Braver (Runaway) Read online

  “That we do,” I agreed. “I’ll remind the girls.”

  “Thanks, honey,” Mama said. She leaned back and patted her plump stomach. “Mercy, I’m full.”

  “I can’t believe you were going to try to eat all that by yourself,” I said. I was full, too, with all that rich food.

  “Well, I fibbed,” Mama said. “I didn’t have trouble sleeping. I set my alarm. I was kinda hoping you were going to be down early.”

  “You know me,” I said. “I’m always down early. What’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinking that it’s been too long since you had a roommate,” she said.

  “It has been a while,” I said carefully. I tried to think ahead at what Mama might be getting at. My last roommate had been a waif of a girl who hadn’t been cut out for life at the nightclub. That happened sometimes, and it didn’t make Mama happy when it did. It was like losing money on an investment, especially when the girl had needed things to start out with. Mama’s specialties were girls who were down on their luck. She’d take them in, clean them up, give them clothes, food, and a place to live, then earn her money back.

  My last roommate — Scribbles, Mama had called her, since she was always writing in a little notebook — had refused to sleep with customers after her first encounter. Mama had smoothed feathers, offering other girls at discounted rates to the customers Scribbles had snubbed.

  Then she’d unceremoniously dumped my roommate on her ass in the alley. Mama’s insults had echoed down the brick-lined corridor, making Scribbles scuttle away into the night and me feel like I’d done something wrong.

  “I gotta vet ’em better,” Mama had muttered to herself. “Gotta get better help in here.”

  I’d removed the poster board on my door with Scribbles’ name on it immediately, even before getting back to work at the nightclub. I had to take over serving her tables.

  Mama told me later that she didn’t blame me a bit for Scribbles, but I felt guilty all the same. Maybe it was some failing of mine that kept the girl from doing the best job she could.

  But if I was reluctant to talk about Scribbles, I absolutely loathed talking about Jazz.

  Jazz had everything going for her when she was my roommate. Mama had wanted to move her on out of my room, especially when we’d taken on Shimmy a few weeks afterward.

  But I had told Mama to wait. I didn’t like what I was seeing with Jazz.

  The business was eating her alive.

  Jazz had made Mama so much money that she’d been more livid at the fact that Jazz had fled the nightclub than the fact that Jazz had betrayed her.

  Or tried to, anyway. What had happened to Jazz in the end was the ultimate betrayal. She’d almost died in the process.

  I let out a long breath. That was the past. I’d since gotten a letter from Jazz telling me that she was doing much better.

  “We need a new way to bring in girls,” Mama said. I was immediately relieved that she didn’t want to talk about Jazz — or anything else I felt bad about. “A way to get them here and keep them here.”

  “What’ve you been thinking of?” I asked.

  “How can we advertise for this?” Mama said. “I need girls to be clear about what’s expected of them, but you know we can’t put that in a newspaper classified section.”

  I thought for a few moments. “We could do interviews,” I suggested. “We could put — perhaps not in a newspaper — that we’re an opportunity to work and live in the same place. You don’t have to have money to live here — you earn your keep by working. Then we could have them come in to look the place around. We’d explain the chores, the living situation, the nightclub, everything.”

  “Everything?” Mama asked, raising an eyebrow. “I seem to remember you saying we shouldn’t tell them ‘everything’ right off.”

  I sighed. “I never wanted to shock the new girls, is all,” I said. “Maybe it wasn’t the right approach. I don’t know. But we need to figure out something so that girls know what they’re getting into.”

  “I like your interview idea,” Mama said, stroking her chin. “Maybe that is the right approach.”

  “We could advertise on Craigslist or something,” I continued, excited that Mama was feeling positive about my idea. “Lots of people look on there, nowadays.”

  “Good girl,” Mama said, “good girl.” She rubbed her hands together, that money look in her eyes. “I know I can always count on you, Cocoa.”

  “You know you can, Mama,” I said, feeling proud of myself.

  “Well,” she said with a heavy sigh, standing up, “I gotta do some things today before we open.”

  She made a move to grab the dirty plates, but I shook my head.

  “You made breakfast,” I said. “It’s only fair that I clean up.”

  “You’re a good girl, Cocoa,” Mama said. “Thank you for all your help.”

  “Oh, Mama,” I said quickly before she could leave. “Think I could take out about ten bucks? I need to get some things at the store.”

  “Sure thing, sugar,” she said. “Just stop by the office. I’ll be there.”

  She left the kitchen and I washed the plates before putting them back in the cupboard. I knew girls would be down after a while to start getting their own meals, but I scraped the grill anyways, watching it smoke from the oil and cleaning block.

  I poured some hot water in a mug and plopped a teabag in it. The fresh, almost floral scent of chamomile wafted into my nose and opened my pores as I sniffed at it. I could live on tea alone, I believed.

  I grabbed the marker and added a note on the chores whiteboard before I forgot.

  “Meeting at five-thirty,” it read. “Important — don’t be late.”

  That way, I could remember to impart Mama’s message before we all got busy working to open the nightclub.

  I hung the whiteboards out and was just getting ready to leave the kitchen when Blue sauntered in. Her fine blonde hair stood up in every direction away from her head. I was surprised to see her — she was usually one of the last girls to wake up for the day.

  “What’s shakin’, bacon?” she asked sleepily.

  “Just finishing up here,” I said, pulling the teabag from the mug and tossing it in the garbage. “What are you doing up?”

  Blues grimaced. “Car alarm outside. Couldn’t go back to sleep.”

  “Poor thing,” I said, pouting and tweaking her cheek. “You gotta get some beauty rest!”

  Blues chuckled and twisted away. “A full stomach will do it,” she said. “Smells good in here.”

  “Mama was here right now,” I said.

  “Damn,” she remarked. “If I’d given up on sleep just a little bit earlier, I could’ve feasted on that famous breakfast.”

  “Just not looking like it’s going to be your day, Blue,” I joked.

  Blue was perhaps one of my closest friends at the nightclub. We’d been roommates back in the day, before Mama designated me as the one who should be the first face the new girls should get to know. I knew Blue always had my back — from behind the bar and everywhere.

  “What’s the meeting about?” she asked, noticing the whiteboards for the first time. She leaned closer. “Sweet. Vacuum duty.”

  “You wanna hear it now or at five-thirty?”

  She shrugged. “Both. That way, maybe it’ll sink in.”

  “It’s not really for you, though,” I said. “Mama was telling me that we had a customer complain about a girl not being ‘fresh’ for him.”

  “Ugh,” Blue said, wrinkling her nose. “Like fishy?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, laughing and waving my hand in front of my face. “Mama didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask her to. Now I get to figure out a way to tell everyone to make sure they shower between encounters. Or rest. Or try to remember to please the customer.”

  “I don’t envy you for that,” Blue said, pouring herself a glass of milk and leaning on the counter.

  Since Blue was a bartender, she rarel
y came in direct contact with our customers. She was kept busy all night by drink orders from the girls serving the tables. However, once in a “blue moon,” as we all laughingly called it, a customer would take a shine to her and ask her to dance or sleep with him.

  She always cheerfully agreed, enjoying the intermittent nature of these occurrences — as well as the added boost it gave to her paycheck. We all tipped out the bartenders at the end of the night. But the real money was always made from the bedroom business.

  “Any fun plans for today?” Blue asked. Her oversized T-shirt swallowed her whole and made her look younger than she was. She was petite to begin with.

  “Not really,” I said. “Maybe I’ll run to the corner store a little later and get some more hairspray. Gotta redo this hairdo. You need anything?”

  “Nah, I went yesterday,” she said. “Got some awesome new nail polish. Purple glitter — my favorite.”

  “You’ll shine tonight when you’re mixing all those drinks,” I said.

  “That’s the idea,” Blue said over her shoulder, rooting through the refrigerator until she came up with the eggs. “I’d offer you an omelet, but I’m sure your breakfast was far superior.”

  “Don’t be jealous,” I teased her. “I was just lucky enough to come across Mama in the kitchen this morning.”

  “I’m going to start getting up earlier,” she grumbled, cracking the eggs in a pan that she placed over a burner instead of the grill.

  “See you later, then.”

  I left the kitchen and climbed the stairs. Girls were starting to stir. I heard the faint buzz of televisions from behind some doors. Two of the showers in the bathroom were running.

  Mama’s girls were starting to wake up for the day.

  When I was back in my room, I shed the kimono and pulled on a pair of jeans and a Yankees T-shirt, sipping on the tea the whole time. I knew that chamomile was a calming brew, most often taken before going to bed. But I always buzzed with energy. It helped calm me down.

  I looked again at my reflection as soon as my tea was done. The hair needed some serious tending to, but I couldn’t do a thing without hairspray. Little kinky curls had sprouted right out of the braids. I looked a mess, but I was only going to the corner store. There was nobody to impress there.

  Ready to go, I left and locked the room. For the most part, I trusted all the girls. But I knew the moment I let my guard down, something I valued might go walking out of my door. I chalked it up to the bad neighborhood I’d grown up in. I could never leave the door unlocked when I was leaving the nightclub or going down to work a shift.

  “Morning, Cocoa,” Shimmy mumbled, slipping by me and into the bathroom, rubbing her eyes.

  “Afternoon,” I called after her, grinning. The only time you couldn’t find Shimmy dancing was right when she woke up. She was definitely not an early bird.

  I jogged back downstairs and knocked on the office door. It was located right by the kitchen.

  “Come on in!” came the muffled reply.

  “It’s me, Cocoa,” I said, pushing the door open. “Just ten dollars, please, Mama.”

  “I remember,” she said, smiling and still in her curlers and terrycloth robe. “I’ve got it right out here for you.”

  She held out the bill and I took it, stuffing it into my little purse. Mama made a notation in the open ledger in front of her. I knew it was where she kept all of our accounts of the money we made and took out. It was Mama who’d drilled into my head to not leave anything of value in the rooms. She made all of the girls keep their earnings with her, effectively operating as the bank of the nightclub. She said it was so she could keep our money safe and that we could withdraw any amount of our earnings whenever we needed to.

  I’d never personally had a problem with the system, but two of my former roommates did. Neither of them trusted Mama to handle their money properly.

  I wasn’t sure that Jazz had left the nightclub with even a penny to her name.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said, stepping out and closing the door.

  I left the nightclub via the back — an exit that led out to the alleyway. It was a silly idea to come strutting out of a closed nightclub on a busy sidewalk, meaning the front door entrance. Mama encouraged us to do things outside of the nightclub, like shopping or recreation, whatever we wanted to spend our money on. But she pushed us to be discreet.

  Everything Mama did, she did to protect the nightclub. It was much more than a business to her.

  It was home to all of us.

  The back door shut heavily behind me, the click letting me know that the lock had automatically engaged. I had a key to get back inside, but not all of the girls did. Most of them had to push the bell to get let in.

  I held my breath as I walked by the dumpster. The warm day made its odors waft into the air even stronger than usual. Then, I emerged into the sunlight. People bustled down the sidewalks, even in this part of town. There was always something special about being a part of the crowd. When I didn’t have makeup on and wasn’t trying to impress anybody, I liked the anonymity. I was just a regular girl out here.

  “Hey, hot stuff! You a Yankees fan? What base do you think I could get to with you?”

  Well, not all the time. There were some things I couldn’t hide, like my long legs and tight ass. Nothing could camouflage those.

  A group of construction workers cackled as I walked by, holding my head high and giving the appearance that I hadn’t heard them. I had to remember to bring my headphones next time. Even if they weren’t plugged in to anything but my pocket, they gave me an added level of security.

  It sometimes felt foreign to be outside of the nightclub. Mama made sure we had everything we needed. There were two telephone lines so that we could call out, so few of us bothered with cell phones — or their accompanying bills. The readily available food discouraged us from eating out very often, and we were all close to one another. I suspected at times that Mama liked it better with everyone staying at the nightclub. She’d recently asked me if I thought it would work better if we had a courier deliver things to us from the corner store.

  I liked to get outside as often as possible, even if it didn’t happen every day. I liked to see the world outside, remind myself that there was more than the nightclub. That place was everything to me, as it was for so many other girls, but the outside world had a lot to offer, too.

  Finally, I reached the corner store. We all called it that even though it wasn’t located on a corner proper. It was more like a “right around the corner” store. It was the closest place to the nightclub. The employees there probably wondered why so many pretty girls frequented it.

  “Hello,” I called cheerfully as a ringing bell on the door announced my entrance.

  “Hey, Cocoa,” Jimmy called from behind the counter. He was a sweet kid — several of the girls had enormous crushes on him. Jimmy was very much the boy next door.

  “How’s business today?” I asked, heading into the beauty aisle.

  “Not bad,” he said as I perused the cans of spray. “How’s business with you?”

  It was just a polite question. Jimmy didn’t actually know how I earned the money I spent in the store.

  “I can’t complain, Jimmy, I really can’t.”

  I located the brand I wanted and brought it to the front. A case of nail polishes glittered on the counter. I wondered idly if the purple sparkly one was the type Blues had picked up.

  “You have yourself a great day,” Jimmy said, presenting me with my plastic bag and change.

  “You, too,” I replied warmly.

  My errand was done, but I wasn’t ready to go back to the nightclub, yet. I wanted to enjoy the feel of the sun on my skin before it set and I went to work.

  I passed by a few more bodegas and a homeless shelter before reaching a dingy park. This wasn’t a great part of town to linger, but during the day, it was mostly harmless. Certainly no worse than the place I’d been raised.

 
; I sat gingerly on a dilapidated concrete bench, gazing at the park’s lone tree. It was in full leaf, the green foliage rustling in the wind just audibly over the dull roar of people and passing cars. A wino’s head lolled on a neighboring bench, but I didn’t mind. It was nice to be relatively alone, outdoors in the daytime. Working at night didn’t often give me the chance to be out in the sunlight.

  When no less than three bums approached me for change, I decided it was time to go back. There were probably other parts of the city where you could sit and enjoy the outdoors without getting approached by the homeless, but this wasn’t one of them.