Dime (25 page)

Daddy's had the two end rooms opposite each other on the top floor of the hotel all this time. He's planned it, hoping it will be harder for “guests” in the other rooms to hear Lollipop scream if she's up high in a corner. Also the live feed is off. Lollipop only does scheduled time slots now. Brandy says Daddy is being more careful than usual since Lollipop is so pregnant. She says Daddy doesn't want too much word getting out what he's selling right now because a pregnant eleven-year-old is a squad magnet for sure. Daddy shrugs and says he's not worried, but it's just that people pay more money if they have to wait to watch.

He sent L.A. back down south right after Christmas. He sent her with Eagle straight from an overnight. She must have been pissed off. I don't know how she and Eagle and Whippet are planning it: What can L.A. do from all the way down south? Even the “spot,” whatever that is, is in Philadelphia. Maybe Whippet's going to drive down south to pick up L.A. and bring her back to Philadelphia with him, and they're going to wait there for Eagle to call or come with the baby. Except if I was L.A., I wouldn't trust Eagle as far as I could throw him. Or Whippet. Why does she think they even need her? Maybe there's more than one spot and they're going to have to take the baby somewhere after Philadelphia and will need somebody who looks like a mother to get to wherever they're going.

Between preparing to deliver the baby and trying to hide what I know and trying to figure out L.A.'s plan, I can hardly think straight. I want to go right back to
what?
But I can't.

Lollipop is pregnant, and there's going to be a baby, and I have to save it.

All Daddy talks about with me is baby plans.

“When she starts up that labor, you tell Eagle immediate. He going to find Brandy. Then you and her getting that baby out.”

I nod.

“After it finished, you scrub up good.”

I nod again.

“Keep Lollipop in the bathtub for all the blood. Easier to clean.”

“Did you ever see a baby born?” I am wondering how he knows there will be so much blood.

He laughs, flashing his gold
D
. “I got born, didn't I?”

I stay quiet after that. I'm afraid if I say much more, I'll somehow reveal what he still doesn't know about L.A. plotting with Whippet and Eagle. It doesn't feel real to believe that people actually buy babies. But maybe that's not so different from buying Lollipop for an hour. Or buying me. I'm wondering if L.A. and Eagle and Whippet will keep the promises they made to each other. Maybe one of them will play the others. Maybe all of them are hoping to play the others. It's hard to say.

I just hope I can keep it from Brandy. I don't want to involve her. I don't want her getting beaten again, or worse. I did look for her powder. I've looked for it three times, when I had the chance. It's not anywhere. Not tucked inside the foot of my sleeping bag, not slipped in with the tampons or folded between socks or behind the padding of a bra or anywhere. And I can't ask her again, because it's just too dangerous for both of us if she knows I'm up to anything.

I still know I'll have to kill myself. I'll have to do it before anybody finds me, especially because they all will want to make sure I die hurting.

*  *  *

Between two thirty and seven thirty each morning I lay my head on the royal-blue pillow I got so long ago from Daddy. I breathe as evenly as I can, reading, or trying to decide how to write the note and also how to end my life when I'm finished doing what I'm going to do.

I still don't know which voice to use for the note, which one will be the most effective.

And I still don't know which method to use to kill myself. What will be the most painless, the least terrifying? Throwing myself in front of a car doesn't seem 100 percent certain. I could just lose a leg or become paralyzed. It would hurt. Grabbing Eagle's gun off the front seat is too risky. He's faster than I am, and stronger. Daddy always has his gun on him now. I think he sold the pearl-handled one. The same three times I looked for Brandy's card in the powder, I looked for that gun, too. It wasn't anywhere. I don't have drugs or medicine to overdose. I thought I could get some from Stone's girls, but everybody would see me, and Stone himself might hand me over to Daddy. There's a bathtub in my hotel bathroom, but not enough time for me to bleed to death in there before they'll all find me.

It's going to have to be one of those bridges. There are a lot that cross the river.

*  *  *

Brandy surprises me. “What do you think Daddy going to do with that baby?” she asks one Sunday. We're cleaning up in the kitchen from early dinner before going to work. Daddy is out.

I shrug.

“You think if it's a boy, Daddy going to take him for his own?”

“What if it's a girl?” I ask back.

“Maybe raise her up too? Be nice to have a baby around.”

Hearing her wish for that, as silly and stupid as something poor Lollipop might think up, gives me crazy thoughts. Thoughts that don't go together but all seem important. “How much do you remember your grandmother?” I ask.

“What?”

“Like what do you remember?”

“The way she did up my hair,” Brandy says. “The way she sang. She sang from
Thriller
all the time and also Marian Anderson.” She starts dancing around.
“ ‘Billy Jean is NOT myy looover. She's just a girl who says that III am the onnnne. But the KID is not my sonnnnn.' ”

“I remember a lady,” I interrupt.

She stops singing and raises her eyebrows instead. “You talkative today.”

“She used to read to me,” I say. “On a rocking chair. She had a watch.”

“Why you telling me this?” Brandy asks.

“In case a lady like that ever comes by,” I say. “You can make sure she knows I remembered.”

Brandy puts her hands on her hips. “You gone crazy, Dime? The hell you talking about?”

“There's a gray brick in the alley behind the third house by the track,” I tell her. “Sometimes I think if I push it just the right way, I can find that lady.”

Brandy bugs out her eyes. “I always knew you was psycho.”

“I'm just saying,” I say. “Maybe you could find your grandmother too.”

“Shut up.”

“She used to read to you, too, didn't she?”

“Shut up, I said.”

“
Goodnight Moon
, right?”

“You walking on thin ice.”

“You should apologize to Lollipop for what you did to her.”

“I did that already.”

“You did?”

“Please,” Brandy says. “Don't be so surprised.”

“I'm not surprised,” I say. “And just because
Goodnight Moon
bothers you, doesn't mean you have a right to beat little girls.”

“I want to pretend I don't know what you talking about, bitch,” Brandy tells me. “But I'm so taken back that you talking so much, I'll just let it lie.”

*  *  *

Since I know what I'm going to do, and I know there isn't much time left, I don't bother to keep trying at school. Ds and Fs don't really matter anymore. Instead I think about what it will be like to jump off a bridge. I tell myself that maybe I will get to be on John Edward, after all. Just not from this side. Maybe it was a grandmother or an aunt or possibly even my own mother. Whoever it was with the scratching watch and the barbecue potato chip breath will be searching for me. And John Edward will say,
She wants you to know she is with the elephants, and they are taking care of her, and she is okay.

I imagine that, but mostly I just concentrate on remembering the books I've always loved. Or on hiding my flashlight inside my sleeping bag while rereading
The Color Purple
, the only book I have left. I burrow inside the pages of my memory and of my thick paperback in the early morning between two thirty and seven thirty. The time when I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, but the characters are so alive I can't close them. Scout, Tom, Boo, Janie, Charlie, Alec, Carrie, Katniss, Cathy, Mandy, Charlotte, Corduroy, Max, James, Wendy, Celie, Nettie, Shug.

The stories and the characters begin to overlap, to blur together, but their hearts are all the same. And that helps.

IT HAPPENS EARLIER than I thought it would. I've just arrived after school, and I'm in Lollipop's hotel room doing her hair, getting her ready for a show at four. It's Friday afternoon.

“Dime?” Lollipop says. “I'm peeing on myself.”

She's dripping a puddle on the carpet.
Thank you, Jesus,
I say to myself, even though I never talk to Jesus. “Get over the toilet.”
Thank you for letting me be here when it begins. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

She runs to the bathroom, leaving a liquid trail behind. I blot it up as best I can and follow her. When her stream slows to a trickle and then to a stop, I wipe her legs dry and bring her a fresh change of clothes.

“It doesn't hurt at all,” Lollipop says. She looks down at herself, pulling her waistband out. “I don't see a head or anything.”

“Lollipop, I told you so many times it could be hours before you feel any pain. It could be a day or more before that baby comes out.”
Please let it be tonight. Please, please, please.

I lead her back to the computer. “Now do your show and then get in bed and rest,” I tell her. “If you start getting pain, don't worry. It will stop in a minute and then it won't happen again for a couple of hours. Do not say during your show that your water broke. Do not say that. Daddy said so, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Can I have the orange ribbons, though?”

I'm betting that since she is so young and since this is her first baby, nothing much will happen soon. I am praying that baby will wait until later, until after dark, until long after dark. Even though I don't pray, I am praying and praying and praying.

*  *  *

I have three dates all in a row. The first is one of those stupid ones.

“I like that color,” he says, about my fingernails. They are the same blue as my pillowcase. He's sitting on the edge of the bed and hasn't even taken off his shoes. “Do you do them yourself?”

I shake my head. Brandy does them for me.

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” I lie, and I start to undress him, since he doesn't seem in any hurry.

“Wow. You look younger.” He's wearing boxers, and he has a gold chain around his ankle. “What do you use this money for?” He slips off his own shirt, and I work on his pants.

“I pay for classes at Rutgers,” I say. “I want to be a teacher.”

“That's a great goal,” he says. “I bet you make money fast doing this.”

I nod again.

“You have any brothers or sisters?”

“One brother and four sisters,” I say.
Jywon, Vonna, Sienna, Lollipop, Brandy
.

“It's nice to have a big family,” he tells me.

I start to touch him, just to keep things going. He's white, but his skin has that red tint some white men have.

He stops me. “Don't be scared, okay?” he says, which scares me. “I'm going to take care of myself,” he says. “You just stand there and hit me.”

“Hit you?”

“Yeah.” His red face turns pink. “It really turns me on,” he says. “Just slap me around a little.” He picks up my hand and makes me hit his cheek the way Daddy slaps me.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”

*  *  *

The second john folds me over the edge of the bed so that he can stand behind me. He takes forever to finish.

*  *  *

The next one has a limp and asks me to sit on his lap facing him. It takes him forever too, and the whole time all I can see are the shades of pink inside his huge nostrils.

*  *  *

Finally I have a break and I can check on Lollipop. She's fast asleep in her bed. It's almost six. I have fifteen minutes before my next date. I spend it frantically trying to write my note. I've been using the empty pages left in the back of my old English notebook. It has to be perfect. I've been working on it for so many weeks. But I still don't know how to do it. Who to be. What to write. I start and stop five times, then six. I hear footsteps approaching my door. My date. I slide my English notebook and pen under the bed.

*  *  *

I'm back in Lollipop's room at seven, carrying a bag of cheeseburgers and fries. Eagle is following me because I couldn't figure out how to stop him. I hope Lollipop's still asleep. She's not. She's sitting up in bed, watching Nickelodeon.

“How you feel?” Eagle asks.

I hold my breath, silently begging her not to tell him her water broke. Not to get a contraction. She ignores him, spaced out on the television screen. I scrabble a french fry and try to eat it, faking calm.

“I ask how you feel!” Eagle says more loudly.

Lollipop glances at him. “Sorry,” she says. “Fine, thanks.”

Eagle looks at her for a minute and then strides over to the bed. He pulls the covers down and looks at her belly for a long second.

“What?” Lollipop asks. She looks at me. My cold nerves are leaping all over the place. “What?”

“You have date tomorrow. Eleven. Two hour.” Eagle doesn't bother to replace the covers. He just marches out of the room.

Lollipop glazes over at Nickelodeon again. I turn the TV off and wait a minute for her to snap out of it.

“I have to go back to my room,” I tell her. “I'm working again in ten minutes. Did you have another contraction yet?”

She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “It hurt bad but it's over now.”

“How long ago?”

“
SpongeBob SquarePants
twice,
Victoriou
s
, and then most of
Drake and Josh
.”