Chapter Fourteen
We Are Sisters in the Dark
I spend the rest of the night making up for lost time. I do my best to regain Katy’s attention, and when that doesn’t work, I try my hand with different customers. Shockingly enough, none of them want a picture drawn on a napkin. I need real paint and an easel to have a shot at scoring those bronze coins.
With my conversation with Cain, and then Lola, heavy in my head, the evening ends. It’s one o’clock in the morning, and Madam Karina comes in to thank everyone for the spectacular night and to show the guests to the door. As coins clink into the money box, I stand still. The other girls do, too, as if we can somehow make out whether a coin fell into our own numbered slot.
Mercy yawns and waves her arm over her head. “We’ll clean up Monday. Fifteen minutes until lights out.”
The girls file out of the room, and Poppet finds me near the back. “Thanks for what you did, but you know the girls were just being funny, right?”
“They weren’t being funny, Poppet, they were being jerks.”
Poppet grabs my elbow, and I stop. “No, they were being funny. I’ve been here almost a year now, okay? I’m one of them. They may tease me, but they also care. I have friends here, understand?”
Poppet’s body is locked with intensity, and her fingers dig into my arm. She needs to believe what she’s saying is true, even though I know it’s not. “Hey, my bad. It’s not like I know what I’m talking about. If you say they’re your friends, then they’re your friends.”
She smiles, but the truth lies in her eyes. “You must be exhausted. If I were Madam, I wouldn’t have made you work on the first night.”
Poppet and I trail after the other girls and enter the community bathroom. It’s a white tiled room with two toilet stalls and two showers. Not nearly enough for ten girls. Four sinks line the wall, but only three have running water. “I would have worked tonight no matter what.”
“Oh, yeah? Do you need the money for something specific, or are you a lifer?” Poppet is rubbing the mascara out from under her eyes with toilet paper and water. I don’t bother doing the same. I leave my makeup on my pillow where it belongs.
Mercy flips the light switch repeatedly. “Five minutes, hussies.”
Poppet uses the restroom, and then we go to our room. Candy is already in bed, but she’s awake and watches us crawl into our own beds. Poppet puts on matching shorts and tank pajamas with flying pigs on them, and offers to lend me a pair. But I’ve done enough taking from her. So I pull on Dizzy’s shirt and sleep in that alone.
Mercy’s voice rings through the night once more. “Lights off.”
Poppet reaches over and turns off the lamp on our vanity. The room grows darker as down the hall, other girls do the same thing. Mercy marches toward our room, and every few seconds I hear a spontaneous popping sound. The girl with blue-black hair stretches into our room, grabs the door handle, and slams it shut.
It’s quiet in the room for thirty seconds before Poppet resumes our conversation. “So you never answered me, Domino. Are you working here for a reason?”
“Shhh,” Candy hisses.
I flip Candy off in the safety of the dark, and say, “No particular reason.”
Candy sighs.
“I want to buy a car.” Poppet’s bed squeaks as she sits up. Because there’s no window, and therefore no light, I can’t really see her, but I imagine she’s smiling. “It has to be black and have a red leather interior. Oh, and I want a double racing stripe that goes down the hood. You know what I’m talking about, right?”
I grin. “I know what you’re talking about.”
“Jeez,” Candy says. “Will you two can it? We have to be up in seven hours.”
Poppet’s bed squeaks again. “What are you working toward, Candy? You’ve never told me.”
“That’s because all I want in this life is seven hours of sleep. God knows I’ll never get that with you as my roommate.”
I bite my lip and decide to back Poppet up. “I’d like to know, too.”
“Like I care,” Candy spits.
“Come on, Candy,” Poppet urges.
“Yeah, come on, Candy.” Even though Candy is mean-spirited, she wasn’t one of the girls who booed Poppet tonight, and it almost feels like we’re sisters in here, whispering our secrets.
There’s a long pause before Candy says anything. When she does, Poppet and I don’t make a sound. “I’d like a boyfriend, okay? And that’s not something you can buy. But once I have enough money, I can leave and meet someone. He’ll want to be with me because I’ll have nice dresses and money to take care of my hair and nails. Stuff guys care about. Then I won’t have to listen to the two of you say idiotic crap while I’m trying to sleep.”
I lick my lips and think about how to respond. “Candy, you don’t need those things for someone to want to be your boyfriend.”
“Shut the hell up, Domino,” she growls. “What do you know?”
“Nothing,” I admit for the second time tonight. “Absolutely nothing.”
Poppet lies back down, or at least I think she does. “You sure there’s nothing you want, Minnow?”
“Did you just call me Minnow?” I ask.
She giggles. “Yeah, because you’re small.”
“And because you’re the bottom feeder in this pond.” There’s amusement in Candy’s voice. “Even the frogs that come into this place are better than minnows, Minnow.”
“Yeah, that’s great.” I lie on my twin bed and stare at the ceiling. Then—because I know I’ll be leaving soon and what does it matter?—I tell them what I’ve only ever told Dizzy. “I’d like to get a place of my own.”
“Fat chance,” Candy says.
Heat rushes into my cheeks, and I clinch my eyes against the sting. I knew she’d probably react that way, but it hurts all the same.
“How do you know she can’t get a place of her own?” Poppet asks Candy.
“Because I had a place of my own, and I know how hard it was to get there.”
I open my eyes and turn my head toward her. “What do you mean?”
Now it’s Candy who sits up. She seems more encouraged by the conversation since the focus is on her. “Listen, to even think of getting a place, you gotta have cash up front. And not just for rent, but for the deposit.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I hang on every word she says. “And this is to buy a house?”
Candy laughs, and then stifles the sound. No doubt she fears the wrath of Mercy. “A house? Are you crazy? People like us don’t buy houses. I’m talking about an apartment, dipstick. Though I guess you could rent a house, too. That’s beside the point. You’ll never make enough here to do either of those things. And Poppet, hate to break it to you, but a car with red leather interior? That’s not happening, either.”
“How much is a deposit?” I push.
Candy falls back on her bed with a dramatic groan. “I don’t know, Minnow. Maybe five hundred bucks if you got a cheap place. And before you ask, rent would be that much, too. You have to pay the first month in full before you walk in the door. Then there are deposits to turn your electricity and water on. So that’s at least twelve hundred bucks. You starting to figure this out in that little brain of yours? Not. Happening.”
“Well, how much do we make each night here?” I ask. “How much do we get per bronze coin?”
Candy rolls over, and because my eyes have adjusted, I can see that her back is to me.
I chew the inside of my cheek and think about what she said for the next half hour. Twelve hundred dollars. That’s nearly three times what I need to spring Dizzy from jail. Still, once I get him out maybe we could both work here and earn twice as much. All the entertainers are girls, but the madam employs some guys. There’s Eric and Cain and Mr. Hodge that I know of.
I turn toward Poppet, whose breathing has deepened. “You’ll get that car,” I whisper to her sleeping frame. “I believe in you.”
“Don’t do that,” Candy says, startling me. “Don’t you dare get her hopes up.”
I’m too surprised that Candy’s still awake to reply, so I settle back into my fresh sheets and pillow and try to find sleep of my own. When I finally succeed, I’m plagued by dreams of a quiet boy covered in blood, tired of remaining silent when he’d rather scream instead.
He asks me if I’m tired, too.