Chapter Five

They’re All The Same

Juliana

Fifteen Years Ago…

“It’s your birthday,” I hear whispered through the layers upon layers of clothes and blankets piled on me to keep me warm while sleeping in the car for what seems like forever.

Although I am frozen to the bone, I smile, knowing what that means.

“Donalds?” My voice cracks when I say it.

“Yes, Juliana, McDonalds.”

“The one with the slide?” I ask as I pull the blanket from my face and look up at my mom, then just in her twenties.

“Of course,” she says.

She’s beautiful. Her hair is in braided pigtails; her eyes are like mine, the lightest brown; and her lips are big.

“Now?” I ask as my eyes adjust to the light I had just exposed them to.

“First a walk.” She smiles a sad kind of smile.

“Bottles?” I ask.

“The more bottles, the more Happy Meals. The more Happy Meals, the more treasures.”

I smile big, because birthdays are my favorites. No rumbling angry belly, lots of rides down the slide, and lots of treasures.

***

Ten Years Ago…

“This one will be different.” Mom smiles with her mouth, not her eyes, as she pulls the car up a few feet to the car in front of us. “Roland is a nice man.”

I smile back, wanting to make her happy, but I don’t believe her. I want to tell her I would rather be cold and my belly rumbling than stay here at night. Would rather hear her cries, some sad, some something else that I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound happy.

When she opens the door to the big, fancy car, smoke rolls out and he smiles at me. I don’t like his smile, and I don’t know why.

“Hello, Juliana. I hear you like McDonalds. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“No,” I say immediately.

“Juliana,” Mom whispers in an effort to hush me.

“No?” he asks, his big, stupid smile fading.

“Burger King,” I tell him, hoping he gets mad so we can go back to the big gym with the hard beds and all the people like us.

He doesn’t get mad. He laughs.

“The little one wants a crown, Maria.”

She laughs back, though it’s not a laugh like she gives me. It’s weird.

“You know girls,” she says.

He looks at me, his smile different, then he looks at her and winks. “You know I do. And you know I know how to treat them, right, baby?”

I immediately feel sick to my belly. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’m going to hate Burger King and the crown Roland is promising.

***

Seven Years Ago…

Last night, I had the best day of my life.

From as far back as I can remember, birthdays were my favorite days. Everything was special, Mom was mostly clear-eyed, and we would go to McDonalds, one with an indoor playground. I would get a Happy Meal, and inside was a toy. It was always the best gift ever...until Roland.

This year, my seventeenth birthday, she didn’t even remember. But as luck, Fate—whatever those people who dare to dream believe in—I met a boy, Garrett Falcon, and he took me to McDonalds. I got a Happy Meal, and he thought it was funny, so I laughed, too. Then he ordered one.

We ate. We even went on the playground until we got kicked out, which made us both laugh again. Then we went to Taco Bell. I had never been there before. It was good. So good that I think I will go again next year.

He asked me lots of questions about what I like. I told him I like school, which is true. It’s the only place I don’t feel like I will be whored out to some junkie at any moment for Roland and Maria.

How funny is it that school is my sanctuary? No one likes school. Everyone complains about it.

When I am having a brave day—a day when my hair isn’t a mess, a day that I have the luxury of a shower before school, with soap, and no worry I will have to fight off any of Roland’s “clients,” a day when my clothes are clean, a day when I don’t have to hide in the library, a day I can be someone I’m not—those days, I even laugh at some of their jokes. And sometimes, on my pretty days, they laugh with mine, and not at me.

Yesterday was better than even the best day of my life. It was more special than any day ever. In fact, it was the best birthday of my life, and he didn’t even know it.

He wasn’t like all the other men I have met. He was different.

I fell asleep last night for the first time with a smile on my face.

That smile is now gone, however.

He is no different.

I am following him to his stupid fancy car with a bag packed for a week because he paid. He paid for me!

I want to scream, I thought you were different! Instead, I bat away tears as I follow him.

When I get to the car, he’s standing there with the door open, his back to the thugs. Stupid white boy move.

“You got yourself a piece of ass, man?” I hear Angel say.

Garrett turns and grabs him by the collar.

I stop, ready to run, knowing that, at any moment, one of the three will pull out a gun, and he...he will be gone.

“You fucking talk about her like that again, you see someone looking to fuck her, you better fucking handle it, you hear me!” he yells, pushing Angel against the hood of the car.

“Fuck, man. Yeah, I hear you,” Angel says, raising his hands in defeat, a move I have never witnessed from him.

“You see that place, that shithole over there?” Garrett releases one of his hands and points at Roland’s. “There are enough whores on the street that are of fucking age. This girl, whether I’m here or not, she’s protected, you got me?”

“Yeah, man, of course. Man, don’t tell Deeds we knew. Don’t tell him,” Angel nearly begs.

Garrett releases him and steps back. “You make damn sure she’s fine when I drop her back here, and I won’t say shit. That place goes up in flames, you let the fucker burn.” Again, he turns his back. Stupid, stupid rich boy.

I wait for the loud sound of a gunshot in terror.

“Get in the fucking car, J,” he snaps at me.

I don’t move.

“Right fucking now!”

I jump when he yells and hurry to the car.

“You fucking tell her, man,” one of them jokes as I start to get in the car.

“You shut the fuck up!” he spits as he starts to move toward him.

I grab his elbow, stopping him from making a bigger mistake.

“Please, just get me out of here,” I whisper as a plea, for me and for him.

His body loses some of its tension as he looks back at me, his eyes soften, and he nods.

When he gets in the car, he peels out, gripping the wheel harder. His tension has returned, and I know I should be afraid, yet I’m not.

He turns the corner and heads in the direction of those damn golden arches.

“What do you want?” he mumbles as he pulls in.

“Taco Bell,” I answer, the tears beginning to fall again. “I want Taco Bell.”

He jerks the wheel, and we are back on the road.

I wipe away my tears as he pulls up to the Taco Bell and orders without asking me what I want. Sweet tea, he orders sweet tea like I did last night. That...That makes me start crying again.

He looks at me, then quickly away, running his hands through his hair and letting out a slow, held-in breath.

“Thirty-two fifty-four,” the girl at the window says.

“Shit right?” he asks, reaching over toward me. When I tense, he notices and pulls his hand back. “Juliana, grab me some cash out of the glove box.”

I open it and see a huge pile of money. I look at him, wondering where the hell he got it all. Then I remember he came for drugs. I hate drugs.

“Julie, cash,” he says as he looks at me.

***

Ten minutes later, we are pulling up in front of a motel on the beach. I am scared, so scared.

“This okay?” he asks.

What does he want me to say? I know what’s expected, so does it really matter where it happens?

I shrug, then start to open the door, when he grabs my wrist,

“It’s not the nicest, Juliana, but it’s no shithole. I don’t know how much cash I have, but it should be enough for a week here, and enough for cab money to school. I’m not gonna be able to be here every day.”

“It’s fine.” I pull away, stepping out with my hands full of Taco Bell bags.

“Wait,” he says, stopping me.

I turn and look at him.

“You gotta get the room in your name.” He hands me the cash and looks at me.

“Fine.”

He goes in with me where a sleazy looking old man with a bad combover looks us both up and down.

“I need a room for a week,” I tell him after clearing my throat. I start to raise my hand with the cash when Garrett holds it still.

“One ten a night for beach front,” the old man says, as if it’s some sort of dare.

“What’s that a week?” I ask, trying again to pull up my hand with the cash in it.

“Close to a grand with tax,” he answers, sitting down.

“What about cash?” Garrett asks.

“Same.”

“Bullshit. Come on; let’s go,” Garrett says, pulling me toward the door.

“Eight hundred,” the old man calls to our backs.

“Try again; it’s off season.”

“Six hundred,” he says, and Garrett looks back.

“With tax and one of the nicer rooms, or we head down the street.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, kid,” he grumbles. “Fine.”

When I hand him my birth certificate, he looks at me oddly. “Just carry that type of thing around?” He looks at it closer. “You just turned seventeen yesterday. Gotta be eighteen.”

“Let’s go, Juliana,” Garrett snarls.

“No, it’s fine. No bullshit, you two. My ass is on the line,” the old man says as he jots down my information, including my address, and hands me the keys. “I’m keeping this birth certificate. You bail, mess up my place, cause a stink, it’s mine.”

I almost don’t let go. It’s mine. It’s mine and I have held on to it since I was six, when I got it in a giftbox wrapped up prettily for Christmas. It’s stupid now, but it was magical then, and it’s still one of the few fond memories I have.

My question for a month to my mother while living in one of the dozen shelters we had lived in was who is my father. She always said she didn’t know. Surely, I had one. Everyone did. But everyone’s were mean, and that’s why they all lived in places like this.

That Christmas, I was given a box, my one gift from my mother. Wrapped around the paper were several headbands.

“One for every day of the week.” Mom beamed.

I was so excited. So excited my hair would be adorned with pretty things like the rest of the girls.

She smiled. “Open your gift, Juliana.”

Careful not to rip the paper, I opened it. Inside was a document, my birth certificate.

She whispered, “You have to promise to keep this a secret.”

“Our secret?” I whispered back to her.

She pointed to the section my father’s name should be. It said unknown.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t understand.

“Your father is Santa Claus,” she whispered.

I had never felt more special in my life.

“Juliana, let’s go,” Garrett says, tugging on my arm and bringing me back to the present.

I have a feeling that I will never see it again.

Room twenty-five is nice, really nice. There is a small kitchenette, a huge and clean bathroom, and the view is beautiful.

I look back at Garrett, who has my backpack and a worried look on his face. Worried is not a look I am used to seeing on a man.

“What?” I ask.

“We need to eat, then go get you some shit.”

“Shit?”

“Clothes, hair stuff.” He dumps my bag out on the bed, and I am horrified when the tampons I had to steal from the store this afternoon spill out.

He looks up at me, shocked.

“I don’t have sex; just blowjobs. Anal if I have to,” I say it like it’s no big deal, but it is. It is because he...he wasn’t supposed to be like all the others. “So, a period shouldn’t be a problem.”

“You do that shit for money?” he asks, not in disgust, but maybe...curiosity?

“I do that shit because it’s what I have to do. I do it because that’s who I am. I do it because if I don’t...” I pause.

He shakes his head. “Not with me you don’t.”

“Then what do you want?” I ask, feeling my lip tremble.

“I don’t know.” He starts to pace. “I don’t know. You don’t have to do that shit.”

“Why do you care?”

The question catches him off guard, and he looks at me in anger. “I don’t.”

“Good,” I say defensively. “Because you aren’t my type.”

His laugh is abrupt and maniacal.

“Laugh it up, drug dealer,” I snap at him.

His laugh stops. “I don’t sell fucking drugs.”

“Right,” I say, looking away from him.

“I don’t! I just need shit to sleep sometimes, so back off.”

To this, I laugh at him.

He shakes his head. “Take a fucking shower; you look like shit. I’ll be back.”

“Don’t bother,” I snap at him.

Now he’s pissed, really pissed.

“I fucking paid for you. Take a goddammed shower and answer the fucking door when I get back.”