One day, she finished her chores a half-hour early, and she was looking forward to spending time playing in the yard, but she was told to scrub the bathroom from top to bottom with bleach, cleanser, and a toothbrush. She washed the dishes twice a day, cleaned the kitchen every night, and washed and vacuumed the family’s two cars every other weekend. As her household tasks increased, she had to shampoo, blow dry, and comb two cats and a dog, and mop the kitchen floor once a week.
At the salon, Star’s daily tasks also became more numerous. She was expected to wash all of the brushes and combs, make coffee twice a day or more often as needed, and sweep the mat after each customer left. All of the nail trays had to be cleaned at the end of each day. Soon, Star took over answering phones, booking appointments, cleaning the restroom, and vacuuming.
Eventually, Star learned how to cook things from scratch, and she was often asked to cook breakfast on the weekends and clean up the kitchen afterward. She didn’t mind the work. She worked hard and felt it was fair because of all the things the Johnsons did for her. The long list of chores didn’t bother Star; it was the constant criticism, the lack of appreciation, and then the outright demand that affected her.
If she put away the dishes, and a plate had even a slight smudge on it, she had to pull all of the dishes out of the cabinet and wash them again. If she missed a speck in a bathroom corner, she had to re-scrub every inch of the bathroom using a toothbrush. If she didn’t iron a shirt with absolute perfection, she had to take all of the clothes out of the closet and re-iron them.
On a good week, if Star completed all of her chores well and on time, she earned seven dollars. The money was put into a savings account with her name on it.
Even the criticism and lack of appreciation wasn’t that bad, and Star could have dealt with it, if Darcy hadn’t developed other new habits. If Star forgot the rule about “no elbows on the table,” even one elbow for just a moment, Darcy yelled that Star was a “pig” and ordered her to sit on the floor and eat like a pig since she insisted on acting like one.
Then, the spankings began. Before long, Star had an overwhelming sense that she was always in trouble for one thing or another. She felt that she always disappointed the Johnsons and never lived up to their expectations.
Star had already learned the lesson of how to get by in life with a smile when her heart was breaking and her parents had discarded her. Now, she was learning the even more difficult lesson of how to think, act, and feel like a total failure.
It was always about outward appearances with Darcy. She could scream her lungs out at Star on a Sunday morning before the family left for church, but once they arrived at church, it was all smiles and everyone was on their best behavior.
One week before Star’s eleventh birthday, Darcy called Star into the living room for a family talk. Star was informed that she was too much trouble, and it was too stressful for the Johnsons having her live with them. Two days later, she was put on a plane to Las Vegas to live with her father.
Chapter 7
Home Is Where the Heart Is?
Star had not seen her father for almost a year. He had called a few times, but the Johnsons wouldn’t let her talk to him for more than a few minutes. They were worried that contact with her father would change her behavior. More than once, Star wanted to mention it was Darcy’s behavior that had changed; but she knew her child’s point of view would not be well received so she said nothing. When Star learned that she was being sent to Las Vegas to live with her father, the news came as a welcome relief, and she was excited about being reunited with her dad.
On a sunny morning in mid-April, Star left the Johnsons’ home with her two suitcases and boarded a plane for Las Vegas. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing her stepmother again, and when Betty picked her up at the airport, the reunion was strained. Star didn’t know what to expect when she got home.
It turned out that “home” was a small two-bedroom house a short distance from the Las Vegas Strip. The house was old and not in the best condition, but it was much more than Star had expected. She had her own room, and that was a huge relief. She made friends with a next-door neighbor and started fifth grade.
Her parents had started smoking again, but they weren’t drinking. Her father was good about taking his medicine, and he was more laid back—more like the happy daddy that Star remembered from better times. They often played chess together or watched football.
Betty had changed for the worse. She became violent with Star, often whipping her with a wire flyswatter that left painful welts across Star’s legs. Star took the mistreatment in stride, hiding the welts under jeans or a long skirt and never mentioning the whippings in school. It became more difficult to conceal the day Betty hit her in the face with the flyswatter and left a welt on her cheek that turned into an ugly bruise. She told her friends at school that she had walked into a door and laughed it off.
Star’s parents went back to gambling, and soon, they started drinking again. Star knew it was just a matter of time until they not would be able to pay the rent on their two-bedroom home. When that day came, they moved out of the house and into a two-bed hotel room just down the street.
Days turned into weeks, and Star was left alone in the hotel room almost every night while her parents went out gambling. Betty gave her a stern warning:
“Do not let anyone in!”
Some days when Star came home from school, Betty would be gone, and she found her father sitting on the side of his bed listening to music and talking to himself. She tried to go on with her life, avoiding her parents as much as possible. She took the bus to and from school and sat outside in the afternoons, doing homework, or writing poetry and dark stories.
Star’s father got into the habit of asking her to make food or watch sports with him. She began to loath sports. If it wasn’t baseball, it was football, and if it wasn’t football, it was basketball. She begged him to let her go outside and play. Sometimes, he assented; other times, he insisted that she cook meals for him, rub his feet, or watch sports with him. Star began to resent being forced into the role of caring for an adult child and cleaning up after him.
The phone calls from Star’s grandfather became less frequent because she had to rely on the hotel room phone, and he couldn’t afford the long distance charges. His calls dwindled from every weekend to once or twice a month. Her grandpa was the one positive anchor in Star’s life, and she missed him so much.
School was difficult for Star. Moving back to Las Vegas had left her with no real friends. It was obvious to most that Star was a neglected child. Her clothes were frayed and never ironed, and she rarely ate lunch because there was never any food in the house for a bag lunch, and she had no money to buy lunch at the cafeteria.
Her peers at school teased and taunted her, and more than a few made her feel like an outcast from the poor side of town. The high point of her afternoons was getting home from school and sneaking outdoors as quickly as she could. When she was alone, she wasn’t being tormented. She could let her imagination run free and channel her inner turmoil into writing about being someone else living somewhere else.
Occasionally, Star sat outside and talked to her neighbor, who had become the best friend she had at the time. The neighbor was much older than Star, in her mid-thirties. Her name was Christine, and she always had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. She talked to Star as if she was a grown-up, which made her feel important. Star liked Christine a lot.
During the time they spent together, Christine would talk about her job and how she hated it, and about her boyfriend, who was a jerk to her and sometimes became abusive. Star would confide how much she disliked school and the kids who tormented her without mercy. She would talk about how angry she was with her stepmother for always being away from home and making Star become her father’s caretaker.
Sometimes, Christine and Star would sit for hours and not say a word, watching the traffic go by or just daydreaming, and it always seeme
d just right.
About a month later, on a Saturday afternoon, Star was outside writing. Betty was home, which was rare. She called out the door,
“Star, can you come in…I need to talk to you.” Those words had the familiar ring that sent Star’s heart sinking and made her dread the news that was about to come. Assuming the worst, she dropped her pen and paper on the ground, slammed the door on the way into house, and plopped down on the bed.
Betty sat down across from her with a frown on her face and concern in her eyes. This was something new. Star had expected to see the cruel gleam in her stepmother’s eyes and the smug smile she got just before delivering her “You’re outta here!” news. Star wondered just how bad it was this time.
“I have something to tell you. Please do not repeat what I am about to say to anyone. Can you do that, Star?” Betty’s voice was sincere, and Star almost felt pity for her stepmother.
“Sure, mommy…I can keep a secret.” In reality, Star had no one to tell—no friends at school, no teacher or counselor. Her neighbor friend, Christine, might listen. It was depressing to realize that, no matter what her stepmother’s secret was, and no matter how it would affect Star, no one would care.
“Star, I am an escort. It pays well, and I need the money to pay for the hotel and to take care of you and your dad,” Betty said. She explained that an escort was someone men paid to date. They would pay her to go to dinner, go gambling, have a drink, and for female companionship. She added,
“Don’t worry, honey, I don’t kiss them, and we never have sex.”
Star was speechless. She blinked a few times and wasn’t sure how to react. She looked over to her dad for a cue or at least some response, but he sat in his chair, stoic and uncaring. Star took that to mean she shouldn’t care either. She shrugged and said, “All right. I don’t care. Is there anything else?”
“No,” Betty replied, looking away. Star climbed off the bed and headed back outside as quickly as she could.
Nothing changed after that, except Betty spent even less time at home. Sometimes, she didn’t return until the next day. She would wander in, her makeup smeared and her hair a mess, to drop off a case of beer and a pack of cigarettes for her father. She would shower, fix her hair, apply new makeup, and leave again.
It didn’t take long for Star to figure out that her stepmother was more than just an escort, with the all-night absences and returning home looking as if she had just gotten out of bed. Star knew that she needed to get away from this life, the sooner the better.
The idea of running away from home popped into Star’s thoughts almost every day, and she became more and more isolated from her parents. She avoided conversations with her dad and stepmom, and tried not to think about them. A week later, however, the next shoe dropped. Betty was at home, and Star had come in from playing. Instead of sending her back outdoors, Betty ordered her to go into the bathroom, shut the door, and stay there until she called her.
With the door shut, Star washed up and hummed a few songs to herself, assuming her parents were in bed together and didn’t want to be interrupted. Then her dad called out to her,
“Star, take out the bathroom trash and the trash in here.”
Star obediently removed the plastic garbage bag in the bathroom and tied it, and then went into the kitchen area to do the same. As she was carrying the bags to the front door, she glanced over and saw Betty sitting on the bed with a blue band wrapped tightly around her arm and a needle sticking out of the crease where the arm bends.
Star froze in her tracks, trying to make sense of the scene in front of her, but it made no sense in her young mind. She bolted out the door before Betty could yell at her. She ran to the dumpster, threw in the trash bags, and then ran back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
“What do you think you are doing, you stupid little bitch?” Betty shouted.
Star cringed at the words and replied,
“Daddy told me to take out the trash.”
“You’re a liar!”
Star broke into tears. Her stepmother was sitting right there when her dad told her to take out the trash—how could she not have heard him? Besides, why was her stepmom sitting on the bed with a needle doing sticking out of her arm?
“I told you to stay in the bathroom!” Betty screamed.
“I told her to take the trash out,” mumbled Star’s father. It was the first and only time he had ever defended her. Star felt an overwhelming urge to run and throw her arms around him.
Betty calmed down after that. A few minutes later, she called Star out of the bathroom and asked her to sit on the bed with her. She explained that she was taking a drug called crank, a term that Star would learn was the street name for methamphetamine.
“I need a pick-me-up sometimes so I can work longer hours and take care of you and your dad. I don’t use much of it, Star…just a little to keep me going. Please don’t judge me,” Betty said in a shaky voice.
“Fine. I don’t care,” Star replied. She left her stepmother sitting on the bed and headed back outdoors to the security of being alone and as far away from her parents as was possible under the circumstances.
In the weeks that followed, Star withdrew even more into a dark hole of isolation. She channeled all of her loneliness and despair into writing dark poetry and scary stories. Writing helped her deal with the turmoil going on inside her. She tried praying a few times but gave up because it felt like no one was listening. If God existed, and if he had listened to her prayers over the years, Star reasoned that He would not have allowed her to be put in the situations that had turned her life into a dark and empty place.
She did not realize that God’s hand was protecting her in other ways. So many strange men with less than pure intentions had picked her stepmother up from her hotel room and dropped her off at all hours of the day and night. Star would have been an easy and inviting target. Her prayers might not have been answered the way she wanted them to be, but she was being protected from something far more sinister.
Chapter 8
Moving
As Star began to detach from life, her young mind turned to thoughts of suicide; but her fear was greater than her desire to end her life. She had never been good at dealing with pain, and if she opted for suicide, she wanted it to be pain-free and over quickly.
A week before school ended, Star got off the bus one afternoon, and as she walked to her hotel room, she saw yellow tape blocking off her friend’s room next door. Police were milling in and out of Christine’s room, and a fire truck and ambulance were parked in front of the hotel.
As Star approached, a uniformed police officer moved his hand in front of her to block her path and said, “Sorry miss, you can’t go in there.”
“I live there,” Star replied, pointing to her own room. The officer walked over and knocked on the door. When Star’s dad answered, he asked,
“Excuse me sir, does this young lady live here?”
“Yes. Has she done something wrong?”
The policeman shook his head.
“No, she’s fine. There’s been an incident and we are sorting it out. Have either of you talked with the woman who lived in that room?” He pointed to Christine’s open door.
Star’s father shook his head, but Star spoke up,
“I have.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“Umm… she lost her job, and she was sad about it. Her name is Christine. She’s always sad,” Star answered. A frightened knot formed in the pit of her stomach as she looked at her friend’s open door with growing concern.
“Have you seen anything or anyone unusual in the area?” the police officer inquired, directing his question to Star’s father, who shook his head, looking bored and disinterested.
“What’s going on?” Star demanded.
An ambulance attendant pushed a gurney from Christine’s room out into the hallway, and Star could see disheveled, dirty blonde hair on the person being wheeled out. She rec
ognized the messy curls and knew something terrible had happened to her friend.
“Sir, what is happening? Please tell me…she is my friend.” The officer looked down at Star as her eyes welled with tears and she pleaded in a small voice, “Please tell me.”
“Your friend has been shot. It appears to be self-inflicted. She’s lucky her boyfriend came home from work when he did and found her.”
Star was stunned by the news and broke into tears, asking,
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know, miss.” The officer tucked a notepad into his shirt pocket and turned away, speaking into his walkie-talkie.
Star couldn’t bear to watch her friend being wheeled away and ran into her own room. She dropped to the floor by the side of her bed, facing the wall where her dad couldn’t see her, and she cried quietly for over an hour. Her world was now even lonelier without her friend.
That evening, Star was sitting on her porch, lost in her sadness, when a hotel maid came to clean Christine’s room. She dragged the mattress out into the hallway and leaned it against the wall. Star’s eyes wandered to a large bloodstain at the top of the mattress, and she felt the urge to throw up.
Christine returned home from the hospital a week later, the day Star’s school year ended. Star had made a get-well card with colorful butterflies and flowers, hoping it would make her friend smile. When Christine saw it, she gave Star a blank stare, and when Star asked her several questions, the woman’s responses were vague and confused. The gunshot wound to the head had caused brain damage. Star ran back to her room and threw herself on the bed, weeping silent tears. Her father sat in stone silence on his own bed, as usual, staring off into space at nothing.
With school out, Star’s thoughts turned to how she would spend the summer. She dreaded the idea of being cooped up all day and night in a dingy hotel room with her statue of a father and her drug-addicted prostitute stepmother wandering in and out at odd hours.
Little Lost Girl: The Complete Series Page 6