Calling Maggie May (12 page)

“I'm not sure. Ada just said she'd get in trouble if Miss Irma knew. I shouldn't have said anything. But you guys won't tell, will you?”

Everyone laughed a bit at that, which I didn't understand. One of the boys said, “Believe me. I don't think any of us is so loyal to Miss Irma that we're going to rat each other out to her. There's no good that can come of that. We're much better off standing together.”

I nodded, feeling incredibly grateful.

“That's right,” I said, remembering Ada's words. “We need to look out for each other.”

Just then I caught the distinctive smell of expensive perfume carried toward me on the cold night air.

“What are you doing out here?” came a familiar voice. A voice with a very distinctive Chinese accent.

Everyone got really quiet, and I could almost feel my neighbors sitting up straighter. I kept replaying the conversation in my head, trying to figure out what Irma could have heard.

“Do you think I throw a party every year so you have a chance to talk together?” she went on. “If you want that kind of party, you can throw it yourselves. Right now this is not fun times. You are on the clock, and your job here is to make as many men want you as possible.” She paused, but no one moved. “I'm not saying this just for me,” she said. “The harder you work, the more we all benefit. Go on, now.” She motioned toward the sliding door. “Get back inside and get to work.”

A chorus of quiet, shame-faced “Yes, Miss Irma's” came from the group as people got to their feet and headed back toward the door. I stood up, feeling a little unsteady, and as Shawn stood up behind me, I stumbled forward and my feet went out from under me. I tumbled in a heap on the hard concrete of the patio, but it didn't hurt all that much. I said,
“Ow,” anyway. Then, as I realized how ridiculous I must look, I started laughing.

Miss Irma froze and stared down at me. “What's going on here?” she said softly, her voice laced with danger. No one said anything, though I noticed a few people making their way quietly toward the door.

“Stand up,” said Miss Irma severely. I managed to get to my feet, but the ground seemed to be swaying. I steadied myself on the patio table next to me. Miss Irma leaned in very close to me, looking up into my face. Then she sniffed. “Just as I suspected,” she said. “You reek of liquor.” She turned to face the others who remained. “And what about the rest of you? What have you been up to out here?”

No one answered.

“Idiots,” muttered Miss Irma. “I give you so much, and this is how you repay me. You want us all to be out of a job, I suppose? You would prefer to go back to living on the streets, sleeping in Dumpsters, giving blow jobs for food? Is that what you want?”

Still no one answered, but they shuffled guiltily.

Miss Irma grabbed me by the arm and shook me. “Can you walk? Do you need a hospital?”

My head was still swimming a bit, but I didn't feel that bad. I was just upset that she was yelling at me. “I'm okay,” I said quietly.

“I bet,” she said. “Fine. Where's your little friend? Ada.” She looked around behind her. “Ada!” she called out sharply.

“I'm right here,” said Ada, and I had never been so glad to hear her soft, low voice.

“Can you get her home?”

Ada nodded.

“And have you been drinking?”

“No, Miss Irma.”

“You are sure?”

“I haven't had anything to drink.”

Miss Irma gave her a long sniff. “Fine,” she said. “She's your responsibility. Take her home, and if there is any further trouble, you will all answer to me.”

After that point, I can put together only bits and pieces. Flashes of me and Ada in a taxi, and trying to find my keys, and then next thing I knew I was waking up in bed and feeling like something you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.

Sun, Feb 15, later

Today has been so awful. Physically I feel a bit better than I did this morning (though still not 100 percent), but emotionally, mentally, I feel completely drained.

When I woke up this morning, based on what I remembered of the night before, I had some little hope that
maybe I'd managed to sneak in and get to bed without my parents ever noticing. That was a nice fantasy while it lasted. I guess I temporarily forgot who my parents are. I learned exactly how wrong I was when I got dressed and went downstairs to dig up some breakfast. Mom and Dad were waiting for me, and the minute I saw their faces, I almost turned around and went right back up to my room. The way I was feeling, all I wanted was to drink a huge glass of water and maybe make myself some hot food. The last thing I wanted to deal with was getting yelled at in Chinese.

The weird thing is, they didn't really yell. I guess we're past that now. They didn't even act all that disappointed, like Mom did during our last big conversation. Mostly they just seemed worried. Concerned. Which was even worse. I used to feel guilty every time I did the slightest thing wrong, and I hated that feeling, but it's nothing compared to the guilty feelings I had today.

I sat across from them, starving and parched and feeling trembly and weak, and let the Chinese wash over me, exerting just enough energy to understand what exactly they were worried about. Of course their first question was the obvious: Where were you last night?

So I told them, accurately, if not completely, that I was at a party.

Then they wanted to know if there was alcohol at the party. I guess my drunken state when I got home was less obvious to them than it was to Miss Irma. But then, they have less experience with that type of thing.

Lying seemed pointless, so I told them yes.

They were quiet for a little while. Then my dad said, “Since when do you go to those kinds of parties where there are kegs and no parents?”

I knew it was rhetorical, and my role at this point was just to sit there and look sorry for the shame I had brought on our household, but I couldn't help almost laughing a little, if only internally. It just occurred to me at that moment that my parents were picturing me at a normal high school party. The kind of party that normal high school kids get into normal amounts of trouble for. How would they know any different?

I didn't say anything, but I couldn't help thinking
, If only you knew. It's so much worse than you are even thinking, and you are already so upset.

Once they had said their piece, I finally got some food and started to feel a little better, so I was going to go back up to my room on the pretense of “doing homework” and take a nice long nap, but Mom and Dad had other ideas. I guess they had been talking while I ate, because afterward they
cornered me and had a whole new plan in mind. I don't recall all the details, but I know it involved me never leaving the house again for pretty much anything but school. No extracurriculars, no meetings, and definitely no going out with friends.

And since they can't trust me anymore to tell them the truth about my life, Dad says he's going to meet with all my teachers on Monday to find out what my assignments are, and we'll go over my progress on them all every night. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part—if I don't obey these new restrictions, they're going to send me to Taiwan to live with my grandmother and my aunts!

No way. There's just . . . no way. I can't let that happen. I don't know anyone in Taiwan except a couple of family members, and I barely know the language. It would be just like prison.

And what about Ada? I can't just abandon her. I finally made a real friend. Someone who cares about me, and I care about her. Not just someone who tolerates me sitting with them at lunch or is willing to do group work with me in class. I know Ada acts tough, and she's pretty street-smart, but she is so alone in the world. She needs someone looking out for her.

I have to get away from here. Now.

Sun, Feb 15, later

I've calmed down a bit now. After my last entry I started throwing clothes into a suitcase so I could run away, but as I
went through my stuff, I started to think over all the things they had said. I get so frustrated with how they try to control me, and I wish they would just relax and let me make my own decisions about my life, but I guess I have to ask myself if I'm making good decisions.

It's easy to be brave in theory, but some of the stories people told at the party should probably worry me more than they did. What will I do if some client wants to hurt me? If someone wants me to do drugs that leave me confused and not sure how to react? The drinking last night made me realize how out of control you can be when altered by chemicals. In a situation like that, I might not make the same decisions I would make when sober.

Do I have a plan for those circumstances? When I started, Irma said that safety always comes first, and if a situation seemed dangerous, I should leave. But what if I couldn't leave? If I called Anne or Irma or Ada, would they come rescue me? Would they come in time? What if I called the police? Irma wouldn't want that, but should I care? These are difficult questions, and I'm only just realizing I haven't thought them through completely.

I don't know. Maybe I really should just quit. Going back to my old life sounds pretty unappealing, but it's not forever. Once I graduate from high school, I can be on my own if I want. And even if I don't wind up going to college, a high school degree
will at least give me a shot at a regular job that wouldn't be so dangerous.

But what about Ada? I can't just walk away from her. And as long as I follow my parents' rules, there will be no room for her in my life.

I guess there's really only one thing that makes sense: I have to keep working for Miss Irma. At least until I can save up enough money for me and Ada to rent an apartment together, like Beth and Jen have. I did some research on it, and I'm pretty close already. It won't take me long to earn that much, plus a bit extra for some security. Then, once we get on our feet, Ada and I can start looking for other kinds of work. I mean, yeah, we'd have to work long hours to make enough money, but normal people do it, so it must be possible. Somehow we'll make it work.

I love my parents, and I don't want to hurt them. But for now Ada needs me more. I just have to make sure I toe their line closely enough so they don't ship me off to Taiwan before I can put this plan into action.

Wed, Feb 18

My date yesterday got a little out of control. According to Anne, it was just supposed to be a normal, straightforward date. Easy peasy, no special requests. But when I got there, the client had
lines of what I think was cocaine laid out, and he wanted me to do it with him.

I froze, just running through everything Ada had told me and trying to figure out what I should do.
Stay away from drugs so you don't wind up like Jen,
except I just saw Jen at that party and she seemed okay.
Some drugs are really bad, but others are basically okay, like pot and alcohol.
Which kind was cocaine? I was pretty sure it was a bad one, but then Ada had mentioned doing it a few times, so how bad could it be? Ada said it was always okay to say no, if you didn't want to do it, and I remembered how awful I felt after just a bit of whiskey and pot at the Valentine's party and how out of control they had made me feel. I really didn't want to put myself in that position with a client. But then, Miss Irma would say it's important to keep the client happy. And Ada had said they consider it rude if you say no.

The client was giving me a weird look at this point, and I realized I'd been standing there for way too long. He offered his straw to me again, and finally I decided I'd split the difference and just do a little bit, for politeness' sake.

It was a really weird feeling. The whole concept of sniffing something other than air into my nose was hard to get over, and it took me a couple of tries to even figure out the mechanics of it. Then, once I got it to work, I suddenly felt like I had a cold. My nose got all weird and congested, and there was this really
wretched taste in my throat, hard and bitter like a chewed-up aspirin. Why do drugs taste so bad? But I guess that's not why people do them.

To tell the truth, I didn't really feel that much. Like, I didn't feel different the way I did with pot and alcohol. I did notice that I was talking a lot, when normally I talk the very bare minimum in these situations.

But that wasn't really a big deal. The problem was that the guy was taking forever. Technically, it's supposed to be an hour, and in the past I've had some clients go over a bit and I never said anything because I didn't care enough to make a stink about it. But these days I really need to make sure I'm home by the end of the school day, because I know that if I mess up even a little bit, my parents are prepared to ship me off to Taiwan. And I can't let that happen.

So I kept trying to hurry things along, but this guy just kept going. I wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed because I couldn't reach my phone, and from my angle I couldn't see the room's alarm clock. It started to feel like it had been a really long time, though, and I just wanted him to finish. But you can't exactly tell people to hurry up in this line of work—that would ruin the fantasy.

So I tried to suggest a different position, trying to make it sound like a sexy idea rather than a desperate attempt to speed
things up, and he was just like, “No, this is the only position that works,” and I could tell he was getting frustrated too. So I was trying to be encouraging, and then he says, “It's this fucking condom. I'll never be able to come with a rubber. I need to take it off.” And I'm like . . . what? I didn't even know what to say. Condoms are required, obviously, Miss Irma tells all the clients that. Did he think I was insane?

Finally he got off me and I got off the bed and started to get dressed. I'd had enough of him. I just wanted to leave, but that pissed him off. First he couldn't believe it, and he tried to convince me to come back to bed. When that didn't work, he started yelling. “Fuck you, you fucking whore,” and all that. And it's not like I've never been called a whore before, and it's not like it's inaccurate, but something about the way he said it upset me, and it scared me too. He just seemed out of control, unpredictable, and I was scared to be alone with him much longer.

So I kept getting dressed and getting my stuff together, and then he started really screaming at me. He hadn't touched me, and he wasn't being violent, but he was in my face screaming about how I can't leave him there with a fucking hard-on and he didn't pay three hundred dollars to have to finish off by hand. And how I was a shitty whore and he wasn't going to pay one cent and that I was lucky he wasn't charging me for all the coke
I did (even though I only did one line!). Then he called me a cokehead whore and said what could you expect from fucking crackhead whores (I was trying to figure out how I suddenly changed from being a cokehead to a crackhead), and how Miss Irma promised her whores were clean but clearly I was just a fucking addict and he was going to tell her to fire me. He was blocking my way to the door through most of this rant, and at some point I started crying a little.

This is the most ridiculous thing, but what started me crying is when he said I was a shitty whore who was no good at my job. Because I am good! I really do work hard at this. I've heard the jokes about how easy it is to make money on your back, but let me tell you, it is not easy. In addition to be dangerous and scary, it's actually a lot of work. And only a pretty small percentage of it is on my back. I always work hard and bring 100 percent to everything I do, and I just wish people appreciated the effort I put in.

He kept me there for quite some time, yelling at me for being a whore, for being a bad whore, for crying, for being a drug addict . . . anything he could think of. Called me fat and ugly too. And I just kept asking over and over, “Please let me through. Can I get through?” At one point I even started to take my clothes off again, in hopes that if I could just finish the date he would let me go, but that set him off again and he kept
saying he didn't even want me and that I was no good and that he'd have more fun with a blow-up doll.

Anyway, finally he seemed to run out of steam and he wandered off to get a cigarette, so I made my escape. By then I was more than an hour late to get home, so I took a cab instead of wasting time on the bus. When I got home my mom asked where I'd been, and I didn't even bother to lie because I knew she would check any story I gave her about the bus breaking down or whatever. So I just didn't say anything and went up to my room and cried.

Today was awful, and now I'm terrified that Mom will use my outburst as an excuse to send me away. I better go downstairs with some story and make it up to her. But hey, at least I have a worst-date story now.