HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (96 page)

              I trailed off, emotionally drained. This day had been too much, too long. I’d still had a plan at the beginning of it, but now, I had no idea where to go next or what to do. Maybe I’d never see Trevor again.

“You know, maybe it’s for the best,” I said, continuing my trail of thoughts out loud. Two bitter tears slid down my cheeks. “That baby doesn’t need a whore of a mother. He’ll be better off. God knows they have enough money to raise him.”

              A gentle touch made me jump. I’d been so mired in my misery that I hadn’t realized Jasmine had walked around the desk to stand in front of me. She was raising my chin with her finger so that I was forced to meet her eyes.

“Babies need their mothers, Shimmy,” she said. “And you deserve to be with your baby. Let me tell you exactly why you’re a victim. You went to the nightclub, looking for help, same as me, same as all of us. Mama pretended that she was helping us, giving us food and a place to live and clothes. But then, she told us we had to pay her back by selling our most precious possessions, and we never saw a dime of that money. She spent it all on herself and Christ knows what else.”

The fury on Jasmine’s face terrified me.

“You’re a victim, Shimmy, even if it’s hard to hear,” she continued. “Now. Let me tell you what you’re going to do to start living your life again.”

I was all ears. The cops had told me I was a victim down at the station, but they hadn’t told me what came next. I didn’t want to be a victim for life. I wanted my baby. I wanted to be happy and successful.

“I’m ready to move forward,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Jasmine got me set up in a sort of halfway house for women in trouble. It was the best she could do for now, she said, but she promised me she’d keep looking for options. She retrieved a backpack and a reusable shopping bag from a storage closet in the office, handing them to me.

The backpack was full of clothing and toiletries—everything a person could possibly need. The reusable bag was full of nonperishable food items.

“A lot of women come to us with just the clothes on their backs,” Jasmine explained. “We call these our restart bags. We planned and developed them to have all the basic essentials.”

“This is amazing,” I said, slipping the magazines into my backpack. “Thank you.”

“We have lots of sponsors,” she said. “I can be very persuasive.”

“I’m starting to see that,” I laughed.

“Now, let’s talk work placement,” Jasmine said. “What are you interested in doing or being? Do you have any work experience?”

I shrugged, thinking back on those lean, hard times when I was working the handful of part-time jobs, trying so hard to make ends meet and make a life for Trevor.

“I have retail experience, and food service experience,” I said. “And, of course, sex worker experience.”

I’d meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. Jasmine leveled a look at me.

“That part of your life is over,” she said. “If you choose to, you can walk out of this office tonight and never talk about it again. You can start completely fresh.”

Could I simply erase these last four years of my life as easily as that? I shook my head.

“I need to remember,” I said. “I need to remember what I was willing to do for my baby. That I need to keep working hard for him. I’d walk through fire, Jazz. I’d go without food. I’ve gone without food. But I’m serious about this. I’ll do anything to get my treasure back.”

Jasmine’s eyes were shining at me. “Keep that in your heart and anything is possible,” she said. “What’s your dream job, Shimmy?”

I shook my head. It was too embarrassing, a little girl’s dream. Jasmine was persistent, though, and I found myself carefully studying the tips of my ballet flats after my admission.

“A fashion model.”

              I chanced a glance up at Jasmine and was relieved to see that she wasn’t laughing at me—or worse, pitying me.

“Fashion,” she said. “It makes sense. You know, I think I remember your door in the boarding house. You had models on it, right? And outfits.”

I nodded. “I’ve always been interested in fashion, even if there wasn’t any money for it.”

“I’m going to get you a job in a dress shop,” Jasmine said decisively. “I know just the one. And you’ll start going to business classes at BCC or BMCC. We’ll be able to get those covered through grants.”

“And I’d like to volunteer for Sisters Together,” I said.

Jasmine stopped and looked at me. “You don’t owe this place a thing,” she started to say, but I stopped her.

“I owe this place everything,” I said. “You’re giving me a future, Jazz. I want to pay it forward.”

She smiled. “I won’t argue with that,” she said. “Now. Let’s get you to your new home—until we find something a little better.”

              My new home. It was almost too much to believe.

This morning, I thought I’d had it all figured out. This evening, I knew that I didn’t. But I had a plan and a future, and that was the most important thing.

The next few months passed quickly, and it was all I could do to keep up. My new home was an old townhouse that had been divided into several private rooms. The kitchen and living room areas were common, and we split chores. It was so close to living at the boarding house that it was honestly the best transition I could’ve made.

Sure, a lot of the women were rough around the edges—just coming out of prison or rehab. I didn’t mind them. Sure, there were a few tiffs, but that just came with the territory of living in a house with people you didn’t know. I could handle my own among the other women, and as soon as we got to know one another, everything was fine.

I had more in common with these women than met the eye, I figured, which was how it was so easy to get along with them after a spell. In a way, I was just leaving a prison, too, free for the first time in my life. Things were going to get better from here. I knew they were.

              I made good friends of the other women living in the halfway house and transfixed them with my stories of Mama’s nightclub. All of the women there had stories of their own—desperate ones that left a bad taste in my mouth. I heard about rapes, about grueling addictions, about abuse from the men they thought loved them.

              It was a refreshing experience to live there, and it reminded me not to take anything for granted. You couldn’t compare tragedies, but I felt like my time at Mama’s nightclub sort of paled in comparison to some of these girls’ tragedies. After a while, my stories about what had gone on there were some of the lighter ones, and girls asked me to tell more and more.

I didn’t want to shy away from anything in my past, and sharing with them was one way to cope with everything that had happened. Plus, I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Jasmine that I didn’t want to forget about any of it. One of my newfound friends summed it up for me nicely.

“You’re a fucking grizzly bear mama, girl,” she said, nodding after one of my stories. “You gonna get your baby back. Ain’t no one gonna stand in your way.”

“I hope so,” I told her.

Work was a dream. I’d never been happier picking the brain of my employer, a good-hearted but hilariously snippy woman named Carlotta. Carlotta was a large-breasted fireball, though the rest of her was dainty. She got into the fashion industry because she claimed that no one was making the kind of clothes she liked. Carlotta favored tailored shirts that you could only buy in her store—button down blouses that actually fit across the chest area but tapered for a tailored waist.

Besides that, she had her hair dyed a positively shocking shade of red and switched up her glasses every day.

“Isn’t it hard to get so many prescription glasses filled?” I asked her on the third day and her third wild pair of glasses. The glasses that day were encrusted with a rainbow of rhinestones.

              “Oh, honey,” she said. “I have better than perfect vision. These are just for panache!”

I had to laugh at that. Not all fashion had to be serious. Some things could just be for fun.

All in all, Carlotta was particular about what she liked, including how her sole employee looked.

The first day I went into work, she dressed me from the racks, making me walk out and model the different looks. I alternately grinned or gave smoldering, sultry looks.

“Work it, work it,” Carlotta crooned, snapping her fingers in time to my steps.

She gave me an entire wardrobe from her shop even as I tried to protest.

“This is more than I can afford,” I said as she piled pieces into my arms.

“You’re not buying it,” she said. “I’m giving it to you.”

“I’ll pay you back with my next few paychecks,” I promised, but she shook her head.

“Your money’s no good here,” she said. “Seeing you looking good in the fashion we sell here will help our customers buy more—and is payment enough.”

              Carlotta had given me the most basic and fundamental pieces a girl could have in her fashion arsenal—a little black dress, black trousers, a matching suit jacket, three neutral button downs, and three neutral camisoles. I could rotate these pieces into anything I wanted, especially when I drew from the clothing that Jasmine had given me.

Carlotta was right—customers in the store were flummoxed when I told them how easy it was to establish a high-fashion basis in their very own wardrobes and started snapping up some of the basic pieces that I was modeling.

When I wasn’t ringing up customers, fetching them another size in something, or restocking the racks and shelves, I was learning about business and fashion from Carlotta. A lot of the things I was helping her do were covered in some of my business class textbooks. It was hard to get back into the swing of going to classes and learning, especially since I was one of the older students in the entry-level courses, but it helped that my job was so applicable to my studies.

Carlotta let me see how she filled out purchase orders and completed inventory all while keeping on track with a budget she established at the beginning of each year. On several occasions when she was busy with her design work, she trusted me to do the business side of her business.

“Don’t you want to check these numbers, Carlotta?” I called as I heard the sewing machine whirring.

“You’re a smart girl, Shimmy,” she called back. “I trust you.”

That made me check my work again and again, getting even better at each business task I had to complete.

I loved watching Carlotta design fashion. She started off sketching, then pieced together her creation using the sewing machine in the storeroom. She sometimes asked me to model the prototypes for her so she could see how the pieces worked on a real, moving human body.

I knew that I was really learning things about business and fashion when Carlotta entrusted me to pick which pieces we’d stock for the fall season.

“I like this jacket the best,” I said, pointing to a cute trench coat number. “And also this one.” That was a shorter cropped jacket with glittering buttons.

“You’re spot on with trends,” Carlotta murmured, writing down the order numbers for both coats. “And you’ll be catering to two very distinct tastes with these orders.”

“Maybe we should stock a third jacket,” I suggested. “A more normal blazer—but leather, let’s say, or animal print—for people who like it in between.”

“This is very smart, Shimmy, very smart,” Carlotta said, adding the number to her order. “Just when I think I can impart more wisdom to you, you show me you already know everything there is to know.”

“I can’t know all that,” I said, bashful. “Fashion changes all the time.”

“Trends change all the time,” Carlotta corrected. “It’s a skilled fashionista who can ride the trends but still remain classic. You, Shimmy, are one of them.”

The months went by and life just kept turning around. I couldn’t believe my luck, especially when I was used to it being so bad.

Jasmine helped me find a new apartment once I’d saved up enough money. I felt like it was time, like I could move on from the halfway house and its boarding house feel. There were women who needed my spot more than I did, and a new apartment was the next step to my goal: getting Trevor back. There were some tearful goodbyes from some of the girls, which surprised me. Even in the short time I’d been there, we had developed a cohesive sisterhood, watching out for one another and supporting one another when one of us felt down.

The rent at my new apartment was high, but all of the furniture had been donated, which helped offset the cost of being in a new place with not very many possessions to my name. Jasmine was also able to get a sponsorship for me to pay for part of the rent for a time. It was one of the most special programs at Sisters Together, she said.

“When people donate to a charity like mine,” Jasmine explained, “they often wonder what exactly their money is paying for. You are the face of why this is worth it and why it all works in the first place.”

“I wish there were some way for me to thank whoever’s doing this sponsorship,” I said, looking around my cozy new home.

“If you’d like, there is a way,” Jasmine said. “But it’s only if you’re comfortable with it.”

And that’s how I became the face of Sisters Together. Jasmine launched a new advertising and giving campaign, and they used parts of my story—and my picture—to give a face to the struggle. I was more than happy to help, and refused any sort of compensation for my time.

“I wanted to give back, and this is going to be pure giving,” I told Jasmine during a photo shoot at the new apartment.

“If you insist,” she said, smiling.

It was also around this time when something downright miraculous happened.

The media was falling all over itself during Mama’s trial, which, they called, the scandal of the century. It was on every television news network and emblazoned across the front of nearly every tabloid. No one called her by her real name—Wanda Dupree. She was Mama, a volatile character in this real-life soap opera.

I was trying not to pay attention to the circus, though there were a couple of Mama’s girls who were testifying. I saw a photo of Daisy on a news magazine one week and thought about buying it, but I’d lived that. I didn’t need a retrospective reminder on everything I’d been through. It still hurt too much that the money I had been socking away for Trevor was gone forever. It was no surprise when she was found guilty. There were dozens of girls who could’ve told anyone who wanted to know just how guilty Mama was.

Then, one day Jasmine called me on my cell phone. I was at home, getting ready to go into Carlotta’s, when the phone buzzed on the couch.

“Turn the TV on,” were Jasmine’s only words, and I didn’t even have to ask what channel. It was playing on every channel—Mama’s sentencing hearing. She looked tired but defiant in her prison oranges. I wondered how the prison life was treating her and if she was on the top of the food chain … or the bottom.

When the judge started reading from a piece of printed paper, I couldn’t understand the words. They couldn’t be true. Nothing could ever be that good.

“What’s he talking about?” I demanded.

“Shush,” Jasmine said. “Listen.”

But it wasn’t until the news commentators broke in over the drone of the judge that I truly understood. Mama and her nightclub were going to have to give all the money back to all of her girls based on how long they lived there, what Mama’s ledger books read, and other factors.

I was going to get my money back—the money I was saving for Trevor.

“You hear that?” Jasmine asked. “Things are getting better starting right now.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “Things have been getting better since I walked into your office. Things are amazing right now. And doesn’t this mean that you’re going to get money, too?”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” Jasmine said, sounding thoughtful. “I’ll invest it somehow in Sisters Together, maybe use it to fund these new housing units we were looking to purchase for some of the women we’re helping.”

“Whoa,” I said, startled. “You think you’re going to get that much cash from all this?”

“We’re all going to get a lot of money from this,” she told me. “What are you going to do with your money?”

“Oh, I have a plan or two for it,” I said, grinning. “I sure do.”

              It took several months to get a hold of the money that Mama owed us, especially with all the red tape of the justice system, but I was one of many girls getting a payout.

The amount was several zeroes more than anything I had ever seen, and it made the future possible.

              After I obtained my associate degree in business on an accelerated program, I worked with Carlotta to get all of the permits and applications in place to open up my own fashion boutique.

“I hate to lose you to the competition, but I know you’ll be great,” Carlotta said grimly as we went to get some forms notarized.

“There’s not a competition,” I said, confused.

“Silly girl, you’re the competition now,” she said. “Your fashion sense is always top notch. Always listen to your gut. Your instincts are better than anyone else I know.”

Carlotta made me tear up. I’d worked hard in her shop and learned a lot of things, and I was suddenly terrified to make the break from her.

“Maybe I should wait on this,” I said, clutching the applications to my chest. “I don’t think I’m ready.”

“Shimmy, the time is now,” Carlotta said. “You have to be ready. Life is giving you this opportunity. Seize it.”

“I just don’t understand how this is happening so fast,” I said, holding the palms of my hands to my hot cheeks. “Why are you being so nice to me, Carlotta?”

“Because everyone deserves a chance,” she said. “I got my start because somebody gave me a chance. I want you to have a good life, Shimmy. You deserve it.”

With that, some time, and a few legal hoops to jump through, I opened up my boutique that spring. A newspaper did a little write-up, though I declined to answer any questions about my time at Mama’s nightclub, and lots of people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Carlotta was there, as were Jasmine and Nate, Cocoa and her husband, Liam, Blue’s family, including her husband, Dan, and their little baby, Sandra, and a few of my friends from the halfway house. I made several big sales that first day, though I suspect it was my friends purchasing things just to get the boutique off to a lucky start.