Dime (27 page)

I pull out my pen flashlight and crumpled, bloody paper. There's not enough time to write it the way I had hoped I would. There's too much, and it's too complicated, and there are too many voices. So I give up all my fancy ideas and just try to make it legible.

Please make sure this baby gets a good story.

I slide the note beneath the fleece folds. I stay hunched over for as long as I can before I imagine that people will come along and see us. A glow of light begins to seep into the air. There is nobody around anywhere. The glow lightens and lightens until it is sun bright and the outlines of buildings and cars and trees and hydrants and mailboxes are crisp, glinting. It's hard to put Rayelle down, but I might already have waited too long, and I need to get to a bridge. So I rest her gently next to the book, in front of the library door, beneath the green statues guarding the archway. I tuck her in as best I can and kiss her cheek.

And then I go.

I HAVE NO idea what made me take off the puffy black coat with the gray fur-lined hood all those years ago. Maybe I thought I would fall faster and harder. Maybe I thought that being coatless would numb my body in the cold, so that somehow I would feel less pain both hitting the water and drowning. Whatever the reason, when I dropped Daddy's gift on the icy ground, an inside zipper gaped open. I had never known that zipper, or the pocket it sheltered, existed.

The corner of something slight and cream colored slipped out. It was a business card. It smelled of face powder.

Pamela Terrence,
it read.
The North Star.

The following nonfiction books contributed to my attempts at understanding human trafficking:

Bales, Kevin.
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.

Bales, Kevin, and Ron Soodalter.
The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009.

Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla.
A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Hayes, Sophie.
Trafficked: The Terrifying True Story of a British Girl Forced Into the Sex Trade
, Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2013.

Kara, Siddharth.
Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery
, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2009.

Lloyd, Rachel.
Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale, an Activist Finds Her Calling and Heals Herself.
New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011.

Malarek, Victor.
The Natashas
:
Inside the New Global Sex Trade.
New York, NY: Arcade, 2004.

Mam, Somaly.
The Road of Lost Innocence.
New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau, 2008.

Phelps, Carissa.
Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time.
New York, NY: Viking, 2012.

Skinner, E. Benjamin.
A Crime So Monstrous: A Shocking Exposé of Modern-Day Sex Slavery, Human Trafficking and Urban Child Markets.
Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2008.

Slim, Iceberg.
Pimp: The Story of My Life
. Cash Money Content, 2011.

Smith, Linda, and Cindy Coloma.
Renting Lacy: A Story of America's Prostituted Children.
Shared Hope International, 2009.

Another nonfiction book, written by a survivor and published after
Dime
was completed, is an excellent resource:

Smith, Holly Austin.
Walking Prey: How America's Youth Are Vulnerable to Sex Slavery
. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

The following documentary films contributed to my attempts at understanding human trafficking:

Not My Life

Very Young Girls

Another documentary film, released after
Dime
was completed, is an excellent resource:

3AM Girls

At the time of the publication of this novel, there are many organizations that provide direct services to survivors of domestic human trafficking. These shelters are listed by state at
sharedhope.org
.

Another helpful resource for victims, survivors, and anyone interested in more information is the National Human Trafficking Resource Center: (888) 373-7888.

Text INFO or HELP to BeFree (233733) or visit
befreedayton.org
to receive help, report a tip, or request information or training.

Also by E. R. Frank

America

Friction

Life Is Funny

Wrecked

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• This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. • Text copyright © 2015 by E. R. Frank • Jacket photograph copyright © 2015 by Neil Swaab • All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. • A
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. • Interior design by Mike Rosamilia; jacket design and hand-lettering by Russell Gordon • The text for this book is set in Mercury. • First Edition • Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data • Frank, E. R. • Dime / E. R. Frank. — First edition. • pages cm • Summary: Fourteen-year-old Dime, a foster child in Newark, New Jersey, finds love and family as a prostitute, but when reality sets in, will Dime have the strength to leave? • ISBN 978-1-4814-3160-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) • ISBN 978-1-4814-3162-0 (eBook) • [1. Prostitution—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction. 3. African Americans—Fiction.] I. Title. • PZ7.F84913Di 2015 • [Fic]—dc23 • 2014023579