Authors: Tess Thompson
Riverbend
Copyright 2013 Tess Thompson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
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Cover Photo by Clare Barboza
Cover Design by Greg Simanson
Edited by Jennifer D. Munro
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
PRINT ISBN 978-1-62015-142-6
EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-238-6
For further information regarding permissions, please contact
[email protected]
.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013939798
For Jacqui Farnsworth,
My forever Bestie.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Jennifer D. Munro for your kind and careful editing. Greg Simanson, for this beautiful cover. Clare Barboza, for the use of your stunning photo as inspiration for the cover; your work is truly art and I'm grateful for both your friendship and the added beauty you bring to this world.
I am rich in friends. This was never more obvious than during my recent personal difficulties and professional success, both of which taught me who my true friends are. You know who you are and so do I. Thank you for every time you picked up the phone, the invitations to dinner, packages in the mail, and encouraging words during my darkest days. I will not forget.
Katherine Sears and Kenneth Shear. Thank you. Words are not enough, but I know you know.
And, finally, to my partner in this crazy book business, Heather Ludviksson. You are the Lee to my Annie. I couldn't do it without you. I love you more with each passing day. Thank you. Our time will come.
Contents
MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE
Prologue
2003
FROM THEIR BEDROOM,
Annie waited for the sound of Marco's boots on the hardwood floor and then the slam of the front door. After this, she watched the second hand on the small plastic alarm clock make its way around the clock five times. She dressed quickly in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans even though it was August and hot. It was habit now, this hiding of her bruises in the daylight. Adrenaline coursed through her body and it was like a drug propelling her forward in spite of her fear that Marco would know she'd left home without his permission. Looking behind her a dozen times, she marched to the bus stop, her mind reeling. What if he came home unexpectedly? What if he became ill at work and had to come home? What if he called the apartment and no one answered?
The 310 bus dropped her two blocks from the Planned Parenthood building. It was hard to breathe and she dripped with perspiration under the hot sun as she zigzagged between other pedestrians. She marveled, as she always did, at the diversity of the faces and attire. Other people. How long had it been since she'd been anywhere but the neighborhood grocery store? She couldn't say. Maybe six months. Perhaps longer. After the last time he'd come home and she'd been out, she decided the subsequent beating wasn't worth it. She would stay inside and cook and clean. This was her life now. There was no way out.
Her hands shook as she filled out forms in the tan and orange lobby, waiting her turn. She didn't bother to look around at the other
young women waiting. There was nothing to see in the other women's eyes she couldn't see reflected in her own image. Women without funds, without insurance, without choices.
The forms asked her the question no one had asked in her isolation. “Are you in a safe environment at your home?”
She marked the box: no.
The nurse weighed her. Annie was shocked at the number on the scale. But she should not be. She ate compulsively now, the only thing that gave her pleasure, or perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps it was a shield against Marco. The bigger she got, the less Marco forced himself upon her in the long, bleak night.
Fat Cow
, he called her now when he hit her. Sometimes,
Blubber Ass.
“You're eight weeks along,” the doctor said a short time later, her eyes scanning Annie's exposed skin. There was no hiding here. The gowns were short. Annie stared at the wall. It was impossible to miss the bruises covering the backs of her thighs and backside where he'd beaten her with his belt and the ones in the shapes of fingers on her upper arms. They were two days old, and purple.
The questions came then.
“No, I'm not safe,” Annie said, no louder than a whisper. “But I can't get away from him. He'll find me. I've tried before.”
“You must get away from him or this baby is in jeopardy,” said the doctor, not unkindly or even with judgment, but Annie felt hostility towards her anyway. Yes, it was easy for her to say, to advise, to counsel. She was in her forties, Annie guessed, and wore a plain gold band on her wedding finger. After work she would get in a car that ran consistently and go home to a safe house. There were probably children and a yard and Saturday afternoons where they all went to the Santa Monica pier and ate corndogs. She probably slept well at night knowing she was using her skills and training to help poor girls like Annie. But the truth was, this doctor with her salt and pepper ponytail, comfortable sandals, and crushed-cotton blouse could not possibly understand what it was to be twenty years old and in a prison of sorts with no hope of ever getting out.
Next, the idea of shelters and other options were presented. Phone numbers and pamphlets were thrust into her hands. Annie
pretended they were viable options, tucking them neatly in her purse. But she knew they weren't. None of them could protect her from Marco's rage. She was under his control, isolated from all her former friends and her mother.
She had no job. He'd taken even that away.
You stay home and cook for me
, he told her one night, pinning her against the sink in their small apartment, after she'd made the mistake of mentioning how much she was learning as a prep cook at the restaurant where they'd met.
This is what good women do
.
If your slut mother knew that maybe she could keep a man.
She had no money of her own. No car of her own. No way to escape.
But later, riding home on the bus, as she gazed out the window as they passed the small rundown shops slathered with the gang graffiti of South Los Angeles, something came to her like a voice one could not locate in a crowded room. She must reverse their lives. Marco must go to jail so she could be free.
He had two drug convictions from before she knew him—both for selling meth on the streets. Another drug offense, a third offense, would mean extensive jail time.
She put her hand inside her purse, feeling for the hundred dollars she kept hidden in the lining. It was there, after months of taking a dollar here and there from the money he gave her for groceries every week.
On the corner several streets from her apartment complex, next to a shop with a sign that read “Donuts and Chinese Food,” there was a perfume store. She pulled the bell cord and the driver stopped. She jumped to the sidewalk that smelled of urine, wiping her face with the sleeve of her shirt. Inside the shop, she asked the clerk for a sample of a man's cologne to take home. “Something my boyfriend can try to see if he likes it.”
The clerk handed her several samples in small glass containers. She tucked them inside the lining of the purse, next to the only money she had in the world.
On the street, squinting in the bright sunlight, she walked block after block, searching for someone selling drugs. She finally spotted him in front of a smoke shop, a skinny, nervous looking young man
with pocked skin. Making eye contact, he nodded, ever so slightly, and indicated with his eyes to meet him in the alley. She did so, sweating under the glaring sun of late afternoon. “What can I get for 100 dollars?” she asked, her voice trembling.
He handed her a small white package. “Not much.”
Enough
, she thought.
For my purposes.
That night, just shy of midnight, she opened the window wide enough for someone to jump through. Dressed in lacy lingerie, she painted her mouth with lipstick. She sprinkled the pillows with drops of the men's cologne. Then she climbed into bed, clutching the telephone in one hand and the meth in the other. And she waited.
Marco came home twenty minutes later. Annie knew he was the plus ten kind of drunk by the way he slammed into the hall table and the subsequent heavy and unsteady footsteps down the hallway as he made his way to the bedroom. She'd invented a scale to gauge Marco's drunkenness. Five was the afternoon kind of drunk while watching football with some of his buddies. He was harmless then, almost playful. Anything above an eight meant that he would have his fists on her before he passed out on the bed.
His footsteps were closer to the bedroom now. She dialed 911, speaking quietly into the phone. “I'm being beaten by my boyfriend. Send police to 8011 Alvarado right away.” She hung up, bracing for the worst, hoping they would arrive in time.
Then he was in the doorway, his red eyes scanning the room, taking in the open window, her lingerie, and her painted mouth.
He yanked her from the bed, tearing the front of her nightgown apart so that she was in only her panties. “You little slut. You had someone here? In my bed?” He went to the window, shouting into the night like a crazed animal, “Where is the son of a bitch?” Slamming the window shut and locking it, he turned towards her, utter rage displayed on his now almost purple face. A vein popped from his forehead; his pulse beat wildly at his neck. Then, he lurched towards her, yanking her up by her mane of thick curls. She closed her eyes, knowing the pain was coming, and slipped the meth into his pants pocket.
