blanket apologist, this one's for you.
Dear Mom,
There's no place I'd rather be than home with you. Honest.
XOXO Stacey
I wasn't sure why I kept running into Tiffany Kilbourne. It seemed a cruel twist of fate to be repeatedly discovered under less than ideal circumstances by a sometime charge. I should have been setting a positive example, not...well, not doing what I was doing. Tiffany shouldn't have been there either. If I were a better babysitter, if I had anything left in me to care, I would have demanded answers. But, I was too worn out and drained to worry about Tiffany Kilbourne spinning around a pole in my bra and panties. In my undergarments and heels, she almost looked like me. Later, I would wonder if she was actually trying to be me. Right then, if she had asked, I would have gladly given her my life, allowed her to take possession of my burdens and humiliations and suffer whatever consequences might await me.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When Tiffany Kilbourne caught me onstage at a seedy strip club, twirling a lasso in a costume that consisted solely of an ill-fitting cowboy hat and a pair of buttless chaps, I didn't know what to say. Neither did Tiffany. For awhile, we simply stared at each other. Finally, Tiffany broke the silence.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm Billie Jean the Lasso Queen," I replied, which was the truth.
Tiffany got a funny look on her face. She ran for the edge of the stage, then tripped and fell onto the floor. A boy with a ponytail ran to her aid. Quickly, Tiffany jumped back up and ran (with a slight limp) to the exit. The boy gathered her clothes and followed. He was much too old for her, but at that point, I really wasn't in the position to give anyone advice.
How did I, Stacey McGill, a bright and sophisticated star of Stoneybrook Middle School, end up shaking my bare behind and yelling "Yee Haw!" in an Amsterdam strip club? Honestly, not even I know how I got to that point in my life. The last several days had been a blur of confusion, desperation, and panic. The night I encountered Tiffany, I was doing more than stripping. I was really waiting, waiting for Stas to rescue me again.
My new life as a stripper was all Orchid's fault. If she hadn't insisted on driving a wedge between Stas and me none of this would have happened. I don't know why she was out to get me. Why would anyone try to stand in the way of True Luv?
A week had passed since Stas and Orchid's argument. I still wasn't sure why they had fought. Stas insisted it was because of Orchid's jealousy and bossiness. I didn't want to doubt the word of the man I loved, but I did wonder - was Stas telling me the absolute truth? I was beginning to take notice of some odd things at the Forbidden Fruit. Like, why did different private tutors come every day? Why were the girls locked in their rooms? And not allowed to leave the house? Could it really be for their protection?
The days after the argument were tense. Orchid kept making vague comments about my going upstairs. I couldn't figure out why she was so obsessed with moving me upstairs. What was going on up there that was so important? Despite Stas' reassurances, I began to worry. Then, Saturday morning, Stas dropped a bomb of epic proportions.
He was leaving me.
"Just for a few days," he promised, throwing some shirts into a duffel bag. "I must recruit...uh, rescue girls from Romania,"
"Orchid says you won't have any use for me when you get back," I told him.
"Do not listen to anything Orchid tells you. She is a liar. You know, Orchid is not her real name. If a person cannot even tell you the truth about their name, how can you trust anything they say?"
Stas had such a way of putting things into perspective. I pushed out all the worries and doubts, although I heard their echoes nagging far in the recesses of my mind. I needed to trust Stas. I had no other choice.
After Stas left for the airport, I settled into the parlor, where I could sit and worry. I played checkers with one of the Danish girls, Rikke, who was sort-of my friend, if only because she spoke the best English of all the girls. From the parlor, I could hear Orchid walking back and forth through the house. The locks on the door to the Forbidden Fruit would turn loudly and she'd pass by the parlor, her giant keyring jingling at her waist. I'd hear her footsteps on the stairs, often with the heavier footsteps of a man following. The men were always coming. Sometimes Orchid lead the way and sometimes the men went up on their own. Orchid would walk back down the stairs, the keys still jingling at her waist. She'd pass the parlor again, turn her key in the locks, step back into the Forbidden Fruit, and lock the door behind her. It wasn't until then that I realized what a prison we were all living in.
In the hours after Stas' departure, a fear began to swell inside me. Suddenly, the staircase seemed dark and foreboding and for the first time, I was terrified of being sent up its steps. I didn't understand why, but the jingle of Orchid's keys beating against her hips seemed to speak to me, as if promising an impending doom.
I felt cold and sick and used.
I said to Rikke then, because I had no other confidante, "As much as I love Stas, I feel so guilty. Guilty for leaving my friends, guilty for being with Stas. I feel dirty, but don't know why. Is this how love feels? I'm ready to go home, but all this guilt...I don't think I can do it. I can't ever go home again,"
Rikke moved a checker and in a dull voice replied, "That's what they want,"
I didn't understand.
We went on playing. An hour later, a commotion broke out upstairs. I figured it was one of the men getting out of hand again (some took their tutoring far too seriously) and soon enough Orchid would dash up the stairs with the baseball bat and chase the offending tutor down the stairs and out the back door. I'd witnessed that scene several times already. However, it was not a man that flew down the stairs, but Daniela, wild-haired and crazy-eyed. Orchid pursued her down the stairs, shouting in some other language - Dutch or German or Italian, all foreign languages blended together to me.
Rumors had circulated for several days that Daniela would soon be forced out of the house. Daniela's seventeenth birthday was fast approaching and according to Stas, seventeen was much too old. As strange and scary as she was, I felt very sorry for Daniela, standing at the bottom of the stairs, a paper sack in her arms, dressed in an ill-fitting black dress that hung loosely on her skeletal frame.
Orchid and Daniela were talking heatedly. Other girls were beginning to gather on the stairs, watching and listening, and a lucky few could even understand the words exchanged in some foreign tongue. Orchid said something more, then cast a meaningful look in my direction. Instantly, I knew. Daniela was being sent away, so I could take her place. By night fall, Orchid intended to have me locked in Daniela's vacated room on the third floor.
The keyring gleamed menacingly on Orchid's waist. Whatever awaited me up those stairs, I did not wish to meet it.
I ran to Stas' room and hauled my suitcase out from under the bed. Like a mad woman, I threw in my clothes, my toiletries, my insulin kit, everything that would fit. I wasn't safe in that house without Stas. Something was not right at the Forbidden Fruit. I guess I'd suspected all along. A dark cloudloomed above the staircase, like a cruel monster lying in wait, and Orchid planned to lead me to it like a lamb to sacrifice.
Orchid was gently pushing Daniela out the back door. Prepared to fight my way through, I shoved Orchid out of my path, knocking me and Daniela into the alley. I grabbed Daniela's hand and ran. If Orchid was stunned by my actions she overcame it quickly. As Daniela and I ran out to the street I heard Orchid calling after me, "Wait! Stacey! Wait! You're making a mistake!"
Daniela and I ran until we reached the nearest tram stop. As we caught our breath, I took stock of our current situation. I had no money, except a few Euros. For some reason, Stas had never trusted me with money. I still couldn't return to Verbruggenhuis. How would I explain Daniela? And what if Stas came looking for me? As I stood pondering my next choice (which I knew I couldn't trust. So far my choices had been rather poor), Daniela showed me what Orchid had given her before shoving her out the door. Twenty Euros and an address.
And that's how I began my life as a stripper.
Rudolph, the club manager was expecting onlyDaniela, of course. He didn't mind hiring me though, as long as I promised to pretend to be a genuine Texan named Billie Jean. Luckily, thanks to Mr. Prezzioso, I already knew how to twirl a lasso. Rudolph set us up in a nearby apartment, where we lived with five other girls from the club. The apartment was dark and old and cramped. Daniela didn't mind at all. She seemed happy just to be free. Daniela had a joyful reunion with the other girls. It turned out they were also refugees from the Forbidden Fruit. Girls sent away years before, not by Orchid, but by someone named Frau Epstein.
The other girls were from Romania and Belarus and only one, Nina, spoke any English. That was the trend I kept encountering. No one at the Forbidden Fruit or the strip club spoke any language useful in Amsterdam. How odd that Stas managed to collect only girls who could not function beyond the confines of the walls they were imprisoned behind. It was yet another mystery to add to a growing list, right under what was upstairs at the Forbidden Fruit and why Stas traveled across the continent to find runaways rather than look for them right there in The Netherlands. If Mallory had been there, she could have recorded my mysteries in her notebook.
I settled into a routine at the apartment. Sleeping most of the day and stripping most of the night. I was cut off from the rest of the world. I couldn't join in the constant chatter of the other girls, for I didn't speak their language. It seemed Nina didn't understand half the things I said to her. At least, she understood, more or less, when I explained about my diet and insulin shots. I tried to share my concerns about Stas never finding me, but every time I mentioned his name a cloud passed over Nina's eyes. Then she spat on the floor. I received similar reactions from the other girls. It was really strange.
The span of time between my leave from the Forbidden Fruit and my discovery by Tiffany was only four and a half days. It seemed like weeks. After Tiffany ran from the club, I worried and worried as I twirled my lasso. When it came time to hog-tie an audience member, I did so half-heartedly. So much weighed on my mind. What would Tiffany tell the BSC? Would she lead her mother to me? Would Mrs. Kilbourne call my parents? Those worries shared my mind equally with worries of Stas. Surely, Rikke would tell him I'd left with Daniela. He'd know where to find me. Yet, he hadn't come for me yet. Had something happened to him? In Romania? On the airplane? I worried so long and hard I didn't hear my music stop. Nina had to pull me off the stage.
Our shift ended at midnight. We returned to the apartment and I went straight to bed. The other girls stayed in the living room, laughing and drinking. They seemed content in their lives. Maybe they faked it. I couldn't though. I was miserable and trapped. I lay in bed convinced I'd never see Stoneybrook or my friends or my parents again. In a few years, I'd still be in that apartment, stripping at the club, just like Nina and her friends. Eternally stuck.
I felt sorry for myself for quite awhile, as I listened to the laughter on the other side of the door. I had nearly fallen into a restless sleep when the doorknob turned. I raised my head and saw lighted in the doorway a vision of white. Groggy from almost-sleep, I thought it to be an angel sent to rescue me.
"Stas?" I whispered with sleepy hopefulness.
"Silly girl," came a cool voice, "Stas has no use for you now."
The angel flicked on the dim overhead light and revealed herself to be none other than Orchid Wickersham, still appearing sour and disapproving, the farthest thing from an angel I could imagine. Dark eyes appraising, she strode into the room, as confident as if it were her own. She wore all white - a white skirt and blouse partially concealed beneath a white coat cinched tightly at her waist. The coat had a yellow daffodil-print and I vaguely recalled seeing a similar oneat a boutique in New York. It surprised me that Orchid would own something so pretty.
"Where is Stas?" I demanded.
Orchid sat down on Daniela's bed, crossed her ankles, and regarded me coldly. For once her glasses weren't perched on the end of her nose or hanging around her neck on their chain. It was as if I were seeing her for the first time, or perhaps the real her she kept hidden away.
"Stas is not coming," she finally said.
"Why not? Doesn't he know I'm here?"
"He knows. He returned from Romania last night. He is not coming for you,"
"You're lying!"
"Why would I lie? Stas has no use for you. That's the truth. He already has a new pet. A girl he brought back from Romania. She's younger than you. Petite and very flat. She would have been excellent for business. Of course, Stas will make her useless. He spoils all the best girls,"
"Stas loves me," I replied in a thin, even voice.
"Stas loves no one. Not even his most favorite pets. He would have tired of you in a few more days. He tires of us all," Orchid told me, emotionlessly. "It's just as well you left. I'd been trying to getrid of you for days. Such a silly, ridiculous girl. You would have been horrible for business. Stas thinks only of his own pleasure. He's not supposed to recruit Americans. Or such tall, busty girls. He made the same mistake with me,"
"I have no idea what you're talking about,"
Orchid's expression softened a bit. "Good. That's good. I'd rather you not know what I am, what we all are. You'll figure it out someday. You'll look back and view us all in a new light," Orchid stood then and cinched her belt tighter. "Enough of this foolishness. I can't believe you're stripping. You will ruin us all if you get caught. Where's your suitcase? You're going back where you belong. Stas does not want you. You have no reason to sit around waiting for him."
"Stas says you're a liar,"
"I am a liar?" Orchid answered, mockingly.
"What's your real name?" I asked. Maybe if she told the truth I could believe everything else. Stas was right. You couldn't believe someone who lied about something as simple as their name.
Orchid appeared surprised. "My name? What does that matter? Stop wasting time,"
"I'm not leaving with you," I told her. She failed the test. I couldn't believe her. Stas might still come for me.
"Why do you want to know my name?" Orchid asked, appearing a bit panicked, and apparently not hearing my refusal to accompany her. "Is this blackmail? Are you threatening to find my parents?"
It was strange to be reminded that Orchid had parents. Ones that had searched for her a long time. I kept forgetting Orchid wasn't much older than me. I remember how I told Stas that sometimes it's too hard to go home. Just like Nina and the other girls, Orchid was stuck. I already knew I was on my way to being stuck. Orchid knew it, too. She was offering me an escape.A day would come when I could no longer leave this life behind. I'd be half-crazy like Daniela or old and sour like Orchid.
I chose another life.