“Right.” I nod slowly. “So what would that leave me with?”
“The truth is, it shouldn’t leave you with anything. What you’d pay for rent and daycare would be far more than what you earn in wages. Minimum wage doesn’t get you far, in this country.”
“Right,” I say again, licking my dry lips. “And tips?”
“That’s the wages,” she explains. “That’s what you’ll need to hand over to me. The two dollars is just the base pay. That’s how it works in waitressing.”
“I see.” I glance at Aurora, who’s currently licking her plate clean. “And… how would we live?”
“Well, you’ll have a place to sleep, and food. What do you need more than that?” She stares at me shrewdly. “Unless you’resaving up for something?”
I hesitate. “Well, yes. I’m trying to go home. To my mother. She lives overseas. I need money for the plane tickets.”
“Hmm.” Debbie turns back to her book, opening to the page she’s earmarked. “If you work here for six months, I could probably help you buy those tickets. How does that sound?”
Six months. My eyes widen as I realize it means being stuck in this tiny, hopeless town for that long, with Logan and Carmelo hot on my tracks.
And yet, survival is the priority right now. Survival, and that’s what this woman is offering us.
The rest is just going to have to wait.
“Fine,” I say at last. “That sounds… fine.”
23
Lia
Turns out, I’m not cut out for waitressing.
But whether I like it or not, I have no choice but to spend my days rushing around the restaurant, carrying plates of food and hot mugs of coffee.
Meanwhile, Aurora stays in the back room, looking at the same three storybooks over and over and making modern art with her crayons. It breaks my heart to see her looking so content with so little. She’s only two, but she’s had a hard life.
Sometimes, she gets bored of her toys, so she toddles after me, helping me bring plates of food to the tables.
For a little dump of a town, Debbie’s diner sure gets a lot of customers.
She wasn’t kidding when she said her restaurant was the only place in town to eat. Judging from the way the place is packed from noon to midnight, I can only assume that people here donotlike eating at home.
By the time I’ve finished with each long shift, my feet are aching. I’m so tired I barely notice Debbie counting all the day’s tips, then putting them carefully in a metal cash box, which she locks with a key she wears on a chain around her neck.
In fact, I’m far too tired to do anything but wait until I can liedown on her couch with my little girl safe in my arms.
Yet over the past month, an idea has slowly but steadily been worming its way into my heart. An idea that turns into a suspicion, and then, to a sickening realization. Until I can’t do anything but accept that, once more, I’m stuck.
It’s strange to realize it. It took me a while to see, in this seemingly kind, albeit brusque woman, a new captor.
I thought I was free, and yet, by accepting her deal, I’m back to being caged.
Unable to walk away, because I have nothing. Not even the forty dollars I entered this place with.
“Your kid is missing just about anything,” she’d told me the morning after I’d awoken for the first time on her couch with my little girl in my arms. “Books, toys, potty, sippy cup… don’t you haveanyof those things?”
“Uhm…” I had rubbed my eyes. “I guess not.”
“Poor girl,” she had purred. “You were so young when you had her. Of course you don’t know what a little girl needs. Here, I took some cash from your pocket last night. I’m gonna go out and buy her some basics. Okay?”
“Uh…”
