Calling Maggie May Read online

  “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in the park tonight?” This time it was a guy in his twenties with a hood up, shading his eyes. “Are you working tonight?”

  I tried to tell him no, that I was just there looking for a friend, but he sneered.

  “I’ve heard that before. Who are you working for?”

  “No one,” I stuttered. “I mean, I used to work for Miss Irma, but I’m just . . .”

  “This park isn’t up for grabs, you know. No free agents. Now, if you’re unattached, I’d be happy to . . .”

  “Thank you,” I said, hurrying away from him. “I was just leaving.”

  I wandered into a darker, more deserted area, far from the corners where the cars pulled up, and now I’m just sitting here, trying to stay out of everyone’s way and figure out my next move. If I keep hanging around and asking questions, obviously I’m going to get myself into trouble, but I can’t give up on Ada yet! Is there anywhere else I could look for her? Anyone else who might be willing to help?

  Crap. There’s a guy who has been lurking in the shadows near me for the last few minutes, and he is making me seriously nervous. Maybe I should find a different place to sit.

  Tues, March 10? I think?

  I am so confused. I wish I could remember exactly what happened last night and how I ended up here, but I’m only getting weird flashes, and I’m not sure what’s real and what’s a dream.

  I’m in a bed right now, and from the light outside the window, I think it’s very early morning. But it’s not my bed, and it’s not a hospital bed. Where am I?

  I’d better try to reconstruct what happened after my last entry.

  The guy lurking in my previous entry . . . I remember him. Just as I was thinking of moving, he walked up and asked if I had any money. I said, “Sorry, no,” and he said, “Are you sure?”

  I ignored him and started to walk away, but then he said, “How about you let me check?” I should have kept moving, but I chanced a glance at him and that’s when I saw he had a knife. I kind of froze at that point. All I could think about was the envelope full of cash in my purse. The money I had saved up for ages. The money that was supposed to be the nest egg for my life with Ada. The money I had promised to deliver to Miss Irma tomorrow, to make sure Ada would be safe.

  I started to walk away again, out of the shadows and toward a better-lit area, but the man grabbed my clothes and tugged me back toward him until I could feel the end of his blade against my back. I tried to struggle and cry out, but . . .

  I don’t know what happened then. Everything gets hazy at that point.

  The next thing I remember is a familiar voice talking, saying my name, and hands shaking me awake. I opened my eyes to see who it was. It wasn’t Ada. It was Shawn. The beautiful boy from Miss Irma’s Valentine’s party.

  But that can’t be right, can it? I must have been dreaming. But whose bed am I in right now?

  Tues, March 10? later

  I just investigated a bit, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I’m still wearing all my clothes from last night, but my purse is gone. Which means all the money is gone. Not just that, but my cell phone, and Ada’s too. At least I still have this journal—I was writing in my journal when I saw the guy, so I still had it in my hands when I went down.

  I don’t know what to do. I still don’t know where I am. The room I’m in is a strange combination of shabby and swank. There are water stains and cracks in the plaster and the blinds are broken and hanging off the window, but there is also a huge flat-screen TV at the foot of the bed and these sheets are nicer than the ones on my bed at home.

  The view out the window is totally unfamiliar. It doesn’t look anything like the area around Westlake Park. Should I try to sneak out of this place and find my way back home? But what then? Irma’s goons will be looking for me by nightfall, and now I have nothing to offer them. Leading them to my house will only put my parents in danger. They don’t deserve that.

  And even if I get out of that mess, it’s guaranteed now that my parents will send me to Taiwan the first chance they get.

  I wish I could go back to the days when everything felt like a choice. When I got to decide every day whether I was going to pick the dangerous path or the safe one. That safe path doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and the dangerous one is more dangerous than ever.

  I hear noises outside the door. Whoever’s apartment this is seems to have gotten up. I wish I knew whether I’m his prisoner or not.

  Tues, March 10, later

  So this really is Shawn’s apartment, and that really was Shawn from the Valentine’s party moving around in the front room. He just came in and brought me a breakfast sandwich. I ate a few bites but had to stop when I suddenly felt really queasy. Shawn said it was probably from bumping my head pretty hard last night. That explains the painful lump and the memory loss, at least.

  He asked me a lot of questions about how I was feeling and if I remembered my name and stuff. I kept trying to interrupt him to ask him what the hell he was doing in that park and what exactly happened, but he shushed me and told me not to worry about it for now. He said I needed rest and he didn’t want to wear me out, but that we would talk more later.

  I really feel like I would rest better if I weren’t so confused. But I am awfully sleepy.

  Tues, March 10, later

  Shawn just came in and brought me half a burrito. I assured him I was feeling much better, so he finally agreed to tell me a bit about last night.

  He said he was just hanging out in the park when he heard shouting and saw someone get knocked down. He ran over and found me there. He says he couldn’t have been more shocked when he saw it was me. Small world, I guess. I would never have expected to run into him in a place like that either, but I guess that’s what Beth was trying to tell me. Everyone who works with Irma winds up there sooner or later.

  I asked him if he knew who beat me up, but he said the guy was making a run for it by the time he got there, and he thought it was more important to help me than follow him.

  “Do you think anyone else who was there might know who he was?” I asked. “Or where I could find him?”

  Shawn frowned. “I doubt it. I don’t know if you noticed, but people who hang out at that park tend to keep their eyes to themselves. You know what I mean?”

  Of course I did. I remember how people acted last night when I asked about Ada. I started to nod in answer, but instead I burst into tears. Shawn sat down on the bed with me.

  “What’s the matter?” he said. “You’re safe now.”

  So I explained to him about the money and the phones.

  “You had an envelope full of cash? In Westlake Park after dark? I’m sorry, kid,” he said, “but that wasn’t a very intelligent plan. What were you even doing there?”

  “Miss Irma says we owe her money,” I explained. “A lot of money. Ada disappeared, I’m not sure why, but maybe because she couldn’t pay what Irma was asking. But I have the money. I was trying to find her to tell her I have it and we can go pay Irma and it will all be okay. Except I was saving that money for an apartment, and now I’m back to zero, and now someone stole the money so actually I’m still in debt and Miss Irma’s goons are going to start looking for me and I still don’t know where Ada is or if she’s okay and everything is wrong and I wish I were dead.”

  “Hey,” said Shawn soothingly, “don’t worry, all right? Just rest for now. You lost some money. You owe some money. It happens. It’s not the end of the world. I promise. You’re okay now, so just relax.”

  “But what about Ada?”

  “Let me worry about Ada. I have better resources than you do to figure out what happened to her. I’ll put the word out, and it will only be a matter of time before we hear something. Trust me. I know how to get information.”

  Which made something occur to me. “What were you doin
g in the park last night?”

  Shawn smiled. “I’m there pretty much every night. Keeping an eye on some friends, you could say. You’re not the only girl who likes to get into trouble around here, you know.”

  “So, what . . . ? You’re some kind of guardian angel or something?”

  Shawn laughed. “Never been called that before. But that’s one way to look at it.”

  Fri, March 13

  I’m still at Shawn’s. He just came in with half of a submarine sandwich he saved for me. He’s sweet, but I get the feeling that all he eats is fast food.

  I told him I’m feeling a lot better now. I have to start thinking about what comes next. What am I going to do about Miss Irma? And how am I going to find Ada?

  “Relax,” said Shawn. “I told you to let me take care of it, and I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have to worry about Miss Irma anymore. I got her off your back. Her goons won’t be sniffing around anymore.”

  “What? But why not? What did you do?”

  “I paid her,” he said simply.

  “You paid her?” I said, incredulous. “You paid her what we owed? But it was a lot of money!”

  “That’s all relative. A lot of money to you is just a sound investment to me.”

  I took a second to process that. At first I felt like a huge weight had just been lifted from me. I hadn’t even realized how worried I was about Miss Irma and the debt. But after a moment that good feeling got swept away by a low, sinking one.

  “That’s really kind of you,” I said. “Too kind. How will I ever pay you back?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Shawn. “Think of it like karma. Or like you said back at Miss Irma’s party.”

  “What did I say?”

  “We need to look out for each other.”

  I managed a smile at this, but the phrase only reminded me of my other problem.

  “What about Ada, then?” I said. “Any news?”

  Shawn shifted and dropped his eyes. “Not yet,” he said.

  I didn’t like the look on his face when he said that. I had a feeling he knew more than he was letting on, and I was desperate to hear whatever it was. But when I pressed him for more information, he just told me to get some more rest and left me alone in his bedroom.

  Sat, March 14

  I got it out of him. Now I know what it was Shawn was trying to hide from me.

  Ada . . . I can’t say it. I can’t write it. It’s stupid, but it feels like that would make it real. Maybe if I just go to sleep, I’ll wake up and realize this was all a terrible dream.

  Tues, March 17

  I can’t hide from it anymore. Wishing and waiting isn’t going to change things, so I might as well face it.

  Shawn says Ada is dead.

  He told me he asked around, put the word out to everyone he knows that we were looking for her. Three separate people came and told him the same thing. Hard to argue with that. I asked him how it happened, but he just shrugged.

  “These things happen,” he said. “It could have been any of us. It was almost you, the night I found you.”

  “You think she was murdered?”

  “Maybe. Maybe killed for some cash, maybe an OD, maybe went to sleep in a Dumpster one cold night and didn’t wake up. It happens all the time.”

  “But the police—”

  “What do the police care about one more dead hooker? Unless she has family that are looking for her . . .”

  I shook my head sadly, remembering my encounter with Ada’s mom. Not likely that she was aware enough to even wonder what had happened to Ada.

  I don’t know what to do with myself. In a weird way, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Ada’s been the only person who really mattered to me for so long. My best friend. My only real friend. My only true family. The only person who really cared for me. How do I go on without her?

  Mon, March 23

  I haven’t updated here in a little while. I didn’t know how to talk about what’s been going on, or maybe I just didn’t want to. But I might as well say it.

  I’ve been sleeping with Shawn. At first I didn’t know what to make of it. All I knew was that it was something I needed right then, but I wasn’t sure where it was going or what it all meant. And when it started, my head and my heart were still so full of Ada, none of it even felt real. But now it’s the only thing that does feel real. The only thing I can hang on to in this life that isn’t pure misery.

  You might think that after all the experiences I’ve had, sex would be the last place I’d look for comfort. But this is different somehow. It doesn’t feel at all like the sex I’ve had with clients. It doesn’t even feel like that first time with Damon. Not just bodies and parts and fluids. For the first time, I don’t feel like an object for someone else to enjoy.

  The first night I found out about Ada, I just needed someone. I needed to not feel so alone. And Shawn stayed with me, held me while I cried, listened to all my ravings. He made me feel safe.

  But at the same time, I didn’t understand it, so finally I asked him. I asked him why he was being so nice to me. Why did he take me home that first night? Why did he pay off my debt? Why did he take up my search for Ada, and why was he putting up with me right now? He’s been sleeping on the couch for two weeks now just so I can have the bedroom to myself.

  Shawn smiled shyly.

  “I guess some of us have to balance out all the assholes of the world,” he said. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just looked at him with tears in my eyes until he got shifty and awkward.

  “Also . . . ,” he said, hesitating, “there’s kind of something else, too.”

  I nodded for him to go on. He took a breath.

  “I like you,” he said. “I like you a lot, and I have ever since the night I met you. And I guess I was just hoping that if I was nice to you, maybe . . . maybe you would start to like me too.”

  I had nothing to say to that, so I kissed him. And I told him he didn’t need to sleep on the couch anymore.

  Sat, March 28

  How do you know when you’re in love with someone? This seems like such a silly question to be asking right now, with all that’s been going on in my life, and as usual I feel like a naive idiot not to know the answer. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. Back in my old life, I wanted Tyler so much, and it was a really huge crush, but I don’t think I ever would have said that I loved him. I mean, I didn’t even know him, really, and what I did know suggested that he was kind of a jerk. (Which turned out to be incredibly true.)

  Sometimes I have warm feelings toward some of my clients, and I did like Damon a lot, but I don’t know them, and I know they don’t really care about me.

  With Shawn it’s so different from how it always has been. I know he cares about me. He shows me every day how much. I know we haven’t been together long, but the past couple of weeks have been so intense. I can’t say exactly that I’m happy. How could I be happy after what happened to Ada? But I feel loved and cared for, and I think I feel it back. I want to take care of Shawn the way he has taken care of me.

  At least he’s not sleeping on the couch anymore. But the truth is, I have taken too much from him. I could never repay him for all he’s done for me, but I have to at least start contributing. Plus, I need to get out and do something. For a while, being tucked away in his bedroom was just what I needed. An escape from all the crap I’d been dealing with out there. A chance to catch my breath and sort out my thoughts. But now I’ve done that, and I’m starting to feel cooped up. I need to make myself useful.

  Sun, March 29

  Shawn’s going to let me help out! It’s actually funny how it worked out. He came in today with lunch, and I could tell he wasn’t himself. He seemed upset and preoccupied, though he was clearly trying to hide it from me. But I mad
e him tell me what was up. I’m not some fragile flower. He doesn’t have to keep protecting me.

  He didn’t want to say anything at first, but eventually he admitted that he’d been distracted from real life by taking care of me for a while, and now he wasn’t totally sure how he was going to make rent. But he told me not to worry about it, that he was resourceful and always figured out something.

  So I explained to him that this worked out perfectly, because I’d just been thinking how I wanted to start pulling my weight around here. He doesn’t need to keep me under glass. I can work. I can contribute.

  He kind of laughed and asked what I could do to raise rent money. It’s true that I really know only one way to make money, but what’s wrong with that? I don’t mind, if it will help.

  Of course he was really against the idea at first. He said he didn’t want me doing that kind of thing anymore. But I was like, “Come on! Who are you kidding?” I’ve done it before, and so has he. It should be no big deal to us.

  Then I asked him if the idea made him jealous, and he admitted that it did. So I told him he was being silly. There’s such a huge difference between what we do out there for money and what we do together for love. Out there is just a show, and this is for real. I told him I could never mix the two up. . . . Could he? And he said he couldn’t either. So it’s settled.

  Tues, March 31

  Last night was my first night back at work. It’s different from working for Miss Irma, but not so much worse, I think.

  How we worked it out is, I go out and stand in the park, visible but not too visible. When a car drives by going kind of slow, I step out and try to get his attention. If he stops, at that point Shawn comes over to check him out and make sure he knows I have someone looking out for me. And he handles the money, too, so I don’t have to worry about that. If Shawn thinks the guy’s okay, I either get in the car with him for a blow job, or we drive to a hotel. That costs more.