Authors: Charlie Price
She hadn’t given tricking much thought. It would be better than fighting off her brothers. It turned out to be more complicated than she’d imagined. In the café, Evelyn had flirted with certain customers, getting chummier throughout the meal, teasing, making a little suggestion when she brought their check. It had been friendly, smooth, and Evelyn had selected the partners herself.
The street was different. Grace discovered yesterday that she would have to stand someplace accessible, look sexy and interested to attract the right men. She couldn’t be too obvious or she’d get arrested. Plus, she had to be careful, had to plan her strategy so she could stay safe.
The wrought-iron fence in front of Macaroni’s restaurant on Sherman looked like the best place to set up shop. She would be one of several people leaning against it and people-watching while tourists dined in the row of tables behind her. The sidewalk was a thoroughfare, always busy with sightseers walking from the waterfront to nearby shops and bistros. A girl casually waiting or resting there wouldn’t attract special attention and she could use the restaurant bathroom to stay fresh. Okay, but where could she bring her customers? It took her a couple of hours to find secluded places close to the restaurant that offered privacy but were near enough foot and car traffic so someone could hear her scream if she needed.
The guy would have to approach her and make the first move. She would get in a car if it was expensive and clean and the guy was older, like fifty or sixty. If strong younger guys like her brothers were driving, they’d have to park their car and do business in the alley behind Macaroni’s or the thick stand of trees a block away at the end of South Third. And JJ was going to be a problem. She had walked with Grace while she’d scouted hideaways.
“What are we doing?”
“Getting some exercise, finding some places we can rest without having to go back to the shelter.” Grace casually checked JJ’s reaction to her explanation. Her roomie didn’t seem convinced. “You want to go back and take a nap? I have some things I have to get and I want to meet some people.”
JJ shook her head. “What people?”
“Anybody that can help us,” Grace said. “See if we can make some cash.”
“How?”
Grace didn’t answer. Talking about her plan would make JJ more upset.
* * *
The girls walked a few blocks south on Sherman to a convenience store. “Get us a soda, okay?” Grace nodded toward the machine in back with the cups and ice.
While JJ was busy Grace hurriedly bought a box of condoms, a package of tissues, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Tucked the sack under her arm as JJ reached the cashier.
“What’d you get?”
Grace thought JJ already knew. “I’m going to make us some spending money.”
JJ’s frown spoke volumes.
* * *
Back at Macaroni’s, Grace asked JJ to stay across the street and sit on the outdoor bench next to the burger shop. JJ, flushed, hands clenching and unclenching, gave her a hard look, shook her head, started to say something but held back.
“You don’t have to do anything except watch my back and let me do this thing. Okay?”
“No.”
“Lady Jay, you know I’m going to do it anyway. Don’t make it harder.”
JJ stomped to the crosswalk. Didn’t look back.
Grace took a deep breath, composed herself, looked to see if anyone had tracked their exchange. No. Crowds of strollers, chatting and laughing. She entered the café’s front door on the corner, got shown to a window table, and ordered coffee. Wanted to establish herself as a customer. She’d do the same for the evening shift. Leave a good tip each time so the staff would be grateful. Before the coffee arrived she went to the bathroom, locked the door. She took out the condoms, threw the box away, jammed them in her purse along with the tissues and sanitizer. She checked her face in the mirror, added a touch of Tina’s lipstick, tousled her hair to give it a little more body. She hesitated before opening the door, removed her underwear, stuffed it in her purse. Ready. Now, if JJ would cut her some slack.
Grace positioned herself in an open area between groups of loiterers. Leaned back, elbows on the top rail. It didn’t take long. She gave a big smile to a heavyset older man in golf shorts and a polo shirt. Ruddy face. Probably had a few to celebrate his vacation. He couldn’t believe his luck, then got suspicious. Grace practically told him the truth, that she’d run away from a sick home. Said she was getting money to take a bus. Go to her aunt in Tacoma, but she couldn’t tell the woman what had been happening until she got there. The man understood. Enjoyed her company. Afterward gave her a large tip. Grace got it. If she chose the right people it was quick work, good pay. Would she recognize trouble coming? She hoped so. She was setting up to do this for a while.
The fourth guy, Grace made a mistake. The old man was harder than he looked.
Said, “Cops don’t pay for it. Ex-cops, same deal.” He slapped her. Hard. “That’s so we understand each other.”
She held her cheek where it burned. Leaned closer. Offered her cheek. Said, “Kiss it and make it well.” When he leaned in she head-butted him in the nose as hard as she could. He went down spraying blood. She searched him for weapons. No. Kicked him in the nuts while he was holding his face. “Tell the other cops a sixteen-year-old girl did this to you while you were trying to hump her.”
After that she chose men who seemed shy and even a little embarrassed. Lucky. There were lots of them.
Okay. So now Mick knew and he wanted to go home, but that didn’t change anything.
53
T
HE SHELTER WAS ONLY EIGHT BLOCKS AWAY
. Looked like a normal house. They parked down the block. Grace spoke as soon as Mick turned off the ignition.
“I’ll try to get her out for a walk. You stay here.”
“How did Gary and Tina ever get to be your foster parents?” Mick asked her, out of nowhere. “Nobody who ever made a home visit would put you there.”
“You want to talk about this now?” Grace looked at him like he was a pervert. Get the upper hand and then totally invade her privacy.
“I’m trying to make sense of what we’re going back to.” Mick looked out the windshield. If she wanted to shine him on, she could just get out of the car.
“Short story. I got put off a Greyhound in Portage, broke, and wound up at County Services. Man there, Mackler, called Hammond. A couple of things happened and Gary came through the door, said he was my new foster parent. Under the table. Gary and Hammond have these arrangements. I’m one of them. One of the reasons I don’t want to go back.”
Greyhound?
Mick watched her walk to a nondescript building, knock and be let in, while he tried to think if he’d ever seen a bus like that in Portage. And what do you say to her story? Get sold like livestock? No wonder Grace hated men. Gary. He seemed like a nice-enough guy. What was happening inside him? Where was his conscience? Had he lived in that toilet so long, he actually thought it was a home? Anything all right with him for a little extra income and babysitting?
Mick knew that he had given Grace room to ditch him once more. Well, hell. He was hurt and mad, but finally, at least, he knew what he was going to do. He wouldn’t leave without JJ.
A tap on his window.
“See your license, registration, proof of insurance?”
His bowels nearly loosened. “Sure.” He was amazed he could speak.
The policeman waited.
Mick fumbled around in the glove compartment. Thank god! The registration. “Uh, I slept in a rest stop last night and a guy mugged me. Took my wallet. My license. I’m just here to pick up my sister and her sick friend, take them back home. Kind of a mercy mission.” Would the lying ever stop?
“Proof of insurance?”
“My dad carries that. He loaned me his car for the trip. Didn’t give it to me. Forgot.”
“Step out of the car please.” The policeman moved back from the door and unbuttoned his holster.
“Everything okay, Mick?” Grace. Walking toward them. Towing JJ.
“Uh, yeah, I think so,” Mick said getting out. “This officer’s just checking to make sure I’m not—”
“Bothering anybody,” the policeman finished for him.
“He’s just picking us up,” Grace said. “He’s taking us … home.”
“Which is?” the officer said, glancing at Grace but examining JJ more closely.
Grace looked at Mick.
He nodded his head, hoping she understood that he thought it was okay to tell the officer.
“Montana,” she said. “Above St. Regis.”
The officer looked at Grace. Gave JJ another once-over. Then at Mick, his scar, his clothes still dusty from the construction job. The man’s patrol car radio squawked. He checked the phone on his belt. Then looked back at Grace. “You trust this boy?” he asked her.
Boy.
“Yes, sir,” Grace said, without taking her eyes off the man. “He saved us from some guys. Brought us here.”
The car radio squawked again. “Where you taking them?” He canted his head, directing this question Mick’s way.
“Home,” Mick said. “Just home.” Couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The officer dragged a card out of his shirt pocket. Walked over and handed it to Grace. “You have any trouble again,
any
, you call me. Davis. Dispatch can reach me.” He looked at her hard to make sure she got it.
She nodded.
He looked at the Pontiac’s Montana plate, wrote the number down on a folded file card, and was out of there before the three of them moved.
Water rimmed Grace’s eyes. And then JJ was crying.
Pretty tense. All Mick felt right then was relief, but he wanted to get moving before the man came back or anything else happened. “Let’s roll.” He was thinking to go back the northern route, fewer cops than the freeway.
JJ started toward the car.
“You two go,” Grace said.
JJ stopped in her tracks.
“You can’t talk me out of it,” Grace said. “There’s nothing for me in Portage. I can’t even hide there anymore.” She fumbled in her jeans pocket and brought out two twenties. Handed it to JJ who was back at her side. “Buy some gas, food, get going. I’ll be okay.”
“No, you won’t!” JJ blurted. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”
Was this JJ? Grace had said the girl was depressed. Mick had never heard her speak so forcefully.
“Hey, Lady Jay, I love you. You’re my girl. But it’s
my
life.”
Mick began to feel like a spectator at a tennis match. Didn’t he figure into the equation at all? Guess not.
“You know I’m right,” Grace said, nodding her head as if that little extra effort would convince her friend. “Uh oh, he’s back!”
JJ and Mick wheeled to confront the policeman. But nobody was there. When they turned around, Grace was nearly to the front door of the shelter.
“Take care,” she said over her shoulder. “Don’t follow me. I’ll get you arrested!” And then she was inside.
JJ and Mick looked at each other. They knew Grace could think up a quick story that would land both of them in more trouble. They knew she’d do it if it suited her.
54
T
HEY GOT A CHUNK
past Sandpoint when JJ asked Mick to stop.
“You need something?” His shoulders were tight. “We could get gas at Bonners Ferry.”
“Turn around.”
Mick’s first thought was that JJ forgot something. Then he got it.
“We can’t,” Mick said. “Grace is better at this than we are. She’ll jam us up and she’ll skate.”
“Pull over! I mean it.” This, the new JJ.
Mick made the next exit and stopped near a vacant storefront.
“I know what she’s doing, where she got that money,” JJ said. “The forty dollars she gave us? There’s a lot more. She’s prossing.”
You don’t say prossing. Hooking, tricking, even whoring would work.
“It was ugly. Gross … I couldn’t watch it,” JJ said. “On the street with her, see her get the guys. The way she talked and acted. It wasn’t her but it was. She was good at it.” JJ’s eyes were wet again. “I didn’t want to imagine the sex but I couldn’t hardly keep from it. Mostly I stayed at the shelter.” JJ closed her eyes, remembering. “She came home at curfew and cleaned up. Washed herself.” JJ shuddered.
God help him. Mick was getting excited. He knew what JJ was saying. Understood how much it creeped her. And he felt bad for Grace doing something so vulnerable. He thought maybe it was different, like, in a way, her choice. She wasn’t being raped. She was in control. Maybe. But imagining Grace doing it, even with someone else, was making him want her. Sick. But true.
“Are you her friend?” JJ asked Mick. “Really?”
Good question. This whole time, had he been Grace’s friend or her dweeb? Eager. Looking for a crumb.
JJ’s expression was changing, growing disgusted.
“I want to be her friend … I think.” Mick knew there was way more to be said. His attraction to Grace. His desire, craving. How that wasn’t the deeper kind of friendship he had with JJ. Weird, because he felt so much closer to JJ. Easy. Connected … and what about that kiss? When he got right down to it, Mick wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about JJ.
“Turn around,” JJ said. “Before something happens to her.”
* * *
Mick had wet his hair and slicked it down, turned his jacket inside out. JJ had on the ball cap, sideways, and wore a tight pair of slacks she had picked up earlier from the bin at the shelter. Had he ever seen her in anything but sweats or a ball uniform?
JJ was on a metro bench across the street from the lakeside luxury hotel, the busiest part of the promenade. Mick was on the same side of the street down two blocks in the doorway of a florist shop that had closed for the evening. They had a good chance to find her, if, god forbid, she hadn’t moved on to Spokane. More street traffic here, full of tourists, party atmosphere. Grace would see it the same way. Money.
Around ten, Grace stepped out of a Seville, right in front of Macaroni’s, waved, watched the car move away before she straightened up and brushed herself off. Could you brush tricking off?