Calling Maggie May (10 page)

Sun, Feb 8

I really don't know what I am going to do about my parents. How much longer can we keep up like this?

It's been some time now that I've been basically ignoring them: coming and going as I please and just slamming my bedroom door on all their lectures. I eat most of my meals out, or grab something and bring it back to my room, so it's not too hard to just avoid them.

And for a while it was really liberating. Just not caring what they thought. Doing whatever. I used to cower in fear of them, and now I don't even know what I was afraid of. Did I really
think they were going to kick me out of the house or something just for getting a B on a test?

I don't know. Not really. Mom never did anything but yell a little and tell me how to do things better and tell me how disappointed she was. And what a no-good, worthless child I was. That used to hurt me so much! I think I was living my whole life to avoid that feeling of being told I wasn't good enough. But it didn't matter how hard I tried to avoid it, because nothing I did was ever good enough, so I heard it all the time anyway.

But I'm free from all that now. I don't care what they think of me, or how disappointed they are, or what a terrible child I am. And that means they can't hurt me anymore. I go where I want. I come home when I want. I blow off school whenever, and I don't even worry about the school's office calling anymore. What are they going to do to me? I've taken away their power.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work the other way. Just because I've stopped caring doesn't mean my parents have. And I guess it is a little hard to completely turn off my feelings. Mom doesn't yell at me like she used to, but she doesn't ignore me, either. She waits up every night I am late getting home, and anytime she sees me leaving the house in my new clothes, she wrings her hands and her eyes tear up, but she no longer bothers to say anything.

Most days I can shrug this off, but some days it's hard. Some days I just want to bow my head and put on my old clothes and get my books and sit at the kitchen table to study, just so I can see her approving smile again. But, obviously, I can't go back.

Tues, Feb 10

Mom came in my room today as I was taking off my makeup after a date. Out of instinct, my shoulders tensed up, but she didn't yell. She just looked at me silently for a moment and then sat down on the bed. She spoke to me softly in Chinese, asking what happened to me. What have I been doing? I turned to her to say something, but she held up her hand. “No. Don't tell me,” she said. “I don't want to know. I think it would break my heart.”

She stood up to leave, and just before she closed the door behind her, she turned and said, “What has happened to my little girl?”

I may have cried a little once the door shut. So much for not caring.

It's not fair for her to be nice all of a sudden. What am I supposed to do with this? It's too late. I can't go back to being her good little obedient daughter. Not after the things I've seen and done.

But I can't keep living here like this. School, too. Lately I
just can't stand it. Other than Ada, it's so lonely, and since I've pretty much given up caring about my classes, it feels boring and pointless too. Why am I wasting six hours a day there, doing nothing? Wouldn't it make more sense for me to direct my own life?

I wonder what it would take. What if I quit school and moved out? Could I do it? Could I live on my own like a grown-up? Could I make enough money to support myself so I wouldn't have to answer to anyone but myself? Wouldn't have to face anyone's judgmental eyes? That sounds amazing. Now, that would be real freedom. But I would get lonely. . . .

What if Ada were with me? Her life at home with her mom is so different from mine, but it doesn't seem like such a great situation either. Maybe this is what we both need. To get away and be independent. Or be dependent only on each other, without all these expectations and pressures and people needing things from us.

I wonder how much money I would have to save up. How long it would take. Of course, it would mean fewer shopping sprees, but would I rather have a sparkly new belt or a life with Ada on our own, where we could be totally independent?

I think I will do some research on what rent on a decent apartment would be and how much we would need for food and stuff.

Thurs, Feb 12

I'm invited to a party! I don't know if I should really be that excited about it. I mean, it's a work party, which I guess are supposed to be lame, but it's not like work in a typical office.

I'm not sure the last time I went to a real party, but it was probably a kid's birthday party with pizza and cake and pin the tail on the donkey. Sometimes I hear about parties at school . . . real parties with making out and beer, but I only ever hear about those after they take place, on Monday mornings when everyone is dissecting the drama.

I am pretty sure this party won't be anything like those, but I don't know much else. Ada says Miss Irma does this every year around Valentine's Day. She presents it as a fun time for everyone. A way for her to show her love and appreciation for the “talent.” But Ada says if it were really a gift, Miss Irma wouldn't invite the clients. Which she does. And the clients bring friends who are interested in becoming new clients, or they show up because they want to pick out their next date in the flesh instead of just using the website.

That makes it sound less like a party and more like dim sum . . . where we're the dumplings being brought around on trays and everyone gets to just grab what they like. Though Ada says that most years it doesn't turn into an all-out orgy. Most years. That's comforting.

Still, I can't help being a little excited about it. Most of all because it's a chance to meet the other girls. Ada mentions them from time to time, but I still haven't met anyone except her, and I want to put faces to names, or maybe even make a new friend or two.

Plus, all things considered, it probably wouldn't kill me to flirt with some of the potential clients. It would be nice to have as many regulars as Ada does and get a bit more cash coming in. Then I could tell Ada about my plan for us to get an apartment together.

Oh, the other thing is that the invitation made it very clear that you wouldn't be served alcohol unless you were over twenty-one. How's that for irony! We're there working as prostitutes, but we're not allowed to drink? Miss Irma says drunk teenagers attract cops like nobody's business, and she can't afford the risk.

But Ada said some of the talent bring flasks of liquor and share it around secretly, so everyone winds up getting kind of drunk anyway.

That does sound kind of fun. I think I like the idea of being included in the secret more than anything else. I never pictured myself as the kind of person who would get passed a flask.

Sat, Feb 14

I'm at Ada's house, prepping for the party! She looks so gorgeous, like a Hollywood screen siren from the 1940s. Her
hair is ironed into perfect waves, and she's wearing a black bias-cut dress covered in shimmery beads. I wish I could look like her, or at least dress like her. I thought this party might be a place where I could break out of my persona and look sleek and sophisticated like she always does, but Ada said it would probably be better to stick to a version of my usual style. Some of the clients there will have already seen the pictures on the website, and they'll have an easier time recognizing me if I have the same “look.” So I have to somehow pull off “cute,” “sweet,” and “sexy” all at once, which is actually kind of complicated. I've decided to go with a lot of white and pink and a flower motif, but still showing a lot of skin.

Ada said I looked amazing and kissed me on the cheek, so I guess that will have to do. I wish we got to trade characters for the night, but I guess no one wants that.

I am excited for the party but also a little nervous. I really have no idea what to expect. But Ada says not to worry and that Miss Irma keeps the clients on a pretty tight leash. Officially, there is no touching. That rule isn't enforced strictly, but if someone really starts mauling the girls, Irma is prepared to throw them out, and they know it.

I'm not sure I understand why Irma wouldn't just want to keep the clients happy by whatever means possible. That seems like her usual routine. Ada said Irma has learned from her
mistakes. Once upon a time she treated it like a buffet. She had everyone pay a flat fee at the door, and then they could take what they wanted. But she didn't like the results.

“Have you ever seen people at a buffet?” said Ada. “They go crazy. Trying to get every last nickel's worth out of the talent. Plus, it took her ages to get the stains out of the upholstery.”

(later)

omg the party was so much fun! except I drank too much and probably [illegible] don't care because I had sooooo much fun. and I met a boy! I mean a boy boy, not a client or whatever. [illegible] he was cute. ugh the room is spinning I better gotto got to go to bed.

Sun, Feb 15

Ugh. Now I know why people don't do this all the time. I feel like my brain went through the dryer or something. Maybe it's even still in there. . . . I'm not at all sure it's in my head. And my stomach might be in there with it, because it is definitely going around in circles.

And even worse than the physical stuff is thinking about how I behaved last night. What got into me? I mean, besides a few shots of whiskey. I want to vomit again just thinking about that.

I bet Miss Irma is so mad at me right now. I bet I was such a horrible embarrassment to her. To everyone. To myself.

Oh my God. I didn't even think about my parents. What must they think of me right now? What do they know? I honestly don't remember coming home last night, and I have no idea if I saw them or not. I am so embarrassed and ashamed even thinking about them seeing me in that state. Presumably they would have murdered me on the spot if they had, and I seem to still be here in my bedroom, so . . . maybe somehow I snuck past them.

I can't worry about that now. I need to start by piecing together what actually happened last night. My first clue is the previous entry, which I don't remember writing and I can barely read. That's kind of funny, actually, though also a little disturbing. Wait. Did I smoke pot again last night too? I seem to vaguely remember that. That probably didn't help matters.

All right. Let's start at the beginning.

The party was at Miss Irma's house, in those back rooms where Miss Irma had taken me the last time. She had added some holiday decorations here and there, but not that much, since the rooms were so ornate already.

At first I was really nervous and uncomfortable and kind of clung to Ada. Then I realized I was probably annoying her, so I tried to hide out behind one of the big screens. Ada found me
after a bit and laughed. She said as the night wore on, it would be a bad idea to sneak behind the screens, since other people would have that idea too. And from the way she said it, I got the sense that she didn't mean they were shy like me.

Anne came over after a minute and took our coats and pointed out the bar and stuff, with a reminder that we wouldn't be served anything but soft drinks, so not to bother asking. Then she told us to make ourselves comfortable, because the clients would be arriving soon. I was confused by that, because there already were a few guys milling around the room, though they were younger and more attractive than the clients usually were. I thought maybe Irma was hiding a bunch of cute clients like Damon and fixing them up only with the more experienced girls.

Ada offered to show me around and introduce me to everyone, but it was too overwhelming. I felt really bad for holding her back and tried to put on a brave face, but she seemed to get it intuitively. Instead of bringing me over to the big gossiping groups exchanging greetings, she found a spot on a bench in a dark corner and tugged me down next to her.

“How about I give you all the dirt on everyone first?” she said in a whisper. “That way you'll already know who everyone is when you actually meet them.”

I almost sighed with relief, and Ada started to point people
out and tell me their names and their life stories. I have to admit that some combination of awe and anxiety prevented me from absorbing everyone's names, but almost everyone there had some pretty rough story in their past—violence or molestation or drugs or homelessness. They all seemed happy and okay now, but none of them were like me, with two parents who had plenty of money and didn't hurt them or abuse them. It made me feel sort of bad, like I had wandered into the wrong party. Is there something wrong with me that I took to this life without any trauma pushing me into it?

I did notice when Ada pointed out Jen, since she had mentioned her before. The one with the drug problem. Ada said that both her parents had died when she was little, and she wound up living with a distant relative who beat her, so she ran away and lived on the streets for a while, eating out of garbage cans. It was hard to believe that the person laughing and chatting right in front of me, wearing a designer dress and scarfing miniature quiches, could once have been so desperate. It gave me a newfound respect for Miss Irma, that she offered people like Jen and so many of the others a second chance at life.

Jen's roommate, Beth, was there too. Ada doesn't like her much. I guess there's some history there, but I didn't get the whole story. At some point I asked Ada about the guys who
were at the party and who were they if not clients. She laughed.

“They're talent. I can introduce you to them, if you like.”

“Wait,” I said, resisting her attempt to tug me up by the hand. “What do you mean, talent? What kind of . . . ?”

Ada gave me a funny look. “They work for Miss Irma,” she explained. “Just like us.” I must have still look confused, because she laughed again, then leaned a little closer to me. “They have sex with men for money,” she said slowly and clearly, like she was explaining it to a little kid.

“Oh,” I said, trying not to look shocked. I don't know why I was so shocked, though. Why should it be so surprising that boys make money from this just like girls do? Now that I think about it, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world.

I couldn't help staring at this one boy who was standing in a group of girls and talking very animatedly. He was one of the most gorgeous guys I had ever seen, with dark skin and almond eyes and a delicate, heart-shaped face. He was wearing eyeliner and maybe even mascara, but I could tell that even without that he would be almost as pretty as any girl I had ever seen. I asked Ada about him, and she said his name was Shawn. She didn't tell me much about him, but I got the sense she didn't like him very much.

At that point there was a noise and the din in the room died down. Miss Irma was standing near the bar, tapping a glass for
everyone's attention. I almost didn't recognize her in a flowing peacock-blue kimono. She had a drink in one hand and her phone in the other.

“Thank you for your attention,” she said in her carefully clipped tone. “The clients will arrive in a minute or two. Some advice, if I may. Do not crowd them like a batch of hyenas. There will be plenty to go around. But do not spend the evening talking to one another as if this were a high school dance, either. Enjoy yourselves, but remember: The clients are our guests tonight. And last, alcohol is strictly forbidden to you, even if offered by a client. Is that understood?”

While she was talking, I leaned over and asked Ada about some men I hadn't noticed before in the room. Not ones like Shawn, but others that didn't seem like clients either.

“That's Miss Irma's security,” said Ada. “‘Goons' is a better word. She'll act like they're here to protect us in case any of the clients try to take something they haven't paid for, but don't kid yourself. They work for her, not for us. And if she has a problem with any of us, they won't hesitate to toss us out, or worse.”

“Worse?”

Ada gave me a significant look but didn't elaborate.

A few minutes later, the clients started showing up. Just as Miss Irma had suggested, it was a little hard to resist the urge to surge toward them, especially when I saw other people
doing just that. It was hard not to feel like the first people out of the gate were “winners” in some sense, but I held back. It made sense to wait until there were more in the room so you could actually take your time and pick one who seemed appealing. But then, even when there were more, it kept happening that every time I spotted someone who looked like a good bet, I'd try to catch his eye from across the room only to notice some other girl sidling up to him and running a finger down his arm. Obviously, I needed to be a bit more aggressive.

I did manage to give my cell phone number to a couple of guys, but they didn't seem all that interested. I wondered if my cutesy Asian girl getup had been a bad idea. Maybe it was too niche, and I would have been better off dressing more normal sexy like the other girls.

One guy did grab me as I walked toward the bar and pulled me down onto his lap, but he was pretty gross. He smelled awful and had a lot of hair on his knuckles. I was as pleasant with him as I could manage, and I did give him my number when he asked, but I was already thinking that if he contacted me, I would definitely pretend to be busy that day.

Eventually he let me up and I headed toward the bar, just hoping for a few moments of calm. I got a ginger ale and sipped it slowly, only gradually becoming aware that there
was a man leaning against a bookshelf near me, sipping his drink and eyeing the room but not yet talking to anyone. He wasn't exactly good-looking—with a weak chin and a lazy eye—but he seemed pleasant enough and a much better option than most of the other men in the room. I took a deep breath and sidled up to him, running a hand down his arm as I introduced myself, just as I'd seen the other kids do. It didn't seem to work so well, though. He sort of twitched and shifted back a little.

“Nervous?” I said in what I hoped was a flirtatious tone.

He gave me an apologetic smile. “Maybe,” he said. “I've never been to a party like this before.”

I tried to think of something flirty and suggestive to say, but I drew a blank, so I wound up saying, “Neither have I.” Surprisingly, this wasn't such a bad move, since it did give us something to talk about. Though that was awkward too. He kept starting in with questions like, “How did you get into this business?” but then cutting himself off as if maybe he didn't want to know. Still, it wasn't a bad conversation and I was proud of myself for holding up my end and not letting it descend into horrifying awkwardness.

The only problem was, I didn't seem to be making much progress with him. He still startled at all my little touches and still backed farther away every time I moved closer to him, until
it looked as though he was trying to squeeze himself into the bookshelf.

I was starting to feel a little bad about it when I noticed someone standing at my elbow.

“Introduce me,” said a voice near my ear. I turned and saw Shawn, the pretty boy I'd noticed earlier.

“What?” I said, caught off guard.

Shawn smiled at the client, then leaned in to me. “Introduce me,” he said again.

“Oh,” I said, and I made the introductions, feeling slightly annoyed that Shawn was distracting me from my awkward attempts to get this guy interested. That's when I noticed the guy's face. He was looking at Shawn with an intensity that I hadn't seen during our whole conversation. And when Shawn laid a hand on the man's forearm, he gave a slight shiver and leaned into it.

Ada's patient explanations popped back into my head.
Oh,
I thought.
Ohhhh.
Shawn gave me a quick grin, which I returned before coming up with some excuse to leave the two of them alone together.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself after that. I glanced around the room, but everyone appeared to be engrossed in conversations. I couldn't see any clients standing alone. Before long, though, I felt a hand at my waist. At first I thought it must
be a client, but the cloud of expensive perfume gave Miss Irma away.

She whispered in my ear.

“Come,” she said. “No prizes for standing about. You have to talk to people.” I started to protest that there was no one to talk to, but she ignored me as her hand guided me toward an adjacent room I hadn't been in yet. A man standing alone was calmly surveying the snack table with his back to the room.

“Damon,” said Miss Irma, “where have you been hiding? I want to introduce someone to you.”

I don't know why it didn't occur to me that he would be there, but I couldn't have been more surprised. My brain froze in that moment, torn between trying to figure out an appropriate reaction to being suddenly confronted with the man I lost my virginity to and haven't seen since and the flaring memory of Ada reminding me that Miss Irma must never learn what happened between us. I stared up at him and said nothing.

He looked down at me, surprised but not half as dumbstruck as I was. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah, we've met.”

I felt more than saw Miss Irma's eyes narrow next to me as she processed this information. “You've met? But I don't remember . . .”

“It wasn't through . . . ,” I said quickly.

“No,” he agreed. “It was . . .”

But neither of us had a very good end to our sentences.

“I see,” said Miss Irma, though she still sounded confused and, to my horror, more than a little suspicious. Luckily, I was saved from trying to dig myself out of this hole by Ada, who shrieked from across the room and then barreled toward our little group at full speed.

“Damon!” she cried, launching herself into his arms.

“Ada,” he said with a laugh as she burrowed into his chest and squeezed him in a mighty hug. He kissed her forehead and mussed her hair a little. “Long time no see. What've you been up to, kiddo?”

A glance over at Irma revealed a bemused and not entirely pleased expression, but I didn't stick around to see how it played out. I took the opportunity of her distraction to get myself out of there.

That left me wandering the room with nothing to do again, and I was feeling awkward and sort of watching Ada out of the corner of my eye with a weird feeling as she talked with Damon. I don't know why. It's true that I had slept with Damon, but Ada had known him much longer and more intimately than I had, and I had hardly thought of him since that night. I'm not sure why seeing them together bothered me so much. In any case, I didn't have much time to consider the question because I was startled by a touch on my elbow. I tensed up, thinking it was probably Miss Irma about to lecture
me again for not flirting with enough guys, but it was Shawn.

“Hey,” he said gently. “I'm sorry about earlier. I hope you didn't mind that I jumped in on your conversation.”