“Bullshit! I know it’s you!”
I can’t convince her I’m not stealing from her, and I don’t think I could if I tried. Is she starting a fight with me so she can complain to John and get rid of me? Silently I wish it will happen, praying for this door to open so I can get away. At least here, John doesn’t hit me. Not in front of Michelle, anyway.
“I have to go out for a few minutes to see the manager and go to the store. Lock the door, and don’t let anyone in. You know the rules.” By the light through the bottom of the curtains, I know it is morning.
“Okay.” I’m amazed that she lets me know she will be gone so long.
“John likes me,” she says, a stab of jealousy in her eyes, and bolts the door shut.
I sit on the edge of the bed and wait a few minutes. I know this is my chance to do what I have been waiting for: to call my mother. I jump up to listen at the door, my ear pressed hot against metal. The coast is clear. Kneeling in front of the red rotary phone at the side table, I dial with a shaky hand. This will be on her bill, and she will be real mad, the frightened voice in the back of my head screams. “Yes. I’d like to make a collect call,” I whisper into the receiver. My heart pounds out of beat for a moment. I hear a rustling noise outside the door and almost hang up.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Mom? It’s m-m-me. Dawn. I don’t know where I am. Wait. Listen… John has been hitting me.” I let out an audible sob. “He has me trapped at this woman’s house. No. Listen please. I don’t have a lot of time. She’ll be back in a minute, and I’m not supposed to use the phone. I know you don’t want me, but I, I want to come to Oregon. Please. Yes.”
“Vaht! He is! Ver are you, Dawn? I vill help you. Ver do you want da ticket?”
“Really? Mom, thank you. But… I don’t know where I am. Can you call the Glendale Greyhound station? I’ll try to get there somehow. Please, Mom.”
“Ya, Dawn. I luff you. Did he hurt you? I had a feeling something was wrong.”
“Thank you, Mom. Thank you. I love you too. I gotta go. She’s coming back. I can hear her. Glendale bus station, please. Love you. Bye.” My pulse is beating hard in my throat as I hang up the phone. Mom is glad to hear from me. Oh God, thank you. She isn’t mad. She doesn’t know what’s happened to me. I can’t tell her. Not now anyway. I have to get out of here first. I have to get to Glendale, on the bus—but how? My mind races, like an engine that hasn’t run in ages and is raring to go.
I hear Michelle tap at the door and I jump up to answer it, checking the musty room for any sign that I used the phone. Does she think I am so completely afraid of her that I wouldn’t try to make a call? I think, feeling a bit triumphant.
Michelle bursts in, fumbling with her grocery bags.
I panic as she walks into the room scanning every nook and cranny with an eye that shoots daggers. Does she know?
Creasing her face into a satisfied frown, she looks at me. “Get some sleep,” she barks. “We’re going out tonight.”
John shows up to wake us in the evening, haggard in dirty, faded jeans and jacket. His curls are limp and dirty, like his stained clothes. He and Michelle immediately head for the bathroom, their favorite spot. John steps out a few moments later to brush a cool, robotic kiss on my cheek. He is jumpy, energetic, as if he has just done a hit.
“How is Thor?” I ask, feeling my heart break.
“Fine, baby, fine. He’s back at the house.” He leans in for a better kiss. “I’m gonna get you out of here soon,” he whispers in my ear. He glides over to the faux fireplace mantel on the wall, picks up a carved stone figurine of a woman in a Roman toga, slips it into his pocket, and hurries back to the bathroom.
Oh shit! He’s the one who’s been stealing from Michelle, and she thinks it is me!
Michelle steps back into the room, showered, dark blue eye shadow over her hollow eyes. “You ready?”
“Yeah. I guess.” I’m glad to be getting out. It’s been so long, and I miss my little Thor. I want to find out where I am, take note of the surrounding landmarks, and find something familiar that will get me to Glendale. But there is a freeway entrance near the apartment complex, and John jumps onto it almost immediately. Denny’s. There’s a Denny’s near the on-ramp.
“This is the Marina,” John tells me as we approach a long, white metal gate and security hut. “They watch everybody that comes in and everybody that goes out!” The Marina is a massive water parking lot for boats. Long wooden masts and white rolled sails line the sharp edge of the rocky shore with weblike finger docks that stretch in uniform rows—places to park the yachts.
Michelle politely calls her friend, a big businessman, on the house phone at the security gate and smiles at the guard as we’re granted access. The underground parking structure of a giant, square luxury apartment complex sits next to the water. John finds an open spot, and we head to the top units. Different sized sailboats sit anchored in a row on the docks just below us in the glass elevator, the horizon black with a sprinkling of stars. Michelle leads the way to a grand corner unit guarded by massive double doors, and knocks.
“Come in. Come in,” a slender, silver-haired man greets us. In his late fifties, he has bright blue eyes and a tanned and polished pockmarked complexion. He guides us into the main room, and I’m taken by its magnificence. The entire west side of the warehouse-sized room is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, a deep, black sectional sofa, and a baby grand piano that seems to hang over the twinkling lights on the sea. The marble floors, covered with plush animal furs, seem twice their size because of the many giant mirrors on the opposite far walls.
Michelle introduces me as Gabrielle and John, proudly, as himself. He vigorously shakes the hand of the deeply tanned man. Michelle beams at having “Johnny Wadd” as her escort. Fidgeting nervously, John smiles with as much glamour as he can muster and immediately begs to excuse himself, slipping out of the apartment. The silver-haired gentleman doesn’t hide his irritation and uneasiness. “Asshole,” he calls after John, loud enough for John to hear. He spins on his heel, marching across the sprawling room, and slams a back room door.
“Wait here,” Michelle demands, pointing to the couch. “I can tell he only wants to see me.”
I’m relieved and keep my comments to myself. I wonder if this place is a drug traffic house, like Eddie’s, with two-way mirrors. To keep safe, I fold my hands neatly in my lap and fix my eyes down at my crossed thumbs so I won’t be tempted to make a mistake. The quiet elegance of the room is hypnotic though, not like the tension at Eddie’s, and I doze for a while right where I sit, like a frozen mannequin.
Michelle startles me awake. Her hand bumps my shoulder as she brushes her hair and tucks her purse under her arm. There is no one with her; the silver-haired man never reappears.
“Let’s go,” Michelle mutters in a hurried voice, and I jump up to follow.
John is waiting outside, hanging out near the Chevy Malibu, trying to act nonchalant. He’s leaning up against the trunk, his head turning back and forth wildly as if he has no control of his body and can’t help but scan the entire area. “Get in,” he commands, voice low and rushed.
The backseat is packed with garbage bags spilling over with laundry, soda cans, and trash. I climb in. John and Michelle are in the front. The air is tense as John deliberately obeys the slow speed laws and gently crosses every speed bump. He’s stolen something, I sense. I just know it. John is a thief at every opportunity; he can’t help it anymore. I saw how he checked out the cars when we arrived, and when he almost ran out of the apartment to hang downstairs I was suspicious right away. And now he’s paranoid, grabbing for a cigarette, wiping his palms on his jeans. Damn, John. What did you do?