At noon on a cold Saturday morning, Elsie turned the ancient brass doorknob and walked into the lobby of the Battered Women’s Center of the Ozarks.
June, the director of the facility, looked up from her desk. Her gray hair had worked its way out of her customary braid; wisps fell over her forehead, were tucked behind her ears. From June’s appearance, Elsie figured that it had been a rough night at the shelter.
“Hey,” June said in greeting. Her face was drawn, but her eyes were sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“Hey, you. Did you pull an all-nighter?”
June scrubbed at her head with a blue-veined hand, ruffling the gray tendrils of hair. “Mess of trouble in here last night, hon. I been running interference since the sun went down.”
Elsie pulled a worn wooden chair across the tiled floor and sat down, facing June across the desk. “When you called me, you said Mandy’s ready to talk.”
“She better be. She’s lucky I didn’t boot her out of here last night.”
A black landline phone sitting on the desk began to ring. June checked the caller ID before she picked up the receiver.
“Jeanette? You’re late, hon.”
Elsie watched as June’s face twitched with weary resignation.
She sighed and spoke into the phone. “Well, if you’re running a fever, go back to bed. I’ll cover you.”
She dropped the receiver into the base and stared at the phone. “No rest for the weary.”
Elsie pressed her lips tightly closed. She volunteered two Sundays a month at the shelter; but this was a Saturday, and she had no intention of sacrificing her day to that wooden desk. Don’t do it, she thought. Don’t tell her you’ll take the day shift.
Elsie had a full plate for Saturday. Prep for the Monday misdemeanor trial in Judge Calvin’s court. Witnesses to talk to, examinations to write. And when she was done with her labors: cold beer to drink.
But June didn’t beg for a favor. She opened the top drawer of the scarred wooden desk and pulled out a pint bottle of Old Charter and a pack of Parliament cigarettes. She tossed them onto the desktop.
“I don’t know how on earth Mandy managed to get these. She don’t look a day over sixteen, and doesn’t have a scrap of ID, anyhow.”
Elsie studied the bottle. It was half full.
“Shoplifted, maybe?”
“Not likely. The convenience store a block or so away from here keeps the booze and smokes under lock and key.”
Elsie picked up the pack of cigarettes and opened the box. A few were missing.
“How’d you find them?”
June barked a laugh. “World War III broke out up there. After midnight, I heard someone hollering like they were being murdered. When I got up the stairs, I could smell the smoke. Lord, Elsie; this old fire trap could go up like a tinder box if we let the women smoke in here.”
“What was the shouting about?”
“Mandy’s rooming next door to Peggy Pitts. You know of Peggy?”
Elsie nodded. Peggy Pitts and her husband were regulars on the docket at the McCown Country Courthouse. Domestic disputes, drunk and disorderly, DWI.
“Peggy sniffed it out before I did. Wanted a share. But Mandy wasn’t sharing. They were wrestling like a couple of cubs.” She blew out an exhausted breath. “Peggy’s got a new bald spot on her head to show for it.”
Elsie’s eyes widened. “Damn.” Peggy Pitts was a big woman, probably outweighed Elsie by fifty pounds. And Elsie wasn’t pint-size.
“Well, I told Mandy I was tired of her sass. Said if she wanted a roof over her head, it was time to get to the bottom of her troubles. She said she wouldn’t talk to no cops. That’s a quote. But she’d talk to you.”
June pulled the drawer open, replaced the bourbon and cigarette pack. “So here we are.”
Elsie picked up her bag. “Where is she?”
“In her room. Waiting for you. End of the hallway, number 18.”
“I’ll go on up, then.”
“You do that.” June rose from her seat with a groan. “I’m going to lie down on the cot in the back room. Wake me up if you need me.”
Elsie walked up the stairs to the next floor. The carved walnut stairway was a remnant of the old hotel’s glory days, when it had been built to accommodate a brief burst of railway traffic a century prior. The peeling wallpaper revealed dark wood paneling underneath, stained from ancient water leaks.
When she reached number 18, the door was shut. Elsie gave a brisk knock.
“Mandy? You in there?”
She heard footsteps; the door opened a crack. Mandy’s black eye, now turning a purple shade, stared out. “Oh it’s you.”
She opened the door and walked to the bed. Elsie followed, taking care to leave the door ajar. She didn’t fancy being shut up with a kid who was tough enough to tear Peggy Pitts’s hair from her scalp.
Mandy lay down on the bed. It was a single, a twin with a blond 1950s headboard. Elsie glanced around, uneasy. There was no other place to sit.
“You want to go down to the lobby to talk?”
“No, I’m cool.”
A rickety bedside table adjoined the headboard; but Elsie didn’t dare sit on that; she was sure it would collapse under her. Instead, she moved over to the window. An old metal radiator sat beneath it. She leaned against it, ignoring the way the rungs pressed against her butt.
“I heard you had some trouble last night.”
Mandy gave her a flat stare, didn’t respond.
Elsie continued. “So I’m curious. How’d you score the Old Charter?”
Mandy blinked. “I didn’t steal nothing.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“If anyone says I stole it, he’s a fucking liar.”
Elsie nodded; the vehemence with which Mandy spoke was convincing. “So where’d you get it?”
“At that store over there.”
Elsie held her tongue. After a beat, Mandy said, “I gave him something for it.”
“Ah,” Elsie said.
Mandy’s face twisted. “Ah,” she repeated, in a mocking voice. She bent her head over the bedspread, picked up a piece of lint and dropped it on the floor. “He got a good deal. More than it was worth.”
Elsie had a pretty fair idea of the barter Mandy had made with the store clerk. She asked Mandy yet again: “How old are you, Mandy?”
“Yeah, I keep telling you. I’m eighteen.”
“Because it’s a crime for men to have sex with you if you’re underage. A crime for them. Not you.”
“That so?” Her voice was flat.
“Yeah. That’s the law.”
Elsie fell silent again, willing the girl to open up. She shifted her weight on the metal radiator; it was cutting off the blood supply in her rear end.
When Mandy stayed mum, Elsie said, “Give me a break, Mandy. This thing I’m sitting on is busting my ass.”
For the first time, Mandy smiled.