By autumn, Mayella had dealt with it enough. The filth and depravity were a slow death sentence. Having lived on the outside in foster homes that once made charity feel like prison, now she would have traded her soul for three square meals and a firm bed. What was she waiting for? she wondered. No one was going to deliver her from the destiny that Tallulah had perpetuated. No one. Except for herself.
The nightmare continued. Every day she dreamt of just how she would do it. How she would find a way to leave for good and never look back.
The turning point came when boyfriend number five moved in. He called himself Reverend Dan, but there was nothing holy about the bastard. He had sired ten children by six different wives, although he boasted of being God-fearing and righteous. He was a con with a keen perversion for girls—young ones.
He got Tallulah to quit the booze, remarkably, and to follow the Word for a time. On Saturday nights he would dress up like a preacher and preside at a revival tent off of Broadway near Highway Seventy.
Right from the start, he took to fondling Mayella at night, while she slept. At least, she would pretend that she was asleep to ensure that it would go quickly. Reverend Dan was big and powerful. She had witnessed his mean streak with Tallulah and the boys. She knew what he was capable of. Her pleas for him to stop would be useless. Most of the time, he just slipped onto the cot beside her, covered her mouth so as not to be heard, and pleasured himself. She always knew when it was close to being over because his breathing would quicken, and he would groan as he vigorously rubbed himself against her until he exploded.
Sometimes she would awaken in a patch of dried semen, where he had ejaculated near her buttocks or thigh the night before. She played dumb and endured it, every repulsive second. This went on for months.
One night, in the heat of August, he stumbled in after eleven p.m., uncharacteristically drunk and disoriented. He clumsily climbed onto the cot beside her, just down the trailer from where Tallulah was in her bed, in the back, where she shared a full mattress with her mother, both snoring. The boys were spread out on futons.
This time, however, was very different. He would not be satisfied with the usual practice. She startled as he moved in closely, tearing at her panties, yanking them down around her knees and clamping his cold, snake-like fingers of one hand around her neck, spreading her painfully with the other. He stirred at the quickening of her gasps, which quickly turned to terror as he tightened his grip about her throat and moaned with his sour, whiskey-tinged breath into her ear.
“Ohhh, baby! That’s how’s you like to fuck now, ain’t it? Yeah, I remember, suga!”
He forcefully plunged his member deep into her rectum, pumping hard against her buttocks, squeezing bruises into her flesh with his filthy fingers and panting wildly until, all at once, he came in a release of sputtering convulsions, and then collapsed with a whimper of sick pleasure.
He crawled off of her and instantly passed out. Mayella lay there quietly in the dark, trembling.
The night moon bathed the tiny trailer with yellow half-light that fell on the clock on the wall. It cast two momentary revelations at the turning of the hour, and she needed only a glance at the bastard’s gnarly face that she had only seen once in a faded Polaroid stashed in her mother’s photo album beneath her birth certificate. First, that it was officially her sixteenth birthday. And the second, that the monster next to her was not Reverend Dan at all—it was her father, Crete Jackson.
Chapter Three
The bus smelled distinctly of sweat and urine. The stench was ineffectively covered up by an industrial cleaner that made it even worse. It was the efflux of diesel fuel, chemical toilets, and cheap perfume. It was the smell of freedom.
The passengers were primarily vagabonds, ramblers, drifters, outlaws, and runaways, like her. Only, where was she running to? It didn’t matter. As far as one hundred eighty-five dollars could take her. One thing was for certain, it would have to be better than the place she was running from.
She had taken one hundred fifty dollars from the coffee can above the stove, knowing full well that stealing the rent money would set her mother, grandmother, and her brothers behind with the trailer park rental on their lot, again. Maybe Reverend Dan would take care of it. She could not let herself think about it. None of it. Not about her father’s “unannounced return” and the horrific thing he had done to her in the dark. Not about Reverend Dan’s perverted transgressions, Tallulah’s apathy toward it all, and her punishing resentment toward her, which made Mayella feel oddly responsible for her mother’s descent back into the bottle as of late. Maybe they would blame her for the missing money. Say that she blew it on cheap gin.
Sorry, Mama . . . The words formed in her mind, but she couldn’t feel their meaning. She would never have the will to actually say them. Tallulah wasn’t deserving of her apology. Just her pity. Eli and Rufus, now that was another story.
She pressed her cheek against the gritty plastic window and set her thoughts straight back in the direction of West Memphis as the Greyhound lumbered due west, onto the interstate ramp, and silently, in a broken prayer, begged God to forgive her.
* * *
Mayella awoke on a bench in Clinton, Oklahoma. It was the last town her meager funds could afford to take her. She gathered her belongings: a duffel bag, a denim jacket, and a shopping bag filled with books. They were heavy and cumbersome, but they were her favorites. She would make it with little to her name, but the books were precious treasures she would gladly carry strapped on her back across the country if need be.
She found a drug store and purchased some beef jerky, a small carton of milk, and a sleeve of cheese-filled crackers. She stood patiently on the gravel embankment of the highway and turned her back to the sun, stuck out her thumb, and waited. Finally, forty minutes and three hundred passing cars later, a Ford pickup stopped and offered her a ride.
Two and a half weeks later she arrived in California, compliments of her thumb and the kindness of strangers heading west. She had gotten quite lucky around Amarillo and was picked up by a trucker, who took her all the way to Arizona. The final leg was a Wagoneer shared with a former schoolteacher, turned songwriter, named Lloyd Wooly. He was a divorcee and was on his way to Fresno to visit his son, whom he had not seen since he was six months old.
“The ex-wife has had a change of heart,” Lloyd confided. “Though I don’t blame her much for keeping a thousand miles between us.” He gripped the wheel and actually choked on his words. “Let’s just say, I used to be a no-good dick-headed son-of-a-bitch and leave it at that.”
Mayella wished he would, but regretfully, she was forced to hear Lloyd’s heartfelt ruminations all the way from Phoenix to Los Angeles. She simply listened and let him do the talking. She was a captive audience, and the price for passage into the Promised Land was a patient and ready ear. She kindly obliged as he rambled on about his sinful transgressions against Penelope, his childhood sweetheart. “The best goddamn woman who ever burnt toast!” She was, Mayella learned, a lousy cook, but had a heart of pure gold.
Darrol was Lloyd’s son, and was about to turn seven the following Sunday.
“I’m gonna get him something real special for when I see him,” Lloyd said. “Like a new bike or somethin’ like that. You know, I never did have one of my own growin’ up.”
“Let’s listen to some music,” Mayella offered. Anything to silence the aimless litany about his past. He was so severely skinny that he reminded her of a sort of gangly scarecrow with tufts of hay sprouting from his head in all directions beneath his hunting cap. An unkempt mustache completed the look. His hands were dirty, and he smelled like he had bathed in gin—a week ago. She decided to grin and bear it. After all, he would take her all the way to California, and for that, she was grateful. Maybe there was no Penelope and no Darrol waiting in Fresno. Who knew?
Lloyd was a West Virginia native about to be extremely out of his element in the posh suburban west coastal town he was heading to, bu
t what about her? Mayella had never been more than fifty miles either way out of Arkansas—ever. Now, here she was, heading herself into the vast unknown. In a kind of twisted way, she and Lloyd Wooly had more in common than she would have liked to admit.
“I like to write songs ’bout how I see things. You know, little ditties I dream up. Someday, I hope I’m gonna sell them songs to Nashville. I even got a gui-tar back there in the back seat. Never know, maybe someday ole Willy Nelson would like to buy one of my songs. Yeah, ya never know!”
He popped a cassette into the stereo console and handed her a soda from a cooler stashed behind his seat. Soon the sounds of a slide guitar were streaming through the muffled speakers. She didn’t know much about vintage country music, except what songs Elvis had made. It was all pretty depressing, if you asked her. She smiled and nodded, trying to seem interested. Truth being, she could barely think at all. Her mind was like a television screen with no signal. Just fuzzy white snow.
Lloyd continued to talk nonstop for hours. She watched the road brush turn from brown to green outside the open window, and the back of Lloyd’s left forearm turn red from the sun to match his ginger beard. White folk, she thought amusedly. They weren’t built for the sunshine. They drove that way for the three hundred seventy-five miles, with nothing in common and everything between them.
They pulled off the road several hours later into a gas station not far from downtown LA, and said farewell. It was a good thing. Lloyd had talked himself out and was starting to ask her questions about her own family, which she eluded skillfully. He was seemingly even more nervous about the prospect of seeing his son for the second time ever.
“You’ll do fine,” Mayella encouraged. “In a few more hours, you two will be sharing a hug. You’re his daddy. He has to love you.” Then she touched his arm awkwardly and said, “Thanks for the ride.”
He offered her a smile and grinned. “Keep an ear out for one of my ditties on the radio, now!” he called out, waving.
She stood and watched the taillights disappear on down the interstate.
She figured that she was about five miles from the city. A budget hotel and the windows of a restaurant glowed in the distance. She was starving and could smell grilled onions wafting from the lively little diner, but didn’t have the money to spare, so she began walking in the direction of the city and settled for a hard bus bench near a public park and a half-eaten box of Milk Duds, trying to decide what to do next.
Hours later she felt a shove. “Move it along, Miss! You can’t sleep here!”
A police radio squawked, and a flashlight assessed her head to toe. “Let’s go, I said! Move it along!”
Two white officers were peering down at her, sizing her up. Runaway, no doubt.
“What’s your name, girl?” the first one asked gruffly.
“I ain’t got one,” Mayella retorted. “Is that a crime?” If she was going to be tough, she was going to have to act the part.
The fat one chuckled and snapped his gum. “Not last time I checked, it ain’t, but you’d better take your little black no-name ass on outta here, see? Or else we’re going to find a reason to give you one—for the night—as in lock-up. Got it?”
A dispatcher called code across their radios, and the two scrambled back into the squad car, the first one calling from behind, “Don’t want to see you here again. There’s a shelter on Grand Avenue.” They sped off, lights and sirens blaring, in the direction of the city lights.
Mayella picked up her bags, exhausted, unclean, and hungry, and started walking in the direction the cop had pointed.
Chapter Four
Summer – 2014
No Secrets, La Costa Reed’s soon-to-be released eleventh best-seller, indicated by preorders alone, would take its place of prominence on the north wall of her den, along with the other gold-framed book covers displaying an impressive body of work in the genre of mainstream commercial fiction. This book, however, would be the one that would foster another turning point in her already illustrious career. It was not the next installment to her beloved romance series. Instead, it was her story. A brutally honest memoir that would send readers fleeing for their tissue boxes and begging to know more about this much-loved romance author’s provocative past. It was to be no less a jewel in the reigning Queen of Contemporary Romance’s stunning crown. Private movie studios were already pitching loudly for film rights to No Secrets, competing with new developments in cable programming that was vying for their own controversial tell-all account of this celebrated author’s life, which would only prove to sweeten the stakes.
La Costa had laid bare her unquenchable spirit in sharing her poignant life story. Once a lost and drifting soul, used and disregarded like yesterday’s news. Now she was a supremely accomplished and beloved star—a successful writer, humanitarian, and mother.
Little Mayella Jackson was long gone. Dead, in fact, unto herself and to the rest of the world, never to surface again. Until some twenty-seven years later, when La Costa found the strength to forgive her transgressors and herself, to unlock the ugly secrets from the past and write about her abominable and jaded childhood.
Not only was she a gifted writer, but a survivor, and soon to become a modern-day icon, a living tribute to the miraculous victories capable of the human soul. An honor La Costa would take wholly to heart, thanking God each and every day for the good fortune she had gleaned, no longer locked in the web of hidden and unspeakable truths of exactly how she had so arrived at such a place. That had previously been a story of a very different color. One she vowed would never come to light—until now. The concept of breaking free and embracing the truth both frightened and empowered her.
No Secrets was about to celebrate its release into the world. It was the story about Mayella Jackson, not the breathless heroines that floated from the pages of her other novels, solving all of life’s mysteries and winning the prince all in a tidy sum of three hundred some-odd pages.
“I want to do this, Tess,” she had told her agent when she first contemplated writing it. “It’s
time. I’m ready now to tell my story.” The question being, was the real world ready to hear it?
Chapter Five
Newport Beach, CA
Summer – 2014
“Tell me about your experience as a stripper. I mean, how did all that get started?” the strikingly attractive reporter asked, balancing a fresh leather-bound notepad on her knee and pressing play on the small recording device that was set between them in the center of the coffee table.
La Costa had laid out a full pitcher of sweet tea and a plate of scrumptious bakery cookies, as was her practice with all personal interviews conducted at her home. This one, however, being the first time that she had agreed to do the interview at her Newport Beach residence. Previously, her personal haven had been off limits to press of any kind. Until now. It was the second visit from Felicia Hayden, senior staff reporter for High Style magazine, who had won the coveted opportunity to write what would be a candid four-page spread featuring La Costa’s story in a gripping exposé for the magazine in concert with the official launch of the tell-all memoir, No Secrets. The private interviews were to be conducted in two three-hour sessions, and La Costa had agreed to give the magazine exclusive rights to all the details behind her provocative life story in her own words, just as she had laid bare in her controversial and poignant biography.
It was day two of the interviews, and La Costa had begun to feel comfortable with having Felicia in her home, walking her around the various rooms and stopping to point out the many photographs, artifacts, and quotes that La Costa had in frames, lining the walls with milestones and memories that were dear to her. All was on display in the modest-size beach home that was a sanctuary of sorts for the calm-natured, resilient author who had an irrepressible spirit, and who, it seemed, lived every day with gratitude.
“I worked at a small club for nearly six months. It had become a necessary survival skill I had to quickly
learn in order to make ends meet back in 1987, when I had first arrived in LA—when I was still Mayella Jackson.”
Felicia nodded and jotted away on the notepad, not taking her eyes off of La Costa, whose melodic voice was as easy and smooth as if she were relaying a cherished Southern recipe for peach pie.
“I spotted an ad just seven days after I had arrived in LA. They were looking to hire exotic dancers and cocktail waitresses. I had been bouncing from train stations and all-night theaters for temporary shelter up until that point, so I decided to check it out. I was desperate to find work. The decision, as it turned out, changed my life forever.”
Felicia captured every compelling word of La Costa’s engrossing and hard-bought story. She was completely riveted and knew all too well that the readers of High Style would be too. Hopefully, they would be fascinated enough to grab up the first-run copies of the magazine exposé weeks before the official memoir would be released. Such candidness and valor created buzz and sold magazines.
“I was forced to share stairwells and public rest rooms with junkies and runaway juveniles who were always scamming unsuspecting travelers or passersby for their money. They used and abused themselves—and anyone else, really. It didn’t matter. Out there, there were no rules. I ate my first hot meal in days at a homeless shelter in East Hollywood and was able to get a hot shower at another nearby mission after learning to ask around for such things.”
La Costa explained how she soon found that the world of the homeless was an insane, horrific journey, far worse, perhaps, than the one she had left behind. If she was not watching her back, and belongings, she was fleeing from any number of low-life degenerates, who tried to rob, rape, recruit, save, sell, solicit, push, or pimp her.
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