Sketches (2 page)

Half an hour later she came up to talk to me. She'd noticed that I was just hanging around. She talked to me and then introduced me to Brent. At first I was pretty nervous, wondering if I could trust them. But really, what choice did I have? It was more scary to be alone than to trust those two, so I swallowed my fear.

Now, three weeks later, I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't taken me under their wings. Maybe I would have had to go home . . . No . . . I was
never
going home.

Brent interrupted my thoughts. “No offence, but you still look like a nice little girl from the suburbs.”

“I look like a nice little girl from the suburbs who hasn't washed her hair in two weeks,” I pointed out.

“It doesn't look that bad,” he said.

“Thanks for the compliment, just the words I've always wanted to hear—‘Your hair doesn't look
that
bad.'”

“You know what I mean. Ashley just looks more
street
than you do.”

No argument there. I understood what he meant. Ashley was pretty, but there was a hardness to her. Her hair was still a little bit of half a dozen different colours it had been over the past months, and I wasn't really sure which—if any—was the real colour. She looked kind of tough, and tired. Life on the streets meant never getting enough sleep.

Ashley had told me she'd been out on the streets for almost six months . . .
this
time. She'd run away a dozen
times, the first time when she was only twelve. Now that she was sixteen, I guess, technically, she wasn't on the run because she was old enough to live wherever she wanted.

“You live on the streets long enough and it changes the way you look . . . and the way you look at things.” Brent sighed. Then he took a deep breath and stood up a bit straighter, as if he was giving himself a mental kick in the butt. “Anyway, back to work.”

“Good idea,” I agreed. “You'd better try a little harder and get a few more bucks. So far, I know that
two
of us have enough money to eat tonight . . .”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” he said.

“I'm just joking . . . you know that, right?” I asked.

He smiled, turned, and disappeared around the corner of the subway station, heading back to the entrance he was covering.

I had to get back to work myself. I saw another woman walking toward me. I took a deep breath. This wasn't easy. It still gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach—but not as bad as the hunger pain I was stuck with if I didn't do it.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I was just wondering if—”

The woman brushed right by me, not making eye contact, not slowing down, acting like she hadn't seen or heard me.

“Jerk,” I mumbled under my breath. She turned around and scowled at me.
That
she'd heard. Thank goodness she kept walking.

Two women clutching bundles of shopping bags approached.

“Excuse me, I hate to bother you, but I lost my money and I have to get back home, and I was wondering if either of you had any spare change so I could take the subway. I'm already late and my mother is going to be
so
worried.”

“She
should
be worried, letting a girl your age come downtown by yourself,” one of the women said. “How old are you? Fourteen?”

“I'm sixteen,” I lied.

“This is a dangerous town for a sixteen-year-old,” she continued. “You can meet all sorts of people on these streets . . . people a young girl like you really shouldn't meet.”

“I
am
a little scared,” I said, trying to sound convincing. That wasn't much of an act. There had been very few times since I'd left home that I
wasn't
at least a little scared. “I just want to get home before it gets dark,” I said, adding a desperate note.

“Oh, that would be
awful
! I don't even want to imagine my little girl out here by herself . . . I don't think she'd even know what to do. Let me look for change,” the woman said. She put down her shopping bags and then began rummaging through her purse.

“I have lots of plastic and bills, but nothing smaller than a twenty. How about you, Doris?” she asked the second woman.

“I can check.” She put her bags down too and began looking through her purse. “Here we go!” she said, and she pulled out a ticket—a subway ticket!

“Gee, thanks!” I was trying to hide my disappointment. I'd thought I might get that twenty-dollar bill, and now I had a subway ticket. What good was a subway ticket?

She pressed it into my hand and then picked up her shopping bags.

“Now you hurry home before you give your poor mother a nervous breakdown. You kids have no idea how hard it is to be a mother!”

“That's right, Doris, no idea. I keep saying to my Angela that she won't know the grief she's caused me until she has children of her own!”

“Thanks for the ticket,” I said, and started to walk away.

“Wait!” one of them called out.

I stopped and turned around.

“Aren't you going the wrong way? The subway is this way.”

“Um . . . yeah . . . I know,” I said. “I just want to call my mother before I leave. I know she'll be worried and I want to phone her.” I pointed to a phone booth at the corner and I started to walk away again.

“Ahhhh,” I could hear the woman say. “Such a considerate girl.”

“Yes, considerate . . . but maybe she could wash that hair a little more often,” added Doris as they walked away.

If what she'd said hadn't been so funny, and so true, I might have felt insulted.

I did feel really grungy. I also felt hungry. We hadn't had anything except a coffee and a doughnut each today. And I was also sore from sleeping on the ground or on concrete floors. At least I wasn't cold right now, but that would change when the sun went down. June had warm days, but the nights were still pretty cool, even downright cold.

Once I was sure the two women had made their way down the stairs to the subway I returned to my spot right in front of the doors. Another man came up toward the subway.

“Excuse me, I was wondering—”

“If I could spare some change so you can get home because you lost your money,” the man said, cutting me off.

“Um . . . yeah . . . that's right,” I stammered.

“Yeah, right, but it's not the truth,” he said. “And the reason I know is that maybe you don't remember
me
but I remember
you
, and that's the line you used when you stopped me and I gave you money a couple of days ago.”

“You gave me money?” I asked. This was the only time we'd worked at this subway station.

“At the next station on this line. I gave you a dollar!” he snapped.

He did look familiar.

“I already gave you a dollar,” he repeated.

“Well, that explains it,” I said. “If you'd given me a dollar eighty-five I could have gotten home.” I walked away before he could react.

Brent had said that as long as we didn't work the same station too often we wouldn't run into the same people. That certainly sounded like a good theory. Too bad it didn't work. I spun back around, saw that the man had gone into the subway, and headed back to my spot once again. I didn't want to—not after that little exchange—but what choice did I have if I wanted to eat?

It was starting to get busier. People streamed by. Mothers with small children, business people rushing home, and university students carrying backpacks. There wasn't much point in asking the university students for money because some of them had less cash than I did. After begging for change the past few weeks I'd pretty much figured out who was a waste of my time. You looked at their eyes—did they make eye contact, or try to look away, or just pretend I wasn't even there? Or you could tell by how fast they were walking. The faster they were moving, the less chance that they'd drop some money in my hand.

A man in a business suit, carrying a briefcase, walked toward me. He was moving slowly and looking right at me. He had a sort of smile on his face. All good signs.

“Excuse me, I lost my money and I was wondering if you had some spare change so I could buy a subway ticket and go home. My parents will be really worried if I'm not home soon and—”

“How much do you need?” He stopped and put his briefcase down on the sidewalk. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his wallet. As he opened it up I could see that there was a wad of bills!

“Um . . . I don't need much . . . just a dollar or two . . . that would pay for my subway ticket, and I could make a phone call home as well to let them know I'm okay.”

He pulled out two twenty-dollar bills. “I don't have anything smaller. Are you sure all you need is a couple of dollars?” he asked.

“Well, I . . .”

“Maybe you could take a taxi home instead of the subway, and get there faster.”

“That would be
really
nice,
really
nice,” I said, barely able to believe that he was offering me all that money.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“I'm almost seventeen.”

“Oh . . . I thought you were younger, but that's okay.”

He offered the money to me, and I reached out to take it, but he suddenly pulled his hand away.

“Do you want the money? All forty dollars?” he asked.

I nodded my head.

“Okay, but you have to answer a question for me,” he said.

“What do you want to know?” I asked hesitantly.

“And if you're honest you can have the money.”

“Yeah, what do you want to know?”

“You're not really going home, are you?”

I didn't know what to say. What did he want me to say?

“You're living on the streets, right?” he asked.

What was the point in denying it? He knew. I nodded my head.

“That's what I thought,” he said. “And you're really not seventeen.”

Again I nodded.

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.” I paused. “Almost fifteen,” I admitted.

“That's a
nice
age . . . maybe a little older than I like, but still nice. Come with me.”

“Come where?” I asked, feeling scared and a bit creeped out now.

“Let's just go over to that alley right over there.” He pointed off to the side. “It'll just take a few minutes . . . you and me . . . and you get your money.”

My eyes widened in shock and surprise. Finally I understood what he meant. I stepped back.

“Don't you want the money, little girl?”
I shook my head and staggered back a few more steps.

“What's wrong, you want more than forty dollars?” he asked. “Come on, sweetie, we're only talking four or five minutes . . . you're cute . . . and I like 'em young . . . but nobody's worth more than forty bucks for a few minutes.”

A shudder went through my entire body.

“Well, what do you say, honey?”

I took a deep breath. “What I say . . . what I say . . . is that you're a
freaking creep
!”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed.

“I'm not doing anything you say, you
pervert
!” I screamed.

“Please, be quiet . . . you can have the money,” he said, reaching out to me with the twenties.

“I don't want your money!” I shrieked as I slapped his hand. The two bills fluttered to the ground.

“You should be arrested!” I screamed. People all around us were turning and staring and gawking. I didn't care!

“What's going on here?” a loud voice demanded. I turned around. It was a policeman! “What's going on?”

Boy, was this guy going to be in trouble. Maybe the cop would arrest him, or—

“Thank goodness you're here, officer!” the man exclaimed.

I stared in shock. Why would he be glad that the cop was here?

“Did you hear what she was yelling at me?” the man demanded.

“Everybody on the street heard it,” the cop said. He turned to the crowd that was gathering around us. “There's nothing to see here . . . all of you get moving.” Hesitantly, reluctantly, the people started away and the crowd dissipated.

“What, exactly, is happening?” the cop asked.

“She was threatening me!” the man said. “This little street tramp was begging for money, and when I wouldn't give her any she threatened me! She said she'd claim I made sexual advances toward her. I offered her forty dollars to just be quiet, and she demanded more! She said she'd make me regret not co-operating, and you heard her with your own ears.”

My mouth dropped open. I was too shocked to even think of what I could say.

“And I'm the
last
person in the world to do what she's accusing me of,” the man continued. “I'm a businessman . . . I have a daughter of my own her age . . . I'm a property owner—”

“You're a liar and a pervert!” I yelled, my brain and mouth finally snapping back into gear.

“I am nothing of the sort, you filthy little piece of street trash! You should be arrested!”

“
You
should be arrested!”

“The only thing I am guilty of is being idiotic enough to stand up to your blackmail. I should have
just given you more money like you demanded and gone on my—”

“Enough!” the policeman yelled, cutting him off mid-sentence. He looked at the man and then he looked at me. His gaze was hard and angry, and I lowered my eyes to the ground. The two twenties still lay there on the pavement.

“Were you begging?” the cop demanded.

I didn't know what to say.

“Answer the question!” he snapped angrily.

I nodded.

“It's illegal to beg for money. I should run you in. In fact, I should probably bring you in anyway, just in case someone actually gives a damn about you and filed a runaway report.”