It was late spring, and the sky was an opulent shade of blue. I stood on the stage as a round of applause followed my name. There I scanned the crowd, my heart nearly dropped.
Then I saw her, my mother in the far, far back of the lawn. Standing under an oak tree. She grins and waves, blonde hair resting high on her head like a golden crown.
I cut through the crowd, a sea of robed bodies and finely dressed parents. There is laughter, a shower of caps thrown in the air. My mother opens her arms for me, I close my eyes to fall into a warm embrace, but when I open them she is gone.
Now I am standing alone again, and the crowd is completely still.
A thousand eyes staring right me.
When I woke up, it was mid afternoon and the sun was slanted right in my face. A guy sitting on the ground across from me, probably one of Jenna's or Don's friends, gave a start and gave a sarcastic 'good morning' while laughing through whatever haze he was high on. I told him thanks then quickly got to my feet and made my way to Jenna's room where a trash bag of my clothes was kept in her closet.
I rifled through my meager belongings and found a clean-ish shirt to change into. I scrubbed my blood stained shirt on the sink for a few minutes under the scalding hot water until the nerve endings in my hands began to scream. I flung it over the rail of her shower to dry and left a few dollars in quarters hidden in her drawer so no one would steal it. While I was there, I took the opportunity to wash my face using some of Jenna's expensive fruity smelling products and ran a brush through my tangled mess of hair.
Grabbing my bag again, I set out for the door and the wider city of Gotham. My stomach was growling again so I stopped to buy an apple from a fruit stand on the way to the touristy shopping part of the city. It took about an hour on foot which I usually did, but I was still spooked from the earlier events so I took a quick bus ride.
Sometimes the cops would chase away the 'undesirables' in certain areas such as this. At first glance I could pass for a regular college student depending on how clean my face was, so I was usually left alone. A few of the veteran cops actually knew me by name and would take the time to talk to me before telling me to get lost. Today there weren't any roaming around yet, so I plopped myself down in between a coffee shop and a boutique and placed an empty cup in between my feet and opened up my battered copy of Huck Finn.
The first few hours passed by uneventfully, each time someone tossed money towards me I'd give a meek smile and say thanks as pathetically as possible. Throw up a peace sign to be charming. Maybe if I coughed hard enough I could attract more attention…
"I knew you'd be here! Gee, begging again? Why don't ya just sell your ass, get way more money." A familiar, annoying voice stole me from my novel. I looked up and curled my lip at the scrawny teenager with eraser shaped hair giving me a gapped tooth grin.
"What do you want, Red?" I huffed.
"Ain't me. Jones is looking for ya. Says it's important, can't wait." The hyperactive kid bounced on the heels of his shoes.
"I'm busy. I'll go see him next time I'm in the Narrows." I said dismissively and made a point of turning the page in my book.
"Nope, not gonna work. I can't go back to the pub without you." Red crossed his arms and fixed me with his green eyed stare. I knew I could easily overpower his scrawny frame, but Jones would just send one of his scarier muscle men after me instead of this harmless wanna be.
"Fine. But this better be important, I've only made fifteen bucks so far." I griped, rattling around the cup in my hands.
"Oh, it is. I must say, nice work. Didn't think ya had it in ya." Red winked and bounced ahead of me. I froze in my tracks as my brain tried to process what he just said.
"Jones sent those thugs after me!?" I said just a little too loud and several bystanders turned their heads to stare.
"Shh! Keep it down, ya hysterical broad! And no, he wouldn't do that. Just c'mon!" Red waved his arms around and was turning, well, red.
We caught the subway for the quickest route to Jones' bar. The entire time we traveled to the Narrows I was on the edge of my seat. Red chattered nonstop in my ear about this or that, just trying to impress me, but I usually tuned him out anyway.
Thick grey clouds covered the sky over the Narrows as we emerged from the subway station. I drew my layers of jackets and heavy coat closer around me as I followed Red through the small and sketchy streets. When I first came to Gotham I settled here but quickly left, the area gave me the creeps for some reason. Maybe it was the shadow of Arkham Asylum that loomed over everything in sight, or maybe it was the blight and decay that got to me. Either way, it was just too depressing for me.
"We're here!" Red bellowed as he threw open the bar door and I ducked inside the poorly lit hole in the wall. The bartender was a square-shouldered, severe looking older woman I had seen a few times before. She was dusting off a glass with no success and turned to give us a heavy stare.
"Jones is in the back." She replied without much formality, jabbing her thumb in the general direction.
"You heard the lady." Red gave me a hard push with both hands. When I didn't move fast enough, he practically shoved me the whole way through the maze like back rooms until we stopped in front of a closed door. I knocked on it after Red darted off, hoping whatever it was that Jones wanted wouldn't take too long.
"Doors open." A gruff voice responded. I turned the heavy knob and fell through the doorway as it swung open.
Jones sat behind his desk with a tall bodyguard standing against the wall in the middle of the room. Both of them wore all black, Jones a too big suite for his already too big frame. On his desk sat a large stack of money neatly tied together by a white rubber band, my mouth watered at the sight of so much cash in one spot. Jones noticed my admiration and gave a large smirk.
"Take a seat, Lucy. We are going to discuss this." He placed a large bear paw sized hand on the stack of cash. I quickly found a chair and scooted it up towards him, all ears. If only Red had mentioned the prospect of so much money, I would have ran here.
"What's up?" I asked, cringing inwardly at how vacant I sounded.
"A little birdie told me you were the one who took care of those guys in the alley off of third street in the wee hours of the morning." He did not waste anytime getting right to the point.
"Oh. Word travels fast." I frowned, taking a mental note not to tell Jenna anything like that again.
"It's okay, I'm glad I found out. You know I have bosses of my own. Someone sent those guys after you, Lucy. Someone you don't wanna mess with in Gotham. Now, I take care of my own, and don't wanna see you get mixed up with these people. I'm gonna take care of ya, see to it that you won't get hurt, throw em off your trail as they say. But I'm gonna need you to do something for me in return, and as a show of good faith," he made a display of pushing the money towards me, "you get this."
My mouth was hanging open by the end of his little speech, not because of what he said, but at the large sum being paraded around in front of me. Hungrily, I snatched the money up and shoved it against my face. Even the bodyguard looked a little put off by my antics, but he didn't understand. Never had I ever come into contact with so much money. I counted the figures and nearly fell out of my seat.
"Two hundred grand!?" I screeched breathlessly, my hands shaking the entire time. "What for?" I looked up at him in a star struck gaze. Jones looked amused, he took a moment to pause for dramatic effect, really work up the show.
"So you can leave this city that hasn't been good on ya and start a new life. You can take my niece and her dopehead boyfriend along with ya too if ya want. But only after you do this small favor for me. It's not real hard, you can be out of Gotham by tomorrow morning." Jones held up one large finger to wag it in my direction. The bodyguard stepped forward and wrestled the cash out of my hands.
"Okay, what do you want me to do?" I asked quickly, vaguely aware that he had said someone was after me. All that was floating through my mind were beautiful, fat wads of cash, far away places filled with sunlight, and all the things in store front windows I could never buy. This morning I had been breaking open meters for quarters.
"I want you to go to this address after dark. It's over in the old Industrial Park. Leave this package in the mailbox." Don slides a strip of paper towards me with a small square shaped object wrapped in newsprint.
"What's in the package?" I felt a deep frown tug at the ends of my lips.
"Nothing that will get you put in prison if you get caught. Trust me." His tone is hard and leaves no room for questions. It all sounds too good to be true, like something out of my wildest dreams. No one would have to get hurt, I wasn't stealing or selling anything deplorable, and I would be walking away golden.
All on my own.
I grab the package and shove it in the inside pocket of my jacket. The address is easy to memorize and a minute later I'm watching the piece of paper burn in the embers of the grate.
