Summer break was looming on the horizon and I still hadn’t summoned up the courage to tell the kids I was leaving. I was afraid I’d lose them. They’d see it as treachery or desertion. Not a simple career move.
I knew their way of thinking. It went like this. You start by trusting every well-intentioned adult who enters your life. You cling to them, believing they can actually help you. Then, one after another, they drift away or cast you off when they can’t cope with the ton of messy baggage you’re carrying. I’d lived that life. Always hoping that this time I’d land a permanent, nurturing home where good, kind people would cherish me and never let me down. It didn’t happen for me. Until the Levines turned my life around and then Guy came along and adored me.
But the kids in my class, they’d poured out their hopes, fears and deepest, darkest secrets into those journals and I’d received them with a promise that we shared a bond of trust that couldn’t be broken. How could I tell them I was packing up and leaving?
I’d already lost Carla. Hadn’t heard a word about her since I’d seen her at the manicure salon. But Dane was actually close to graduating and I couldn’t jeopardize that fragile situation. Especially when there was a faint chance he could go to college and make a better life for himself.
Robin always knocked himself out searching for scholarships, bursaries, awards – anything to keep the kids away from the streets. That guy was dedicated. Irreplaceable. Not like me. And though I convinced myself they’d easily find a replacement for me, I still felt guilty that I’d sold myself out for money and prestige.
But there was no turning back now. I’d come too far.
I stayed late at school on the day of the stag party, flipping through the journals, reading the same sentence ten times over until I looked up and almost jumped out of my chair. Dane was standing at the back of the classroom. He’d dyed his hair and now sported a cerise Mohawk cut. Along with his wire-rimmed glasses he looked like some half human, half goblin character from a Harry Potter movie.
“Got a question?” I said, beckoning him closer.
He shook his head. He usually talked in two-word sentences. “Tell you something?”
“Sure, anything.”
When he dug his hands into the pockets of the ripped trench coat and hunched his shoulders, he reminded me of Colby. A stab of pain ripped at my heart.
“It’s Carla,” he murmured.
I leaned forward and spoke softly as if he was a bird that would fly away at the slightest noise. “Okay – tell me.”
“She’s with Rafferty. It’s bad stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
He shook his head. “The girls. He gives them stuff. Gets them high. Makes them work for him. Hires them out.”
“For what?”
“That’s all I know,” he said, shaking his head. It was useless to push him any further. “I gotta go now.”
I called after him. “If you find out anything else, Dane. I’m here.”
He nodded without looking back at me, then was gone.
I stood up, my heart thudding. Rafferty. That sweet-faced bastard, that conniving prick. Fifteen years ago, I’d found out everything there was to know about Mr. Earl Rafferty and his business.
The night before our planned escape, Lester and Patti had a couple of friends over. Tray and Anita. Two wild-eyed junkies who’d stopped by a few weeks before and promised to bring along some quality meth.
Perched on my usual chair in the corner of the living room, I was trying to write an essay outline when I heard Patti in the kitchen jabbering like a fiend to Lester while he stirred up a huge pot of mac and cheese. Tray and Anita sat like a pair of shabby scarecrows at the kitchen table, a scrunched up brown paper bag in front of them. Tray was skinny with stringy, yellow hair. Every time Lester passed by, Tray’s hand shot out to cover the paper bag.
I was just about to make a hasty retreat to the bedroom when, for the first time in days, Birdie dragged herself out of bed. She flopped down on Patti’s couch, grabbed the sacred remote and began to flip through the channels. My stomach churned. I had to get her out of the room before Patti found her there. The late afternoon sunlight streamed through the window showing me how much Birdie had changed. Her body was so thin her shoulder blades poked through her skin, which was covered in pale peach fuzz. If Patti got pissed off she could snap those bird arms with one twist of her pudgy fingers.
“Come sit at the table,” I whispered.
Birdie looked at me with blank eyes.
“Patti’s gonna be pissed.”
“Screw her. Wait a couple of hours. Then the shit’s really gonna hit the fan, Miss Goody Two Shoes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“How long do you think they can lock me up here like some sad junkie? Every day I have to fight off Lester the pervert while you go off to school like Miss Perfect Angel. I know you’re in it with them. I know you’re getting high on all their junk.”
I knelt down by her chair. Her eyes blazed out from dark hollows. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve tried to help you. My friend Colby – he’s gonna get us both out tomorrow. We’re gonna stay with his buddy. We’ll be safe there.”
“Too late for that,” she said, slumping deeper into the cushions and hiding her face. “Ew, this chair reeks of armpits.”
I grabbed her arm, shocked at the brittleness of her bones. “What do you mean too late?”
“You’ll see,” she said, hoisting herself out of the chair. “You’ll see.”
“Stick around, kid,” Patti yelled as she, Lester and the two ghouls shuffled in from the kitchen. Lester had a piece of macaroni in his moustache. Birdie’s shoulders dropped. She frowned.
“Cut the attitude,” yelled Lester, holding out two bowls of macaroni. “Sit down with your sister and be grateful for the food we’re putting in your stomach.”
“Good on you, Lester,” said Tray. “Kids today have no respect. You show ’em who’s boss.”
Tray’s wife, Anita, sniffed and wiped her arm across her nose. She had wrinkled smoker’s lips and hair so bleached it stuck out in fried, blonde wisps. “You and Patti sure have big hearts taking in kids nobody else wants. Too bad they’re just trash, taking you for all they can get.”
Patti shrugged and nodded her head towards me. “The dark haired one’s all right, but the skinny one. She’s a little witch. Can’t trust her for a minute. She’d strip us bare and sell us for a few cents.”
Birdie’s whole body tensed until her sinews were two taut chords in her neck.
“I said sit the hell down,” yelled Lester. “You look like a goddamn scarecrow. So eat.”
I grasped her wrist. “Do as they say. Please.”
Birdie’s eyes burned into mine with such hate I wanted to retch. But she slowly sank down onto the chair, her head bowed. Lester clunked the two bowls down in front of us. I was famished but nauseous at the same time, so I dug into the noodles and shoveled them into my mouth. It was a rare occasion that food came our way without us scrounging through the cupboards for it. Birdie sat unmoving.
“Eat,” I whispered. “Don’t piss them off.”
In slow motion she reached for the spoon, picked up one piece of macaroni and placed it on her tongue. A look of utter revulsion flickered across her face. I tried to remember when she’d last eaten something more substantial than a handful of crackers.
Lester and Patti settled themselves onto the couch while Tray and Anita fumbled with the brown paper bag, pulling out a plastic baggie tied with a twist tie and a hollow glass tube with a bulb at one end. Tray held the pipe like a sacred artifact while Anita tipped a tiny chunk of ice into the bowl. He reached into his pocket and took out a lighter. Flipping it on, he held the flame under the bowl. A fizzing, bubbling sound was followed by a sweet stink of burning plastic. Birdie’s eyes tracked the pipe as it rose to Anita’s lips. Her spoon hovered in the air. I wondered if she’d already tried it with Loni and was craving a hit.
Anita fell back against the chair back, a blissful grin cracking her face. Tray beckoned Patti who sprang forward and wedged her squishy butt on the corner of a cushion, then closed her eyes as he slipped the pipe into her mouth. The lighter clicked and flared. The meth sizzled, and all eyes followed the magic pipe as it rose through the air. Patti inhaled a lungful of smoke and sank back with a blissful grin on her face. Lester took his like a starving baby craving milk, and soon all four of them had blasted off to oblivion, chattering and blabbing about how great they felt and how Lester was going to get right up and whip up a batch of strawberry waffles from scratch, but maybe he’d wait till he had another hit.
“Stupid junkies,” mumbled Birdie. “Look at them.”
“Let’s get out of here. Go to our room,” I whispered. “They’ll be out cold soon.”
“I’m not moving from here. I got friends coming. Friends who’re looking out for me. Unlike my dumb sister.”
I put a finger to my lips and shook my head. “If we lock our bedroom door they won’t notice. And tomorrow we’re getting out for good.”
“Too late, baby. Loni called this morning. She’s got friends who’ll get me out of this shithole. Connected friends.”
I was cold and prickly all over. It wasn’t supposed to go like that.
Loni wasn’t included. It was just going to be Birdie and me like it always had been. I wanted to argue, to beg her not to go with Loni, but I stifled the urge and instead kept an eye on the crazy quartet who were struggling to their feet and trying to dance to ‘More Than A Feeling’ as Lester cranked up the music.
“When is Loni coming? When?”
Birdie barely glanced at me. “Any time soon. And she’s gonna teach these losers a lesson when she gets here. A big, fat lesson they’ll never forget and I’ll be laughing my fricking head off when it happens.”
Sick apprehension clenched my stomach. The macaroni sat like a heavy lump in my gut. Birdie watched the door and cracked her knuckles. Watching. Waiting. For freedom and revenge.
I called in at the outlet mall on the way home. I knew Guy would be at some downtown bar having pre-stag drinks and I had a whole lot of time to kill. Besides, all this stress and worry had drained me and I needed a shopping fix. It was time to find some office chic stuff for my new job with Gord’s company. Jeans, denim skirts and plaid shirts wouldn’t cut it in Gord’s upscale empire. Slim, tailored and sexy was the look I was after though not too provocative. If Gord attempted to touch my ass the way he’d done with Nancy, I’d waste no time plowing him in the jaw. To hell with his stupid ego.
After a major shopping binge for suits, little black dresses and a rainbow of fitted silk shirts and shells, I flopped down at a coffee shop table to sort through my stash. Carla’s lingerie store was directly opposite but she wasn’t there anymore. She was working for Earl Rafferty now. He’d lured her away from her one chance to make a decent life for herself. Promised her manicures, pedicures, beauty treatments and probably clothes. I imagined he’d come across as sweet and generous at first, easing her into trusting him. Only later when he had her under his thumb would he spring the real jobs on her. Maybe easy ones at first, then the unmentionable ones later. It was standard practice for jerks like him.
I was about to sip my hazelnut latte when I spotted a heavy-set, broad-shouldered guy standing outside the lingerie store. His white T-shirt stretched across his muscular chest, the short sleeves revealing a bold zigzag tattoo down both arms. But it was his face that made my hand shake so hard, I spilled the hot coffee down my wrist. I’d seen that face before. The broad, flat nose, reddish cheeks and narrow slits of eyes. A black baseball cap covered graying straggly hair. A phone rang and he lifted it to his ear with a hand as big as an oar.
I knew him. Jimmy “Mack” Durban, one of Earl Rafferty’s henchmen and chief “talent” spotter.
How did I know that? He’d recruited Birdie and Loni when they were hanging out in the mall. And he was there that night Birdie got her revenge. For that she owed him and Earl Rafferty big time.
Lester twitched his scrawny hips and tried to drag Patti off the couch to dance to their rubbish music. Her face glowed crimson from giggling when she gave one, huge tug and pulled him on top of her. He struggled for a moment like a fat turtle, then said, To hell with it, and started necking furiously with her. Tray and Anita just sat smoking as if that pipe was the only real thing that existed in the world. They were old hands so it probably took a whole lot more hits to get them high. Birdie’s eyes glanced over at the clock with the knife and fork hands. The look on her face was so cold and cruel I couldn’t think of what to say.
“I’m coming too,” I mumbled.
She shrugged. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“If Loni lets you.”
“You can’t leave me here on my own.”
“You left me here for weeks while they stuffed me full of drugs. What’s the difference?”
I leaned forward and grasped her wrist. “I helped you. Gave you food and water. Looked after you.”
“You went off to school so you could make out with that nerdy guy.”
“How do you know Colby?”
“That his name? Figures.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“I have so. He’s a lousy lay. Saw him at the mall. He was so easy. A genuine man-whore.”
I heard a loud buzzing in my ears. “Where? When?”
“Under the Stone Arch Bridge. It was freezing out – a crazy wind chill. He came so quick I barely got started.”
“You’re a liar,” I said, loud enough that Lester’s head swiveled like a chicken’s.
He creaked to his feet and lunged towards me, probably to give me supreme shit, but a loud banging started up at the front door.
“What the hell…?” he gasped, bashing his knee on the coffee table.
Patti and the two others stopped their babbling to gaze around in a shell-shocked stupor.
“Did someone call the freakin’ cops or something?” said Tray, stuffing the meth paraphernalia into the bag and tearing it in the process, while his wife licked her finger and gathered the stray dust, not missing a grain.
Patti’s bloodshot eyes finally came to rest on me. “Lying sack of shit,” she hissed. “Creeping around here like a freakin’ owl and watching everything. Lester,” she squealed. “It’s her. She’s sold us out. I told you she was trouble. Both of them ain’t worth shit.”
I shook my head and looked down at Birdie whose eyes were fixed on the locked door.
The banging escalated to such a point that the neighbors would soon start to complain. A call to the cops might follow and neither Lester nor Patti wanted to risk that happening. Panicked looks flew between them.
“Ungrateful bitches, the pair of you. Sit tight and open your books. Patti, answer the door,” said Lester. “Tray and Anita are gonna leave out back.”
The two ghouls vanished like a puff of noxious smoke and Patti, launched from her meth fog into a grim reality, shuffled to the door and grasped the handle just as it burst open, knocking her flat against the wall. Loni swept in, her spiky hair standing up as if her entire body was plugged into an electric socket. She spotted Birdie and flounced over to her, ignoring Lester’s sweaty red face.
“Who the hell are you?” he bellowed. “Get out of my…”
Loni was taller than Lester by almost a head. She towered over him, her eyes burning into the top of his freckled head. “Or what, you pervert piece of junkie dirt?”
“Or I’ll…”
“You’ll call the cops. I doubt it. You been hot-icing it in here and you call yourself a foster parent.”
“Better than a crazy punk dyke.”
I crept behind the table as the door swung open to reveal Earl Rafferty and a square-shouldered man with a shaved head and flattened nose.
Patti and Lester retreated to the couch while Loni gathered Birdie into a bear hug. Birdie was sobbing, her whole body heaving while Loni whispered into her ear. “I’m gonna get you out of here, baby. Get you healthy again. No more Lester the sick pervert. You’ll see, baby. Earl’s gonna take care of him.”
Earl and Jimmy hovered over Lester who’d shrunk into a shivering, quaking mess. Earl cracked his knuckles, dragged Lester up onto his feet and snapped a sharp right hook into his face, demolishing his nose and sending a spray of blood across Patti’s face. She yelped like a puppy as Jimmy punched him deep in the gut. Earl followed up with a thudding kick to his side. Jimmy let go of Lester’s shirt and let him double over into a heap on the floor, sobbing like a baby, his nose streaming with blood.
Loni guided Birdie towards the door. My legs were frozen. I could barely move. “I’m coming. Take me too,” I called above Patti’s whining.
“What did you ever do for her?” said Loni, hand on her hip. “You let them dope her up till she was a freakin’ zombie.”
My legs loosened up and I ran to the door past Earl and Jimmy who were at the sink washing the blood off their hands. “Birdie, tell them I fed you. I looked out for you. Always.”
“Seems like I’m always telling you to get lost,” said Loni. “So do it.”
Tears streamed down my face. “Birdie, don’t leave me. I can’t stay here.”
She stared at me from the shelter of Loni’s arms, her eyes swollen and red. “You left me here alone while you went to school. And what do you think Lester was doing while you were out? Made me jack him off or give him blow jobs every other day while Patti was sleeping on the couch.”
I ran to her, grabbing at her T-shirt. “I didn’t know, Birdie. You never told me. Why? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Her cheeks were wet from sobbing and her eyes so weary I wanted to crush her in my arms and comfort her. I’d always promised to protect her but I’d been so busy with Colby and school and my own miserable life, I’d forgotten about her pain and left her alone to fend for herself.
“I’m so, so sorry, Birdie. I’ll never do that again. I’ll stay right beside you like always. Like it used to be. Say you’ll forgive me. Please.”
I waited for the magic words but she just nuzzled her face against Loni’s chest.
“Guess you got your answer, bitch. Let’s go, Birdie.” When they vanished through the doorway I wanted to throw up. Lester lay on the floor moaning so Earl and Jimmy delivered a couple more kicks before leaving just to shut him up.
I scanned the chaos. Smashed coffee table, scattered cigarette butts. Patti crouched over Lester, bawling her eyes out.
I knew Birdie wouldn’t be back this time. I had nothing. Nobody in the world.
“Call the cops,” whined Patti. “I think he’s dead.”
I couldn’t hear anything but a weird gurgling sound coming from Lester’s nose as I handed Patti a Kleenex, picked up my coat and walked out the door.