by Tara Sue Me
But something in my soul breaks, because I know that by deciding to stay, I’m choosing the life of a prostitute.
I don’t watch as the bus drives off. It’s enough that I smell the fumes from the bench I’m sitting on. Footsteps approach me. Slow. Even. Methodical. I brace myself for the inevitable.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me,” Mike says.
Jackass.
“What are your plans now?” he asks.
“I’ll keep on working for you.” I mumble it, sickened to be saying the words.
“And what makes you think I want you back?”
My head snaps up, but he’s completely serious, there’s not a sign of teasing to be found.
“I thought.... I assumed...What?”
He’s enjoying my discomfort, and even though I didn’t think it possible, I hate him even more.
“Tell me why I should take you back when I have plenty of girls who never even think about leaving me.” He towers over me.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“And I care because?”
Panic seeps into my body, and I don’t know what I’ll do if Mike doesn’t take me back. “Please?”
“Not good enough.”
I think about telling him I’ll do anything, but I’m not that desperate. I don’t want to imagine what his ‘anything’ would be, much less do it. I stare at the floor and his shiny leather shoes. I hate him so much.
“You still think you have a say in what you do,” he says. “And that is very dangerous thinking. You eat because I choose to feed you. You sleep when I say you do. You have a roof over your head because I let you have one.”
The man working the ticket counter picks that minute to come over to us. “Can I help you two with anything?”
“Athena?” Mike asks.
“No, I’m staying here,” I manage to get out.
“Nothing for me,” Mike says.
The gentleman tells us to let him know if we change our mind and walks back to his station.
“Unfortunately,” Mike says. “We can’t have this conversation here. Be in my office in fifteen minutes. And take that ridiculous wig off.”
Later that night, I’m soaking in the tub back in my apartment. I’m sore all over, both inside and out. I would be crying, but I don’t have any tears left. For a few seconds, the warmth of the water is so inviting, I imagine staying in it forever. I picture it in my head. It would be so easy. Slide into the water, hold my breath until I can’t anymore. Surely, it wouldn't be that painful. Not in comparison to everything else.
The only thing that keeps me from doing it is hate. I hate Mike for what he’s made me and what he makes me do. So instead of taking my life that night, I vow to one day take Mike’s.
Chapter Fourteen
Whoever she is, she certainly isn’t expecting a woman to sit next to her. She’s been given a script and I’m nowhere in the act.
Too bad, I think toward the gentleman with her, but I keep my eyes away from him. She’s mine.
I’ve been an actress for ten years, I can play this part, too.
I sit down beside her, cross my left leg over my right, and rub my calf. “Whew. I should not have worn these shoes.”
Silence from the girl beside me. She probably thinks if she doesn’t say anything, I’ll go away faster. I plaster a smile on my face and look at her more fully. I was wrong earlier. She’s nowhere near seventeen. She’s fourteen, tops. Just the thought of what is planned for her makes me sick.
My left foot slides back to the floor and I try to make my smile warm and inviting. I don’t think I do a good job.
“Shopping?” I ask, trying again for a response.
Her lower lip trembles. “No.”
“Probably not here for the food.” In the corner of my eye, I keep the man in my sight. He’s taken a phone from his pocket and is texting someone.
“Not shopping. Not eating,” I say. “That leaves meeting someone. Am I right?”
The lower lip tremble stops and determined resolve somehow slips into its place. “What’s it to you?”
I shrug. Lean back into the bench. Make myself dissolve into nonchalant. “Just making conversation.”
She risks a glance at black jean guy and straightens her shoulders. “Yeah, well, make it somewhere else.”
“Just making conversation,” I repeat, turning to her. “And passing out advice.”
Her skin is smooth and flawless. There’s a wariness in her eyes, but no sign of bitterness and rejection. Not yet, anyway. Her body is lithe and long. She’s not yet grown into womanhood, but the blueprints are there. Under her adolescent skin, the woman she will become waits.
“I had to tell you,” I start. Hard to believe I’d ever been that young. I clench my fist. So many years wasted. “Needed to tell you. He’s not worth it.”
She blushes, and I know I’ve guessed correctly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says with a flip of her hair.
“He makes lots of promises. Tells you he loves you. That you have to prove your love.” I probably haven’t blushed in nine years. The life of a working girl sucks the blush right out of a person. It isn’t too late for her yet. “But he’s wrong. Love just is. It doesn’t make demands.”
She huffs, reaches down to her purse, pulls out a compact, and checks her lipstick.
“You see me as an obnoxious know-it-all,” I say. She acts like she isn’t listening, but I desperately hope some part of what I say sinks in. Would I have listened if someone had tried to give me advice ten years ago? I’m not sure. “And you’re right. I’m a know-it-all because I’ve been where you are right now, and I made the wrong choice. Listen to me when I tell you it won’t end with this one friend.”
Beside me, her hand holding the compact trembles.
“I know his type, and he’s got a long line of friends just waiting to have their turn at you.” I cross my right leg over my left this time. Hopefully, the guy in black jeans thinks I’m a mall patron gabbing on and on about nothing. “Before you know it, you’ll be dependent on him for everything. You won’t breathe without thinking you need permission to use air.”
She slowly puts the compact back in her purse and straightens her skirt.
“You can do anything. Be anything.” I have never in my life wished for the ability to make a choice for someone. “Don’t be me.”
We sit in silence for long seconds. I roll my head around and around. This is me, just an achy shopper. I can be anyone. I am every woman. Or at least that’s what I hope the man certain to be watching us thinks. I risk a peek: He was still texting. If I guess correctly, he probably has a group of five other girls, just like the one beside me, waiting and ready to do his every command.
I hate him.
“I know you won’t leave him today,” I finally say. “But I’m hopeful you’ll at least think about it.”
I probably haven’t changed anything. She’ll go through with what she came here to do, and she’ll hate herself later. Maybe I’ve actually made it worse with my observations and advice.
Unfortunately, there isn’t anything else I can do to help her. I’m useless. I can’t offer her a viable alternative, or a place to stay. I stand up. “Chose wisely.”
I almost miss the soft whisper behind me.
“Thank you.”
***
If I were smart, I’d leave the food court and go back to buy the green dress like I told Harris I was doing. But I can’t. I have to watch her: the possible Mrs. Isaiah Martin.
I move far enough away so I can see her without being seen myself. I try to act natural and not at all like I’m spying on a stranger. I can see Harris from my location, too. He’s texting someone. He stands up when he finishes and looks around. Looking for me?
I move behind the directory I’m hiding myself with and wait. I count to fifty, and when I look again, he’s gone. The supposed Mrs. Martin is still there. She’s finishing up her lunch and telling her fri
end goodbye. The friend leaves, but Mrs. Martin’s phone rings, so she sits back down and answers it. Whoever it is doesn’t talk long, and in a few minutes, she pushes back from the table and rummages in her purse.
I shouldn’t do it, but I step out from behind the directory, and when she leaves the food court heading out to the parking lot, I follow. I don’t know what I hope to gain by doing so. Maybe I think Isaiah is outside.
She’s moving fast. But the upside to that is she’s not paying any attention to her surroundings. I lag behind her as she approaches her car, not wanting to be too obvious. She hops in an older model sedan that’s a few rows away from the car Isaiah let me drive today.
I don’t know what possesses me, but I jog to my car and start it up, determined to follow her. It’s not hard. For all her urgency to make it to the car, she’s a relatively slow driver. Very careful.
I’m a few cars behind her as we pull out of the parking lot and head south. I try to stay out of her view, just in case she is Isaiah’s wife. I don’t want her to recognize the car. She pulls onto a highway headed out of town. There’s still a car between us, and for the first time I question my sanity in following her. What exactly do I expect to get out of this? That she’s going to drive to her house and some man who isn’t Isaiah is going to come out and greet her and I can return to the little condo I now consider home?
I snort at the impossibility.
More likely, she’s probably headed somewhere that will prove nothing and I’ll have wasted an entire afternoon. I won’t have purchased any new clothes, and Isaiah will be perplexed when he gets home. I can imagine the conversation.
“You were following a woman you thought was my wife?”
He’ll look at me like I’ve grown two heads, and we’ll have a laugh over it. I’ll tell him I knew there was no way he was married and he’ll pretend to be angry I doubted him for even a second. He’ll whisper that I’m nothing but trouble and to make it up to him I’ll pour him some wine. Maybe when he’s finished I’ll pull him close and show him a different kind of trouble.
I’m so engrossed in my daydream, it’s not until she turns onto a smaller road that I realize how far out of Vegas we are. Where the hell is she going? The traffic is sparse on this road. It’s only the two of us. I let up on the gas, not wanting her to notice me.
It’s when I drop back that I see it in the rearview mirror: a black SUV, careening down the road. I wonder where it’s headed. The road continues its path into the nothingness of the desert, but I keep my eye on both the car before me and the one behind me. For some reason I can’t put my finger on, the car following me seems off.
My suspicion is proven correct as we round a corner. There’s nothing but empty desert on either side of me, and I think if I had to dump a body somewhere, this would be where I do it. No sooner do I think that than the car behind me speeds up. As it passes me, I see two men inside. Both are wearing ski masks.
It’s one of those moments you don’t really think is happening. Even as I stare at the retreating car’s taillights, I’m thinking there’s no way I just saw that. I wish I had a phone. But even thinking that, I know I wouldn’t do anything if I had one. You can’t very well call up the police because someone’s driving around wearing ski masks.
I frown, because the car isn’t passing the supposed Mrs. Martin. Instead, it’s harassing her. Riding up on her bumper and then backing down again. Now I wish I had a phone. That sort of driving could get someone killed.
The lady driving is doing her best to hold the course steady. She’s not speeding up or dropping back. She’s not doing anything to antagonize the car behind her. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I speed up in an effort to get closer.
I’m closing the distance between myself and the SUV when its driver finally decides to pass. But as he pulls along beside her, I watch in horror as a hand holding a gun reaches out of the passenger side window and shoots.
I scream, helpless, as her car careens to the right and crashes into a cactus.
And then the gun is pointed at me. There’s a terrific crash and everything goes dark.
Chapter Fifteen
The first thing I become aware of is the smell of gasoline. Raw. Suffocating. The taste trickles down my throat. Maybe I’ve died and this is hell. Certainly, I imagine, hell smells like gasoline.
I crack open one eye. Pain and light explode in front of me. I tentatively roll my head. This is hell. There’s a fire somewhere nearby, and I’m still in the car. It takes everything I have to open the car door and crawl out.
My lungs are hungry for the fresh air outside the car, and I inhale in gulps. But I have to get away from the car. I don’t know if it’s going to blow up or if that only happens in the movies.
In front of me is the strange lady’s car, and I think I see something moving inside. I half walk, half crawl to the door. I have a faint memory of a gun, but maybe that was a dream.
I reach the door and pull myself up so I can see inside. She’s been shot. There’s a horrific wound in her shoulder that looks too close to her heart. She turns her head to look at me and moans.
I try to open the door, but it was damaged in the crash and won’t budge.
“Help... me...” the lady says.
“I’m trying. It’s stuck.”
I give it a hard jerk, and though it feels like my arm’s going to be ripped out of its socket, I get it open. She’s already undone her seatbelt somehow, so I ease my arms around her and help her out as best I can.
My strength is shot, and I barely get her out before we both fall to the ground. I grit my teeth and move her into a more comfortable position, but I know I’m not doing any good. The blood from her wound has already pooled in the dirt, and I can’t comprehend how she’s still alive.
Her soft moan proves she is, though. At least for now.
I fall to my knees beside her. I’d thought I could do something, anything to help her, but there’s nothing I can do. She’s alive for the moment, however, even someone with my lack of medical knowledge knows she won’t be for long.
I take her hand, delicate, fragile in my own, and softly stroke her skin. Black soot and red blood swirls together.
“It hurts,” she whispers. “So much.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears rolls down my cheeks, fall, and mix with the sludge covering her as I cry for this woman I don’t know. I brush my fingers across her forehead. She’s ice. “Just hang on. It’ll be okay.”
We both know it’s a lie.
“Help will be here soon.” Surely someone has spotted the fire and called someone.
The fire from my car burns steadily. It’s inching toward us, but I can’t move her.
I whisper nonsensical words to her instead. I murmur little phrases of nothing in particular. I want to somehow take away the pain and hurt, but I know I fail completely.
Her body jerks upwards and she gasps.
“I’m sorry,” I stroke her hand once more. “So sorry.”
“Oh.”
I glance to her face and her eyes blaze with a clarity that wasn’t there seconds before. She’s focused on something behind me.
I fear it’s the person who shot her, but I look over my should and there’s no one there. “Are you okay?” A stupid question, but the only one I can form.
“He’s coming.”
I pat her hand. “I’m sure they’re on their way.”
“Him.”
“Yes.” I don’t seem to be able to disagree with her. Maybe I should look for her cell phone. I glance around, maybe it’s in her purse. Nothing.
“Let me call someone,” I offer. “Just need to find your phone.”
“He’s coming.”
I don’t see a purse anywhere. Either it’s still in the hump of scrambled metal that’s now the remains of her car, or it had been thrown out during the crash.
“I don’t know where your phone is. I can’t call anyone. I’m sure the police are coming.” I’m such a failure.
“I don’t know anything.”
Her lips curl into a calm and joyous smile. “Not the police.”
Her chest rises, but doesn’t fall.
Sirens sound in the distance.
***
I don’t see her again. While I’m in the emergency room, I try asking the nurses around me about her, but they don’t say anything. I’m not too surprised; in the controlled chaos of the environment, there’s really not much time for them to sit around and chit chat. Not to mention, I’m sure it’s against the law for them to divulge any of that information to me.
I’m stuck in the ER for hours. I tell anyone who comes by that I’m fine and I want to leave, but I’m told I have to stay overnight for observation. My protests that there’s nothing wrong with me falls on deaf ears. I try not to think about how much the stay in the hospital is going to cost. Hopefully, the administration has some plan in place for those of us without insurance.
I don’t like being in the hospital. I know no one likes it, but for me, I feel exposed. There’s security in place, but for the most part, anyone who wants to can come in. I hope beyond hope Mike doesn’t find out I’m here. I’ll be an easy target until I get out.
It’s only when I’m finally in my room and the nurse’s aide is checking my blood pressure that I finally get answers.
“The lady I was brought in with,” I say then stop. I don’t know her name. I don’t know anything about her other than what Harris told me, and I’m not certain he was being honest.
“Jane Doe?” the aide asks. “Poor thing. You don't know her do you?”
I shake my head.
“I heard the police are trying to find out who she is. She didn’t have any identification on her.”
That doesn’t make sense. I think back to the food court. I know she had a purse. She dug into it to find her keys.
“What about her purse?” I ask.
“They didn’t find one. Or at least that’s what I heard.”
My head was already hurting, and now it’s pounding. I can’t tell her she had a purse in the food court because that’ll give away the fact I was following her. My memories of the crash are too fuzzy, I can’t remember exactly what happened.