Suddenly, a chilly breeze blows across my arm. The drapes by the sliding glass door ebb and flow with a January wind and faintly billow at my feet. For the first time, that glass door stands out as never before—a way out.
The arguing gets louder. Something bangs against the wall. In an angry rush, Michelle storms out and grabs her coat. “I’ve got an appointment. I’ll be back in half an hour. Nobody had better take anything from this house, or else!” She slams the door behind her, and she’s gone.
“Dawn!” John calls from the bathroom. I can hear the gushing of the running water fill the tub. His voice sounds mellow… tired, not angry.
This is good. I figure jail wore him out. “Yeah?” I brave an appearance and come to the doorway.
John is stripping, shedding the grungy jeans and T-shirt from days of being high and sleeping in jail. He steps into the steamy, hot bathwater. “Get me a cup of coffee, would ya, babe?”
“Sure.” My voice is purposely soft. I don’t want to give him any reason to flip out.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. My hair hangs limp and dull. My eyes are sunken with circles beneath them so dark that the blue-green that used to be their color is now a cold, steel gray. John’s oversized T-shirt and jeans drape loosely on my bony frame, and my chest, where my B-cup breasts once were, is completely flat. I don’t know the person staring at me in the mirror; she is like a ghost, a hollow shell of who I used to know as Dawn… a complete stranger.
I pull myself away. I don’t want to look at myself anymore, and I don’t want to draw John’s attention. I head into the kitchen to make him his coffee.
A draft of cold air rushes through the room, and the drapes of the sliding glass door billow toward me again like long arms reaching out. I shiver. The door. The low hum of traffic plays like an eclectic distant radio station, and I can smell dusty humidity in the air. It’s open wide. I have never noticed the door open before.
“Are you coming with my coffee?” John shouts impatiently from the bath.
“Yeah!” I answer quickly, unable to take my eyes off the wispy arms of the drapes. I time how long it will take to get through the screen door and for John to realize I’m gone. Do it. Do it now! In a split-second decision, I run, making a mad dash for the sliding glass door and freedom.
Sprinting in the cold air through the maze of the apartment complex, I stumble on a major street and spy the Denny’s near the freeway on-ramp ahead. I turn to look behind me to see if John is following, and run with all the strength I can muster to make it to the restaurant’s pay phone. I am panting, can’t catch my breath. The receiver keeps slipping out of my nervous, sweaty hand. I dial zero. “Hello. Operator? Operator?” I try to make a collect call, but I keep getting disconnected. Damn it. I need a quarter to get through. I’m desperate. Maybe someone will loan me one. I still don’t see John. I try to tap into my internal radar on him and picture him searching the apartment for me.
I hold my head down, in case he might be lurking around, and I go inside. The waitresses pinch their faces at me—I’m sure I look homeless to them—and ignore me. I begin to cry.
An old man, in his late seventies, with crinkly eyes and wiry gray eyebrows, studies me from the counter. “Are you all right?” he asks, limping fragilely over with his cane.
“No.” I cry harder. “I need a quarter to call my mother. I need to see if she has a bus ticket waiting for me. I ran away from my boyfriend. He is beating me, and he’ll be coming after me. I’m trying to get to my mother’s,” I blurt out like a balloon losing its air.
The elderly man sits down in the seat across from me. His face is covered in deep wrinkles, but it is soft, oval, and kind. “I’m Sam. Here. Here’s a quarter. Now go call your mother, and come back and have a nice bowl of chili with me.”
“I’m Dawn. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
I hurry back, paranoid that John will catch me.
The old man is still there with a steaming hot bowl of chili waiting for me at the table. “Well? Did she send you a ticket?” His voice is raspy, like an ancient heavy smoker’s.
“Yeah, she did. She has one waiting for me at the Greyhound station in Glendale. Do you know how to get to Glendale from here?”
“Well, I, uh, know, but I don’t really have any way to get there. This is San Fernando and, uh, you see, I live in the senior home around the corner. I don’t drive anymore. Don’t know anyone that does.” He sees the worried look on my face. “But let’s think about it for a minute, and you eat your chili, sweetie. It’ll warm you up.”
Whispering a thank-you, I devour my food.
“Maybe you can call the ticket agent and see if you can transfer it to this area. Glendale is pretty far. Or we can look up the bus schedule. But they don’t run on Sundays, and it’s getting late. Do you have anywhere to sleep?”
“No, I don’t. My boyfriend is crazy. I know he will start looking for me as soon as he finds out I’m missing. He’ll kill me. I know he will. He’s always told me that if I leave him, he will hunt me down and kill me!”
“No, no, no. Now stop it. Calm down. He’s not gonna kill anybody. You can sleep on my floor in my dormitory. I’ll have to sneak you in. They don’t allow overnight visitors, and I share the room with another old fart. Hell, he won’t mind, and it’s just until you can catch a bus in the morning, right? Come on. Finish your food, and let’s go.”
“Really? Thanks.” I gobble down the rest of the beans and grab a handful of plastic-wrapped crackers to shove in my pocket. I follow him out the door and around the block, trusting that somehow I’ve gotten lucky and run into a person who cares and will help. What other choice do I have? “Dear God, let this be someone who really cares,” I whisper under my breath.
“Shhh. We gotta be real quiet.” We sneak in through the kitchen entrance, a two-story, tan concrete block of a building, and tiptoe up a flight of stairs to a semi-hospital-style room. The floors are shiny and polished, and the smell of disinfectant burns the insides of my nostrils. “Here’s Ted.” He waves his arm across the room at a hospital bed. Ted groans in acknowledgement. “Here you go.” Sam hands me his extra pillow and blankets and points to a clear space on the floor.
“Thanks,” I whisper, ready to lie down in my makeshift bed.
“Uh, there’s one favor I’d like to ask you if you don’t mind.”
I freeze. “Uh, yeah?” The thought of Sam wanting sex for the favor of taking me in makes my skin crawl. Oh shit. No.
“I, uh, really hope this isn’t too personal but, uh, I would really appreciate it if I could just, uh, touch your butt.”
“What? My butt?”
“Uh, yeah. I, uh, just got this thing for butts, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, uh, I guess so,” I answer, quietly praying that’s all he’ll want. I hope he won’t turn mean. Very lightly and cautiously, he places his hand on my rear end and then quickly pulls it off as if it’s fire, too hot. He giggles to himself and mutters a thank you, crawling under his covers, a grin plastered across his face.
“Wait till I tell old Bill here what he missed. He’s not going to believe it. Ha! Good night.” There is a pause. “By the way, what’s your name again?”
“My name?” I hesitate. “My name… is Dawn.” I feel a small sense of pride stir deep down inside me, in a place that has been hollow for so long.