Miss me? Ha-ha. No, really I did leave and I really did cry, but I didn’t puke. Whatever, I feel so much better, but I’m still not sure what to do or what to make of what just happened. Here’s the skinny. I’m downstairs in the room (yes, that room) just chillaxin, high as a raindrop spit from a cloud (my friend Brianna used to say that) so that was good. I’m numb to this now, so I can be (as my mom would say) flippant about what it is I do to survive, though the pills help, the pills make it a whole lot easier to get the job over with. And this job was some middle-aged guy with a middle-aged belly and it was gross what he came here to do so I hated him right away. But I played with him because that’s what’s expected of me and the alternative is the hole.
Tasha was awake when I got back upstairs. She was making tea, something she did a lot. She had on gray sweats and a blue T-shirt and looked super relaxed which was so weird to me. This was just Tasha’s life. This was her normal and I guess it was my normal, too. It was hard to get my head around that one. When we weren’t downstairs being fantasy gals or release valves for these sicko Johns we wore sweats and drank tea and watched television and did Sudoku and read books and cried. Just because we are prostitutes doesn’t mean we stopped having feelings.
Tasha had a funny look on her face and I asked her what was wrong. She told me she went out with Ricardo, Casper, and Buggy for drinks with a couple of the girls. I knew which ones without her having to say. Getting out of here had everything to do with how long a girl had been on the job. Like I wrote, I go out rarely, and I’m always accompanied. For the most part I’m kept indoors like a house cat. Tasha has more freedom because with more years comes more trust.
Tasha told me she was hanging out at Club 324 and some guy came up to her and started talking. Casper got all territorial (her word), but she told him to go away. It could be business, right? Then this guy starts asking questions about me. He describes me anyway, calls me Nadine (Tasha didn’t know my real name) and he showed her a picture of me on his phone. He told her my mom was looking for me and she had hired him to find me. Tasha told me she didn’t say yes or no, but the guy is persistent. He says he followed Ivan to the apartment building. And they think I might be with him. He thinks he knows what this place really is. So Tasha on the sly told this guy that I’m fine and healthy and all that, and then she gave him the cold shoulder, but not before the guy gave her a phone and a card of some woman named Angie.
After this big news I’m all kind of freaked out. Tasha poured us both a cup of tea and we sat on the futon aka my other bed. She placed the phone and business card on the coffee table and told me the choice was mine. My body went hot and cold at the same time and it had nothing to do with being high (which I was BTW). It was the weirdest feeling ever, I mean so surreal I can’t even begin to explain it. Tasha knew exactly what that phone call might mean. Police. A raid. A rescue. But what about her? This was her life now. She had no family. No money. No relatives. She had nothing but Casper, Buggy, Ricardo, and Ivan. And horrible as it was, it was better than the unknown and that’s where she’d be headed, into the unknown. No money for food, no place to live, and nobody to supply her with pills. Believe me, the pills were an important part of the equation. But she said she knows what this life is, and what it will do to me. It’ll turn me into her and she doesn’t want that for me, so she gave me the phone and said the choice is mine. But what will happen to Tasha if I make that call? What would happen to me?
And that’s when I started to panic. Could I just leave? Should I? What was I going to tell my mom and dad once I got home? What would they think of me when they found out what I had done? I don’t belong there anymore. I belong here, right where I am.
Tasha called me her little sister. She said she’d understand if I made the call and I shouldn’t worry about her. I told her how scared I was, how I was afraid of going home, afraid if I left they would find me and kill me or kill my mom and dad. If I left, they would put everyone who stayed behind down in the hole, including Tasha. I wanted Tasha to reassure me that I was overreacting. I wanted her to tell me I had nothing to worry about, that nothing would happen to me, or to her, or to my parents. That’s what I wanted her to say. Instead, she told me she understood and that she’d feel the exact same way.
CHAPTER 30
Angie left her father’s house at 4:30 in the morning. She woke her dad to tell him she was going, and without delay got in her car and drove out of town. She would talk to him about the check registers later, when he was more awake and his memory could be trusted. She drove north instead of east, a long detour on her way to DC because some news had to be delivered in person.
Carolyn Jessup came to her front door dressed in a checkered bathrobe, looking half asleep. Angie had awoken her with a phone call made from Carolyn’s front porch. She made the call so Carolyn wouldn’t have to wait long to find out what Angie had come to share. Carolyn’s hair was tangled, and her eyes, ringed with dark circles, showed the strain of her daughter’s absence.
“We think we’ve found her,” Angie said. “We believe your daughter is alive and in good health.”
Carolyn’s legs buckled as her eyes misted over. Angie grabbed Carolyn’s arm to hold her steady.
Carolyn placed a hand to her chest, her ragged breathing made it difficult to speak. “Where—where is she?”
“Baltimore,” Angie said.