tour?"
"Only if you know the magic word, or give me a name that you think suits me" was her very unusual answer.
"Seriously?"
"Yes seriously" she said.

I thought for a moment and then it came to me “Janice, I think that’s a nice name for you, what do you think?”
She jumped and clapped her hands, “yes nice, and what’s your name?”
“I’m Ned, the sound technician of this traveling circus”, I told her and pointed at the rented truck with a sleeping cabin and the trailer in which the equipment was to be transported,
“And that’s the vehicle I’ll be living in for the next few weeks”.
“Can I look inside ?” I said "sure"and we climbed aboard the cabin.
This went really fast, and I have to admit that I still saw her busy with Tony in the tour bus, and that of course hadn’t left me cold.
Inside, I dropped onto the bed behind the seats, “and this is the bed”.
The rapid progress with this girl really turned me on, and she had noticed that I was “interested” in her.
She tilted her head, leaned forward to my face and said: “you are sweet” and gave me a long kiss.
Then she jumped up, crawled back a bit, and before I knew it the clothes were everywhere, and we were making love in the bed of the truck.
A moment later she looked at me and said: “You are Sweet, Ned-the- Soundman-of-this-traveling-circus” as if it were my full name, “and I would love to be your girlfriend on this tour”.
The tour itself was not very special, the number of tickets sold was disappointing, but Janice made it my highlight of the year.
Although I had expected her to be interested in the other band members, she was always with me.
She helped set up and learned very quickly how things worked, and after the time in bed we couldn't keep our hands off each other. I once called her hot as lightning, and she liked that, she just was so sweet and supportive
When packing up for the next  gig, I got into an argument with the singer about the disappointing number of visitors during the progress of the tour,
"As if Ned can do anything about that" Janice once shouted at him, whereupon he called her a slut, and I made it clear to him that I didn't appreciate that.
When the tour ended, it was also more or less the end of the band, succumbed to misplaced star allures and misbehavior.
It was also the end of my short but passionate relationship with Janice.
I asked her if she wanted to stay, but she wanted to move on, she wouldn't be able to keep it up if she had to stay in one place for too long.
With a heavy heart, we said goodbye…

Now she was suddenly standing there again in front of me, both 28 years older and Janice apparently still a wandering existence without a fixed address.

“Is that really you? Ned-the-Soundman?” She looked at me with wide open eyes. “And you brought me something, how sweet!”
I looked at the plastic bag with chocolate cookies and water bottles and said: “Now that I know it’s you, do you mind if I give it to the other person?”
She looked at me disappointed, but I quickly continued, “Because you are worth much more to me … and … if you want of course, you are terribly welcome, and I would like to take you to my home".
She pointed to my motorcycle and said: “on that ?”
I said “not?”
“Yes, of course,” she exclaimed, “with you always and can I be your girlfriend again?”.
I opened the top case on the rear of the motorcycle and took out my second helmet.
Once seated on the back, she put her arms around my waist and we drove away.
We passed a group of astonished people who suddenly saw me taking off with a homeless person.

When we got home she turned out, not to have changed at all, nor had I by the way.
At the end of the clothes trail to the bedroom we continued where we had stopped 28 years ago, she was still just as sweet as I remembered her.
She told lots of stories of where she had been and her experiences, good and bad, like once she almost got  killed when she was mugged and this caused  the long scar on her face.
I didn't care about that scar, she was still my sweet Janice.
We were together again, for a few months even, until her wandering blood started to itch again, and I couldn't convince her to stay any longer.
But, even though I still don't know her real name, I have offered her a place where she can come home to if she decides to end her wandering existence.
I wonder where she is now...