Trafficked (13 page)

She ran back inside and propped open the door to let out the smoke. Maggie was sobbing, standing by her mother at the kitchen table. Lillian was stroking her hair, repeating, “Shh,
zaitchik
, shh.”

“Is she okay?” Hannah asked, stepping toward them, filled with terror.
Please don't let her be burned.

“No, she's not okay,” Lillian snapped.

“Did you get burned, Maggie?” Hannah asked.

Maggie nodded. “My hand.”

“The oil sprayed her,” Lillian said. “Get the ointment.”

Hannah reached above the refrigerator and pulled out a white first aid kit, where she found some ointment for burns, which she gave to Lillian, who put it on Maggie.

“It still hurts,” Maggie cried.

Hannah felt terrible. She should have been watching the chicken, not asking Lillian about the money. “I'm sorry. It's my fault.” Quickly, she grabbed a potato and cut it in half.

“Of course it's your fault. You're the most incompetent person I've ever met,” Lillian said, pulling Maggie in tighter to her chest. “Believe me, you will pay for the damage.”

Hannah glanced at Lillian, wondering briefly how she thought she'd pay for it, and then handed Maggie half of the potato. “Put the raw part on your hand. It'll feel better.”

Maggie put it on the small red circle on her hand. “You're right.”

“What are you doing?” Lillian asked Hannah, taking the potato away. “No, Maggie, we don't put potatoes on our hands.”

“It cools the burn,” Hannah said.

“How ridiculous. That's village talk.”

It had always worked fine for her, Hannah thought. Michael came into the room, coughing. Hannah picked him up and brought him to the open kitchen door. “Maybe they should go outside,” Hannah said. “I'll take them if you want.”

“No, I'll take them,” Lillian said, holding her arms out for Michael. “You clean up the mess. Come on, Maggie.”

“I want the potato,” Maggie said.

“No!” Lillian barked. “You'll get an infection.”

She wouldn't have given Maggie the potato if she thought she'd get an infection, Hannah thought indignantly. She grabbed a wet cloth and started cleaning the mess. No money for a year. And now she'd have to pay for the damage to the kitchen as well. Once she started getting paid, she'd have to save up for three more months to get money for her grandmother's operation. By then, Babulya would be completely blind.

There had to be a way to get money before then.

Chapter Twenty-three

T
hat night, Hannah was writing a letter to Katya when the door to the garage cracked open. Sergey peered in, then opened the door wider. “Are you awake?” he asked.

It was an odd question because the light was on. “I can't sleep,” she said.

He stepped inside and walked across the concrete floor to the sofa. His eyes wandered down to her breasts, and she realized she'd already taken off her bra under her T-shirt. She yanked the sleeping bag up.

He wore a sheepish expression. “Are you okay?”

His kindness made her nervous. Even though she'd never had a reason to question it, today was a day he should be yelling at her. “I'm sorry about the fire.”

He shrugged. “It was just chicken.”

“Maggie got burned,” she said, reminding him.

“A tiny mark, that is all. I used to get burns like that every day working in the kitchen at the hotel when I was a boy. Kids here are too soft.” His eyes crinkled kindly. “Hannah, you put out the fire. Who would think to use flour? You're the hero.”

“I don't feel like a hero,” she said miserably.

“Lily told me you were upset about the money,” he said.

She nodded, though she barely felt like she had a right to ask for money when Maggie had been burned due to her carelessness. She was lucky she hadn't been fired. Where would she go if they tossed her out? She didn't even have her plane ticket.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “The agent got a commission and would've told you anything. I had no control over this.”

“You didn't ask for me?”

He blinked. She stared at him. His blue eyes darted away and he shook his head. “I told Paavo what I needed, he got the agent, and the agent found you. I had nothing to do with it.”

He's lying.
“What about my uncle?” she asked.

“I made some calls. We'll have to wait and see.” His jaw tensed as if he was angry, but he didn't seem angry at her.

It all left her feeling so—dissatisfied. Sergey knew things she didn't know. That was for certain.

“If it wasn't my uncle, who did you promise that you'd take care of me?” she asked. “I heard Lillian say it.”

He hesitated. “I promised your babushka.”

“My babushka?” She hadn't even thought of her babushka. Why hadn't he told her that in the first place?

“She was worried about letting you come to America. I called her and said I would take care of you if anything happened to her.”

“Oh.” It made sense, but she felt like something was missing. Babulya would have told her, wouldn't she?

Sergey sat next to her outstretched legs on the sofa and rested his hand on the sleeping bag near her hip. “I'm happy you're here. You've really helped us, Hannah.”

At least he used her real name, instead of baba. Her lip quivered. “I can't work forever with no money.”

He reached for her face with his thick hands and wiped the tears away from her eyes with his rough thumbs. She let out a tearful laugh, and pulled back, embarrassed. “I'm okay.”

He opened his wallet. She gazed at the wad of money inside—what did he need all that for? He handed her a fifty-dollar bill. “I don't want to see you cry. Everyone should have some money. You might want to get a coffee or something when you are out.”

Hannah snatched it from his hand and instantly felt like one of the scrawny little beggar children who knocked on her apartment door in Moldova and took the heels of old bread.

“Thank you,” she murmured, looking down at the bill in her hand.

“You found it in the first place,” he said.

She looked up in confusion and he winked. She grinned back at him, remembering the lie he'd told to protect her from Lillian's wrath.

“So?” he asked, as if he expected something in return.

She was giving him days of her life. That's what he got in return. “Are you going to pay me fifty dollars every week?” She worked it out in her head. That was two hundred a month, and in five months she'd have enough for the operation.

He cleared his throat. “That is a lot, Hannah. I was thinking here and there, when you need it. Maybe once a month.”

He had a beautiful house and two fancy cars, and all he could give her was fifty on occasion, when she begged him for it? “My grandmother is nearly blind. She needs a thousand dollars for her operation. That's nothing to you. Can't you give that to me now? I'll pay it back.”

“That's not nothing, Hannah.”

“You must make a lot from your business.”

He seemed surprised by her statement. “Not a lot.”

“What do you actually do?”

He cleared his throat. “I import things from Russia. Machinery parts. But business is slow with the economy.”

“Lillian buys so much food we have to throw a bunch out every week. And she's always buying new designer clothes. She has a Gucci handbag she never uses. It just sits on the shelf. You could sell that and pay me the money for the operation. She'd never know.” Hannah saw the edges of his mouth jump up and knew what he was laughing about. Lillian would kill him if he sold her handbag.

“It's true my wife likes to spend.” He ran his hand through his thick reddish blond hair. “She'd better become a doctor before we have to go into foreclosure.”

“Foreclosure?” She listened to the Russian news playing in the living room while she made dinner every night and she'd heard lots of Americans had lost their homes recently, but she was shocked to hear him suggest that they might be at risk.

“I hope not.” He wandered to the large white bookshelf in the garage where Hannah had put her personal things—the picture of her parents, the picture of Daniil, facedown, her copy of
Anna Karenina
. He picked up the picture of her parents and stared at it.

“What?” she said.

“You take after your mother.”

“Yes.”

“She's beautiful.”

“Was,” Hannah said. She didn't know why she had to correct him, but she did.

He looked at her, his eyes shiny, as if he felt sorry for her. She lifted her chin and turned away. She didn't need his sympathy.

He cleared his throat. “I don't want you to worry about your babushka. We'll figure something out.” He gazed at her, like he was waiting for something.

What did he mean by that? Was he suggesting some other kind of arrangement? “Thank you,” she said hesitantly.

“Is there anything else you need?” His eyes were cloudy, desire masked with kindness.

Hannah realized that she was going to have to fight a little harder. She wouldn't do what he wanted her to do, but it was her against Lillian and if he thought he had a chance, maybe he would give her more.

“There is something I have to tell you.” She let the sleeping bag drop and pointed at her T-shirt with the words
GOOD NEWS
printed on it, aware of her unencumbered breasts pressing through the thin cotton. Her cheeks heated up, despite herself. “Do you see these words?”

“Good news.” His voice croaked when he spoke. He cleared his throat and gave her a weak smile, one that reminded her of boys her age, despite the wrinkles all over his tanned face.

“I bought this T-shirt in Moldova when I learned I was coming here because this was a new life for me, a new chance.” She paused to let it sink in, hoping he might now realize she was more than a maid, or wanted to be. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought of her mother and how she'd told her that English was the key to her future. All doctors need to speak English, she'd said. “My mother wanted more for me than this.”

“Hannah,” he breathed. This was definitely breaking rule number ten, Hannah thought ruefully.

She cut him off before he said something that would push this too far. “If Lillian won't let me speak English, I have to take English lessons.” He opened his mouth to say something, but she jumped up and strode across the garage in her T-shirt and her cutoff jean shorts. “There are free classes—I saw it on the board of the Russian store. I will give you the number to call.” She picked up a crayon, tore out a page from one of Michael's coloring books, and wrote the number she'd memorized onto it. She pressed it into his hand, holding it there for a second longer than she knew she should. Was it so wrong to manipulate him a bit?

He gazed at her. “You are one of the most determined girls I have ever met,” he said.

She waited.

“I'll talk to Lillian and see what I can do.”

“Thank you.” She climbed into her sleeping bag and rested her head down on her pillow. “Good night.”

“Good night.” He wandered out of the garage, as if it was the last thing he wanted to do. This was going to be a dangerous game, Hannah thought. She'd have to be very careful.

Chapter Twenty-four

I
t was eleven o'clock on Thursday night—the same time Hannah had run into the boy next door last time. Hannah opened the back door and shut it quietly behind her.

If Lillian saw her, Hannah planned to tell her she was taking the garbage to the curb for pickup, but it would probably mean a punishment, like scrubbing the hardwood floors on her knees.

From the other side of the fence, Hannah could hear a fan blowing and American rap music playing quietly. A door opened and closed. Was he in his bedroom?

Listen to your nose
. She breathed in and held the odors of America inside her. She blocked out the garbage smell and breathed in the pepperoni pizza the neighbors had ordered that night. She smelled night jasmine blooming in the neighbor's backyard. She smelled soap.

Soap?

She stood next to the fence and stared at the weathered wood with the peeling green paint. The last time she'd spoken to the boy was that day on the bus, a day of freedom that now seemed such a long time ago, even though it had been just two weeks.

There was an expression in Russian:
Your elbow is close, but you can't bite it
. And that was exactly how she felt. America was her elbow.

When she'd seen the boy that first day, she'd thought that they could do things together: go for pizza, visit each other's homes, listen to music. But she'd been here for over two months and they'd talked a total of two times, if you counted the time he quacked. They were brief moments and probably meant nothing to him. She didn't even know his name.

Every morning, she cleaned the front living room windows to catch a glimpse of him walking to school. At night, while she was making dinner, she opened the back door off the kitchen and breathed in the smells of his dinner, usually pizza or hamburgers or Chinese takeout. Sometimes, if she was lucky, she saw him moving around his house and heard English drifting out of the windows.

It was pitiful, really, she thought. Katya would never believe she'd stooped to spying, but she felt like a mute. She needed to have someone to talk to, even about stupid things, like music or movies.

She leaned her head against the fence, as if she were resting it on his shoulder. The fence creaked and started to fall in. She jumped back.

One of the slats had slid to the side and now there was a tiny opening in the fence. It wasn't big enough to see anything, but maybe she could open it more. She was pretty sure his bedroom was on the other side of the fence. She looked up at Lillian and Sergey's bedroom window. It was the kind that opened out with a crank, and they never opened it because they liked to keep the air-conditioning on at night—air-conditioning that was supposedly for the children only.

She pushed on the old wooden slat. It squealed as it rotated on the one rusty nail that kept it in place. She winced and glanced up at the window, expecting to see Lillian's face looking down at her, but the blue curtain lay still. She took in a ragged breath, pulled her sweaty hair away from her face, and leaned forward to look through the opening into his large bedroom window, which had no curtains.

He was standing on the other side of his enormous room, wearing a dark blue towel around his waist, half naked.

That explained the soap smell. He must have just come from the shower. His short blond hair was dripping wet and his wide back was spotted with droplets of water, as if he'd forgotten to dry off.

She looked in the full-length mirror on his wall to see him from the side. He had rolls of fat down his back and belly. His shoulders were surprisingly large, muscular even, and his calves were strong looking too.

Could he see her face if he looked in the mirror? Maybe. Luckily he was avoiding the mirror, just as you'd avert your eyes from something disgusting, like an old man picking his nose on the bus. But he wasn't disgusting. She wished she could tell him that.

He crouched over a white plastic basket of clean laundry, pulled folded clothes out, and scattered them across the floor of his room, mixing them with the CDs, books, and football gear strewn all over the place. She'd never seen a room this messy, not even in American movies. In Moldova, most teenagers slept in the main room, so nobody left clothes on the floor.

She knew she should leave now, but she couldn't. His back was to her and he was still wearing a towel. In the worst case, she'd just see his behind. But this was different from accidentally spotting him in the kitchen or dining room, where their blinds were always up and they were practically inviting you to watch them. Yet she couldn't tear herself away. As long as the towel stayed on, she wasn't hurting anyone, was she?

He pulled a huge white T-shirt over his head and tugged it down with frustration when it stuck on his belly. Hannah always put on her panties first, and her shirt second, but he did it the other way around. He stepped into his boxers and the towel fell away, but she still couldn't see anything because his shirt was so long. And then he stumbled, his foot catching on the boxers. She giggled, despite herself. He tugged the boxers all the way up and glanced toward the window.

She panicked. If he came outside now to see who was there and found out that she'd been watching him, he would never want to hang out with her. He'd think she was creepy. She certainly would, if the situation was reversed.

She closed the slat in the fence and hurried down the walkway.