by Lexie Ray
Snyder actually looked sympathetic from beneath his moustache.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked. “That woman took advantage of girls in desperate situations. Some were more desperate than others, but you all had that one thing in common—need. You needed the boarding house and the nightclub, and that woman needed all of you to turn tricks for her.”
I knew “that woman” he kept talking about was Mama, but I still didn’t quite understand what he was getting at.
“You were sex trafficked, Ms. Crosby,” Bash said bluntly. “Your ‘Mama’ took advantage of your situation to make money off of you. She never helped you. She only hurt you and exploited you.”
I didn’t want to push my luck, but I had to be sure that I understood.
“But I sold myself knowingly,” I said. “I’m at fault, too. I knew that prostitution was illegal, but I did it all the same. How am I not being charged with anything?”
“Desperate people do desperate things, Ms. Crosby,” Snyder said, reaching into his jacket pocket. “But at this time, we’re not leveling any charges against anybody except for Wanda Dupree.”
“Who?”
“Your ‘Mama.’”
I realized I’d never known her real name before this moment, and it was a strange revelation. Mama had been a caretaker, a businesswoman, and a force of nature.
Wanda Dupree was a criminal.
“If you feel like you’ve still done some kind of wrong, turn it around,” Snyder continued, producing a business card out of his jacket pocket and handing it to me. “This organization looks to help women in need, and I’ve heard they’re always in need of volunteers.”
I looked down at the simple rectangle of cardstock I held in my hand and read the tiny print.
“Jasmine King,” it stated. “Sisters Together.”
Snyder and Bash tried to walk out again, but I stopped them.
“Where am I supposed to go?” I asked, my voice breaking and surprising me. “I don’t have anywhere anymore.”
Snyder pointed at the card I held in my hand.
“That organization will help you,” he said. “And we’ll know where to find you if we have any other questions.”
I studied the address on the card for a while before throwing away the debris of my care package from Fitch. I kept the magazines he’d picked up for me, as well as a half-full bottle of soda.
The truth of the matter was that I didn’t have the money to get a cab to take me to the address on the card. I didn’t even have the money to use a payphone to call the number.
The door to the room opened again and it was Fitch. Even though he was a cop, and even though he’d taken me from the place I’d called home, I smiled to see him again, as if he were my oldest friend.
“Those two weren’t too hard on you, were they?” he asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.
“They were a couple of old softies,” I joked.
“Well, you’re free to go until the NYPD decides it wants to ask you something else,” Fitch said. “Do you have somewhere to go?”
I held up the card Snyder had given me. “I do now.”
“Need a lift?” Fitch asked casually, and I could’ve kissed him.
“Not if you’re going to make me sit in the back of the squad car again,” I joked.
I knew from experience that cops could be bad news, but I counted myself lucky to have met Fitch. I knew that it was just luck that he’d been one of the ones to find me in the kitchen at Mama’s nightclub, but maybe it’d been a blessing in disguise.
When we pulled in front of the modern looking building at the address on the card, Fitch gave me his own business card.
“Call me if you need anything,” he said. “In fact, call me whenever they get you set up somewhere so I can know you’re safe and comfortable.”
“Thank you for everything,” I said, hugging him briefly before getting out of the squad car. By then, night had fallen, and I hoped someone was there to help me. All the lights in the lobby were still on, so I had hope.
Fitch didn’t take off until I was safely inside the building, which made me smile. Snyder and Bash were probably right—the cop had a terrible crush on me. He’d been nothing but sweet to me, though, and had given me more than he’d had to. I owed him big time.
I approached the front desk in the lobby, the attendant glancing up at my approach.
“Sisters Together is on the fourth floor,” he said, pointing at the elevator.
“How did you know?” I asked doubtfully. Was I wearing a big damn sign saying that I was desperately in need of help?
“I’ve been working as night attendant here for three years,” he said, looking more bored than apologetic. “You learn to look for certain things.”
I didn’t want to ask what those certain things were.
“Is somebody going to be up there?” I asked.
“Somebody’s always up there,” he said. “Mrs. King’s probably up there right now. I haven’t seen her leave for the night.”
Jasmine King, from the business card. I thanked the attendant and made my way to the fourth floor. In the elevator, I wondered just how many women had made the same journey I was making right now and what their scenarios had been. Had any of them been worse off than me?
The cops told me I was sex trafficked, exploited, a victim. But now I didn’t have any way to make the money I needed to be making in order to be reunited with my son. I was right back to where I started, but somehow it was four years later and I didn’t have shit to show for it.
By the time the elevator doors rolled open, I was sure I looked as desperate as I felt. There wasn’t anyone manning the desk at the front of the office, but the sign on a glass window told me I was where I needed to be. Sisters Together. I wondered who had come up with the name.
I waited for a few moments, but nobody ever came. Finally, I walked past the desk and toward a room with a light on. I hesitated just outside, listening to the voices within.
“Go home, baby,” a woman said. “You’re tired. I can see it on your face.”
“I’ll go when you do,” a man said. “You’re just as tired as I am.”
“There’s just a lot to do, Nate,” she said. “This nightclub thing is going to be huge. I’m trying to make sure we’ll be ready.”
Nightclub thing? Could it be possible she was talking about Mama’s nightclub? Maybe she’d heard about it on the news.
“Hello?” I called out tentatively.
There came the sound of rustling papers and the door was flung open wider, throwing light into the darkened office.
“Can I help you?” A woman stood at the entrance of the room, but the lights behind her made it impossible to see her face. She was petite and seemed to be dressed nicely, her voice professional but kind.
“I hope so,” I said. “A cop gave me your business card, said that this is the place to go for help.”
“He was right,” the woman said. “Please come in. I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone out front. I sent her home already.”
“That’s okay,” I said, stepping into the room. A man was sprawled out on a sofa in the office, a box of takeout balanced on his flat abs as he wrote furiously in a notebook. He glanced up at me and smiled, and I was taken aback by how handsome he was.
“This is Nate King,” the woman said, “my husband. And I’m Jasmine King.”
I turned back to her, holding my hand out, and stopped. She looked so different—older and stronger, somehow, but it was a face I couldn’t forget.
“Jazz?” I asked, hardly able to believe my eyes. “Is it really you?”
She looked at me, her eyes beautiful with her tasteful makeup but confused.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” she asked, trying to put it together in her head.
“I’m Shimmy,” I said. “I started at the nightclub just a little bit after you. You disappeared one night …”
I trailed off and quickly glanced at Nate. If this was her hu
sband, maybe I shouldn’t be saying anything. Maybe she didn’t want him to know anything about her past.
Jasmine looked shaken up, but she opened her arms and hugged me.
“Shimmy, of course,” she said. “I remember now. I wasn’t—I wasn’t in the best state of mind around the time you came on.”
I took another look at Nate, who’d stopped writing and was simply looking at us, patting Jasmine on the back. Did she really want to do this in front of her husband?
Jasmine backed up and followed my gaze.
“It’s okay,” she said. “He knows everything and, somehow, doesn’t seem to mind.”
“It’s what shaped her into the woman I fell in love with,” he said, and started writing again as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
“Wow,” I said. “So, you’re doing better, then.”
Jasmine smiled up at me. “Much better,” she said. “After I ‘disappeared’ from Mama’s that night, and after a few more twists and turns, I ended up starting this nonprofit. I needed help when I started living at that boarding house, and Mama’s nightclub was no haven. Sisters Together aims to solve that, to give women a place to go.”
“What happened to you that night?” I whispered, wishing her husband wasn’t here. “I saw the room afterward.”
Jasmine grimaced and Nate stopped writing again, sitting up on the couch.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It’s just that—I’ve always wondered. Everything was different at the nightclub after that night.”
Nate held his hand out to Jasmine and she took it, allowing herself to be guided onto his knee. She seemed to draw strength from him, closing her eyes briefly before opening them again.
“I was tortured and raped,” she said finally. “And I believe that’s the night I contracted HIV.”
I blanched and sat down heavily in one of the empty chairs of the office. I knew that it’d had to be bad just from the sheer damage the room had sustained. How could the capable, professional woman in front of me come out okay from something like that?
“What’s your story, Shimmy?” Nate asked.
Jasmine had a faraway look in her eyes, and I knew he was asking to try to get her mind off of her past. I regretted bringing it up.
“You’ve probably heard that Mama’s nightclub got raided, then,” I said.
Jasmine snapped back to the present. “It’s all over the news,” she said. “You’ve been there this whole time?”
I nodded. “The cops took me out,” I said. “It was lucky—they let me get changed and take my purse. And they didn’t arrest me because I cooperated.”
“That’s good,” Jasmine assured me, standing and walking around her desk to retrieve a file folder. “That’s very good, Shimmy.”
“Have any of the other girls been here?” I dared to ask, not sure whether I wanted to know the answer.
Jasmine shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”
“I think a lot of them ran when the raid happened,” I said. “And got arrested.”
“That’ll happen,” Jasmine said grimly. “Hopefully, judges will be merciful. I’ll make some calls to my connections down at city hall and the station, as well.”
A Jasmine in action was a Jasmine to behold. She flipped open the file folder and jotted down furious notes with one hand. With her other, she flipped through a box full of business cards, pulling out the ones she was looking for.
“Jazz?”
She looked up from her business. “Yes?”
“It’s just, the cops said we were all victims, all of us.” I studied my nails for a while, still clutching my fashion magazines.
“You don’t feel like you’re a victim,” Jasmine said, the statement not a question.
“Well, no,” I said. “I started working at Mama’s because I was trying to make money to get my baby back.”
Jasmine pulled out a fresh pad of paper and began writing even faster.
“I’m listening, Shimmy,” she said. “I’m just taking notes so I can remember. Who took your baby from you?”
“Nobody,” I said, feeling confused. Maybe circumstance took Trevor from me. Maybe desperate poverty. “I gave him to his father’s family to raise when it became clear that I couldn’t do as good as job. They were wealthy and I wasn’t. My grandma was helping for a while, but she died. I was eighteen …”
I trailed off, emotionally drained. This day had been too much, too long. I’d still had a plan at the beginning of it, but now, I had no idea where to go next or what to do. Maybe I’d never see Trevor again.
“You know, maybe it’s for the best,” I said, continuing my trail of thoughts out loud. Two bitter tears slid down my cheeks. “That baby doesn’t need a whore of a mother. He’ll be better off. God knows they have enough money to raise him.”
A gentle touch made me jump. I’d been so mired in my misery that I hadn’t realized Jasmine had walked around the desk to stand in front of me. She was raising my chin with her finger so that I was forced to meet her eyes.
“Babies need their mothers, Shimmy,” she said. “And you deserve to be with your baby. Let me tell you exactly why you’re a victim. You went to the nightclub, looking for help, same as me, same as all of us. Mama pretended that she was helping us, giving us food and a place to live and clothes. But then, she told us we had to pay her back by selling our most precious possessions, and we never saw a dime of that money. She spent it all on herself and Christ knows what else.”
The fury on Jasmine’s face terrified me.
“You’re a victim, Shimmy, even if it’s hard to hear,” she continued. “Now. Let me tell you what you’re going to do to start living your life again.”
I was all ears. The cops had told me I was a victim down at the station, but they hadn’t told me what came next. I didn’t want to be a victim for life. I wanted my baby. I wanted to be happy and successful.
“I’m ready to move forward,” I said. “I’m ready.”
Jasmine got me set up in a sort of halfway house for women in trouble. It was the best she could do for now, she said, but she promised me she’d keep looking for options. She retrieved a backpack and a reusable shopping bag from a storage closet in the office, handing them to me.
The backpack was full of clothing and toiletries—everything a person could possibly need. The reusable bag was full of nonperishable food items.
“A lot of women come to us with just the clothes on their backs,” Jasmine explained. “We call these our restart bags. We planned and developed them to have all the basic essentials.”
“This is amazing,” I said, slipping the magazines into my backpack. “Thank you.”
“We have lots of sponsors,” she said. “I can be very persuasive.”
“I’m starting to see that,” I laughed.
“Now, let’s talk work placement,” Jasmine said. “What are you interested in doing or being? Do you have any work experience?”
I shrugged, thinking back on those lean, hard times when I was working the handful of part-time jobs, trying so hard to make ends meet and make a life for Trevor.
“I have retail experience, and food service experience,” I said. “And, of course, sex worker experience.”
I’d meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. Jasmine leveled a look at me.
“That part of your life is over,” she said. “If you choose to, you can walk out of this office tonight and never talk about it again. You can start completely fresh.”
Could I simply erase these last four years of my life as easily as that? I shook my head.
“I need to remember,” I said. “I need to remember what I was willing to do for my baby. That I need to keep working hard for him. I’d walk through fire, Jazz. I’d go without food. I’ve gone without food. But I’m serious about this. I’ll do anything to get my treasure back.”
Jasmine’s eyes were shining at me. “Keep that in your heart and anything is possible,�
�� she said. “What’s your dream job, Shimmy?”
I shook my head. It was too embarrassing, a little girl’s dream. Jasmine was persistent, though, and I found myself carefully studying the tips of my ballet flats after my admission.
“A fashion model.”
I chanced a glance up at Jasmine and was relieved to see that she wasn’t laughing at me—or worse, pitying me.
“Fashion,” she said. “It makes sense. You know, I think I remember your door in the boarding house. You had models on it, right? And outfits.”
I nodded. “I’ve always been interested in fashion, even if there wasn’t any money for it.”
“I’m going to get you a job in a dress shop,” Jasmine said decisively. “I know just the one. And you’ll start going to business classes at BCC or BMCC. We’ll be able to get those covered through grants.”
“And I’d like to volunteer for Sisters Together,” I said.
Jasmine stopped and looked at me. “You don’t owe this place a thing,” she started to say, but I stopped her.
“I owe this place everything,” I said. “You’re giving me a future, Jazz. I want to pay it forward.”
She smiled. “I won’t argue with that,” she said. “Now. Let’s get you to your new home—until we find something a little better.”
My new home. It was almost too much to believe.
This morning, I thought I’d had it all figured out. This evening, I knew that I didn’t. But I had a plan and a future, and that was the most important thing.
Chapter Five
The next few months passed quickly, and it was all I could do to keep up. My new home was an old townhouse that had been divided into several private rooms. The kitchen and living room areas were common, and we split chores. It was so close to living at the boarding house that it was honestly the best transition I could’ve made.
Sure, a lot of the women were rough around the edges—just coming out of prison or rehab. I didn’t mind them. Sure, there were a few tiffs, but that just came with the territory of living in a house with people you didn’t know. I could handle my own among the other women, and as soon as we got to know one another, everything was fine.